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 36
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To round out a happy and never-to-be forgotten day we wended our way, after reaching home, to the Wesleyan Church to hear that "veteran of the Cross," Aaron Worth, preach.
Did you ever see a "splatter-work" motto like Jacob Adell used to make? You.can sec one hanging over the organ, back of the pulpit, in the new Wesleyan Church.
When we entered the door Rev. Worth was standing in the pulpit, shading his eyes with one hand and looking out over the con- gregation towards the entrance.
No doubt he was watching the people as they came in, but to the writer, who has a fanciful imagination, it seemed that Mr. Worth was standing near the brink of eternity, looking across into the celestial city "whose builder and maker is God."
.M. B.
February 1, 1917.
"Starting out on a hike, are you?" asked George Cleveland Sun- day afternoon as we, dressed in our oldest "duds." passed him on our way to Fowlerton.
"Yep." was the answer. "We'd ride in automobiles if they weren't so slow." Mr. Cleveland was just entering his automobile.
Our way led us east on Washington Street. It used to be called Main Cross street or something like that in the old days. Before it was paved East Washington Street was the muddiest street in all the world.
Sometimes, in her dreams, M. B. lives over the old school days and she can just see Walk Winslow's horses and his cab floundering through the mud in front of Ryland Ratliff's house, the horses sinking in the mire to their knees and the wheels of the cab to the hubs, and often the old plank walk comes back in memory-the rickety plank walk leading to the school house and sometimes over- flowing with water from Puddin' Creek. Then the stretches of open country that lay between the main part of town and Jonathan Winslow's home, too, appear in the dreams and we school children are once more afraid of falling off the board walk into the swirling waters of Puddin' Creek.
Sunday we noticed a few changes on the road between Fair-
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Rambles Over the Township.
mount and Fowlerton. John Fox and family have moved to the N. A. Wilson farm, Mr. and Mrs. Miles Rush having left the place and moved to town. The farm is now gay with the laughter of children, for Mr. and Mrs. Fox have a large family.
Across the road, in the big, new barn belonging to Dr. C. N. Brown and Ed Brown, there were other merry doings, for several other children were playing and romping and having good times as only children in the country can have.
Off to the south we could see the old Monahan home and the residence of James Blair.
A field belonging to Dr. Brown and his brother was alive with young Durocs. You could almost see the pile of dollars the young porkers represented.
We noticed that Joe Holloway has a new cement garage, built where it is the handiest, right near the road.
Coming to East Branch school house we decided to rest a min- ute. The door was unlocked and we walked in.
We were on historic ground there, for nearby was the old An- thony Wayne trail, so well known in pioneer days.
A cyclone, too, visited the neighborhood once and demolished the McCoy home, the wreck attracting much attention at the time.
Another change noted on the way was the dismantled condition of the old East pumping station. The buildings are in ruins now.
The writer half closed her eyes and tried to imagine that she was passing the ruins of an old German castle, the pools of water all about representing the moat.
It was a fine afternoon for walking. Overhead the deep blue of the sky, the fluffy, feathery, white clouds and the bright sunshine seemed to say, "Summer," but the crisp air, the thin ice on the pools of water, the browns and grays of the landscape and the bare branches of the trees all whispered, "It is winter still."
M. B.
January 8, 1917.
We traveled "The Friendly Road" last Sunday-not "The Friendly Road" of which David Grayson writes in such an enter- taining manner, but the dear, old Fairmount-Jonesboro pike.
And such a friendly road it is !
Beside it live many of our friends and relatives and often, from
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The Making of a Township.
passing automobiles and buggies, there come to us cheery greetings and the sight of waving handkerchiefs as we walk along.
Besides being friendly the road is enchanting-it is not exact and straight with the world, but it curves and angles and meanders at will, following the old trail made through the forest by the carly pioneers. To straighten that old road would be nothing short of desecration.
And, then, think of the memories that cluster around this old thoroughfare, built at such cost of labor by our grandfathers and great-grandfathers!
It was along this road that we used to go to June Quarterly meeting. What memories that suggests !
It has always been a favorite driveway for lads and lassies in their courtship days. Buggies were used in the old days, but now it's automobiles.
Some of us have traveled this road to our own weddings or to witness the marriage of our friends. More often have we formed a part of sad processions that wended their way to the two burying grounds that border it on the west.
