USA > Indiana > Monroe County > The new purchase : or, seven and a half years in the Far West > Part 11
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Stay with us, then, reader; and when you do return, you will certainly enjoy some plain every-day conveniences at home, once undervalued, perhaps despised, but which belong to the tenor of life; you will bear, with good humour, a thousand petty dis- quietudes of civilized life, that once kept you, and still keep the self-indulged, undisciplined, fashionable vulgar in-"a stew." Yes! you will be cured of a very common and dreadful malady, rendering one miserable in himself and hateful to others-"the fidgets." Nay you will be purged of the "struts and swaggers"
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-the emptiness of a puffy, self-important inflation, generated by too long an acquaintance among brick and mortar houses, and medicated wooden pavements. In a word, if you become not quite as great a man as you formerly designed to be-(and as city and town folks all at one time intend)-you will unques- tionably, if disposed to learn by a few years residence in a bran New Purchase, become a better and a happier man.
Come, then, I will introduce our settlement. And first, this term is applied to a place where one or more families having bought lands at the government price from Uncle Samuel, have actually located on it; and, not to a place merely bought for speculation, or merely trespassed upon by any of that nondescript and original race-the squatters. Indeed, to these a settlement is so odious, that they either pay for land and turn into settlers, or, as in the more frequent, they become indignant at the legal invasion of their domain, and hastily-absquatulate; that is, translated-they go and squat in another place. And such is the effect of settlements often in here, up north, down east, and so on, where well looking and fine dressed gentlemen become so offended at the impertinence of neighbors, that they too absquat- ulate : and perhaps better so, as a civilized squatter would rarely make a good neighbour, either in or upon a settlement.
Out there, a settlement usually takes its name from the person that first "enters the land," i. e. buys a tract at the land office. Often it takes the name from the family first actually settling or owning the largest number of acres ; and very frequently from the person that establishes a ferry, a smithery, a mill, a tannery, and, above all, a Store. Hence, whilst our brother-in-law was no patriarch in looks or age, owned no boundless territory, and was, in stature, "the least in his father's house," yet because he tanned hides-(for shoes we mean)-and intended soon to sell tape by the yard, and buy pork by the cwt .- we were The Glen- ville Settlement. And this colony had, within its territories, as many as three human habitations; two occupied by actual set- tlers, and one by a very special sort of a squatter-the Leather- stocking of our tribe.1
1 In Cooper's novel, "The Pioneers," Leatherstocking was the nick- name of Natty Bumpo, a half civilized chevalier of wild American life.
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On an eminence between the others-and, provided you knew how "to holler" within hearing of both, but owing to inter- vening trees, not within sight-stood the primitive and patriarchal cabin-the capitol. South-west, distant a quarter of a mile was the cabin of the Reverend Mr. Hilsbury, lately married to one of Mr. Carlton's sisters; and directly south of the episcopal resi- dence, was the tannery, to which John Glenville, of Glenville, owed the honour of giving his name to the colony. Due east from the capitol about a furlong, was the squateree of uncle Tommy Seymour, our Leatherstocking. So much of his long life' had passed in the wild woods, and among the Indians, that he had thoroughly imbibed their feelings and their senti- ments, and had adopted some of their habits; and therefore he had not only acquired an utter distaste, but even a sovereign contempt for most usages and trammels of civilization. And Uncle Tommy was also a preacher-hence Glenville was two- thirds sacred and only one secular !
Around, were a few other settlements, Sturgis'-Hackberry's -Undergrowth's-Brushwood's, and some more: all distant from us and one another-some one mile, some ten. The un- entered and unsettled tracts between, were our commons, called the Range-used for hunting, swine-feeding, and the like. The / range had, however, inhabitants innumerable :- viz., deer, wolves, foxes-blue, gray, and black-squirrels ditto, ground-swine, vul- garly called ground-hogs, and wild turkeys, wild ducks, wild cats, and wild all the wild what-y'-callums :- opposums too, up, down, in, and under gum trees :- snakes, with and without rattles, of all colours, from copper to green and black, and of all sizes, from ever so little to ever so big. Add-"the neighbours' hogs," so wild and fierce, that when pork-time arrives, they must be hunted and shot, like other independent beasts. Especially is this the case if mast-(nuts and acorns)-is abundant ; when swiney becomes wholly savage, and loses all reverence for corn-cribs and swill-tubs. Ay, gentle reader, our semi-wild boar is a fellow something different in look, and rather worse to encounter, when saucy or angry, than the vile mud-hole wallower of the Atlantic! If one would understand the wild-boar hunts of Cyrus, or the feudal barons-go, get acquainted with the semi-wild fellow of
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the Purchase. The range is perambulated by cattle horned and unhorned; by cows, belled and unbelled; and by horses, some with yokes and some without :- but notice, yokes are not to pre- 1 vent jumping out of inclosures, but into them. In the range are also wonderful colts with cunning saucy faces, shaggy manes done up with burrs, and with great long tails, so tangled that Penelope herself could never disentangle-creatures almost un- catchable, and, if caught, nearly untameable.
