USA > Indiana > Morgan County > The pioneers of Morgan County : memoirs of Noah J. Major > Part 11
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The August election had gone Whig, county and State, and the election of General Harrison was seem- ingly assured. The Whigs, who had been jolly drunk on "glory" ever since the first Monday in August, gave this day up to feasting, drinking, and cheap hilarity. This was the last big rally they had in the county in 1840.
The November election resulted in the choice of a large majority of Harrison electors. It was a signal triumph for the Whig party. They had battled for twelve years for a United States Bank, and at last had won it, as they thought ; but one month after the inaugu- ration of President Harrison death removed him from all sublunary things. John Tyler was inaugurated and served the remainder of the term. He was to the Whigs what Andrew Johnson was to the Republicans, an antagonizer through and through. It was a glorious campaign victory, but an inglorious administration, and left the Whigs in bad form for the contest of 1844. Nevertheless they went into it with Henry Clay as standard bearer, shouting like troops storming a battery. The shadows of the Mexican war were coming in sight.
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The Whigs were opposed to it. A favorite expression among the Democrats of that time was, "I am in favor of this war and the one to come." Strange as it may seem, no antiwar party has ever yet won a presidential election.
Polk of Tennessee, a man not widely known, eclipsed Clay of Kentucky, a man of more than national reputa- tion. "Hurrah for Polk and annexation" was the Demo- cratic slogan; while the Whigs sang :
"Polk root juice is mighty bad and bitter,
If the Locofocos take it, 'twill kill the whole litter."
They took it, and not a mother's son of them died of it. Polk brought on the war, and the Whigs helped to fight it to a finish. Clay's favorite son, Henry Clay, Jr., volunteered in this war and was made a colonel. The end came in the famous encounter of Buena Vista, when the three colonels, McKee, Clay, and Yell, fell in one charge. Clay deeply mourned the untimely loss of this son. The country, without regard to party, paid a well- earned tribute of praise to General Taylor and the brave boys who won on that bloody field.
The people of Morgan county have ever been watch- ful of their political rights, and faithful in the discharge of their public duties. They have differed in a most radical way as to what was right, and honorable, and practicable ; but it was an honest difference backed up by the courage of their convictions.
The most amusing and mysterious campaign was in 1854, when the Knownothings pulled the wool over the eyes of both parties, and waked them up the day after the election, to show them that they did not know where they were "at." The most complete and exhaustive
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campaign was in 1860, and the most dangerous one in 1862.
§17. ELECTION DAY.
For thirty years the voters of our county looked for- ward with much anxiety to the first Monday in August of each year, as it was the day fixed by law for the election of State and county officers in Indiana and many other States. Although there was a voting precinct in each town- ship, for the convenience of the old and infirm, an elector could vote at any precinct he chose within the border of the county. This privilege brought from one-half to two- thirds of the voters to Martinsville on election day. If the day promised to be good, and not too hot, sunrise found the voters of the out-townships on the road to the county seat, some in wagons, some on foot, but mostly on horseback, for as yet buggies, phaetons, carriages, and road wagons, as well as good roads, were in the far away "good time coming." The men were smoothly shaven from chin to ears and robed in their Sunday clothes, consisting principally of yellow factory shirts and linen jeans breeches, home-knit "galluses" and cowhide shoes of the tan-colored "persua- sion." In color, at least, they were in style, though perhaps unaware of it at the time. However, it is true that coming events still continue to cast their shadows before. The home-made straw hat, fashioned by the deft fingers of the good wife, sister, or daughter, was much in evidence. Many chip hats were worn, and now and then some ambitious youth sported a genuine Panama.
By 9 o'clock in the morning Martinsville was buzzing and humming like bees in swarming time. The citizens were obscured and ignored for the time being. The sheriff and constable were supposed to keep order, but they let school keep itself on election day. What could they do
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with a thousand sons of Columbia, all chock-full of the spirit of '76 and wringing wet with sweat? Nothing at all. Many of these could not do anything with themselves by 4 o'clock p. m., and were pulled into the shade to await the return of their senses. Old King Alcohol paralyzed many a chap on every returning first Monday in August. How- ever, the "blowers and strikers" managed to get these "babes and sucklings" to vote "before or after taking," whichever they could.
