USA > Indiana > Monroe County > The new purchase : or, seven and a half years in the Far West > Part 9
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Other citizens may be introduced hereafter; at present, we shall speak of Woodville itself. This was, as has been stated, the capital of the New Purchase-the name of a tract of land very lately bought from the Indians, or the Abor'rejines, as the Ohio statesman had just then named them, in his celebrated speech in the legislature :- "Yes, Mr. Speaker, yes sir," said he, "I'd a powerful sight sooner go into retiracy among the red, wild Abor'rejines of our wooden country, nor consent to that bill." The territory lay between the north and south Shining Rivers- called sometimes the Shinings, sometimes the Shineys, from the purity of the waters and the brightness of the sands-and it contained fine land, well timbered and rolling. The white popula- tion was very sparse, and mainly very poor persons, very illiter- ate, and very prejudiced, with all the virtues and vices belonging to woodsmen. Among them were very few, indeed scarcely any,
1 This reflection on Dr. Sylvan, as well as the hit on another page was probably because in a subsequent difficulty between Hall and President Wylie, Dr. Sylvan did not support Hall or approve of his course.
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persons born east of the mountains; and our community was a pure Western one-men of the remote West being by far the majority of the settlers.
As a tribe, the Indians had themselves "gone into retiracy," away beyond the great father of waters; yet many lingered in their favourite hunting-grounds and around the graves of war- riors and chieftains; and we often met them in the lonely parts of the wilderness, seemingly dejected; and now and then they came gliding like sad spectres into Woodville. The town itself stood on the site of their own wigwam village. Here they spent hour after hour, with unerring arrows splitting apples and knock- ing off six-pences some fifty or eighty yards distant; and once when taunted for want of skill, on assurance of immunity, they gratified and surprised us by sending two arrows against the ball of the court-house steeple, fully seventy feet high, and with force enough to leave two holes in its gilt sides-and these, the Doctor writes me, remain to this day.2
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The grand building then was this very court-house. Its order of architecture I never ascertained-it was, however, most cer- tainly a pile. The material was brick of a fever-colour; the building being kept under and down by the steeple just named, which topped off with its gilded ball and spire, straddled the roof, determined to keep the ascendency. The vane was an un- commonly wise one, utterly refusing, like earthly weathercocks and demagogues, to turn about by every wind ; and yet when in the humour it whirled about just as it pleased, and without any wind -emblem of our hunters and woodsmen, who seemed to like the vane for its very inconsistency and independence. From the road or street a double door opened immediately into the court- room. This was paved all over with brick, to cool the bare feet in summer, and in winter to bear the incessant stamping of feet shod with bull-skin boots armed to the centre of the sole with enormous heels, and with the sole and all fortified with rows of
2 At the top of the steeple above the old court house in Bloomington there were a ball and cup above a large brass fish. The editor has heard old settlers tell of seeing the Indians shoot their arrows at the fish and cup fully as high as Mr. Hall indicates. The old court house was not re- placed by a new one till 1907.
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shingle nails :- four such feet were equal to one rough-shod horse. The pave was, of course, dust sometimes, sometimes mortar. Each side the door and within the room were stairs. These were deflected from a perpendicular just enough to rest at the top, like a ladder to a new building in a city; so that we climbed, ladder-like, to our second story, where several rooms were found well finished and convenient for their uses-the sole excellency in the structure.
West from this citadel of justice was the guardian of liberty- the jail; the close vicinity of the two reminding one forcibly of a doctor's shop adjoining a grave-yard. This keep, in its con- struction, was in imitation of a conjuror's series of box within box; for first was an exterior brick house, and then within it another house of hewed logs. No wall, however, surrounded the prison; hence, from its only cell prisoners used, through a little grated window open to the public square, to converse un- restrained with their friends or attorneys. The consequence uniformly was a very magical trick, the exact reverse of what happened with the wizard boxes: for while the piece of silver conjured from your fingers would most miraculously be found in the very last of the indwelling series, the condemned thief or murderer safely caged in our interior cell, at the very moment the officers wished him to come and be hung, or some other exalta- tion, lo! and behold ! then and there-the criminal was not! And at every renewal of this curious trick, which was two or three times a year, we were as much amazed as ever!