Nearly south of Glenville was the grand town-our Woodville. And nearly west, some eight or nine miles and a piece, was Spiceburgh-at least in dry times; for the town being on the bottom of Shining River was, in hard rains, commonly under water, so that a conscientious man dared not then to affirm with- out a proviso, where, Spiceburgh was, precisely. North-east from us, some fifty long lonesome miles, was the capital of the State -Timberopolis ; the seat of the legislature and of mortality.2 But death in later times there domineered less. Whether the legis- lature reformed and refrained from common mischief is not so easy to say. Parties are to this hour, I am informed, themselves, divided on that subject-the opposite partizans, however, exactly agreeing in this :- viz. that the Ins are a set of ignorant, selfish, truckling, snivelling humbuggers, while the Outs are the men to save the state-mutatis mutandis.
In different directions, from Glenville were also Mapville, Map- borough and Maptown: in all which the difficulty in seeing the towns was not owing to the houses, but the trees. A skillful woodsman could, indeed, sometimes find a single house-the whole village: but as the citizens were all absent hoeing corn or the like, except one or more dirty bare-legged babies fastened inside, the lucky hunter, except for the name of being in town, might nearly as well be in the country. Unexpectedly, too, would a traveller sometimes come into a town of thirty or forty habita- tions but without a solitary inhabitant-the cabins all standing ' cold and empty like snail-abandoned shells! For, know, reader, that genuine agues out there are often so powerful and vindictive
2 In the early days of the settlement of Indiana, amid the dampness of the uncleared forests and especially on the river-bottom lands, there was heavy mortality from malaria and "milk sickness." Indianapolis on the White River bottom was in the heart of this region of maladies.
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as to shake, not only individuals out of their skins, but whole communities out of their towns and villages! In this latter case the folks swarm like bees and re-settle where the legislature appoints a new seat, passing at the time a law that the ague shall shake them out no more.
This, then, is Glenville, its suburbs, its environs, its neighbour- hoods, its ranges-all on that grand scale belonging to Nature in the Far West, where we have grand woods, grand prairies, grand caves, grand rivers, grand bears, grand swine-grand everything ! except, maybe, grand rascals, in which we doubtless excel here in the East.
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Let us next enter the patriarchal cabin. Here we become ac- quainted with Uncle John Seymour and his two sisters, widows, Mrs. Glenville and Aunt Kitty Littleton. Here are also encabin- ed John Glenville and Miss Emily Glenville, the youngest of the family. Here too is a young woman for help-in fact "the gal;" and here are to abide Mr. and Mrs. Carlton-
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"All in one cabin?"
All in one cabin. But a family you know is the most com- pressible and yet the most expansive of bodies. Yes! here we two and a half families endured the compression and lost no breath, and even seemed to have a few spare inches of room! And yet many years after, in a different part of the world, did Mr. Carlton's own single family expand and spread, and without any violent effort whatever, their importance through a mansion containing fourteen apartments, with cellars, and garrets, and kitchens and all-and still fret for the want of room!
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"But what led to the formation of your colony, Mr. Carlton? what induced gentlemen and ladies of your education and en- dowments to settle in so remote an obscurity?"
Thank you, Sir-the reasons alluded to in the commencement of this history operated in our case as in the cases of a thousand others ; but it was mere accident that turned our folks to their location in the New Purchase.