The east end of the courthouse was the storm center. Here from one hundred to two hundred men could be found standing around or lying in the dog fennel, talking, laughing, gesticulating good-humoredly or half-mad as cir- cumstances might direct. The busiest men in the county, on that day, were on the election board at the county seat. From 6 a. m. until 6 p. m. they had to work like beavers, with only fifteen or twenty minutes recess at noon for lunch. If they determined to "count out" before adjourn- ment, as was usual, they were on the job until 1 or 2 o'clock a. m. Much less restriction was thrown around the ballot box then than now. The board might be composed alto- gether of one party, though usually through courtesy two of the five members were selected from the minority party. Notwithstanding all this, there is good reason for believing that elections were much more honestly conducted then than later on. I was thirty years old before I even heard of any serious charges being preferred against an election board in Morgan county. True, there were individuals offering to vote who knew that they were not eligible, and sometimes they succeeded. They or some friend would swear the ballot through in spite of the board. Except here and there some ambitious youth, who desired to be born before his time, there was not much irregularity. Not until 1858 were the people startled by the misconduct of
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an election board. This was in the case of John L. Knox, candidate for treasurer, who was surprised at the smallness of his vote in Monroe township. He contested the election of his opponent, and in prosecuting his suit, as well as we now remember, forty or fifty eligible voters of Monroe township were put on the witness stand, and they swore that they had voted for John L. Knox, whereas the tally sheets showed differently. About half as many from Clay township testified to having done the same thing. This astonishing fact caused the attorneys for the defense to withdraw from the contest, and Mr. Knox took his office.
It is a sad comment on republican institutions, that with our intelligence, our Christianity, and our high civilization, we should be compelled from year to year to coop up our election boards, line off a track with ropes fifty to a hun- dred feet long, for the voter to walk through, set guards on every side, padlock the mouths of the board and poke the voter into a box, in order to insure a free ballot and fair count. Every man who wilfully and maliciously defrauds an election, strikes directly and forcibly at the free institu- tions and good government, is the foe of human rights and is proper stuff out of which to make an anarchist. The life of a democratic or republican government can only be perpetuated by honest elections. When bribery, perjury, fraud, and duplicity come in at the door, democracy goes out at the window or people's necks go under the iron heels of tyrants. The ballot box will yet prove to be an iron cable or a rope of sand to the American republic. It is in our power to make it a cable, with each strand of double strength. Will we do it?
The old fathers were strong party men; ofttimes in needy circumstances, not worth buying as is sometimes said, but an attempt to buy their ballots would have been re- sented with fiery indignation, supplemented by a kick.
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Men did not stand around in those days, saying as they do now in a half-jocular, half-earnest way, "We are going to vote for the man who has the money." The only approach to undue influence was in the practice of "treating." This was carried on to a scandalous degree, and led to grewsome disorder. From noon till night fisticuffs were freely in- dulged, and the fighting was fast and furious, but not to kill. While the rules of the Marquis of Queensbury were not strictly observed, if the "under dog" cried "'nough," the top cur was jerked off in a jiffy. Deadly weapons were seldom or never used in these combats. This ruling, which was generally accepted, gave strong men a great advantage over the weaker ones; but the battle is not always to the strong, nor the race to the swift. What was called foul play was often shown when one of the combatants was short of friends. Many of the pending fights were fixed for election day, when the principals could have their sec- onds hard by. The stray pen was often used as the arena in which the battles were fought.
After having their heads shaven and soaped, the combat- ants stripped to the waist, tied their suspenders around their bodies and walked into the ring, while the crowd stood around the pen from four to six deep, to see the fight. Sometimes, just at this juncture, the friends of the fighters brought about a reconciliation and averted the battle; after which the belligerents washed off the soap, and put on everything as before, excepting their hair, while the crowd dispersed to reassemble at the courthouse. Here the poll- ing booth resembled the ticket wagon on a show day. Men were poking their tickets under the nose of the inspector, faster than their names could be written. Ever and anon there was a dispute between the challengers, which, how- ever, seldom resulted in violence. By a sort of common consent, no fighting was to be permitted near the polls.
