USA > Indiana > Morgan County > The pioneers of Morgan County : memoirs of Noah J. Major > Part 16
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As a man of business affairs, Mr. Parks was second to none, and of the prominent and influential men of the county, from the beginning of its settlement to the time of his death, he stood among the foremost.
His death occurred July 24, 1867, in the sixtieth year of his age. He and his wife lie side by side in Hill Dale Cemetery, beneath the marble angel that points to the "beautiful beyond."
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DR. FRANCIS A. MATHENY.
Dr. Francis A. Matheny was elected representative in 1841, '42, and '43. He was in partnership with his brother-in-law, Dr. Huff, in the practice of medicine, and this was the first medical firm in Martinsville. Dr. Huff may be remembered by the very old citizens of the town as the "blue doctor." He had been an epileptic and had taken such heroic treatment that it turned his complex- ion almost as blue as an indigo bag. He confined himself mostly to office work, while Matheny did a large prac- tice, riding near and far. Dr. Matheny was no respecter of persons, but treated the high and low, rich and poor to the best of his ability, and seemed to take no thought about the payment of bills. He early won his fame as a physician by treating Mrs. Delilah Parker, a patient who had been given up to die by Dr. Sims. At that time Mr. and Mrs. Parker were very poor people, not at all pre- pared to nurse the sick after modern methods. Indeed, nobody was. They, with their four children, lived in a round log cabin, in the midst of a tract of river bottom land where, on account of the thickness of weeds and underbrush, the sunlight seldom touched the ground; where malaria and mosquitoes flourished like a pest- ilence at noonday. Under these conditions, Mrs. Parker was stricken down in midsummer with a complication of diseases. Dr. Sims made a few visits and then gave up in disgust. Matheny took the case and visited the patient once during each twenty-four hours for about two weeks. By this time she showed signs of improve- ment and finally recovered her health, and lived sixty summers after this fiery trial, dying at the age of ninety- five years.
Dr. Matheny was an aggressive Democrat, who
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walked into the political arena with considerable cool- ness and cudgeled the old Whigs with antibank argu- ments and taunted them with President Tyler's veto, until they wished him "in Halifax," where old settlers were wont to send all their troubles. The Whigs pro- nounced him a "blatherskite," but the people pronounced him their representative for three consecutive terms, after which he moved from Martinsville, we know not where, but surely not to Halifax. He was a member of the Methodist church, an honest, blunt, straightforward man-something of a diamond-in-the-rough type.
ALEXANDER B. CONDUITT.
Alexander B. Conduitt followed Dr. Matheny as repre- sentative, being elected in 1844 as a Whig, and in 1848 he was chosen senator; again in 1856 he was honored with a seat in the Lower House. He is the oldest living representative of Morgan county, it being now nearly fifty-seven years since his first election. If we rightly remember, he was never beaten for any office for which he was nominated. Though some of his majorities were quite small, he always managed to win.
Mr. Conduitt was born in Bedford, Kentucky, October 6, 1818, and came with his father and family late in the '30's to Indiana, finally settling in or near Danville, Hendricks county, where the father soon after died, leaving the wife with six small children, Alexander being the oldest. The mother was so prostrated with sorrow and grief at the sudden and mysterious death of her husband that the care of the family in the matter of pro- viding devolved principally upon the oldest son. But few people nowadays can appreciate the situation of a mother left in the wilderness with a houseful of little children, to beat off the wolf as best she can until they get self-sustaining.
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Mr. Conduitt started in life as an errand boy for Samuel Moore, of Mooresville, with nothing more than his own willing hands, a level head, and a suit of plain clothes. But it is a matter of history that a large per cent. of the most successful men and women in litera- ture, law, journalism, merchandising, and so on, have thus started. Our subject was no exception to this rule. He soon won the confidence and esteem of his employer and was taken in as a partner in the mercantile business in the then thriving town of Mooresville. Pork packing, flatboating, and farming were soon added, and he was as busy as a bee from this time on, until age bade him call a halt. "The spirit is yet willing, but the flesh is weak."