The Seymours, at the close of the last war with Great Britain resided in Philadelphia. Like others they risked their capital during the war in the manufactories of that era ; and like others,
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when peace was proclaimed, the Seymours were ruined.3 John Seymour-familiarly known among us as Uncle John-on his arrival from the South, where, during a residence of many years he had acquired a handsome fortune, found his sisters Mrs. Glen- ville and Mrs. Littleton, in great distress, their husbands being recently dead; and having not long before his return buried his wife (who however had borne him no children), he immediately took under his protection the two widowed ladies, his sisters, together with the four children of Mrs. Glenville. Fearing his means were not sufficient to sustain the burden providentially cast upon him, at least in the way that was desirable, he resolved to remove to Kentucky. Accordingly, the newly organized family all removed to the West; with the exception of Miss Eliza Glen- ville, who was left to complete her education with the excellent and justly celebrated Mr. Jaudon. With this amiable and in- teresting creature.4 Mr. Carlton, who somehow or other always had a taste for sweet and beautiful faces, became acquainted- "Oh! Mr. Carlton !- do tell all about this-"
Not now, young ladies, something must be reserved for future works. But after the usual courtships, lovers' quarrels, scenes and walks in the garden-(Pratt's,) versifications, notes on gilt- edged, flame-coloured paper, ornamented with cooing doves and little fat dumpling cupids-in short, after the most approved meltings, misgivings, misapprehensions and so forth, came the customary Miss-taking-and with the consent of friends east and west we were married.
It had been part of the arrangement that Mr. and Mrs. Carlton should join the family in Kentucky, and that we should establish there a Boarding School for Young Ladies; but now came a let- ter from John Glenville that Uncle John unfortunate, not in
3 The experience of the Seymours as related here was similar to that of the many others in the East following the War of 1812. The hard times and panic of 1817-19 sent jobless workmen and landless and bankrupt debtors to the West in droves and the New Purchase received its share of the hardy and adventurous pioneers who were coming West to seek out new fortunes and to grow up with the country. The author here indi- cates an economic influence of prime importance leading to the settlement of the West.
4 The young lady.
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selling a very valuable property at a fair price, but in receiving that price in worthless notes of Kentucky banks (which, like most banks every twenty or thirty years, had failed), had with his remaining funds, as his only resort, bought a tract of govern- ment lands in the New Purchase; and, that, if I could join him with a few hundred dollars in a little tanning, store-keeping, and honest speculation, we might gain, if not riches, at least indepen- dence. He added that maybe something could be done in the school line.
Sorry so good a man as Uncle John-and the world boasts none nobler-should be the victim of fraud, yet strange! I found mingled with the feeling of distress a secret joy that so plausible an inducement existed for a life in the genuine, far away, almost unfindable backwoods! Less poetic indeed than her husband, yet Mrs. C. earnestly wished to see her relatives ; and so off we started, as the reader knows, in Chapter Second, and here we are waking up a little from a curious dream, in Chapter Fourteenth. Some folks dream all the way through to the very last chapter!
Here we found our new relative the Rev. James Hilsbury, who had married Sarah Glenville in Kentucky, and was now a missionary in the Purchase, in order to look up "a few sheep scattered in the wilderness." And to our great amazement here we found too, Uncle Leatherstocking; for about him Glenville in his letter had been silent, willing us to be, as all had been, taken by surprise; because the family on removing to their new world had found the old gentleman comfortably squatted in a little nook of their territories, when he was supposed all the time to be yet among the Indians on Lake Michigan!
At the time of our arrival Uncle John was barely recovered from a very serious hurt received in the early settlement of the colony. In order to prepare a cabin he left the family in Ken- tucky and went to the Purchase alone; it being arranged that the family under the care of John Glenville should join him as soon as information came that things were ready. But one day Mr. Seymour, being with his guide in the woods, and in the act of mounting a restive horse, the animal scared at the near and sudden leap of a deer, plunged and knocked down Mr. Seymour, causing the fracture of one arm and several ribs. For
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six dreadful weeks he there lay in consequence, under a shantee of poles and bark actually built over him as he lay unable to be moved, by some neighbours called by the guide. And these set the bones and dressed the wounds, according to Mr. Seymour's directions, as well as they could; and then leaving the sufferer alone most of the day, as was unavoidable, they brought his victuals at iregular intervals, and slept near him by turns at night. On one occasion, however, our wounded friend would have re- ceived a very disagreeable visitor, but for the fortunate arrival at the moment of a neighbour woman with his dinner-who exclaimed,
"Grammins ! neighbour Seymour, if there ain't a powerful nasty varmint coming to see you !"