Ah, yes, it is a friendly road and a sacred one to many of us.
The weather man tried to make the road unfriendly to us last Sunday, but without success, for we enjoyed the walk in spite of the blizzard which raged and roared all about us.
We were dressed for cold weather and as we started carly in the morning and boarded an Interurban car near the Lin Wilson home, we escaped the worst of the storm.
There is something exhilarating about facing the elements which never fails to bring a feeling of elation and joy to one's heart.
From. the time we left our own door until we arrived at the crossing near the Wilson home we saw only two people, a boy in a lot in the north end of town, where two queer-looking crosses sug- gested Calvary's hill near Jerusalem.
The other person was Richard Dillon, who was on his way to feed the stock at the old Allen Dillon homestead.
For once The News hikers had the whole road to themselves and seemingly the whole world for a time, for everyone seemed to be shut in their own homes.
Arriving in Marion we found the County seat fairly storm-bound.
One fellow on the street car said "The old ground hog surely saw his shadder this time." "Well, if he didn't he was blind," was the answer made by a dirty-faced Irishman, who was hugging the stove, trying to keep warm.
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Rambles Over the Township.
Another man said, "I'm mighty glad I wore my cap."
"But it isn't doing you any good, for you haven't it down over your ears," said his female companion.
"If I were bare-headed you'd see whether it was doing me any good or not," was the rather illogical answer.
In due course of time we arrived at the home of Mr. and Mrs. William Baldwin, where we spent the day.
Mr. and Mrs. Baldwin live in a brick cottage at the very be- ginning or else the very ending of Branson Street in South Marion.
The house was built long ago by Jesse Small, father of C. R. Small, and contains much walnut timber and fine old-fashioned presses.
Mr. Baldwin once had a nursery there and all about are several cedar and pine trees, even in the yards of adjoining residence property.
We heard many stories of pioneer times that day, for Mr. Bald- win "grew up with the country."
He can tell about the tragedies and the work and the fun of the early days and of the pranks he and his brother "Lank" used to play.
We were greatly interested in Mr. Baldwin's stories of the "Un- derground Railway," for his grandfather, Charles Baldwin, and his father, Lindsey Baldwin, were friends of the slaves.
Once upon a time two runaway slaves were hidden in the attic of Lindsey Baldwin's home when three men, disguised as peddlers, arrived from three different directions.
After hanging around awhile and being assured that no slaves were hidden in the house the three men departed.
When the slaves were told of the visit one of them exclaimed, "Yes, sah, one of dem was my massa, too," for he, listening beneath the rafters, had recognized the voice of his master. M. B.
February 8, 1917.
The new tarvia road stretched before us, white and shining in the moonlight.
And such moonlight !
Even Orion and the Dipper looked dim in the light of the glorious queen of the night.
But Jupiter, floating along by the side of the queen, refused to be outshone. He seemed to be defiantly saying. "You 'dassent' make me look dim and insignificant. I'm Jupiter, I am."
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The Making of a Township.
And the wind! It kept up a continual music in our ears as we swung along northward. The wind loves to play on the telephone wires-a singing, musical song, near each pole where wide arms stretch forth seemingly to catch the sounds.
But dearer to the wind even than the telephone wires are the pines and the cedars. How it sings through the waving branches, sometimes mournful and sad and sometimes with a sound like falling water!
On our moonlight walk to Jonesboro, Tuesday evening, the wind in the telephone wires made ringing, singing music for us all the way. At the old homesteads the cedars, grouped on the lawns, sang us songs suggestive of the far distant seashore and of glittering, gleaming waterfalls in far-away canyons and glens.
It is impossible for The News hikers to walk along the Fair- mount-Jonesboro pike without recalling the past. The road, once only a trail through the mighty forest, connecting the pioneer set- tlements, has ever been closely identified with the making of Grant County.
Along it, in the early days, the pioneer's horse waded knee-deep in mud as the Southern Grant County resident wended his way to the gristmill at Jonesboro, or journeyed to Marion to pay his taxes.
Then, as times improved, the road was graveled and tollgates were established. Trying to evade a few cents of toll by going the mud roads or by rushing past the tollgates were common oc- currences in those days.
