USA > Indiana > Morgan County > The pioneers of Morgan County : memoirs of Noah J. Major > Part 12
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before he will surrender. But he usually has to strike his colors on show day. But the day of the old wagon show is gone forever, and with it the children's delight of hang- ing on the fence or drawbars and viewing the train as it went by, sometimes at early dawn, sometimes before day. They could at least see the camels and the big elephant and hear the animals growl. And then the dens and pretty painted wagons and well-harnessed horses were things well worth looking at by young eyes that seldom saw anything so grand in the backwoods. But one must have roamed around the streets of Martinsville fifty or sixty years ago to have got a show crowd of folks photographed on his mind that fades not away.
At an early hour they began coming from far and near to the county seat. A right motley crowd were they, of all ages, from three months to three score and ten years. Some came in wagons propelled by the fleet-footed ox; a large number came in two-horse wagons. A more select class was on horseback. Among the latter were lads and lassies in no small number who were experiencing a double por- tion of bliss-the show and the inexpressible enjoyment of making and using love aright, at the same time. Full many a well-matched pair were caught in the meshes on show day. Cupid was almost as busy as the ticket agent, darting his arrows here and there, "And full many an arrow at random sent," hit a mark that "the archer never meant." And there was the "foot brigade," not to be despised, either for numbers or for enthusiasm. Some of them came six or seven miles. Some men and their wives carried their babies in their arms for the distance of four miles. And I will not undertake to say how many babies there were who were carried otherwise.
When a show struck Martinsville in the bygone days, when it was a limp little hamlet, overrun with jimson weeds
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and dog fennel, law and order took to the woods and re- mained there until the dawn of the next day. The peace officers then consisted of a constable or two and a justice of the peace, who were almost as powerless as a police force. Drunks and disorderlies and obscene conduct were disgusting in the extreme. Fist fights were common. One of the saddest sights was to see a wife and mother and little children meet the husband on the ground after he had been engaged in a "scrap," and had his eyes nearly gouged out, his mouth smashed, his clothes all bloody and covered with dirt. I was walking across the public square one day during one of these carnivals when I met "Jim" Kelley leading his little boy, who was but eight years old. Kelley had, a few minutes before, been struck above his right eye with a brickbat which had cut a fearful gash in his scalp. The blood was running down over his face and bosom and some of it was falling on the little boy, who was looking up in his father's face and crying piteously, "O! papa, let's go home; let's go home ; I don't want to go in the show ; let's go home." But Kelley paid no attention to the wails of the little fellow, and kept hunting for Billy Wilson, whom he accused of "shying the brick." On these occasions the town was literally trodden under the feet of men and beasts. Here full many a stalk of dog fennel fell beneath a maiden's foot, to waste its fragrance on the show day air. The smell of dog fennel reminds me of a show to this day.
The sidewalks and alleys, as well as the public square, were covered with horses and wagons; and the hitching of horses continued out on every road to the woods, where it ended with swinging limbs-the best hitch racks in the world for the "pull-back" horses. There were few side shows in that day. The only one I remember contained wax figures of Napoleon, Josephine, Hortense, and Eugene. They were looked on with something of the awe of great-
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ness. Napoleon's wonderful achievements were fresh in the minds of the middle-aged people of that day, and the average American's sympathies were with Napoleon in his wars with the crowned heads of Europe. The President and Congress of that day would no more have thought of sending a delegation to Britain to honor and witness the coronation than of burning the Constitution of the United States. It must be, surely, that John B. and B. Jonathan are much more in love with each other now than they were then. So mote it be. It will not hurt anybody.
The show auctioneer was a real quantity, with his razors, lather boxes and brushes, and castile shaving soap (there were no whiskers nor mustaches allowed to grow on Indi- ana soil in those days and every man was his own barber), together with his "Cheap John" jewelry and patent pills and nerve and bone liniment, needles, and pins, ribbons and hair oil, cinnamon drops, and cloves.
