USA > Indiana > Morgan County > The pioneers of Morgan County : memoirs of Noah J. Major > Part 10
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Mr. Jones, like Mr. Gillaspy, was twice elected to State office and his children are prominent citizens of the State capital, where Mr. and Mrs. Jones resided many years before their death. Mrs. Jones in her girl- hood days was one of the most popular young ladies in the vicinity of Martinsville.
Sarah Wilson, another notable little girl of that day, was the daughter of the proprietor of the school cabin. She became the wife of the late John Nutter, when about eighteen years of age. In his prime Mr. Nutter stood in the front rank of Morgan county farmers. As "working bees," Uncle John and Aunt Sarah Nutter have seldom been equalled; and, perhaps, never sur- passed in the county.
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Mr. Nutter was a farmer who farmed exclusively and bought no gold bricks or Chicago margins. His com- mon sense was of more value to him than university economics or political economy. He was an industrious and honest man whose example ought to teach the present young farmer a lesson worth having. Mrs. Nutter lived to be mistress of the playground of our little school and two thousand more acres of ground, with a good bank account, and not a dollar in debt at the time of her death.
Thompson Hendricks was also a prominent scholar in this summer school. He was the son of Thomas Hendricks, who was a very early settler in the neigh- borhood. Like Mr. Nutter, he was a born farmer, and of the first quality of the calling. He became owner of his father's homestead, cleared it of all indebtedness and built an elegant residence with modern conveniences. In the year 1844, Miss Mary Jane Evans became his wife and proved a helpmate who helped. Like Mrs. Nutter, she would not be outdone by her husband. They made a complete success.
Here ends a glimpse of the first school taught in that district of country, by one who was there-is still here, standing like a lone tree upon a broad plain-his com- rades all gone.
ยง16. POLITICS.
From the earliest settlement of our county until the presidential election of 1824, there was little or no strife for party candidates. "Is he honest; is he qualified?" was the test generally applied to all men who sought places of public trust ; nor were the electors often mis- taken in their choice of an officer in those early days.
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The county's business was usually honestly and faith- fully done, whether the incumbent was a Whig or Dem- ocrat.
No honester records were ever made on the office books of Morgan county than were made by such men as George A. Phelps, H. R. Stephens, Jefferson J. Graham, William H. Craig, Jonathan Williams, Jona- than Hunt, James Jackson, Scott W. Young, James Crawford, Philip Hodges, Uriah Ballard, Hiram T. Craig, William Hadley, Hiram Matthews, and others whose names are still household words for fair dealing, both private and public.
As there were no political conventions in those days, the candidates usually rode through the county on horseback to learn what their chances were for election. If they were favorablly impressed by their interviews with the people, they would announce their candidacy ; otherwise they would quietly withdraw from the field. Sometimes the many friends of a suitable man would get consent to announce his name as a candidate. So it ofttimes happened that early in the campaign many candidates were in the race, but usually they kept drop- ping out until only three or four, possibly only two, re- mained to finish the race.
As the elections of State and county officers for some thirty years occurred annually on the first Monday in August, and for township officers the first Monday in April, it will be seen the political pot was kept boiling, or at least lukewarm most of the year round. As there were no party organs for more than thirty years in the county, to "cuss and discuss" political differences, the matter of electioneering became doubly interesting. So much so that this business became a sort of trade or profession in which some men showed great proficiency
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while others were sadly lacking in those qualities which made a good vote-catcher.
To illustrate this: One day during harvest time, my father's men were cradling oats by the wayside, when there came riding by one of the candidates for sheriff. He was a Whig and "hickory Quaker" from the north- ern part of the county. His opponent was a very pro- nounced Jackson man, and so were our boys. The Jacksonian was stiff and quite dignified in manner, though he was quite capable and honest, and had paid his compliments to the voters, but had not impressed them very favorably. But the Whig got off his horse, tied him to a swinging limb, jumped the fence and took the boys by their sweaty hands and gave them a hearty shake. The day was hot and the boys were shading themselves.
