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 37
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The Making of a Township.
reflector, or whatever they call it, which throws the heat to the ground and under which the baby chicks hover.
Sunday we all wondered how Arthur Brewer was getting along with his hundreds of hatching eggs and baby chicks.
WVe had such a fine time at the Duling home. Mr. and Mrs. Glass and Mr. Duling all have the same home, and a lovely home it is, too, with a wonderful, beautiful, grassy lawn and well kept grounds.
There is one other daughter. Mrs. Milton Rich, in the family, and she and her husband, who live in the neighborhood, were also Sunday afternoon callers.
On the way to Fowlerton, in the morning, we passed the J. O. Duling farm and saw the brick and stone which mark the place where the old Duling home once stood.
When the house burned last winter one of the loveliest old landmarks in the entire Township was destroyed, for the interior finish of the building, woodwork, presses, closets and the fine old stairway were of solid walnut, almost worth its weight in gold these days.
For almost a mile we followed the Chesapeake & Ohio Railroad as it cuts cat-a-cornered across the fields.
Looking at the fine land enclosed in the right-of-way of the rail- road we thought of the wastefulness of the American people.
Some day it will be different and the land along the railroads will be cultivated as it is in Germany and other countries in Europe.
Why, there was enough coal-good, big chunks-scattered along that railroad within the space of a few miles to keep a family warm an entire vear.
We Americans don't know what it is to economize.
We had dinner Sunday in Fowlerton at the restaurant kept by Mrs. Schmidt, the French woman who has a German name.
On the trip over we stopped for a short time at the Thomas Winslow home and on the return trip we had a little visit with Mr. and Mrs. Wayne Heavilin and the latter's mother, Mrs. Newt Wells, whose girlhood home, the old Flanagan farm, now owned by Charles Child, adjoins the Heavilin place. John Heavilin and his son, Wayne, have leveled and graded the roadside along their farm and have sowed it in clover and grass, making it like a lawn. They will keep it mowed and incidentally get the hay for their pains -- a fine plan for others to follow.
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Rambles Over the Township.
Wayne Heavilin has come to it. After holding out for three or four years against an automobile because he likes a driving horse so well he has at last succumbed and a green automobile takes the family for an airing now and then.
"It's a new kind-a metallic Elizabeth," says Mr. Heavilin, "but it gets over the ground all right."
The walk home in the evening was especially enjoyable.
Violets and spring beauties blooming, meadow larks singing and robins trying to sing, a tinge of green appearing on the forest trees, a southwest wind blowing and perfect roads-these and other glorious accessories made the walk a pleasant one.
We faced a sunset sky. Swinging above the purple and rose and pink of the horizon there shone the narrowest, silver crescent you ever saw. It looked like a curved eye-lash.
And the Better Half said, "The moon is hanging on by an eye- lash."
April 26, 1917.
M. B.
One ambition of our lives has been realized. We've been en- tertained in a real-for-sure log-house-not the fancy kind like we've ' lodged in at the Glacier National Park and the Grand Canyon of the Colorado, but one built more than sixty years ago for a real family home.
It was at Chap Duling's and the visit happened unexpectedly to us last Sunday.
We went to Fowlerton on the 9 o'clock train Sunday morning. A certain old, red sweater-the finest thing to walk in you ever saw-and an old, blue overcoat are surely getting to be quite fa- miliar to the people of Fowlerton by this time.
After a short visit with S. D. Key at his store we wandered into the Methodist Protestant Sunday School and remained for the church service.
There we saw many familiar faces and were greeted by mem- bers of such well-known families as the following: Partridge, Not- tingham, Duling, Glass, Compton, Simons, Corn, Smith, Scotten, Brown and others. All gave us such a cordial welcome that it was indeed a pleasure to meet with such whole-hearted and wholesome people.
D. C. (Chap) Duling is the efficient superintendent of the Sun- day School and Rev. A. E. Scotten is the pastor of the church.
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The Making of a Township.
There was an attendance of 134 at the Sunday School and about the same number heard Rev. A. E. Scotten deliver a good sermon at the morning service.
The key-note of the discourse was the thought that "mountain- top experiences" should prepare the Christian for service to man- kind in the valley below.
A very good choir furnished the singing with John King at the piano.