With all of these and a tongue that could wag two hours without resting, this poll parrot kept the groundlings roar- ing with his witticisms, while he gathered their "bits" and "picayunes" in a manner that fairly made them hold their breath when they came to their senses. Many a money purse went back home that day as empty as a fopdoodle's head. But who can measure young people's joys, emotions, sentiments, and love of romance on show day, with a money bag? Not I.
It appears that the first exhibition of wild animals in Martinsville was in 1832, nine years after its establishment as the county seat. About all that is known of this wan- dering menagerie is that it got here some way now un- known to the oldest inhabitant, paid a five-dollar show license, and proceeded to roar the lion, make the leopards jump over the broomstick, lead the elephant around the ring, and ride the pony with a monkey, to the inexpressible delight of the boys and girls then and there present.
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Now, be it understood that all people in a show, for a certain purpose, are of the same age, from a graybeard to a spring baby. The pious and prudent may inveigh against the show or circus, but that enchanter looks them in the face, whether on the road or in the ring, as long as it is in sight. In shows all are juvenile again, with eyes and ears wide open. This was an animal show, with no circus per- former, barring the monkey.
The children of the pioneers had seen bears, panthers, wolves and wolverines, wildcats and catamounts, dead and alive, but their eyes had never beheld the lion, tiger, leop- ard, or ponderous elephant, and for hundreds of children born in Morgan county this was the first sight they ever got of those tropical animals.
Allow me to digress long enough to mention a lion which was exhibited in Brookville, Indiana, about 1828, that created a sensation much above the average king. He was in all probability the first and greatest lion ever shown in the State. He was about twenty-five years old. It re- quired six horses to haul the den from place to place. He was the only animal of importance in the show. But the most wonderful thing about this beast, aside from his enormous size, was his power of roaring and the readiness with which he obeyed his keeper when commanded to shake the heavens and earth with his voice. Children screamed, men stopped their ears, women fainted, while window glass was cracked in nearby houses. The curious thing about this roaring episode was that the keeper could command him at will, something seldom attained by a lion tamer.
This was not a roaring farce, as some may think, but a roaring fact which the Brookville people often referred to when talking about the king of beasts. But leaving the big lion, which was almost the whole menagerie, we come back to Martinsville, for by this time, 1833, showmen had
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learned where to stick their posters and gather a crop of bits and picayunes.
Benedict & Eldred appeared this year with a moderate circus and a striped clown, paid a five-dollar license fee for their ring work and carried off a little more money than they had brought with them. But 1834 was the great show year of early times. First came J. D. Fogg, April 17, who paid ten dollars license. I do not know why the authorities charged Fogg ten dollars, unless it was to discourage circus performances, which in that day were thought to be im- moral, especially when lady equestrians participated in the whirl. This show would have been frostbitten but for the kindness of the weather. We feel sure it found plenty of mud and dirt and high waters.
July 17, Miller & Company came along with a menagerie alone, and paid five dollars license fee. About an average number of people was said to be at the show. After that, August 11, came S. Butler & Co. with a mixed concern. Again the license was five dollars. Although the people of Martinsville and vicinity were always "kind and conde- scending" to shows and desirous of encouraging all educa- tional institutions, they felt that they had seen about as many gymnastics and zoological specimens as were profita- ble in one year. Mr. Butler, however, got enough money to keep from being stranded in middle Indiana.
In 1835 came the Bailey Company circus and menagerie combined. It being the only exhibition that summer, it gathered a goodly lot of plums and scattered plenty of juvenile delight among the boys and girls and had some left for the children of larger growth. It went on its way to other plum orchards, notably Bloomington, then the Athens of Indiana.
In 1836, Frost, Husted & Company appeared on the dog fennel with an up-to-date circus. They also had a kangaroo,
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an ostrich, and some tropical birds, for the old folks to look at. At this date the scribe, then a lad of thirteen, "began to take notice a little," and scraped together a quarter of a dollar to buy a ticket. Considering the backwoods, bad roads, and endless obstacles, the company gave the people the worth of their money. The horses were fine animals and richly caparisoned; the performers were no less gor- geously attired and the acting up-to-date for that day, while the string band has seldom been excelled in Martinsville.
