USA > Indiana > Morgan County > The pioneers of Morgan County : memoirs of Noah J. Major > Part 4
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The social equality and neighborly relations of this community sixty years ago were not surpassed any- where in the county. Nobody was rich, none very poor, and there was not a beggar or a pauper within its bor- ders. Steadily, but surely, since that day has the chasm between poverty and riches widened and deepened. Judged by the standards under which we live at all times, these men and women have graded as first class. The status of the neighborhood was foreshadowed by the personalities of its members. We spoke of the sterling character of George Matthews, the first to lay an ax at the root of a tree in this settlement. Then Isaiah Drury, who took great interest in county affairs and was school commissioner in 1832, and who built the first brick house on the road from Martinsville to Mooresville. Alexander Cox was an excellent farmer, and the descendants of his five sons and two daughters, remaining in this county, are perhaps more numerous than any others. John Stipp, of Virginia, on his road West, stopped long enough at Mad river, Ohio, to build mills and lose money, then he came to this county, where his ship swung to anchor the remainder of his days. He was a man of indomitable courage and energy and never tiring industry, a friend to his friends and a foe worthy of the steel of an antagonist. His sons were Peter, who never lived here, Michael, Martin, Benjamin, John A., and Abraham, and his daughters were Mrs. William Wall, Mrs. John Rudicell, and Miss Eliza. John A., Michael, and Eliza were never married. Abra- ham Stipp is probably the oldest early settler in Clay township, and among the last survivors of those who
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first came to this neighborhood. His son, Kelly Stipp, who owns the Michael Stipp farm, is the only descend- ant of the old settlers who owns a foot of land belong- ing to their ancestors, excepting town lots in Centerton.
Low down in the pocket lived Kester and William Jones. They sold out and left the county about 1834. Daniel Reeves owned a part of what is now the Brad- ford farm and sand mine. Mr. Reeves was a most estimable citizen, quiet and genial in his manners and habits, and beloved by his neighbors. He sold out soon after the flood and moved out of the county, leaving his daughter, Mrs. William Parker, and her children to represent him in the old settlement. He was a Ken- tuckian.
Elijah Lang, who was probably the oldest of all the old settlers, owned and lived on eighty acres of land situated in the southeast corner of the Bradford and Campbell farm. His house stood on the bank of the river. Near the close of his life he was greatly afflicted in his feet and legs. His suffering at times was dread- ful, the worms taking possession of his limbs before their time. Mr. Lang was a great backwoods novelist. His stories were not written, but delivered orally. Each succeeding edition was enlivened with some new inci- dent, in which he appeared the hero. He died just before the great "washout." His children, or most of them, sold out their possessions and moved to Iowa, where they prospered reasonably well. They were members of church and much respected. Mr. Lang was also a Kentuckian.
It remains also to write something of the boys and young men who came with their parents, or alone, to this settlement, and who loved, wooed, and wedded the girls of their choice-unless the other fellows got them,
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as sometimes happened, whereupon they turned to a second choice, which often proved as good or better than the first one. They were not to be cheated out of matrimonial bliss because of a choice between Rose and Lily.
Among the younger men was Benjamin Stafford, who was born in Ohio in 1810 and came to this county in 1820. His first marriage, in 1830, was to Miss Ruth Gifford, who died young, leaving him with one child, a daughter, who in time became the wife of Martin Wall and died several years ago, leaving two sons, Charles and Noah. His next marriage was to Margaret Price, by whom he had eight children. After her death he married a Miss Sloan. No children were born to them. His fourth wife was Mrs. Susan Fry, a young widow with five sons. She added seven more to his family, making in all, sixteen children and five step-children. These all lived to adult age.
Mr. Stafford lived low down in the pocket when the tide of '47 came sweeping along, leaving him little else than a house, barn, and bare ground. He sold his bot- tom farm and bought one on Sycamore, where he lived to the close of his life in independent circumstances and in the enjoyment of his Bible, which, according to his own statement, he had read through many times, although he did not learn to read until his fortieth year. He was a Methodist and Republican. His life closed about his eightieth year.
The Gooch brothers, Philip, John, William, Dabney, and Jesse, lived near the brickyard. John died in 1836, leaving a widow (Delilah Lang) and two little boys. Philip and William moved west. Dabney and Jesse owned farms near the brickyards, but Dabney lost most of his property after the war for the Union, and Jesse
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sold his farm and moved to Illinois. In his younger days "Dab," as he was called, was a dear lover of amusements, particularly of dancing parties. There was usually a good supply of these in his neighborhood, to which he was always welcome, for he could "heel tap and toe" anything from a jig to a cotillion. But it was as a flatboatman that he took first honors, for he was equally at home in a boat or on it. He was a small, wiry man, knit together with the best of sinews, and could make a sweep oar quiver like a pike's tail. He made many trips on flats for Dr. John Sims. Once the Doctor took him from Baton Rouge out to a big sugar plantation to see an old schoolmate of the Doctor's, who had wandered South and married a rich young widow possessed of a large plantation well stocked with negroes and sugar kettles. Evidently he had struck a bonanza, for his wife was a real Southern gem-edu- cated, refined, and overflowing with genuine hospitality. But she could not keep her eyes off "Dab," for she had never seen anything to match him. Although seated in the magnificent parlor with carpets and mirrors and bric-a-brac, "Dab" was nothing daunted but took a lively part in the conversation between the two doctors and the hostess. He had permitted his great shock of hair and enormous whiskers to have a steady growth for months, and his keen blue eyes looked out from under his shaggy brows like the eyes of a lynx.