We especially liked Mr. King's work as an accompanist. While he works hard during the week on the farm he has time to keep up his music and is always at his place at the piano when the hour comes for Sunday morning service.
We liked the interior of the church, the plain, tinted walls being especially restful.
Preaching services are held every other Sunday morning, alter- nating with Pleasant Grove Church in the country southwest. However, evening services are conducted every Sunday at Fowler- ton, with the pastor in charge.
Having received a cordial dinner invitation from Mr. and Mrs. Chap Duling we departed from our usual custom and accepted. A short walk took us to the home-one of the most interesting we have yet visited. And the dinner-well, the ambrosia and the nectar of the gods could not have been more delicious and, doubt- less, were far less satisfying. Real country ham, chicken and every- thing-but we desist from further description.
Aside from the old house, made of huge logs, the lawn is the most attractive feature of the place, although the grounds all about are well-kept.
Mr. Duling has had an immense pile of old rails and scattered timber sawed for fuel, so that the high price of coal has less terror for him than for many other people. We noticed other large piles of wood at other homes along the way, many of them the result of the big sleet storm of March 13.
From the Chap Duling home we hiked to the William Duling residence, about three-quarters of a mile east on the same road. There we had a good visit with Mr. and Mrs. Duling and their children, Mrs. Charles Hobbs, of Upland; Mrs. Wright, of Wash- ington, D. C., and Mr. and Mrs. Glenn Duling.
William Duling will soon celebrate his eightieth birthday. He owns several hundred acres of fine land and is one of the oldest re-
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Rambles Over the Township.
maining members of a family, highly esteemed since the early settling of the east end of the Township.
We found that we were not the only hikers out Sunday for Mrs. Hobbs had walked from her residence in Upland in the morning to the home of her parents-a distance of six miles.
After our visit at the Duling home we turned our steps toward the setting sun and hiked into Fairmount.
The Dulings had not seen the last of us, however, for on the way homeward, we stopped at both the Soloman Duling and Thomas Duling residences.
Everybody who is conversant with the neighborhood knows where Solomon Duling lives. It is a lovely place-set quite a dis- tance back from the road, with a beautiful, rolling, grassy meadow in front and a bubbling brook singing at the foot of a wooded hill. The house is finished on the inside with walnut and there are old- fashioned presses and round, home-made rugs to give the proper tone to the interior.
Mr. and Mrs. Duling have had with them, for several weeks, a little victim of the New Castle tornado, the son of an adopted daughter, whose home was partially demolished by the wind.
May 3, 1917.
M. B.
Just about the time man decides that he is the supreme lord of creation along comes Nature and the Power back of Nature and they give Mr. Man a slap in the face and tell him to "go 'way back and sit down."
This thought was uppermost in our minds as we walked along the road Sunday evening, our eyes opening wider and wider as fresh evidences of the devastation wrought by the sleet storm of the thirteenth kept presenting themselves.
And the thought of the New Castle and the New Albany tor- nadoes strengthened our belief in the theory of man's helplessness in the face of the fury of the. elements.
Scores of telephone poles lying prostrate on the ground or snapped off by the weight of the sleet, and great trees, broken and maimed by the storm, silently told us of Nature's power when she "gets her back up."
The woods along the way reminded us of pictures we had seen of the famous forests of France after the Germans had raided por- tions of that country early in the present war.
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The Making of a Township.
Indeed. in their helpless, forlorn, mangled condition the trees somewhat resembled the maimed soldiers returning home from the front.
Twilight had come on as we passed between the woods on the old Seth Winslow farm and the woods on the Fankboner place.
We tried our best to find the trail through the trees where a beautiful road used to wind in and out on the Seth Winslow farm, and because all traces seemed to be entirely obliterated our hearts grew heavy.
In the half-darkness under the trees we could almost see a wagon coming behind two fat horses, along that winding road.
In the wagon, on the spring seat, sat a father and mother, while behind, their little legs cramped by sitting on the floor, a group of children peered over the sides, their faces all aglow with wonder at the bigness of the world.
And that's the way we used to go to Back Creek Quarterly meeting.
Another scene visualized itself Sunday evening, and that was a long string of vehicles, many of them big farm wagons, making a procession more than a mile in length.
That was Grandmother Jay's funeral procession on its way to Back Creek.
People do not attend funerals like they used to.