It was along this road that the children of the pioneers were taken in big wagons to Harrisburg, now Gas City, to get their first glimpse of a railroad engine and train. How ferocious and fierce the old engine looked as it puffed and screeched its way up to the Pan Handle station ! That was long before Fairmount had a railroad.
As we passed the old Joel Wright place, now the LaRue farm, where Ed Stout lives, old Quarterly meeting days came back and the yard seemed full of visiting Friends gathered at the hospitable home for dinner. We could almost see diminutive Aunt Adeline Wright bustling around in the kitchen preparing the feast for the hungry visitors.
Once, when a "general" meeting was held at old Back Creek, the neighboring homes were simply packed with guests. The writer remembers that one night thirty visiting Friends were entertained
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Rambles Over the Township.
at "Rush Hill " They naturally overflowed all the beds and many slept on pallets on the floor.
But those days are forever gone and the sturdy pioneers have departed with them.
"We shall never see their like again; those sturdy, honest, economical God-fearing pioneers are of the past!" said the Better Half as we left old Back Creek graveyard behind, its stones gleam- ing white in the moonlight.
December 7, 1916.
M. B.
"Are you folks hunting up names of soldiers to enlist?" was asked of us Sunday afternoon as we were snooping around away over on the Muncie pike.
We had to acknowledge our non-belligerent mission. People just cannot understand why any one can enjoy the mere act of walking along the country roads or across fields.
We covered so much territory and had such varied experiences Sunday that it is a difficult matter to know just what to write and what to leave unwritten.
In a little corner of Fairmount Township which juts out toward the river beyond the Muncie pike, a pioneer burying ground lies on the edge of a deep ravine. This is old Bethel graveyard-not more than a mile from the Fankboner burial place-one of the oldest in the Township.
Unlike the latter graveyard it is readily accessible and is easily seen from the road. It is also less neglected, being enclosed with a fence, and interments are still occasionally made there.
The headstones are tall and flat and old-fashioned and some- times the carving on them is odd and queer.
"Isaac Sudduth, old Revolutioner, died November 27. 1854, aged ninety-nine years," is the inscription we noticed on one headstone.
We had heard, an hour or two previously, from the lips of Mr. Sudduth's great-granddaughter, Mrs. F. M. Haynes, a bit of his life's story and so we know that the words, "Old Revolutioner," meant that he had served in the Revolutionary War.
Mrs. Haynes could, as a little girl, remember her great-grand- father, who lacked only a few months of living to be one hundred years old.
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The Making of a Township.
"Ile would sit by the fire," she said, "and when grandmother would ask him how he felt he would say, 'I'm all right, only I'm just waiting.' One morning he sat down to his breakfast as usual. He had his knife in one hand and his fork in the other. Suddenly the knife and fork dropped to the floor, his head fell forward and the 'Old Revolutioner's' time of waiting was over.
Mr. and Mrs. Haynes told us many things as we sat in their low-ceiled, walnut-finished sitting room while the quiet Sabbath afternoon hours slipped swiftly away.
And Mr. Haynes played some tunes on his fiddle-he doesn't call it a violin. He plays by note and he likes to use an old-time hymn book in which the notes are the old-fashioned kind.
Many people know where the old Daniel Coleman homestead stands, back a short distance from the Muncie pike. This is where Mrs. Haynes was born and, with the exception of about two years. it has always been her home. It is there that she will probably end her days.
Over in Bethel graveyard, which was originally a part of the farm of her father, Daniel Coleman, who deeded the ground to the community for a burial place, lies her great-grandfather, Isaac Sudduth, both her grandfathers. Thomas Coleman and Gabriel Johnson, and many others of her kindred.
In a far corner of the graveyard, where an evergreen tree droops over the headstones and where the weeds are kept cut and every thing is in order, lie many members of one of the oldest of the Township families-the Dulings.
Many other pioneer families are represented, including the Selbys, the Masons and the Weesners.
At the corner, where the little, short road leads off from the Muncie pike toward the old cemetery, C. A. Buffington and his family reside. By-the-way, the farm once belonged to Nathan Beals, a former Fairmount man, and he and his wife lived there for many years.
In a barnlot on the Buffington farm stands just about the most interesting relic in the Township. That is nothing more nor less than a part of the old McCormick tavern, celebrated in local his- tory as the first hostelry in Southern Grant County. There is no doubt about its identity, for a number of the older residents of the Township remember when the building was moved from the Mc- Cormick farm, now owned by Eugene Wilson, to its present site. The old logs of which it is constructed certainly show that they have
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Rambles Over the Township.
been visited by the storms of many winters, so weather-beaten are they.