It was growing late in the evening and Dr. Sims spoke of returning to his boats, but his friend insisted on his staying all night with him. The good wife, seeing her opportunity to get rid of "Dab" said, "O, yes, stay, and this gentleman can take the skiff back and report, and come for you in the morning." It was so arranged, and after Mr. Gooch was gone and the conversation
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renewed, the lady asked Sims where on earth he had found "that fellow?" He replied, "Why, up in Indiana. There it is hard to find any other sort. I brought him that you might see a real, live Hoosier." After a moment's reflection, she said, "Doctor, do you think they can ever be civilized?" "Civilized, why they are already civilized. You folks down here shoot, stab, and kill ten men to our one, and yet you claim to be the most civil and gallant people in the States." "Well," said she, "I shall never forget the looks of a live Hoosier."
Late in life Mr. Gooch married a widow with four or five children. Sometime in the '60's the cholera was communicated to his family by a relative returning from the West, and his wife and one child died. With the weight of years came many sorrows, not the least of them being a demented mind. He lived to near his eightieth year. The Gooches were from Kentucky.
Adjoining neighbors to the Gooches were the Paul brothers, Gabriel and Andrew. Gabriel moved away at an early date on account of a tragedy in which his son was the principal actor. Several neighboring boys had congregated on Sunday and were playing on the ice, when young Paul and a boy named Collins got into an altercation. Paul stabbed Collins to death. The mur- derer was spirited away that night and was never afterward heard from by the public. It was an unpro- voked assault, and young Paul has the distinction of being the youngest murderer who ever lived in the county.
North of the brickyard lived Squire John Robb, the principal scribe of the neighborhood in its earliest days. He served at various times as justice of the peace, school director, and school teacher, besides administrator of several estates. He was an intelligent man of high
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character, and a soldier in the latest Indian wars. He lived to an old age, having brought up a large family of sprightly boys and girls.
Squire John B. Maxwell also served in a like capacity for many years. He was an honest, conscientious offi- cer of high standing and the head of a first-class family of children, some of whom became teachers. He lived to a ripe old age.
Michael Stipp was king of bachelors. Gossiping women and noisy, crying children grated on his nerves like the notes of a calliope. He had profound respect for the staid, sensible wife and mother, but for the snivelling, dawdling sort he had not the least admira- tion. He relegated them to men of blunt sensibilities. In dress he was plain, neat, and cleanly. He was slow to follow the changes in fashion. He did not believe with Beau Brummel that "starch makes the man," for once when a new washerwoman, unacquainted with his peculiarities, "did up his shirt" with starch, he threshed it over the back of a chair until it was as limber as a tent cloth. He was among the best farmers and stock feeders in his neighborhood, and decidedly the best economist. For more than fifty years he had lived on and owned the same farm. His note was at all times as good as the bank, and his word was never disputed. He was near an octogenarian when life closed.
The brothers, John and David B. Scott, lived near the bridge, where John owned and ran a ferryboat seventy years ago, the first ferryboat established between Martinsville and Mooresville, and operated with sweep oars and setting poles. Early in the '50's they sold their lands and moved to Appanoose county, Iowa, where they continued farming and stock raising. David took a drove of army horses to St. Louis during the Civil
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War, where he sickened and died, leaving a wife and six sons, some of whom became prominent in county affairs.
William Hardwick owned and conducted one of the prettiest little farms in this community. In 1835 he married Elizabeth Cox, daughter of Alexander Cox, and soon after moved to this farm, where he and his most estimable wife reared a family of five or six children who took rank among the first families. Here he and his wife lived to a good old age, revered by their chil- dren and much esteemed by their neighbors.
William Cox was the foremost carpenter and cabinet- maker in the county in 1832. There were none better then, few better now. Specimens of his work can still be seen in houses built sixty years ago, and you cannot slip a hair in the joints of the panel doors to-day. His wife-Aunt Eliza, as she was usually called-was among the best beloved women in the world. They raised a large family, most of whom fell victims at an early age to that common destroyer, consumption. The old folks closed out their long and useful lives at Centerton.
George Matthews, Jr .- called "Doc"-youngest of the sons of "grandfather" Matthews, was an adept in many things. He was millwright, carpenter, and vet- erinary surgeon; also a singing school leader, after the old style, with good colloquial gifts. He was a migra- tory bird, and in his flight visited England, where he made some reputation as a "horse doctor." He and his wife returned to their native land, where, after they had passed the meridian of life, and seen much sunshine and many shadows, they departed in peace.
Judge Hiram Matthews, although not a resident of this neighborhood in after life, had made it his play- ground when a boy. Fifty years ago no man in Morgan
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county was more generally known or more highly re- spected than Judge Matthews. He was a pillar of the commonwealth.