At the close a beautiful girl and young man played "The Shepherd and Shepherdess." And I suppose about one hundred and fifty men and boys, more or less, fell in love with that girl in fifteen minutes, but not one of them ever saw her again after she rode out of the ring.
From the year 1836, shows appeared once or twice a year with great regularity, usually in midsummer. It re- quired a great amount of animal strength, both of men and horses, to move a hippodrome through Indiana fifty or sixty years ago. The roads were muddy, stumpy, crooked, and sidling, with steep grading, while the fording places of the creeks and rivers were always bad for heavy loads. As to bridges, they were out of the question in the early days of settlement. The distance traveled each day, Sunday excepted, for the whole summer was from twenty to twenty-five miles.
Only the best of horses could have endured the hard- ships. Many new horses were bought during the run of the season. As soon as a caravan arrived, the blacksmith's hammer began to ring, for there were breaks to be mended and horseshoes to be adjusted and tightened up.
So it was, if a show driver of the backwoods, of good descriptive powers, had kept a complete diary of his work, it would be better reading than a dime novel. About fifty years ago there was a large menagerie and circus that
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started early in the morning from Martinsville to go to Danville, Hendricks county. It had to ford the river about a quarter of a mile above where the I. & V. railroad bridge now stands. The bottom of the ford was soft near the north bank and the water rather deep.
We knew what was coming and were up betimes to see the dens and the big Roman chariot. Directly it came in sight, with the band comfortably seated inside of the showy vehicle. Several dens had been hauled over, but when the big chariot got about two-thirds of the way across, eight big horses tugging at it, it stuck in the sand. The driver made two or three unsuccessful efforts to start it. Every wagoner knows how difficult it is to start eight horses to- gether in a hard pull. Meantime Old Hannibal, ten feet four inches high and strong in proportion, came up. After allowing him to splash the water awhile, his keeper, taking in the situation, took him by the ear and directed him to the rear of the chariot. When the driver tightened his reins and cracked his whip, Hannibal quietly boosted the band wagon out of the quicksands and away went the horses in a canter for Danville.
When I heard that Hannibal had gone insane, killed his keeper and himself would have to be killed, I thought of the thousand of times ten thousand had looked upon him, of the thousands of miles he had traveled in a land far away from his native home, of the many things he had done, and of the wonderful power and sagacity he pos- sessed. He was indeed worthy to bear the name of the greatest commander who ever crossed swords with the Romans.
But the old-fashioned show on wagon wheels, pulling itself together at every county seat after a twenty-five mile haul through mud and dust, is like the bar-shear plow, the reap hook and flail, a thing of the past.
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The Barnums, Baileys, Sellses and others have com- pletely revolutionized the show business, and for order, precision, swiftness of movement, and overriding obstacles, they can give pointers to the best organized armaments in the world, to say nothing of economy. The rapidity with which they unload the caravan from the train, get in pro- cession, hoist canvas, cook and eat meals, perform afternoon and evening, fold their tents and leave, is the modern won- der of business skill.
But the great shows of modern times afford no greater delight than the exhibitions of old, when the swains of the woods led their sweethearts, hand in hand, round and round, hour after hour, talking soft nonsense and regaling them on gingerbread and Billy Harvey's spruce beer. There was no lager beer in those days, nor were there any lunch counters and restaurants. The show people generally ate all there was at the tavern, and "barked for more." So the boys had to resort to "Hoosier bread" and sweet beer, cider not having got here as yet, and lemonade was as far away as the Ohio river. No show in those days came fully up to public expectation without Uncle Billy Hale and ginger- bread. This inoffensive old man seemed to get more solid comfort to the square inch out of gingerbread than any person we ever knew.
About fifteen minutes before the show opened, the storm center was at the ticket wagon. Here men and boys jostled and jammed each other like pigs at a swill trough. Some of this scuffling looked like a modern game of football. Young men stationed their "best girls" a little way off to wait until they could get tickets, and each fellow wanted his tickets first. They hindered rather than helped each other.