It is change, change, everywhere, and all the time.
The swish of the south wind in the bare branches of the trees, the distant barking of a dog. the croaking of a frog heightened the lonesomeness that crept over nis at the thought of change-never- ceasing change.
Then we glanced above where myriads of stars greeted our vision and there gleamed Orion and the Pleiades just like they used to shine in the old days. The stars seem never to change. And there. also, was the bright crescent of the new moon, shining as of yore.
And although we saw her over our left shoulder-an ill omen- she gave us courage. even in a world so full of change.
Preceding our walk we sat for an hour or two on a log in the Rush Hill woods.
Ilere, in the bright sunshine of a glorious day, with the hope of spring in the south wind's whisper, we held sweet communion with Nature
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Rambles Over the Township.
Incidentally, we acquired a few rheumatic pains because of the dampness emanating from that old, rotten log.
M. B.
March 29, 1917.
We journeyed Sunday afternoon only so far as the John Pea- cock residence, for the wind blew bitterly cold from the northwest and all the earth was tightly grasped in Father Winter's frosty arms.
John Peacock is a farmer who knows how to farm and his home and all its surroundings tell of comfort and of prosperity.
With two immense up-to-date barns and with a large house. filled with all the modern conveniences, truly here are found "all the comforts of home." .
As Mrs Elizabeth Peacock told us of her early life in the wilder- ness, for she came to Grant County from England when she was a little girl, we could not refrain from contrasting the conditions of those early pioneer days and of her life at the present time.
One phase of pioneer life was significantly brought out in the conversation, Sunday, and that was the homesickness, to say noth- ing of the loneliness, with which the women of those days had to contend.
Looking out upon a little patch of ground, where the "stick- tights" grew waist high, with the forest all around the clearing. Mrs. Samuel Radley, mother of Mrs. Peacock, must have often longed for the well-kept gardens and the green lanes of old England.
When she looked about the little log hut in which she lived, her thoughts must often have wandered to the beautiful, stately brick house near London, which was her home before she came to America.
Mrs. Peacock has a photograph of this lovely old house.
When Mrs. Radley left England she brought with her some pretty white bed spreads to beautify her new home in America.
It was truly discouraging-this trying to beautify a home in the wilderness-for every time it rained the water soaked through the mud daubing between the logs of the cabin and stained the bed spreads.
To add to the homesickness, it took a long time for a letter to come from England, often as long as three months. Moreover, it cost twenty-five cents to buy postage for each letter in those days.
.
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The Making of a Township.
and twenty-five cent pieces weren't found growing on bushes then any more than they are now.
This phase of pioneer life was again referred to by Mrs. Jane Hobbs, a little later in the afternoon, when we stopped at her cot- tage on North Main Street after our pleasant call at the Peacock home.
"I just can't make you understand how it was," said Mrs. Hobbs. "Why, just to think, between here and Carter Hasting's, south of town, except for a very short time in the middle of the summer, the ground was covered with mud and water in which the wagons sank to their hubs."
As the houses were few and far between companionship be- tween neighbors and friends was limited. That is why the pioneers used to hitch the horses to the wagon and "piling the children in." would go to a neighbor's house and stay all day. Hence. also, came the custom of Sunday visiting on a large scale.
When Mrs. Hobbs, as a little girl, moved with her mother from Morgan County, their relatives in that county tried to dissuade them from leaving a civilized county for a place so "backwoodsy" as Grant County.
"Now," Mrs. Hobbs says, "Morgan County is farther behind Grant County in every respect than she was ahead of her in those days."
One of the interesting incidents of the early days was the coming of John Bull to Indiana.
In England, where Mr. Bull resided (from his name you'd naturally guess where he lived), stories of vast wealth to be ob- tained in the new world were prevalent. Influenced by these Mr. Bull came to Indiana and bought up vast tracts of land, some of it in Grant County.
If he were alive today-we saw his tombstone in the old Back Creek graveyard the other Sunday-he could tell us whether he ever felt disappointed or not.
It is safe to say, however, that if he were alive today and had all that land in his possession his fondest dreams would have come truc.
John Bull brought his family with him across the seas. In that family was a young lady, who, when she left England, left a lover behind. The lover followed her to Grant County, and that is why John Seale. Sr., who died a few years ago in Whittier. Cal .. ever came to Indiana.