Getting out was still a little troublesome, more so at least than not getting in; and so a rowdy school-master of the Purchase, against whom were charges of assault and battery, used this preventive. He had given bail for his appearance, but the day before the trial the following was inserted in our Woodville paper-the "Great Western Republican Democrat :"-
"Melancholy .- The body corporate of Mr. Patrick Erin, school-master of Harman's Bottom, was found lodged in some brush below the log across Shelmire's Creek. It is known he left town yesterday in a state of intoxicated inebriety, and with a jug of the creature, so that as he tried to cross in the great fresh he slipped off and was drowned."
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Accounts, indictments, charges, and so on, were all quashed- and then the day after Mr. Patrick Erin, that was lately drowned, or somebody exactly like him, was reeling about the court-yard, pretty well corned, to the amazement of all, judge, grand jury, and citizens. The scamp had written the "Melancholy" for the paper himself,-and for that time escaped all prosecutions.
Churches at the era of the Searching, if by a church be meant according to certain syllogisms in school logic, "a building of stone," did not grace our capital. But if by church we under- stand "a congregation," then churches were as plenty as private houses. We numbered five hundred citizens, and these all be- longed to some one or more of our Ten Religious Sects-hence almost every house-keeper had a "meeting" of his own and in his own dwelling. I fear we were in all things too superstitious, and that some of us worshiped an unknown God. Indeed most that was done at most of our meetings, was to revile others and glorify ourselves. Judge, however, reader, of the nature of our fanacticism by an instance or two that occurred when I resided afterwards in Woodville. I had a neighbour who conducted private prayer, not by entering his closet and shutting the door, but by opening his doors and windows, and praying so awfully loud, that we could distinctly hear and see him too, from our house distant from his a full half-furlong. But again, some ex- tra saints, wishing to worship on a high place, used to resort to the top of the court-house steeple! A peculiar grumble repeat- edly heard thence several evenings in succession, just after sun- set, induced several profane persons to clamber up to ascertain the cause-and there, sure enough, were the steeple saints away up towards heaven, at their devotions !- pity they ever came down to earth again-they fell away from grace afterwards, and died, I fear, and made no sign!
Household churches are sometimes very unfavourable to de- votion and elocution, especially if children belong to the estab- lishment. If such, indeed, are of the class mammilla, they may be nursed into order: but no apples, cookies, maple-sugar, little tin cups and hardware mugs of milk or spring water, can keep quiescent those that are independent of the milky way. True, they are at last captured, after eluding a dozen hands, and laugh-
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ing at nods, frowns, and twisted faces, are then hurried out, kicking away at the air and knocking off a sun-bonnet or two near the door-way-but then the "screamer!"-and this followed by the clamour between the belligerents outside-she administering a slapping dose of the wise man's prescription, and it exclaiming, indignant and outrageous at the medicine !
In one house where we often went to meeting, the owner annoyed in the week by customers leaving an inner door open, posted up within the room and on that door the following, and in large letters :
"If you please, shut the door, and if you don't please-shut it any how !"
The preacher did not seem greatly disturbed at the first glance -but alas !- my weak thoughts wandered away to the apostolic churches somewhere, and fancied the surprise of clergy and laity, if by any modern miracle, this ingenious caution had, late on Sat- urday night, taken the place of certain golden inscriptions !
The universal address on entering a house, after a premonitory rap or kick at the door, was-"Well ! who keeps house?" It was a kind of visiting appogiatura to smooth the abruptness of in- gress. Once in a domestic meeting, we were listening devoutly to the preacher, when a neighbour came, for the first time indeed, but by express invitation, to our meeting; and after tying his horse, putting the stirrups over the saddle and pulling down his tow-linen trowsers, he advanced to the house and startled both minister and people by administering a smart prefatory rap to the door cheek, and drawling out in a slow, but very loud tone, the usual formula-"W-e-11-who-keeps-house?"-when he squeezed in among us and took a seat as innocent as a babe. Query for casuists-Is it always sinful to laugh in meeting?
One more, dear reader, from our string of onions, and we suspend at present the ecclesiastical history. A hostess who had a church in her house, found her dinner often delayed by the length of the services, and therefore insisted that a friend of mine, who was the preacher, should shorten the exercises, which occasioned the following colloquy :
"Sister Nancy, we must not starve our souls."
"Well, I allow we'll starve our bodies then !"