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Sometimes when the throng was so great that the voters were hindering rather than helping the election to a finish by 6 p. m. and giving every one a chance to vote, a sham fight would begin. This started the crowd on the run from the courthouse and gave the board time to breathe.
Tickets could be had anywhere for the asking. They were usually printed with the names of the party candi- dates in full. As there was likely to be more or less scratching, pasters were supplied for the use of the scratcher, or he could scratch the regular candidate and write his name above the erasure. Some men wrote the entire ticket with a pen, and would vote half a sheet of paper. Many will remember the late Robert Townsend, who sometimes voted in this way: Splitting a long stick, inserting the ballot in the split, and hoisting it in the win- dow over the heads of the bystanders. Mr. Townsend was of a family of very early settlers, Simon-pure Democrats, warranted neither to "rip, ravel, nor wear out." Parties might change routes, go up or down, but the original Town- send never failed to plump a Democratic ticket in the ballot box on the first Monday in August. There were, in those old times, as there are now, floaters, sometimes called "ciphers," but it is noted that even ciphers count in times of elections if they can be placed on the right side of the right figures. The shrewdest local electioneers were en- gaged to watch these annual floppers, and turn them over into their respective camps. It was generally seen in the forenoon which party was capturing the largest number of the doubtfuls. But the greatest merriment was late in the day when "the last of the Mamalukes" were running the gauntlet arm in arm with the buttonholers.
As the respective parties gained a point they hissed and laughed like ganders at a goose fight. Let it not be under- stood from the foregoing sketch that any considerable
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number of the old-time voters were drunken or disorderly. Such was not the case. Ten or fifteen rowdies, in the absence of a good police force, can keep an uproar going among a thousand civil men.
Remove the restrictions brought to bear upon the present election day, turn the saloons loose, let men vote anywhere and everywhere, dismiss the police, let the men carry con- cealed weapons, appoint the day in August, and you can duplicate the most disorderly election day in Morgan county for the first thirty years, and have one hundred per cent. of crime left over. That there was less suspicion of treach- ery then than now is shown by the fact that there were few, if any, contested election cases prior to the Knox case.
Grant Stafford was elected State senator in the '40's, over John W. Cox, by only two votes. Every precinct in the senatorial district was examined and recounted, to make sure of the right. Mr. Stafford was certified elected, and took his seat, the Democrats acquiescing. If such a case were to occur now, it would insure a long and bitter contest, for the dominant parties have little faith in each other's electoral honesty. They are like the old negro woman who was asked by her mistress to leave the Meth- odist church and unite with the Christian, and whose an- swer was: "Lors, missus, we knows too much about one anuddah to lib in de same church."
The headquarters of the Democrats were established at the Parks & Hite corner, while the Whigs, and later on the Republicans, met near the store of the firm of J. M. & S. M. Mitchell on the opposite side of the square. These two firms stood for many years as typical representatives of the dominant parties. Great changes occurred in the personnel of the parties from 1856 to 1861. After the Dred Scott decision, many Democrats left their party on account of their antislavery sentiments; while several Whigs took their places, for the opposite reason.
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A still greater change took place in 1861, when hostilities began between the slave and antislave States. Then hun- dreds of what were called "war Democrats" espoused the war for the Union, and helped fight it through on the line of policy adopted by the Lincoln administration. This naturally placed them in the ranks of the Republican party, and assured it a greater or less majority from then till now.
§18. COUNTERFEITERS.
Fifty or sixty years ago no class of criminals was harder to convict under the criminal law than counterfeit- ers and horse thieves. Strange as it may appear, they nearly always had shrewd counselors who knew all the loopholes in the "Code Criminal," through which they could slip the scheming rascals who prowled about the country and lived off the earnings of honest people. No hole in the criminal practice of law is half so smoothly worn as "you shall give the benefit of the doubt to the prisoner." Almost every jury has its "doubting Thomas," who often hangs the jury, while in strict justice the jury ought to hang him. While Jonathan W. Gordon was a member of the House of Representatives we once heard him in private conversation say: "If they will let me frame a law and change the criminal practice of the courts, I can catch and convict nine-tenths of the criminals, who always keep the commonwealth in an uproar; under the present practice I can clear four-fifths of them."