In 1838 he was joined in marriage to Miss Melissa Hardwick, daughter of the late John Hardwick, who was a very early settler and also a Kentuckian. The newly married couple soon moved to a fine farm one mile east of Mooresville, where they continued to live until after their nine children were born.
In 1860 Mr. Conduitt moved to Indianapolis, where he enlarged his business and was very successful. His busi- ness partners at various times were Moore, Reagan, Tarkington, Landers, and O. R. Dougherty.
Like most Kentucky and Hoosier boys of the long ago, Mr. Conduitt had to pick up his education in bits- here a little and there a little-sometimes in the old, cold, windowless, log schoolhouse for sixty days in mid- winter, with a teacher endowed with plenty of good muscle and with little else. But he pressed into service good books, tallow dips, and hickory bark, and, so far as he could, made amends for the lack of trained teach- ers and star lecturers.
In his prime he was among the best informed men in
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the State on trade and finance. As a speaker he was more logical than persuasive, seldom indulging in anecdote or story. One incident in his life shows he never forgot his sorrow-stricken mother. It was in the days when there were few easy conveyances for travel in Indiana-when every one went in a wagon-when everything for a general store had to be hauled from the Ohio river. He fitted up a wagon so as to make the trip as comfortable as possible, and took his mother back to Bedford, Kentucky, on a visit, to see if the trip and the visiting old friends and scenes of childhood would not wear off some of the gloom. He returned by way of Madison, bringing such dry goods as he could con- veniently pack in the wagon.
Mrs. Conduitt, who was a most estimable wife and mother, and a veritable helpmate to her husband, passed to her rest and her reward a few years ago. The vener- able husband and children can never forget the one who so faithfully "guided the house" for many years in that common-sense way of the good wives and mothers of the West.
Mr. Conduitt at present is not in good health, but as the shades of the evening of life are pressing nearer each succeeding day, he can look back through a long, industrious life, well spent in close connection with those who transformed Morgan county from a rich, unde- veloped spot of earth into a beautiful habitation for man.
ISAAC W. TACKITT.
Isaac W. Tackitt was elected by the Democrats in 1845, and was again elected in 1854, in connection with the Know-Nothings, and afterward affiliated with the Republican party, having changed his politics during the great upheaval of the slavery question in the early fifties.
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He was born in Allegheny county, Virginia, in 1807; came to this county as early as 1840, settling in Harrison township, where he followed farming as the principal business ; was also a cabinetmaker and joiner, as well as something of a lawyer, which stood him well in hand, as he was often guardian, executor, administrator, and justice of the peace.
He was fond of politics, an intelligent, broad-minded, and useful citizen, who earned and kept the respect of his neighbors to the close of life. His death occurred in 1863, in the fifty-sixth year of his age.
Mr. Tackitt was twice married and the father of eleven children, of whom only three are living.
OLIVER R. DOUGHERTY.
Oliver R. Dougherty represented our county in 1846-'47. He was a Whig in politics and afterward a conservative Republican. He was born in Marion county, this State, in an early time of the settlement of central Indiana, his parents being among the first settlers and perhaps from the State of Ohio. Of his early life and school days we know but little; however, of this we are assured that while a resident of Indianapolis he read law with the firm of Wick & Barber. He came to Mar- tinsville about 1842 and immediately began the practice of his profession, but soon took a position as deputy with James Jackson, clerk of the circuit court. Here is an instance of a Democrat appointing a Whig, and so faithful was Mr. Dougherty in his deputy service that he received the nomination by the Whigs and was elected as the successor of Mr. Jackson. His whole official record was without spot or blemish. As attorney and advocate he stood high, was very attentive to his trusts, and moderate in his charges.
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Part of the time he resided in Martinsville he engaged in farming and merchandising. In or about 1870 he moved to Indianapolis, where he became for a time a partner of Alexander B. Conduitt in the wholesale gro- cery business. Here in 1872 his estimable wife died. Before marriage she was Miss Katherine Sims, daughter of Dr. John Sims, of Martinsville. To them were born four or five children, one of whom, Claude, a very bright boy of twelve years, was accidentally drowned while bathing in White river. This sad calamity cast a gloom over the family that was not dispelled for years.