- The candidate meantime was talking farming as though to the manor born, which may have been, for anything we know. The boys began to guy him; re- marking he looked more like a book farmer than the Simon-pure article. Nothing daunted, he threw off his coat and vest, picked up first one cradle, then the other. Swinging them through the air to make sure of the best, then taking the "rifle," whetted a keen edge on the old four-foot blade and struck in at a lively gait. One of the men started after him but to no purpose; the candidate fairly distanced him, doing his work in a neat and farmlike manner. Whether he was an all- round planter or not we know not. But he was a good mixer and was elected. His name was Jonathan Hunt, and one of the then (sixty years ago) young men who crossed the "dead line" and helped to do it, was the late Jackson Record, who afterward became one of the fore- most local politicians in this county.
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Not until the presidential election of 1824, as it seems, were party lines strictly drawn in this county. Adams, Clay, Jackson, and Crawford were in that memorable campaign. No one received a majority of the electoral vote, the choice of a President fell to the House of Representatives, and when Clay's following went to Adams, securing his election, that, together with Clay's seat in the cabinet, aroused a warmth of feeling for General Jackson that subsequently landed him tri- umphantly in the presidential chair in 1828 and also in 1832.
Thereafter, from 1824 to 1852, the election campaign of our county was strictly conducted on the lines divid- ing the Whigs and Democrats, with the chances favor- ing the Democrats by a small majority. But 1852 saw the last of the Whigs. They were hopelessly divided on the slavery question, the party went to pieces, and in 1856 the Republican party, to some extent, took its place, but on a very different basis. The strength of Clay and Jackson in this county was nearly equal from 1828 to 1838.
The mutilation of the early records, which occurred when an attempt was made to burn the courthouse in 1876, leaves us in doubt about many things, and par- ticularly so about election returns.
About the year 1834 there was a very spirited race for Congress in this district between General Jake Lowe, of Monroe county, and George L. Kinnard, of Marion county. General Lowe was an early settler of Monroe county, and his widowed mother a wealthy and respected lady of Bloomington. Mr. Kinnard was a young lawyer of about twenty-eight years of age, a lover of politics, a ready debater with a fund of anec- dotes and witticisms, which in joint discussion he used
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with telling effect. They debated once in Martinsville, to the great delight of the electors, who had come from far and near to hear what was going on in the greatest "stripling" government yet known to man. As both candidates were Democrats and had supported General Jackson for the presidency, strictly party questions were ignored. The Whigs for some reason, probably the hopelessness of electing, had no candidates, so they were free to "choose between two evils," as they ex- pressed it. Many voted for Kinnard, who was trium- phantly elected by a large majority.
It is sad to note here the sudden and untimely death of this gifted young man, who probably would have been one of Indiana's brightest lights, if life had continued to middle age. On his way to take his well-earned seat in Congress, he happened to be on the ill-fated steam- boat "Moselle" [Flora] when she was blown to splinters by the bursting of one of her boilers, in front of the city of Cincinnati. This was the saddest and most thorough destruction of a river steamer that ever oc- curred on the Western waters. Saddest because hundreds of Cincinnati's best citizens were aboard this new and magnificent boat on her trial trip from Pitts- burgh, where she was built, to New Orleans.
So forceful was the explosion that fragments of human bodies were found in the streets of the city on the housetops. For a minute or so, the river was covered with the wreckage of the boat and the dead, dying, and drowning passengers. Scores of the passen- gers were never more seen or heard of; and among them was George L. Kinnard, of whom not a shred was ever identified .*
*Mr. Kinnard was standing for re-election at this time. He was editor of the Indiana Gasette, Indianapolis, before he entered Congress in 1833. The name of the boat on which he lost his life was the "Flora."
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General Lowe, who never mingled much more with politicians, passed the remainder of his life at his Monroe county home, practicing law occasionally. He lived to an old age, but, strange to say, was almost for- gotten away from home. The last time we saw him, he was sitting on the counter of Parks & Hite's general store in the frame house that stood on the corner where the Toner Brothers are doing business to-day. He had grown very fleshy, was somewhat carelessly dressed, and looked as though he had bid the world wag on and leave him alone.