M. B.
February 15, 1917.
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Rambles Over the Township.
Forty years ago or a little more, possibly forty-two years ago, a bevy of Southern Grant County girls joined a parade which went to a political rally in Marion. It was a Presidential election and a rally in those days was a wonderful event. Parades were formed of which big floats and gaily decorated wagons were principal features.
At this particular time the girls dressed themselves in the gay- est of colors, possibly the colors of the American flag. They crowded into a big float and gaily started off in the parade for the county seat.
. All went well until the ravine just on the southern edge of Jonesboro was reached when the horses, becoming frightened, gave a lunge which sent the huge wagon with its load of girls, their laughter turned to cries of fright, down the side of the steep grade to the bottom of the ravine. Many of the girls were injured and some of them never fully recovered from the effects of the accident.
The memory of this incident was renewed in our minds on last Sunday's walk, which was made from Fairmount to Jonesboro late in the afternoon.
The ravine, wooded on one side of the road, with Back Creek . at the bottom of the grade, is a beauty spot. but we never pass that way without thinking of the tragedy of those early days.
Most of the girls started on the trip under protest from their mothers and this tragedy was often used as a warning to all of us who were younger not to disobey our parents for fear some dreadful thing would happen to us.
Half the distance last Sunday was made after dark, but this did not lessen the pleasure of the trip. Reflections on the clouds from the lights in Marion and Jonesboro looked like an aurora borealis. The reflections and the snow made a half light out of which trees and buildings emerged almost ghost-like. The lights of a through freight and several Interurban cars, passing on our right, glided past like long, glowing serpents.
As we passed old Back Creek graveyard and looked over toward the headstones the Better Half said: "What would those earliest pioneers think if they could come suddenly to life and see the trains and Interurban cars, the automobiles, electric lights and all the other wonders of modern life?"
When you stop to listen you will notice that night sounds differ from day sounds. From a tree near the Ancil Winslow farm a screech owl answered its mate away over in the Aaron Newby
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The Making of a Township.
woods. A boy's whistle pierced the air and the through freight almost made the earth tremble with its rumbling noise.
On the south edge of Jonesboro, just after you pass the ravine of tragedy, you come to one of the landmarks on the Fairmount- Jonesboro pike. This is the Joe Hill homestead, set far back in a grove of evergreen trees. East and a little to the south of this fine, old place there was once a cemetery, every vestige of which seems to have disappeared.
As we reached Main Street in Jonesboro church bells were call- ing people to the evening services. Otherwise a Sabbath quiet brooded over the little town. M. B.
January 7, 1915.
"You go out on this road, but there's no way of getting there except by livery," answered the man at Lafontaine when we stepped off the Interurban car at 7 o'clock Sunday morning and inquired the way to Jalapa.
We did not take the trouble to tell the man that we had in mind a twenty-five mile walk for that day, but moved on in the direction he indicated.
As we proceeded on our way we followed the crooked road, winding in and out, up and down, through the picturesque country. We enjoyed the scenery and the happy warbling of the birds as we journeyed along. The land was carpeted with the green of a luxuriant growth and everywhere there was a promise, this carly May morning, of a bountiful harvest for both man and beast.
Here and there, as we trudged along, we caught a glimpse of far-away hills. The distances were blue and dim and misty. The unimproved road which we followed, a part of the way to the Indian burying-ground, was narrow and winding and enchanting, with wild strawberries, wind-flowers, white violets and sweet williams blooming along the fences.
A bright-faced boy of fourteen, riding in a storm buggy, for it had the appearance of rain, stopped long enough on his way to La- fontaine, to give us directions and to put us on the right track.
AAfter leaving Lafontaine we had been traveling south and west. but in order to reach the old Indian burying-ground we turned to- ward the east. A few minutes' walk brought us to a gently sloping hill at the top of which stands a weather-beaten frame church and
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Rambles Over the Township.
in the rear gleam the white monuments and headstones of the wire- fenced graveyard. Nearby is a brick school house.
As we sat resting on the stone steps of the old Indian church we half closed our eyes and imagined we could see the Indians stalking through the ravines and gliding in and out among the trees. How they must have loved this beautiful country with its hills and little valleys and the river flowing gently between the tree-lined bluffs !