He married for his second wife Miss Pope, of Frank- lin, a teacher in the city schools. To them were born three children. The family now all reside near Pasadena, California, where Mr. Dougherty owns good property. Although nearing life's setting sun, we are glad to learn that he still takes a lively interest in the moral and intellectual progress of humanity.
ALFRED M. DELEVAN.
Of Alfred M. Delevan, who was representative in 1848-'49, a senator in 1850-'52, we know little more than that he came from the State of New York to Indiana about 1840, and settled on a farm in Adams township, where he soon became known as a man of considerable intelligence. "He had all the thrift and energy of a well- trained New Englander. He was a carpenter by trade and a minister in the Christian church. He took a lively interest in public affairs and made a clean canvass on the Democratic ticket. He was married and had an excellent wife and children. About 1855 he sold his Adams township farm and moved to Missouri, where soon after he died. The world is always bettered by the life of such a man as Alfred M. Delevan.
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WILLIAM P. HAMMOND.
William P. Hammond, elected to the Lower House in 1850, was born and brought up in Brookville, Indiana. When quite young he married a Miss Woster, whose father was considered wealthy for that day. Mr. Ham- mond acquired a good education ; this was supplemented by reading law. About 1848 he came to Martinsville, and in the firm name of Woster & Hammond, set up a general store on the corner of what is now the Cunning- ham block, in the old frame house then owned by Will- iam Shearer. In connection with his other business he practiced law. But the results were not satisfactory, at least not to Mr. Woster. The goods were removed and the unpaid accounts put into the hands of James Cun- ningham for collection.
Mr. Hammond was something of an orator, and this, perhaps, more than any other qualification, won his nomination and election by the Whig party. His stay in the county was quite short for a representative of the people.
ENOCH S. TABOR.
Enoch S. Tabor was the first representative elected under the New Constitution as it was then, 1852, called. Under the old constitution representatives were elected every year, on the first Monday in August, and senators every third year, but after the adoption of the new con- stitution the time was extended to two years for repre- sentative and four for senator, the session beginning Thursday after the first Monday in January. Hence we have had only half as many assemblymen under the new as under the old constitution.
The time, also, for the election was changed from the first Monday in August to the second Tuesday in Octo-
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ber. Mr. Tabor was, as is seen, a member of one of the most important Legislatures ever convened in the State, there being much new legislation required to fit us to the conditions of the new organic law. We may pause here long enough to show how groundless were the fears of even the wisest and bravest men, and how race pre- judices can lead them astray from the law of inalienable right. That convention, which was rightly esteemed as wise, just, and honorable a body of men as had ever assembled in the State, deemed it imperative to incor- porate the thirteenth article prohibiting negroes and mulattoes from coming into the State and imposing fines from $10 to $500 on all persons employing, harboring, or otherwise encouraging them to seek homes in Indiana, and making it the duty of the Legislature to enact laws that would leave the black man completely at the mercy of the white man. If a black man of Indiana married a black woman coming into the State after the adoption of this constitution, he was heavily fined and imprisoned; if he could not or would not pay his fine, the marriage was declared void.
In that day the negro was a great bogie-the negro equality and amalgamation being greatly feared. Yet it remains true that the greatest harvests of "amalgamation" were reaped when slavery was at its zenith; and as for negro equality, it is as far away, both North and South, as it was when the Thirteenth Article was adopted. It is a law of the human mind to stigmatize, slander, and abuse those whom we have injured. A man "must be born again" before he willingly rights a wrong he has committed against another; and so must a nation.
Mr. Tabor was one of Morgan county's most respectable representatives. As a speaker he was dignified and cour- teous, but earnest and combative. He was a fairly good
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debater and kept his opponent on the lookout. Long before and at the time of his election he was a Whig, but when that party "bit the dust" he walked henceforth with the Democrats. In sentiment he was proslavery; in religion, Calvinistic; a minister of no mean ability in the Two-Seed Baptist church. He farmed for a living and preached with- out remuneration. He began his ministry quite young and continued it to the close of his life.