In some respects the presidential campaign of 1840 was very remarkable. It was the first time the great West, now called the Middle West, came to the front with a presidential candidate in the person of General William Henry Harrison. He had several things to recommend him as a suitable man for this high position, as well as an available candidate. He had long been identified with the interests of the Northwest Terri- tory as delegate, Governor, and Secretary. He had been an officer in the regular army, and was given the command of Hull's army, after the cowardly surrender of that officer. He had fought the Indians under Gen- eral Wayne, and as commander-in-chief, fought and won the Battle of Tippecanoe, the only great battle ever fought in Indiana. It is a fact, so says a Washington correspondent, that William Henry Harrison was a candidate of the anti-Masons against Van Buren the first time he ran for the presidency in 1836, and that this was the only election in which the electors voted for five candidates, these being in the order of their strength, Martin Van Buren, William Henry Harrison, Hugh L. White, Daniel Webster, and W. P. Magnum. Notwithstanding Harrison's defeat by Van Buren in
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1836, the Whigs still thought they saw in him a stand- ard bearer with which to defeat the Jackson Democrats in 1840. Mr. Van Buren was Jackson's choice as his successor. He is said to have been one of the shrewdest and best educated politicians of his day, and that he and his following brought to Washington the New York methods of managing party politics which have been so generally adopted in the great cities by the crafty politicians. He was before the public either as an officer or as a candidate for thirty-five years, and at the beginning of his career was quite successful. His last candidacy was on the Free-Soil ticket in 1848, when he drew enough votes from General Lewis Cass to compass his defeat. He belonged to the Barnburner faction of the party ; but political cards are uncertain things with which to play, and the flags of a party, triumphantly floating in the breezes to-day, may be trailing in the dust to-morrow.
For twelve years the Democratic party, under the leadership of Andrew Jackson and Martin Van Buren, had held sway, but Van Buren's administration got caught in the panic of 1837, and this helped to turn the tide.
General Harrison's nomination by the Whigs did not inspire so much enthusiasm as might have been ex- pected, until some foolish politician of the East, like Blaine's Burchard, characterized him as an "old, slovenly farmer who lived somewhere out west in a log cabin, drank hard cider and sold coonskins," and who, if elected, would look like a "bound boy at a frolic" in the White House. The Whigs and their allies turned this sneering to good account. They went everywhere shouting at the tops of their voices: "Hurrah! Hurrah ! for Harrison and Tyler, a nice log cabin and a barrel of
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hard cider." It was the first time in the history of Morgan county that great delegations-"terrible as an army with banners"-came rolling into Martinsville, through dust almost thick enough to stifle a cyclone, in big wagons with eight or ten horses or five or six yoke of oxen hitched to them, and loaded with canoes decorated with flags and banners and filled with the prettiest and sweetest young girls that ever turned a spinning wheel, swished a dishrag, or made a track in Hoosier dust-up to that date, mind you-all singing campaign songs.
The leading Democrats looked amazed at this innova- tion and "poohed" and "puttered." "What," asked they, "has this fleeting flummery, this tomfoolery, to do with the tariff, bank distribution, sub-treasury, and slavery, all burning questions of the day. Do you think I would let a daughter of mine be 'canoed' over the county as a target for lewd eyes and unseemly remarks ? No, I don't believe any modest or decent g -. " "Hold on there, dad! You may touch off a magazine." They are not half done yet. They are going to build a cabin on the north side of the public square (about where the Shamrock now sells tanglefoot to the unwary) and when they have finished it they will decorate it with coonskins, have a pet coon tied up on one corner and a barrel of hard cider inside the door. And if you will look farther east on this "dead-line" you will see a barrel of pure, home-made whisky sitting in the dog fennel with its head caved in and plenty of tincups anchored to it, while men and boys are buzzing around it like bees on clover blossoms. It was a gala day of the long ago in Martinsville when free speech and free whisky kept free-for-all fights going till nightfall.
Tobe King, of Brown township, had made a pretty little log cabin about two inches square and pinned it
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on his hat. A belligerent Democrat of Greene town- ship desired to "pulverize" it. Tobe objected, and they came together like two tom cats. The scrap lasted about fifteen seconds, after which Sam was taken to the shop for repairs. Tobe flapped his wings and crowed like a game cock, keeping his cabin in sight of the next fellow who wanted a black eye.