And where are they now? A few of the last of the Miamis lie in the burying-ground in the rear of the little church, their souls far away in the "happy hunting-grounds." A cocoon on the twig of a bush, emblematic of a future life and the inscriptions on the tombstones within the rough enclosure, brought to our minds sweet thoughts of immortality.
A tall monolith marks the spot where Meshingomesia, the last chief of the Miamis, lies buried. The inscription on the stone, neatly chiseled in plain letters, reads :
"Me-shin-go-me-sia Died December 16, 1879 Aged about ninety-eight years
He united with the Baptist Church and was baptized the second Sunday in June, 1861, and lived a consistent Christian until he was taken from the church militant to the church triumphant in heaven."
The acorn-like ornament which adorned the top of the monu- ment, as is the case with several others nearby, has fallen to the ground. The vandal fingers of souvenir hunters have also left their depredating marks on the stone which stands at the head of the final resting place of this kindly old man.
By the side of the old chief lies buried his wife, Ta-ke-e-quah, who died September 15, 1879, aged about ninety-four years. Other names noted on the headstones of this quaint spot were C. Peconga, Ka-ge-to-no-quah, Coon Bundy, Chapendoceah. Shapadosia, Shap and Dosia. We wondered if the last two were not contractions of Chapendoceah. Then there were Aw-taw-waw-taw and Ta-wa-ta.
We were told that only two families of Indians now reside in the country which was once their reservation and they are not full- blooded, by any means.
Mrs. James Lugar, a half-breed who married a white man, told us that her own family and a family by the name of Walters are
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The Making of a Township.
the only representatives of her people in the neighborhood. The Walters family, we were told, were more French than Indian.
Mrs. Lugar has the reputation in her neighborhood of being an extra fine cook. Several little grandchildren in the Lugar family show the Indian strain in their jet-black eyes, straight hair and swarthy complexions.
Not far from the Indian burying-ground is the old Mississinewa battlefield. A little ravine leads from the field down into the river. We were told by Earl Renbarger, who received the infor- mation from his grandfather, that down this ravine the Indians were pursued into the river after the battle, which took place in the winter of 1812.
The battlefield is located on the farm owned by William R. Brock, whose residence stands near the river, in an ideally beautiful spot, across from Conner's mill. A fine grove is situated near the mill on the opposite bank of the river and the grassy slope be- neath the trees makes a fine camping place.
Just over the hill lies Jalapa which we reached in time to attend morning services at the Methodist Episcopal Church. We thought that surely for once we would be in a place where no one knew us. but we had scarcely gotten outside the door after services before Frank Ferguson came up and spoke to us. Mr. Ferguson and his family have just returned from a four-years' residence in Dinuba, Cal., glad to be back on Indiana soil once more. They live on a farm near Jalapa.
We visited Bausel Nichols, aged eighty-two, who has lived in Jalapa for more than forty years. He knew Meshingomesia well and spoke highly of the old chief's character. He said that Me- shingomesia was a kind old man and that he was heavy-set. The old Indian remembered the Mississinewa battle and told Mr. Nichols that his mother and himself hid under a brush heap dur- ing the fighting.
Mr. Nichols was a blacksmith for many years and he used to shoe the ponies of the Indians who lived on the reservation. He said that some of the Indians drank heavily, which made them very mean and hard to get along with.
Mr. Nichols could remember nothing about Joachin Miller. the poet of the Sierras, who once lived in Jalapa.
After the nice little visit with Mr. Nichols we proceeded home- ward. "It was a long, long way," and we went southeast, south and then east, then south and cast again, making turn after turn
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Rambles Over the Township.
on the trip homeward. We ate our noon-time lunch as we walked along the road.
There are many Renbargers in the Jalapa neighborhood, but we saw no familiar faces on the way until we had almost reached Oak Ridge.
We passed "Hardscrabble Ranch" and came within sight of Marion, which lay to the east. As we proceeded, to our right we could see the Studebaker elevator and the church at Roseburg, with the fine old Samuel Burrier homestead nearby. The Sidney Harvey farm is near Roseburg and we passed the beautiful home of their son, Ross Harvey, near the road.
We made a little stop at the home of Henry Shockey. Mr. and Mrs. Shockey were very kind, but they, like many other people. could not see any fun in walking.
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