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"By no means, sister, is that necessary-"
"Well-how in creation is a body to have dinner if a body aint time cook it?"
"Well, sister, as soon as you hear amen to the sermon-clap on the pot !"
Sister Nancy ever after obeyed, and so the pork, cabbage, and all that constitute a regular Sunday mess, were bubbling away in the prophet's pot about the time the final hymns, prayers, ex- hortations, and other appendices to the regular worship were ended :- a beautiful verification of the remark, that "some things can be done as well as others," and, as may be added, at the very ' same time too.
As to our private edifices, the description of one will aid an ordinary imagination to picture the rest. And we select Dr. Sylvan's ; he being of the magnates, and his house being builded by special order.
This domicile was of burnt clay, rough as a nutmeg grater, and of no decided brick shape or colour-each apparently having been patted into form, and freckled in the drying. It was a story and a fraction high, and fastened at one end to a wing containing the shop. Here we kept "the doctor-stuff," and also the skeleton of Red Fire, an Indian chief, about whom the reader may ex- pect a story in due time. Here too was the doctor's rifle and all his hunter's apparel: for, once or twice a year, our "Medicine" put on his leather breeches, his leggins, his moccasins, his hunt- ing shirt, and fur cap, and with that long and ponderous rifle on his shoulder, shot-pouch and powder-horn at his hip, and toma- hawk and knife in the belt, off went he to the uninhabited part .of the wilds. There he continued alone for days and even weeks-killing deer, and turkeys, and bears, &c., and camping out ; stoutly and conscientiously maintaining all was for the good of his health, while it supplied him at a small expense with fresh meat. My heart always warmed towards this genuine and noble woodsman thus apparelled! oh! the measureless gulf between this Man and the Thing with curled hair, kid gloves, and anointed head !- the curious, bipedalic civet-cat of the East. I plead guilty, reader, to a spirit of Nimrod and Ramrodism-ay! again could I at times, shutting my eyes to the bitter past; again could I
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exchange my now solitary native land for the cabin and the woods! Alas ! the doctor's age would now forbid our occasional hunts together-and Ned Stanley and Domore-
"Go on with the doctor's house, Mr. Carlton."
Well, on the first floor were two rooms, and connected with a Lilliputian half-story kitchen forming an L as near as possible. Between house proper and kitchen was the dining-room, a mag- nificent hall eight feet wide by six feet long, with a door on each side opening into-vacancy ;- threats to put steps to the doors made two or three times a year with great spirit being never executed. Indeed, at last, Mrs. Sylvan herself declared to Mr. Carlton, that "there was no use in steps, any way, as the children were mighty spry, and the grown folks had got used to it." And to tell the truth, the little bodies did climb up and down like lamp- lighters; and I certainly never heard of more than half a dozen accidents to grown folks, owing to those stepless doors all the while of our sojourn in the Purchase. Nor was the space for eating any inconvenience in a country where families rarely all sat at the same time to the table, but came to their feed in squads.
The two rooms named contained each several beds, couches by night, and settees by day. Indeed, even when the doctor's lady-(an accident that occurred maybe once in two years)- was confined by a slight illness to her bed in the day-time, citizens of all sexes on visits of friendship or business, might be seen very gravely and decorously seated on the side and foot of madame's bedstead, knitting or talking-
"Oh! fye!"
Ladies, it was unavoidable; and not more surprising than when French Ladies admit exquisites of the worthier gender to aid at their toilette. How much of the person may be exposed in stage dancing and French toilettes, we have never been well- bred enough to ascertain; but in Mrs. Sylvan's levee nothing, I do know, could be discerned, save the tip of the nose and the frill of the cap.
From the rooms doors apiece opened into the street; and as these were very rarely ever shut, summer or winter, the whole house may be said to have been out of doors. In fact, as the chimneys were awfully given to smoking, it was usually as com-
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fortless within the rooms as without. But in each of the small rooms a large space was cut off in one corner for a staircase ; each stairway leading to separate dormitories in the fractional story-the dormitories being kept apart, as well as could be done, by laths and plaster. Often wondering at this dissocial wall up- stairs, I once inquired of Mrs. Sylvan what it was for, who answered,
"Oh! sir, I had it done on purpose-"
"On purpose !- it wasn't accidental, then?"
"Law ! bless you, no !- it was to keep the boys and girls apart."