The nature of the visitor was soon revealed to Uncle John; for alarmed at the approach of the woman, the "nasty varmint" close to the patient's head but behind his camp, raising his terrific head, made at the same time the whole woods tremulously vocal with that rattle so peculiar and so startling even to the accustom- ed èar. But scarcely had Uncle John time for alarm before the fearless woman had stopped the music; and then dragging his dying snakeship in front of the camp, she first measured his length, more than five and a half feet, and secondly pulled off what she called "a right smart chance of rattles" and gave them to Mr. Seymour. And this memento of his escape, Uncle John one day as he narrated the affair, handed over to me to hang to the sounding post of my fiddle-such being the western secret of converting common violins into cremonas. I tried the ex- periment of course; but not being willing to take out a patent, I now offer the said rattles to any ingenious Yankee (who wishes to try the thing), for a box of clarified rosin !- the rattles count sixteen and a button ; just sixteen semi, and part of a demisemi- quaver to every shake !
As soon as Mr. Seymour could be carried, he was conveyed to Mr. Sturgis' house, and then he wrote for his family; who has- tening on through many inconveniences and perils, all arrived in safety and found Uncle John just able to walk without assistance. But as to the cabin it was as yet unchinked, undaubed, and with- out its stack chimney; yet into that deplorable hovel all were
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forced to remove and complete it at their leisure! Ay, folks that knew all about three story brick houses in Philadelphia ! and who had ridden in their own carriages, in the settlements of the Old Purchase! and promenaded Chestnut-street, some of them haughtily, and proudly, and delicately !
Ye that have paid $20,000 for a dwelling, what do you think of a dwelling that cost 20,000 cents ?- for that our cabin cost- and experienced woodmen said that was too much-that Uncle John had been cheated-and that our cabin could have been finished off for $10! from the laying of the first stick to the topping of the chimney !!
Our cabin was in truth a cabin of the Rough Order; for reader, the orders of cabin architecture are various like those of the Greek; for instance-the Scotched Order. In this, logs are hacked longitudinally and a slice taken from one side, the primitive bark being left on the other sides. The scotching, however, is usually done for pastime by the boys and young women, while the men are cutting or hauling other timbers. The Hewed Order-in which logs, like the stones for Solomon's Temple, are dressed on purpose. The Stick-out-Corner Order -the logs left to project at the corners; and the reverse of this, the Cut-off-Corner Order. I might name too, the Doubtful or Double Order. In this, two cabins are built together, but until the addition of chimneys, it is doubtful whether the structure is for men or brutes; and also the Composite Order-i. e. loggeries with stone or brick chimneys.
But our abode was, from necessity, of the Rough Order-its logs being wholly unhewed and unscotched-its corners project- ing and hung with horse collars, gears, rough towels, dish cleaners and calabashes !5 it had moreover a very rude puncheon floor, a clapboard roof, and a clapboard door; while for window a log in the erection had been skipped, and through this longitudinal aperture came light and-also wind, it being occasionally shut at first with a blanket, afterwards with a clapboard shutter. Neither nail nor spike held any part of the cabin together; and even the door was hung not with iron, but with broad hinges of
5 The usual water dippers in the pioneer cabin homes were made from the calabashes, or gourds.
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tough bacon skin. These, however, our two dogs, (of whom more hereafter,) soon smelled and finally gnawed clean off, when we pinned on thick half tanned leather, which swagging till the door dragged on the earth, we at last manufactured wooden hinges ; and these remained till the dissolution of our colony. The en- tire structure was, in theory, twenty feet square, as measured by an axe-handle having set off on itself two feet from the store keeper's yardstick, where the cabin builder bought his handle at Woodville. But I ever believed the yardstick itself must have shrunk in seasoning, because our carpets stretched inside, as will be described in the next Chapter, made the gross length only nineteen feet two inches, and the neat length inside, an average about seventeen feet one inch. As our arrival caused a new ar- rangement of the interior cabin, we shall start on this subject afresh in
CHAPTER XV.
Qui miscuit utile dulci."