Mr. Gordon's opinion is well worth considering, for he was during his life one of the foremost criminal lawyers in the State. But in all probability we will continue to have beggars in rags and rascals in robes as long as time lasts, for neither the law of life and love embodied in the Sermon on the Mount, though proclaimed for hundreds of years,
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nor the "red-eyed laws" of men, which know neither mercy nor forgiveness, have as yet cut off the annual crop of ras- cals and ragamuffins.
In the spring of 1837, when work began on the canal, there appeared to be an unusual amount of counterfeit money in circulation. Indeed there had been more or less of it in circulation almost from the beginning of the settle- ments. The Mexican dollar, which then constituted the larger part of our coin, was made the stool pigeon of these financial foxes. Suspicion rested on certain individuals, but such proof as was required in the courts was lacking. Perhaps no gang of wrongdoers ever in the county were more subtle in their movements than the counterfeiter. They could discount the horse thieves and forgers in cover- ing up their tracks. Everybody knew the animal was here, but could not trace him to his den. Honest men became indignant at this outrage on the character of the county and determined to ferret out the perpetrators. The more they worked at detection the more they became surprised and dumfounded at finding reputable citizens under a cloud. They discovered enough to convince them that there was an organized band of rogues in their midst, and, though no very large amount of counterfeiting was done here, yet there were plenty of distributors along the line in this county. They also found some dies and other counterfeit- ing implements not very far from Martinsville.
Not all engaged in this business were then known, nor will they ever be, for no convictions according to law were ever had, although summary chastisement was administered to two or three men with good results as the sequel will show. The strongest suspicion rested on a man named Prince, who claimed to be a resident of Missouri. He had visited this county several times since its settlement began. Just what business he had here was not clear to the "fer-
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rets," as he had neither family nor relatives in the county. He never appeared to be doing anything but standing around or sauntering about like a gentleman of wealth and leisure. He was perfectly civil, genteel, and well-behaved; wore good clothes, neatly fitting, was polite and unusually intelligent in conversation. He was about sixty years old and "as mild mannered a man as ever cut a throat or scut- tled a ship." He was fairly good looking, straight as an Indian, with hair white as wool. A writ was sworn out for his arrest, and William H. Craig, who was sheriff, be- gan looking for him, but evidently some one had advised the accused of the situation and he was on his guard. He secreted himself in the west end of Clay township, among the thickets on Sycamore creek, about a mile north of what is now Bradford's sand mine. Meantime several citizens offered to assist in searching for him, among whom were Dow Cunningham, Robert Hamilton, Charles Butler, An- derson McCoy, Job Hastings, William A. Major, and sev- eral others, numbering in all ten or fifteen of the most sub- stantial citizens. Dow Cunningham was a born detective, and therefore was chosen as captain. After several days' successful "mixing" he located the wily Missourian. It was in midsummer, and in order to avoid discovery they chose the last half of the night. They were all regularly ordered as a posse by the sheriff and armed with rifles, for Prince was not a man to trifle with. At break of day they had completely surrounded him. He happened to see the first man who came over a point overlooking his hiding place. Immediately he stepped behind a tree with his trusty rifle in his hand and his finger on the trigger. At this moment a signal was given by the leader to close in. Prince now realized the fact that there were a number of men in search of him, and he thought to save himself by flight. He paid no attention to the order to halt, but ran down a steep
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ravine at full speed. Anderson McCoy shot at him, and just at this juncture he caught his foot in a forked stick and fell to the ground. Half a dozen men shouted, "He is shot," but the next minute he was on his feet running up the other side of the hollow. Just as he had nearly reached the top of the ridge he met Job Hastings, a man about his own age, who was as resolute as a tiger. Hastings shouted, "Halt or I will burn a hole through you in one second." By this time there were shouts all around. Prince took in the situation and stood still, panting like a horse from his running. His eyes flashed fire and he gnashed his teeth in rage as Hastings took his gun from his hands. The sheriff then took him to Martinsville and lodged him in jail. Prince employed half the legal talent of the county, which consisted of Attorney John Eccles, and the State engaged the other half, Benjamin Bull. These were supposed to possess the entire legal lore of the county at that time. Eccles was an old, nervous, fussy man who, when not asleep or talking to other people, was talking to himself. Perhaps his reason for so doing was that he liked to con- verse with a man from whom he could learn something. Bull was old enough to have a wife and eight children. He was dark, swarthy, and slender, with wit enough to fret a half-dozen men like Eccles. The case was tried before Squire Ellis, an honest old man of the English type, who usually could not see a point until it was nearly out of sight.