Before we reached the Bethel graveyard, we climbed some fences, crossed a stream, clambered up a bluff, skirted a plowed field and finally landed in the old Fankboner burying ground-our second visit to this historic place.
We found that, since our last visit, the urn which adorned the
IN THE QUAKER COSTUMES OF THEIR GRANDMOTHERS (Olive Rush and Mrs. Myra Baldwin at Rush Hill. )
top of the Robert McCormick monument has been broken off and is now lying on the ground. Otherwise there had been no changes and the place was as quiet as ever, only the singing of the birds and the noise of automobiles, passing on roads beyond the trees, breaking the stillness. Below the bluff the little stream wends its way through the ravine and the wind-flowers nod in the afternoon breeze just as they have done for centuries.
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The Making of a Township.
It was a glorious day for a walk and we enjoyed every minute of it, from the time we left the Pennsylvania station at Fowlerton until we reached home long after darkness had fallen.
It was "some" walk, too, as you will realize when we tell you that it included the distance from Fowlerton to the Robert Reeder home, back to Fowlerton again, north to East Bethel church, east to the Lake school house, north to the two old graveyards men- tioned above and the Haynes residence, then back home, past East Bethel. then along the angling road that finally merges into the Hleavilin highway that extends from Eighth Street eastward.
On the angling road-a new one for us-we passed the Johnnie Flanagan and the Hiram Gardner homes, where the peace of a Sabbath twilight hovered. Mr. Gardner has a new automobile and the family, no doubt, had not returned from a ride, for a dozen calves in the barnyard told us. by their actions, that they thought it was just about supper time for them.
Two or three clean, handsome buggies in front of the Flanagan residence looked as though they might tell a story to us, too, if they only dared. But we didn't ask any questions.
Once, early in the afternoon, we stood on a slightly elevated place where we could see the depressions-the sites of the bogs of the early days.
Half closing our eyes we could almost see the split-board sun- bonnets of the pioneer women as they gathered cranberries in the marshes. Over in the vicinity of Lake Galatia we used to gather bushels and bushels of the best hazel nuts, too. Gone are the cran- berry marshes and the hazel nut bushes and the bogs, never to re- turn.
Going still farther back in time, as we gazed over the little valley on the old Gift farm, through which Barren Creek flows, we could almost see immense animals-the mammoth, the mastodon and the giant beaver-floundering around in the mud and finally sinking to their death in the mire. Their bones, in some cases, re- mained throughout the centuries.
Many of these old-time bogs have been recently plowed and so black is the soil, that, at a distance, it has almost a blue tinge.
One of the unusual features of the hike Sunday was the fact that an invitation to join us was actually accepted for once. Mrs. John Delong, whose home we passed on the road north of the Lake school house, joined us in our visit to the old Fankboner graveyard.
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Rambles Over the Township.
By-the-way, a boy over near the school house knew where the "Boner" graveyard was but he couldn't tell the location of the Fank- boner burying ground.
Mrs. Delong is a niece of Aunt Gabrilla Havens and she has two aunts buried in the old cemetery whose tragic history she told tis.
One named Ursula Clark, aged fifteen, and the other, Polly Clark, aged twenty, came to the new country with their parents, J. H. and S. B. Clark. They took cold on the trip through the for- ests, hasty consumption set in and one died in June; 1838, and the other in September of the same year.
This is only one short story of the hardships of the early pioneer period.
All along the way, Sunday, whenever we passed a bit of wood- land, wild flowers gladdened our eyes and the odor of blossoming or- chards clustered about the farm houses, caused us to inhale deeply.
With hands full of red-bud blossoms, bluebells, crow's-foot, lamb's-tongue, wood-anemone, violets and spring-beauties. we thought how glorious it is to be alive in the spring-time !
M. B.
May 17, 1917.
In the course of our journeyings last Sunday-we were in an automobile-we came across the home of a hermit.
It is a tiny house facing a graveyard.
The neighbor women all say that the hermit is a splendid house- keeper and that the washings he puts out are really quite wonderful.
After hearing the story regarding the inmate M. B. looked at the tiny house with almost an overpowering sense of curiosity.