-Which mixes soap and sugar."
THRIFTY housewives in cutting little boys' roundabouts and trowsers always contrive out of a scant pattern of pepper and salt stuff, to leave enough for patches; but for the Glenvillians it re- mained to subdivide two hundred and eighty nine square feet of internal cabin into all the apartments of a commodious man- sion. Hence ours became the model cabin in the Purchase.
And first, the puncheoned area was separated into two grand parts, by an honest Scotch carpet hung over a stout pole that ran across with ends rested on the opposite wall plates; the woollen portion having two-thirds of the space on one side and the remaining third on the other.
Secondly, the larger space was then itself subdivided by other carpets and buffalo robes into chambers, each containing one bed and twelve nominal inches to fix and unfix in; while trunks, boxes and the like plunder were stationed under the bed. Ar- ticles intended by nature to be hung, frocks, hats, coats, &c.,
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were pendent from hooks and pegs of wood inserted into the wall. To move or turn around in such a chamber without mis- chief done or got was difficult; and yet we came at last to the skill of a conjuror that can dance blindfolded among eggs-we could in the day without light and at night in double darkness, get along and without displacing, knocking down, kicking over, or tearing !
The chambers were, one for Uncle John and his nephew; one for the widow ladies and Miss Emily, who, being the pet, nestled at night in a trundle bed, partly under the large one ; and one very small room for the help, which was separated from the Mistress' chamber by pendulous petticoats. Our apprentices slept in an out-house. These chambers were all south of the grand hall of eighteen inches wide between the suites; on the north, being first our room and next it the stranger's-a room into which at a pinch were several times packed three bodies of divinity or cler- ical dignitaries. Beyond the hospitality chamber was the toilette room, fitted with glasses, combs, hair-brushes, &c., and after our arrival, furnished with the first glass window in that part of the Purchase. The window was of domestic manufacture, be- ing one fixed sash containing four panes, each eight by ten's, by whose light in warm weather we could not only fix but also read in retirement.
Thirdly, the smaller space, east of the Scotch wall, was sub- divided, but like zones and tropics, with mere imaginary lines. Front of the fire-place was the parlour. Into it were ushered visitors, mainly, however, to prevent curiosity or awkwardness from meddling with the corners and their uses; but against which we were forced finally to place a table or two as pre- ventives.
The right hand corner was the ladies' private sitting room. It was fitted with clap-board shelves, and on these were arranged work-bags, boxes, baskets, paint-boxes, machinery for sewing, knitting, &c. The left side and whole corner was the library, or as usually styled-Carlton's study.
Our artificial rooms were indeed connected with some anom- alies : for instance, under the parlour, was the Potato Hole! And that held about twenty bushels. The descent into this
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spacious vault, was accomplished by raising a puncheon and vaulting down on the vegetables ; the ascent, by resting the hands on the edges of the parlour floor and weighing the body up. Again, Carlton's study had in it a species of dresser-closet, in- vented and constructed by the author himself. It was construct- ed of clap-boards dressed with a hatchet, and held on some shelves, books in several languages, writings, plates, knives, fid- dle, pepper-box, flute, mustard-box, and box of rosin, and so on; while some modest and light cooking utensils were lodged in the basement story shelves. To conceal the structure was hung over as much of its front as could be covered, an invalid table cloth, very white and very patched.
The kitchen proper had, about ten yards from the mansion house, a whole cabin to itself. Here were all the vulgar pots, kettles, frying-pans, homminy-block, and the like; here the com- mon cooking, the washing and ironing, and weaving, and-oh! ever so many-common and uncommon-common things besides. Pickling, preserving, cake-baking, clear-starching, sugar-refining, ruffle-ironing, candy-making, and, all such polite affairs were commonly honoured with attention in the parlour.
Like most grandee people brought low and "flitting" to the West, our plunder was, like the Vicar's Family Picture, too large for the house. We had also no small quantum of envy and jealousy exciting articles, "the like of which had never been seen growing among corn," at least in the Purchase-and such, policy required should be hid. Many things, therefore, were left packed and deposited in lofts and outhouses. Still some impolitic articles were unpacked, being, however, kept concealed behind the curtain-like sacred mysteries from the eyes and hands of the profane. But an accident soon after our arrival delivered the colony from part of these.
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