But now let us go back to this cabin, built fifty-nine years ago, and hear Mr. Fell, the lame tailor-the second tailor to locate in Martinsville. He was the little cripple who married Miss Nancy Bull, the daugh- ter of Lawyer Bull. She was a buxom lass of seventeen summers and sixteen winters-the finest specimen of physical form and feature in the town. Mr. Fell had neither health, wealth, nor robust manhood, but was filled to overflowing with wit and good humor. Per- haps it was wit that won the lady's heart. He was a well-finished Yankee, as full of resources as a street corner medicine man. A platform was improvised on a corner of the cabin opposite the big raccoon. Fell mounted it, accompanied by Mr. Holt, the town fiddler, and of the firm of Holt & Cash, wheat fan peddlers. Holt was a Democrat, and some men of that persuasion, plagued with "some godliness," said if it was their case they would not play second fiddle to that "blarsted Yankee." But Holt thought differently and played for Fell and played well. Fell sang a number of comic and campaign songs to the delight of the Whig rabble, and the disgust of the disgruntled Democrats. Curious, is it not, what so pleases one, so displeases another? Here is a specimen verse or two of that roaring cam- paign, which somehow got pigeonholed in one corner of my mind and remains there to the present time.
I could not forget it if I would, though perhaps it is
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hardly worth the writing except to be compared with modern campaigns :
"Come all ye log cabin boys, We're gwine to have a raisin'; We have a job on hand, And I think it will be plaisin'. We'll turn out and build 'Old Tip' a new cabin, And finish it off with The chinkin' and the daubin'.
"For the haulin' of the logs, We'll call on Pennsylvany,
For the Conestoga horses Can pull as well as any. The Yankee and York State And all of the others,
Will come and help us lift Like so many brothers.
"On the fourth day of March, 'Old Tip' will enter in it ; And then little 'Marty' Will have for to shin it; Hurrah! Hurrah! for Harrison and Tyler ! A nice log cabin and A barrel of hard cider !"
At the big rally in Martinsville in 1840, young Henry S. Lane was chief orator, if I rightly remember. Perry M. Blankenship was nominated by the Whigs for repre- sentative in the State Legislature, and during this cam- paign acquired considerable prominence as a public
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speaker. John Eccles, the second lawyer to locate in Martinsville, and who had represented the county in 1839, was renominated by the Democrats in opposition to Blankenship. Both candidates were nervous and easily excited, and when in debate threw off a number of political sparks, which, like the little meteors, went out almost immediately. As the majority favoring the Democrats had always been small, the Whigs thought to gain the victory by introducing new methods. They brought to their mass meetings some of the best speakers in the State-real "spellbinders" like young Lane, who afterward became governor and senator. But the Democrats felt assured that no amount of show- wagons, all accoutred as they were with pretty girls, ribbons, and furbelows, could chip off of that granite party enough votes to bring about a defeat.
But a hundred votes in a county is not a big majority, and it kept the Democracy busy against men like Dr. John Sims, H. R. Stevens, Grant Stafford, James Craw- ford, Algernon S. Griggs, Robert Hamilton, James C. Henderson, Hiram Matthews, Hiram T. Craig, Job Hastings, William A. Major, A. B. Conduitt, and other "wheelhorses" who swore-if they ever swore at all-by Clay and Webster, because, as they thought, they could swear by no greater men. On the other hand the Demo- cratic party had achieved victory after victory under the leadership of Dr. Francis A. Matheny, John Eccles, Patterson B. McCoy, Jefferson J. Graham, Jonathan Williams, John W. Cox, William Landers, Parminter M. Parks, the Stouts, Duckworths, Rattses, Rinkers, Adamses, Townsends, Hoffmans, Langs, and Robertses. These all lived and moved and had their political being in the Jackson party, and for its success were at any time willing to make all needful sacrifices. If the
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Whigs adored Clay, the Democrats worshipped the "Hero of New Orleans." Some of these old "war horses" had fought in Jackson's army, and it was not healthy to say anything derogatory of "Old Hickory" within arm's length of them. They liked anybody that the general liked, and the general liked Mr. Van Buren. But Jackson could not lend him his military record, and Van Buren had none of his own. So it was, the Whigs had the inside track with General Harrison, the "Hero of Tippecanoe." He never was so brilliant and dashing a commander as General Jackson, but his victory at Tippecanoe was, for them, the best thing in sight, and they worked it for all it was worth, especially in Indiana. The Stipps, Scotts, Matthewses, Squireses, John Robb, and old "Billy" Lloyd, of what is now the Center- ton neighborhood, with many others, planned a rally that was to overtop all