Now where, pray, had modesty in the far east ever built for her two staircases and a plastered wall, and to the discomfort of a whole family? Yet, vain care! The boys had perforated the partition with peep-holes; but these were kept plugged by the girls on their side with tow, so that their own consent was necessary to the use of said apertures. Still I was told the syringes from the shop were often used on both sides of the wall, to give illustrations and lessons in hydraulics, little perhaps to edification, but very much to the fun of both squirters and squirted : proof that even among Hoosiers and all other wild men, "love laughs at locksmiths."
South of Woodville (distance according to the weather), and in the very edge of the forest, were, at this time, two un- finished brick buildings, destined for the use of the future Uni- versity.ยช As we passed to-day in our vehicle, the smaller house
8 It has been difficult to ascertain the year of Hall's journey down the Ohio and to the Purchase. It was probably in 1823. His description of his journey from New Albany indicates that it was in the spring of the year. The Board of Trustees of the State Seminary located its site on June 15, 1820. The buildings were let to contract on March 22, 1822, after the sale of some lands. The "two unfinished brick buildings" which Hall mentions in this passage were probably under roof when Hall passed through Bloomington (Woodville) on his original journey to Glenville when he first met Dr. Maxwell. This is indicated by the fact that an order was passed by the Board on January II, 1823, allowing a bill to David Batterton for tin guttering. These facts, as from the record, are taken from an old manuscript marked "Old Record" and "Notes on the New Purchase," containing data which, obviously, have been taken from the Records of the Seminary Trustees. These early Records have been lost; they were probably burned in the University fire of 1884. This date for Hall's journey (1823) is not consistent with some later passages in his book. He may have come to Indiana in 1822 and this description may relate to the buildings as he saw them on a later visit to Bloomington. He was elected to teach in the Seminary in November, 1823.
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was crammed with somebody's hay and flax; while the larger was pouring forth a flock of sheep-a very curious form for a college to issue its parchments-which innoxious graduates paused a moment to stare, possibly at a future trustee, and then away they bounded, a torrent of wild wool, to the shelter of the woods.
The larger edifice was called Big College. Its site was a beau- tiful eminence ; but it was no more fit for a college than any other moderately large two-story double house. The other edifice was for the "master," and called, very appropriately, Little College; being a snivelling, inconvenient thing, like those in Pewterplatter- alley, ranged each side a gutter,-the whole fragrance and pros- pect ! We shall resume this subject, saying only now that a most sumptuous area had been already marred by the ignorance and paltry cupidity of planners and builders; and among other irremediable evils, not a grove of forest trees had been left standing in the campus.
Excellent lands adjacent to the college site had been given by the Federal Government for its foundation; the judicious sale of which, and also of other fine lands elsewhere seated, it was thought would create a fund of nearly 200,000 dollars +: but,
4 In the Enabling Act of Congress (April 19, 1816) by which the people of Indiana were authorized to elect a convention to form a State constitution, preparatory to statehood, certain donations were granted to the prospective ,State. Among these was one entire township of land for the use of a seminary of learning, which is known as the Indiana Univer- sitiy land grant. President Madison designated Perry township, Monroe County, on the southern edge of Bloomington, as the seminary town- ship. From the sale of these lands was derived the early small endow- ment of Indiana University. The sale was made too early for profitable returns. The first constitution of the State (1816) provided that no lands granted for the use of schools or seminaries should be sold prior to 1820, but sales were promoted rapidly at low price soon after this date. On Jan. 22, 1822 the Indiana General Assembly authorized the sale of the seminary lands in Gibson county belonging to Vincennes University, and the proceeds of these sales were turned to the State Seminary at Bloom- ington, on the ground that the Vincennes University Trustees, by neglect and failure to meet, had permitted the corporation to lapse and die. Vincennes University had been chartered by the Territorial Legislature of Indiana in 1806. Congress in 1804 had granted Indiana Territory a township of land for a seminary of learning and Albert Gallatin, Jeffer- son's Secretary of the Treasury, selected for this use a township located.
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until that easy-natured and rather soft-pated old gentleman, Uncle Sam, shall, at the time of his gifts, prescribe plans and times of commencing colleges, and make restrictions to obtain for some twenty-five or thirty years after the opening of the institutions, and himself appoint a portion of the trustees (non-residents even of the State), for at least ten years after things are pro- perly organized, then must we naturally expect waste and stupid and ridiculous applications and uses of the people's money. May be, after all, sectarianism is not so bad for colleges.