The "snollygoster" from "Big Injun Creek," who had carried water for the thirsty camels and elephants until
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he was "powerful hot" in order to get a ticket, and was not recognized by the ticket man, was madder than a yellow hornet and "jist wanted that cuss out of that wagon long enough to start a graveyard with him."
But the man was too busy taking in money to consider the proposition. After the rush for the ticket wagon had subsided, the "goster" got his ticket and in he went like a nursing calf through drawbars, and none laughed longer nor louder than the "Snolly" from "Big Injun." Such was a show sixty years ago.
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IV.
PIONEER COMMERCE OF MORGAN COUNTY.
§20. EXPORTS AND TRANSPORTATION.
The first products for transportation in the county were furs, skins, and ginseng. On the river and large creeks, beavers, otters, and minks were numerous, while the black bear, deer, coon, panther, and wildcat ranged everywhere. There were plenty of wolves, but their skins were of little value.
A beaver skin was worth from $5 to $8, and an otter skin about half that sum. It took a skillful trapper to capture one of these animals. A green hand would not catch a beaver in three months. The trap must be com- pletely secreted, and the scent of the human hand and foot removed from the trap, and a "patent bait" so arranged as to decoy the animal into it before any reward need be looked for. Even after they were trapped they would, sometimes, cut their foot off and escape the hands of the trapper.
The smaller furred animals, such as coons, foxes, minks, and wildcats fell an easy prey to the common hunter and trapper. The panther was a very shy animal, seldom if ever caught in a trap. He was usually shot by the hunter after being rallied by dogs. The deer were most sought for of the wild animals, because they furnished both food and raiment. If you could now sit down to such a savory pot of young venison as regaled the hungry stomach of a first settler, you would pity those city fellows who make so much ado over a "mess of pottage" made of an old, worn-out buck, shot in Wisconsin a fortnight before, and hauled a thousand miles in a freight car.
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But the deer skins had a commercial value aside from their use for moccasins and buckskin breeches, which made a reliable part of the wardrobe of the men folks until some- thing better could be provided.
The pioneers of Morgan county could not "fill the buck- skin bag full of gold," but did better by filling them full of the pedal extremities of stalwart boys.
The surplus of deer skins was carefully packed and sold to the fur traders, together with all the other furs. Bear skins were used for covering old saddles, and, as housing for harness, and sometimes they were used for bed cover- ing in cold weather.
Of all the animals roaming the forest, none were wilder or more difficult to capture than the American black bear. If aroused in the morning he would usually run all day, unless the hunter was lucky enough to give him a dead shot. When brought to bay by dogs, he was decidedly the most formidable antagonist of the woods. No number of dogs were ever known to take a full grown bear without the help of a man and gun.
"Sang," beeswax, furs, skins, feathers, and a few other commodities of light weight, could be hauled over the roads to the Ohio river at Madison, Lawrenceburg, or Louisville, where they found a ready market with fair prices, the wagons meantime returning laden with merchandise for the storekeeper. But when corn and hogs, the staple prod- ucts of the county, arose above the home demand, other modes of transportation besides horses and wagons would naturally be sought after.
White river, though crooked and turbulent and abounding in snags, drifts, and abrupt cut-offs, was destined to be the great thoroughfare for Morgan county produce, and to con- vey on its restless bosom many thousands of dollars' worth of pork, corn, wheat, flour, mess beef, and lumber on their
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way to the Southern markets-generally to the city of New Orleans, a city then of 150,000 inhabitants and one of the best markets in the United States. The distance from Martinsville to New Orleans is computed at 1,800 miles by water.
The rivers are all crooked, and none more so than White river. A trip to the Crescent City and return was usually made in about six weeks, though there were one or two trips made in less than four weeks. These short trips were made by running day and night after reaching the Ohio river. There were instances where the cables were never tied between the mouth of the Wabash and the landing at the City. At other times the winds were so high that the boats were drifted ashore and tied up for a day or two at a time. At the time of year (March and April) when the boats were on their voyage, they often encountered thunder- storms and fearful winds, which made it rather uncomfort- able for a nervous boatman. Boats and crews were known to be sent to the bottom together by such warring of the elements, though the number was small considering the apparent danger, and none were lost in this manner from our county.