former proceedings. Old Billy Lloyd invited it to the Drury farm, which was then under his management. A nice location was selected in the woods, and the old logs and underbrush were swept off to make room for an old-time barbecue, where sheep, oxen, and pigs were served to the hungry multi- tude; overdone or underdone, just as the guests might desire. Great long trenches were dug in the earth, like those used for burying the dead on the battlefield. These were filled with hard, dry wood, which was allowed to burn into coals, resembling somewhat our notions of the "bottomless pit." Handspikes were thrust through the quarters of beef and hung over the coals, where they were kept turning and burning until they were thought to be done. But it was only the thought, not the beef, that was done. The sheep and pig meat was fairly well roasted, also the roasting ears and potatoes. Lloyd's watermelons were eaten raw, just as they came
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out of the patch; and they all came out on that day. The good wives and daughters of the "outdoing" Whigs, knowing that it was not good for man to feed on meat alone, prepared stacks of crullers, loaves of wheat bread, and, above all, pyramids of good, old-fashioned "light corn pone," which to this day makes the mouth of an old pioneer water when he thinks of it as mother baked it sixty years ago-light and white within its brown crust-"sweet, juicy, and well tasted." But farewell, "ponie," for you have been supplanted by the "shotgun wadding" of the modern bakeshop.
THE BARBECUE.
To fully understand an old-fashioned Fourth of July barbecue, it would be best to see one. A long, rough board table was made by driving stakes in the ground a foot or more deep, leaving them about waist high. A crosspiece was nailed on top of the stakes and run- ning boards were laid lengthwise on the table, which was sometimes one hundred or two hundred yards long, and three or four feet wide. Upon this at the noon hour the feast was spread. The meats were cut in chunks and bits and laid on plates, so long as the plates lasted, but there were never half enough of these to go round. So large quantities of food had to be laid on the bare boards. So with the bread, cakes, crullers, roast- ing ears, and potatoes. Pies and preserves were not much in evidence, as they did not very well bear trans- portation ; especially pumpkin pie, which was then the leading member of the "American abomination" that so disturbs the modern dietitian. While the table was being loaded, ropes were stretched around it and guards set to watch the "jackals and hyenas" who were stand-
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ing hard by, ready to pounce upon it at the first oppor- tunity. Some men and women are born polite, some acquire politeness, and a few have good manners thrust upon them. But about one-fourth of the young men then and now, act on such public occasions as barbecues and basket dinners, as if they were graduates of a high- toned pigsty.
No sooner does the bugle call, and the ropes fall than they are on the run for a choice stand, crowding back the women and children like a war hog at a slop trough, yea, more so. The hog has the better manners; for when he is full he goes away peacefully, while these rowdies, after filling their capacious maws with best things in reach, begin throwing meat and bread at each other. The most pitiful thing about all this is, that the boys think now, as they did then, that such conduct is exceedingly smart. But that cannot be, for "want of decency is want of sense."
A man's sin is no surer to find him out, than for the inevitable fly to find the location of a barbecue. It may be by instinct, or a laudable ambition to do his country honor by his presence at these patriotic meetings, we know not which, but he is always there, and Mrs. Fly and all the little ones are also present to help save the country and the victuals. But a fly was no more wel- come at the big dinners of ye olden time than a British Tory would have been. Boys and girls were stationed at regular intervals, with brush fans in their hands, ordering the flies to move on ; and so the battle between flies and fans continued until young arms grew weary or the flies, like a mob, congregated at some other place.
There appeared at this rally, "Old Tip," the largest and handsomest canoe that ever floated on White river between Waverly and Gosport, forty-two feet long,
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three and one-half feet wide, twenty inches deep, and neatly painted red, white, and blue, with the name in large letters on either side. This canoe was placed on a big wagon, and hauled on the ground, all aflutter with bunting and pretty girls, as was the order during the campaign. The shout that went reverberating through the forest as the canoe came in sight was such as never before nor since has been heard near the sleepy little town of Centerton. The horses became nearly unman- ageable from the "Hip! hip! hurrahs," and the din of the kettledrums. Not much attention was paid to the speakers that day.
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