Hark-the rattle of our carriage; so we must hastily wind up with saying, that east of Woodville was a wilderness, and uninhabited for forty miles; south, cabins were sprinkled, on an average, one to the league; south-west, the same; but north and north-west, settlements and clearings were more abundant.
CHAPTER XII.
"Horresco referens, immensis orbibus angues Incumbunt pelago, pariterque ad litora tendunt."
OUR driver finding the roads worse than his expectation, now contrary to the solemn league and covenant between us, refused to proceed another step towards Glenville without additional pay. While the controversy was tending upward in pitch and intensity (for a very liberal price had been already paid), Dr. Sylvan said, "Come, driver, don't leave the strangers this way. I consider
in Gibson county. This land was assigned to Vincennes University. This institution after a few years of life seemed to be non-existent, but several years after the unsold Gibson county, lands had been appropriated by the State for the use of the State Seminary at Bloomington, the corporation of Vincennes University awoke (it had not been legally dead) and en- tered suits for the recovery of its lands. These suits were first brought against the holders of the lands, but later the State assumed the burden for the relief of innocent purchasers, and consented to a suit against the State, to ascertain the law and equity in the case. The case was pending for several years to the embarrassment of the State University, and judgment was finally given for $66,000 in favor of the Vincennes institution. The State made good the amount to the University at Bloomington.
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the price Mr. Carlton has already paid you to be very fair, and that you are bound to go on with him to Glenville-but here- (action to word)-here I'll pay you a dollar, rather than this lady should not see her mother to-night." Of course Mrs. C. never allowed that dollar to be paid-yet such was the generous spirit of the man! Alas! that politics should ever have made him lost to some friends! and for what? ay! for what ?- the good of the people! Ay! yes-and times come, when politicians sacri- fice first their friends and then cut their own throats, for that ignis fatuus, and are laughed at !
It was noon, and the roads less bad, and sometimes almost good, we were, for awhile, in hopes of seeing our friends in a few hours. The day, too, was pleasant; and on the dry ridges being free from great perils, we began to enjoy the wildness of the primitive world. And what grander than the column-like trees ascending, many twenty, many thirty, and some even forty feet, with scarce a branch to destroy the symmetry! Unable, from their number to send out lateral branches, like stalks of grain they had all grown straight up, hastening, as in a race, each to out- top its neighbour, till their high heads afforded a shelter to squirrels, far beyond the sprinkling of a shot-gun, and almost beyond the reach of the rifle! The timber in the Purchase was only trunk and top! Yet where a hurricane had passed, and, by destroying a part, allowed room for the others to grow, there plainly could be seen how such could "toss giant branches"-branches in amplitude and strength greater than the trunks, or rather slim bodies of puny trees in modern groves and parks!
But here comes our first snake story. In answer to some query about snakes, our landlord at Woodville had replied that "there was a smart sprinkle of rattlesnakes on Red Run, and that it was a powerful nice day to sun themselves." We were now drawing near to the dragon district, and began to experience that vibratory sensation belonging to snake terror, when lo! a crackling and rustling of leaves and sticks on our left-and there, sure enough, was a living snake! It was not, indeed a rattlesnake, but a very fierce, large, and partly erect, black one, with a skin as shiney as if just polished with patent blacking, a
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mouth wide open and astonishingly active tongue! Several feet of head and neck were visible, but how many of body and tail were concealed can never be told except by Algebra; for when with curiosity still stronger than fear, the driver and myself got out for a nearer inspection, not only did her ladyship increase her vengeful hissing but she was joined in that unpleasant music by some half dozen concealed performers; and then our new and yet long acquaintance, instead of vanishing, as had been supposed on our nearer approach, darted head foremost at us, and believe me, reader, in the true western style, like "greased lightning." Had a boa made that attack, our retreat could not have been more abrupt and speedy-we pitched and tumbled into our wagon-and on looking round, our queen snake was leisurely retiring, attended by more of her subjects than we even dared to shake a stick at. Some of these were apparently infant black snakes; for the protection of which we then conjectured the dam (?) snake had endeavoured to intimidate us-in which at- tempt she had very reasonable success.
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