The greatest danger to the life of a flatboatman came from the sudden change that was made from the wintry winds of the North to the hot, sultry air of the South, which was brim full of malaria almost the entire year. This cause, together with the change of diet from the good and whole- some table comforts of home to the miserable makeshifts of an ordinary boatman as cook (who, heretofore, had never so much as baked a biscuit or made a cup of coffee), im- posed such new and crude duties upon a decent stomach and bowels as to cause a stubborn rebellion all along the line. Not only so, but many thoughtless boatmen drank freely of the water of the Mississippi river, without so
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much as attempting to settle or purify it, as should have been done. Indeed, I have heard some say, in a jocular way, that they had swallowed enough Mississippi water to form a sand bar within them. But these were men whose vital systems were so perfect that none of the above causes gave them any serious trouble. There were others who died the first trip.
That which was called the "Mississippi complaint" cor- responded very nearly to the "camp diarrhea" of the army, and when once fastened on a boatman was sure to give him trouble after, as well as before he returned home. Not many boatmen were drowned, though they were often knocked overboard, or accidentally fell in the water, and strange to say, some few men became boatmen who had never learned to swim. But the mode of transportation for heavy commodities from our county had other perils than those common to the boatmen.
The boat itself was liable to meet a snag, cleverly hidden beneath the waves in some sharp bend of the river, which would bore a hole in the bottom as large as a man's body, and sink her to the roof in thirty minutes. Many an enter- prising pioneer has seen the little all of property he had go to the bottom of White river in this way, and turned from the wreck with a sad heart, and bent his steps home- ward to meet and tell his young wife that all was lost. A little more than a half-mile north of where I write this sketch, there lies buried in the bottom of an old bed of the river, now entirely out of sight, the remains of a "stoved boat" which has been there more than fifty years. If in a thousand years to come there should be an excavation there, the question of the people would be: "How came this old hulk here and to what use did the inhabitants put it in the time out of mind?" The river in one of its char- acteristic freaks made a cut-off and has moved north half
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a mile, and within a hundred years people will be cultivating corn above the deck of that old flatboat.
In a sharp bend in the northwest quarter, section 16, T. 12, R. 1 E., two boats were stove in more than sixty years ago. A little later one was sunk about a mile above these, and one a short distance below High Rock. Just how many boats were built and loaded in Morgan county from first to last, or how many were sunk and the cargoes lost to the owners, will never be known, as no records can be found which throw much light on the subject. Nothing more than approximation to the number is attainable. An old Indiana Gazetteer in speaking of our county enterprises gives the number as twenty boats per annum, when we were at our best. I think that number too high.
§21. FLATBOATS AND BOATING.
Mr. Cutler at this time was operating an all-round back- woods store at Martinsville, representing a capital stock of about one thousand dollars, which was decidedly the largest establishment in the county. As money in those days was about as scarce as moral honesty in a modern grain pit or gambler's den, Mr. Cutler must have bartered much of his goods for such commodities as corn and bacon, which, no doubt, gave rise to the flatboat enterprise that afterward grew to such large dimensions.
And again, we may be allowed to suppose that the first boats were comparatively small, perhaps fifty feet long and twelve feet wide, with a depth of two feet and capacity of 75,000 pounds of freight ; whereas in the last years of boat- ing many boats were built one hundred feet long, twenty feet wide, with a depth of three and one-half feet, and capacity of 400,000 pounds. The general average was not far from sixty by sixteen feet, with a freight bearing ca- pacity of 170,000 pounds.
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It was a law of compensation that the larger the boat the cheaper the freight. Furthermore, it was soon learned that lard, bacon, and bulk pork were the most profitable products to ship from Morgan county. Although consider- able quantities of corn, wheat, flour, and lumber were shipped in an early day, not much of it was done toward the last. The reason is obvious enough, when a thousand pounds of the pork products would bring $50 in New Orleans, while the same weight in corn would in no case bring more than $8 or $10. Morgan county was always, practically, the head of navigation on White river, and more so after the building of the feeder dam at Waverly.
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