A jaunt across the woods after some glorious branches of red- bud in bloom brought us close to the house but we caught no glimpse of its solitary occupant.
A saucy mountain "boomer," perched upon the top rail of a ladder leaning against the rear of the house chattered, daring us to come closer.
Perhaps it was the spirit of the hermit embodied for a time in the squirrel daring us to come closer.
Mischievous boys sometimes, it is said, tease the man, where- upon he rushes out of the tiny house while the boys run for their very lives.
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The Making of a Township.
With the headstones of the pioneers of the community guarding his front door and with the trees of the forest primeval shadowing the house in the rear the hermit lives all alone with his thoughts.
Before reaching the tiny house by the graveyard we journeyed over a new road for us-the one that passes Lake Galatia on the east.
We left the car on the roadside and, traversing a ploughed field, we reached the lake-the former "Pool of Siloam," so called by the Spiritualists.
Looking across the lake toward the west the view was rather attractive, with the rays of the afternoon sun glistening on the water.
All about us, though, as we looked at the shore line at our feet, were deep holes in the boggy ground where a false step might prove disastrous. The soil was shaky and we knew that we were standing on a thin covering of decayed vegetation.
Time was when it was really dangerous to fool around in the vicinity of Lake Galatia, so treacherous were the boggy shores. More than one fellow has been pulled out of the muck as he grad- ually sank to his doom. And there are stories galore of horses and cattle sinking in the boggy ground.
The pioneers really thought that the lake had no bottom.
However, after one or two people had been drowned there and their bodies had been recovered the old superstitious idea that the lake was bottomless was finally dispelled.
Once the lake covered much more ground than it does now and at one time a project for making a summer resort of the place was undertaken by some Marion men.
Like the building of a great Spiritualistic city on its shore, un- dertaken in the early history of the Township. it, too, fell through with and the hope of future greatness for Lake Galatia vanished.
In spite of the work done by drainage, in spite of the well-de- veloped farms and good homes in the vicinity, a spirit of loneliness broods over Lake Galatia. It is something almost tangible and it grips the visitor with imaginary talons and sometimes makes you want to run from the place. M. B.
May 24. 1917.
We snooped around in the east end of the Township again last Sunday.
We left town by the Eighth Street road and walked to Fowler-
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Rambles Over the Township.
ton by easy stages, returning in the afternoon by the same road, an unusual thing for us to do. It was a ten-mile walk altogether- a fairly long walk for muscles grown rather soft from lack of sys- tematic hiking these days.
Away over by the Solomon Duling homestead two freckled faced boys were fishing under the bridge which spans the Duling branch just before it empties into Barren Creek. They were catch- ing pretty good sized fish, too.
The young fishermen, the playful lambs, the wild flowers and the birds all said that spring has come, in spite of the fact that farmers are behind with their work and many fields remain un. broken.
We had a nice walk and learned many things.
The most scientific of the modern scientific ways of raising baby chicks was one of the interesting things we learned on the trip.
In Mrs. Lowry Glass' poultry yard we learned that to be ab- solutely up-to-date in chicken-raising you must feed the little chicks as scientifically and with as much system as a modern mother cares for her baby.
The baby chicks must have certain kinds of food-balanced ra- tions, if you please-administered to them at stated intervals and in stated amounts. Moreover, the temperature of their brooders must be kept just so-so.
Mrs. Glass' father, Thomas Duling, seeing the new-fangled drinking fountain empty, started to fill it from the pump at the splendid drilled well on the place.
He was stopped with a "No, no! the water has to be 'doped' be- fore it is put in the fountain," from his daughter.
And, truly, Mrs. Glass has as fine a lot of baby chicks as any one need care to see-little Plymouth Rocks and Rhode Island Reds- as contented and happy and healthy, the three hundred of them, as though they had a score of scratching, fluffed-up, real, live mothers.
Mr. and Mrs. Glass are raising a lamb by hand and it, too, is fed scientifically, at certain hours of the day.
The hens on the farm are quite orderly, for they lay their eggs in the nests made for them and not all over creation as hens used to do when we had to hunt eggs in the old days.
Mrs. Glass is partial to the incubator way of hatching eggs and the brooder way of raising chickens, for the results are so much more satisfactory, she says.
The newest fad in brooders is a hard coal heater with a drum or
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