He was born in Mead county, Kentucky, May 10, 1807. His ancestors were Irish and German. He was four times married and father of eight children, five of whom are living. To Mrs. William Radford we are indebted for the family record and other items in this sketch. She is a daughter of his first wife, Miss Sarah F. Dugan, to whom he was married October 16, 1834. He came to Morgan county in August, 1849, where he continued to reside until his death, which occurred at Martinsville, September 9, 1878. He was an honest, sincere, and conscientious man who had, at all times, the courage of his convictions.
ALGERNON SIDNEY GRIGGS.
Algernon Sidney Griggs became our State senator in 1854 and joint representative in 1868. The political caul- dron at that time was a seething hodgepodge. The South was measurably united in the interest of slavery and its extension into the Territories, while the antislavery people, notably in the North, were divided.
The Abolitionists were for knocking the shackles off the slaves at once and forever. But this following was so small that little hope of success was entertained by the most enthusiastic partisan. Their leaders were the ablest and most stormy advocates this country has ever produced. Next came the Emancipationists and Colonizationists, with the Liberian scheme. They would buy and ship the negroes
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to Liberia-that miniature Tophet from whence no traveler returns, or very few of them, and to which the negro would not go if he could, preferring to "endure the ills he had to 'sailing' to those he knew not of."
The largest number of antislavery men fell in with the idea of the Free Soil party. "No more slave States" was the slogan of this organization, and it caught the ear of many a voter who responded with his ballot in 1856. Meantime, the old Whig party was shriveling up like the barren fig tree. The attempt to "carry water on both shoulders" did not prove a success, so far as slavery was concerned. Even that great light and pillar of the Whig party, Henry Clay, could no longer compromise the differ- ence between the North and the South. The slave owners had snapped a ring in the Democratic party's nose and ren- dered it quite docile for a time. Foreign immigration had been pouring in at a great rate for ten years, and it was noticeable that a large per cent. of foreigners voted the Democratic ticket, particularly the Irish, who, on election days, were said to yell: "Oorah for Martin O'Buren, the first ; three jiggers of whisky and a dollar a day for wages, and no more hangin' for st'alin'." For the most part, they were as ignorant of the demands of free institutions and good citizenship as they were of astronomy.
This state of affairs provoked a good deal of comment, especially when they were led to the polls and voted by party manipulators as soon as the ink was dry on their naturalization papers. This, with the general upheaval of the politics of the times, led probably to the organization of the American party, commonly called the Know-Nothing party. There were Know-Nothing lodges in which their campaign plans were matured, and they moved with such celerity along the line of battle that the staid old Whigs and staying Democrats were unhorsed in the first onset.
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They gained a complete victory in 1854. But this move- ment was like the seeds which fell upon the stony places where they had not much earth, and when the sun was up they were scorched. No secret political order will bear the sunlight of an intelligent republic. While it is true that hundreds of Whigs and Democrats in this county had a flirtation with Miss Know-Nothing in 1854, yet the glory went glimmering in the next campaign.
Judge Griggs had been a Whig prior to 1853. The American party was principally merged into the new Re- publican party in 1856. The Judge, though not a candi- date at this election, took a lively part in the canvass, stumping the county for Colonel Fremont and the whole Republican ticket. From this time on to the close of his life he was a stalwart Republican.
Judge Griggs was born in Baltimore, Maryland, Septem- ber 22, 1815. He was left an orphan at the tender age of four years. He was quite young when he came to Indiana. He was a graduate of Hanover College and well read in law when he came to Martinsville in 1837, where he imme- diately began the practice of his profession, which he continued so long as he remained with us. He held many positions of trust besides senator and joint representative. He was judge of the probate court in the forties.
Later, when the Civil War broke out, he became actively engaged in the enlistment of troops for the Union army, and made many ringing speeches for the boys in blue.
In 1844, he was joined in marriage to Miss Phobe Hutch- inson, of Plymouth, Jennings county, Indiana. To them were born eight children, four of whom are now living, Mrs. Kate McBride, Mrs. Viola Grubbs, Mrs. Ida Parks, and Mrs. Phoebe Smith, the others dying in infancy. He was a Royal Arch Mason and a member of the Methodist church. He was a man of polished manners, and his
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domestic and social qualities were of a high order. He was a good conversationalist, as well as a fluent public speaker.