In those good old days circuit court convened but once in six months, and then only »at two weeks. Prince had no inclination to boarding with the jailor until his time might come, for he felt sure the State would fail to find sufficient evidence to commit him for trial in the higher court, so he demanded an immediate hearing before the justice. Sure enough, not a witness was found who could or would swear that he had known Prince either to pass or
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possess a single counterfeit coin. Here the Regulators were foiled. They believed the witnesses kept back the truth and soon found there was nothing for them before the law, so they consulted together and determined for the time being to be a law unto themselves.
They managed to keep Prince in town until nightfall, which was a good time for the accomplishment of their purpose, when they escorted him westward toward the riverside, where, after tying him to a bush, they read to him the law lately passed in the interest of moral honesty and good citizenship. They also gave him "forty stripes save one" with very pointed instructions immediately to move on and out of the county of Morgan. This he most will- ingly did, to the peace of the county if not to the dignity of the State.
There was a man whom we will call "C" for short, who took quite an active part in the defence and who loudly denounced those who whipped the old fox. He had played "polly fox" to Prince while he lay in his den on Sycamore, by carrying him fried chicken, eggs, and other goodies. One night soon after the Prince episode the Regulators put a quietus on him by clothing him in a striped evening suit something like Prince wore. For a time there was con- siderable murmuring in low tones about the "whip crack- ers," and a feeble effort was made at prosecuting the "mob," but it all soon died out. Prince was never after- ward seen in the county and "C" shortly moved away. While no doubt men have from time to time been passing counterfeit money in this county from then till now, it is certain that the first gang was thoroughly demoralized by the whip. So far as remembered, this was the first and only case of whitecapping in the county at an early day, except an attempt to lynch an old man by the name of Mar- lowe, who lived four miles north of Martinsville, and which
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resulted in the untimely death of a young man named Red- man, who received a fatal blow from an ax in the hands of Marlowe. Marlowe was acquitted, as he was defending his own domicile. Redman was buried in the woods, and many times in our boyhood days we passed his lonely grave still covered with the traditional "long pen" of a pioneer tomb.
§19. SHOWS.
Not least of the gala days of old was show day. It stirred the people from top to bottom. Both young and old were caught in the whirl. Among the amusements awarded the old settler, the show came first. It was the grandest, most exhilarating of all the past times. From the posting of the bills, on and up to the first glimpse of the "pole wagon," the show was all the talk. "Are you going to the show?" was in and out of almost every mouth, and the answer was, "If papa pleases and I can get the quarter, I am going."
Mamma might demur, but she was usually overruled, and put her time in overlooking the scanty wardrobe, for if the children must go, her motherly pride prompted her to show them in their best. Good soul as she was, she would put in two or three weeks washing, ironing, mending, remodel- ing, and trigging out a half-dozen bairns for the show, meantime denying herself of many little things which, be- fore the show came, she intended to get with her pin- money ; and then, if any one had to stay home on show day, it was mamma. Well! Well! there never was anybody as good as a good mother anyway; no, nor never will be. Papa is a good thing of the kind, but he is not of the kind that mamma is, at least not on show day. He seems to be made of sterner stuff and has to be bombarded sometimes with importunity, like the unjust judge of Holy Writ,
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