After the death of his most estimable wife in 1873, he made Washington City his home, where he closed his earthly life December 17, 1887. His remains were brought back to the old home and placed by the side of his com- panion. "They softly lie and sweetly sleep" in Hill Dale Cemetery.
CYRUS WHETZEL.
Cyrus Whetzel was elected to the House of Representa- tives in 1858. He was the most distinguished pioneer of Morgan county and probably the foremost backwoodsman of the General Assembly of Indiana in this or any other session.
He was born in Ohio county, Virginia, December 1, 1800. At eight years of age his father moved to Boone county, Kentucky. In 1811 the family came to Franklin county, Indiana, and settled on the Whitewater river, where the beautiful and picturesque little village of Laurel now stands.
Here the family remained until 1818, when the father, who was of a roving disposition, concluded to go to Old Vincennes and for that reason went to Chief Anderson, of the Delaware Indians, at their village where the city of Anderson now stands, and got permission to cut a trace from the Whitewater to White river. The route was due west across the counties of Rush, Shelby, and Johnson, and the distance on a straight line about sixty miles. This was the first line marked out for travel by a white man from the border settlement of the east to central Indiana and was for a long time known as "Whetzel's trace." It would be interesting and instructive to know how young
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Cyrus and his father performed this arduous task while as yet the Indians and ravenous wild beasts held undisputed sway in the unbroken forest.
When the elder Whetzel arrived at the Bluffs of White river and cast his eyes whither he would, he was so charmed with the many advantages, present and prospec- tive, that the Vincennes project was abandoned altogether, and he set about staking off sixty acres of land in the valley a few rods below where Waverly is built. Here Cyrus Whetzel worked and won and remained during life.
After the pathway had been blazed and the party had returned home, preparations were made for returning to White river camp early in the spring. Cyrus, his father, and a young man whose name is forgotten, traveled the narrow path again in the spring of 1819, bringing such things as were absolutely necessary for starting a home in the very heart of a wilderness. They built a primitive cabin and began clearing ground for corn and a truck patch, and in due time the corn and vegetables were planted. The season was propitious, and in the fall there was enough provision assured to warrant the moving of the family to the new home. The elder Whetzel went back to his White- water home in April, where he remained until fall, when he brought his family to this county for permanent resi- dence. Young Cyrus, then eighteen years old, passed the summer previous to the coming of his father's family, with a Delaware Indian and his faithful dog.
He established the first ferry across White river in the southern part of the county, in 1827, and owned and oper- ated it until 1862, when he sold it to George Shaffer. He turned his attention to farming rather than to hunting, as was the custom of his forefathers. At the age of fifty years he was in possession of one of the best farms in Har- rison township, with a good dwelling and a large, commo-
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dious barn. At his hospitable home many a weary traveler enjoyed a good rest as he was going to and from the State capital. Mr. Whetzel had good social qualities, and these, together with his almost inexhaustible fund of backwoods lore, made him a welcome guest wherever he went. Near the close of life he often appeared in the circuit courtroom at Martinsville, where he found amusement in the tangled witnesses, the tilts of the lawyers, and the "sitting down" of the court upon some young scion of Blackstone.
Bending under the weight of years, which had been made heavier by the hardships of pioneer life, he passed away December 16, 1871, his wife and most of his children preceding him to the grave. They rest in the old country graveyard near Waverly.
Though not a church member, he was a liberal contrib- utor to, and a well-wisher of the church in all branches of its work. He was a conservative Republican from 1856 to the close of life.
JOHN W. FERGUSON.
John W. Ferguson was elected to represent the people of Morgan county in the State Legislature in 1860. The cam- paign of this year was the most intensely earnest and excit- ing political contest that had ever occurred up to that date. At least four-fifths of the people were radical and deadly in earnest. The days of compromising the question grow- ing out of slavery had passed, never to return.
All parties were well organized and equipped with telling speakers. Perhaps it was the most intellectual battle ever fought for free institutions in the world's history. I mean in the Free States, not in the South; for there free speech was but a dream. There it took a man like Cassius M. Clay, with an armful of revolvers and a gizzard full of sand, to give full expression to his views. There, the hot-headed
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