Since writing the first part of this sketch I received a letter from P. A. Brady, attorney of Greenup, Illinois, saying that his mother, Mrs. Sidney Brady, now living in Janesville, Illinois, is the youngest and only living one of the nine children born to Adelphia and George Matthews. She will be eighty years old January 13, 1900.
John A. Stipp, the village schoolmaster, was griev- ously tormented with rheumatism from his boyhood days. For many long years he suffered night and day with this painful disease. He resolved to make the most of it. He procured a copy each of Webster's speller and small dictionary, Pike's arithmetic, and Kirkham's grammar, and with the little start got in the subscrip- tion schools of that time he proceeded to qualify him- self for teaching, and for several years was engaged in the profession in his own and adjoining neighborhoods. He was equally good in the "single rule of three" or the double rule of "rods." He was a schoolmaster who was master of the school.
He was by nature genial and sunny; and though the child of affliction, yet he was ever patient and resigned, getting more out of life than others more highly favored. He departed this life at the age of three score and ten, "sustained and soothed by an unfaltering trust."
Many others could be named who are equally worthy of remembrance as connected with this settlement, but they belong to a later period of time-a period not in- cluded in these sketches.
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§7. THE OLD SETTLERS AT HOME.
It appears from the land office records and other cir- cumstances that about one hundred and seventy fami- lies-a population of some eight or nine hundred- passed the winter of 1822-'23 in our county.
You may now and then still find one of that number living. We know of two, who, if they live until the coming spring, will have passed eighty years of their lives in this county. They are William Williams and his brother John, sons of Jonathan Williams, a Tennes- seean and a soldier of the War of 1812, who married at the close of that war, and, with his bride, started to Indiana, packed on two ponies which were the proceeds of his army service. He arrived in Orange county, where he bartered his wedding suit for corn meal and bacon, and set up housekeeping in a little log cabin, in the primitive style, with a "continental" bedstead, some three-legged stools, slab table, pots, pans, and pewter plates.
How does this compare with the modern manner of beginning housekeeping-provided the young people have not already decided that it is in "better taste" to take rooms and board at a hotel? Mr. Williams and wife were not the only well-mated pair that started in the wilderness with little more than willing hands, brave hearts, and a nerve that would not down, and ended life with an abundance of the good things of this world. Philip Hodges, William N. Cunningham, Eph- raim Goss, Robert Smith, and scores of others who came here at an early day, started like Mr. Williams with less than a cartload of household goods.
They rightly belong to the first class of pioneers. These men chopped and hewed, grubbed and rolled,
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plowed and hoed, with their own hands. If a stranger had walked into a clearing or a corn field, in that day, he could not have told, from anything he saw, which was the employer and which was the employed. All were dressed alike in homespun clothes ; all alike sweaty and sooty. We talk boastingly of the present "horny- handed" granger.
The place to have found him at his best-a pure thoroughbred, without the taint of "lily-finger" on him -was in Morgan county in 1830, and several years before and after. Nor were these men alone or single- handed in their struggles for supremacy over the wil- derness. They were nobly seconded by their wives and daughters, than whom no better or purer have lived since the days of Lucretia of Rome. Women can be pure and good, and not renowned or learned, and such they were. Doubtless their great-granddaughters of to-day would regard them as very plain, and awkward in "society," quite ignorant, and possibly they might be ashamed to introduce them to their friends. Let the "grands" walk back in imagination seventy years and take a seat at the little spinning wheel and attempt to spin a thread from the distaff, or stand up and pull out a roll from the spindle of the big wheel, or warp a piece for the loom and throw the shuttle and trip the treadles to weave a yard of cloth, and they will find where awkwardness begins. But there is no need of such handcraft now. The great-grandmothers, if living, would be done with that hard and tedious toil. A more excellent way has been shown us. But at that time the best educated women were the women who knew what was best worth knowing, and would do what was best worth doing. We are inclined to think this is the highest standard ever raised-the only true idea of education.
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What of it, if a man carries a dozen languages-dead and alive-in his head and is himself a deadbeat? He is as "sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal." There is such a thing as a "learned fool," but we are almost cer- tain there was no such thing in our first settlement. Fools there were, no doubt, but not of the educated, artificial kind. God, who ofttimes "works in mysterious ways his wonders to perform," never makes the mistake of taking a colony of "dudes" and "dudesses," clad in "purple and fine linen," to drive out the wolf and subdue the wilderness for the habitation of man; but He takes stalwart men and womenly women-rough diamonds they may be-learned or otherwise, rude or polite, but who have the powers of endurance and the determina- tion to win in the strife. Such, for the most part, were those who first came to our county in search of homes which they expected to carve out of a wilderness hith- erto the abode of wild beasts and red men. The red men with their wives and little ones, had for the last time been bought off or driven from the soil of Indiana. That fearful struggle between "civilized" barbarian and savage barbarian has terminated in favor of the former.
The Indian had his choice to be thrust through with ball and bayonet or "take up his bed and walk." The question of right was settled by the question of might. No longer did the dreams of Kentucky's "dark and bloody ground" disturb the midnight slumber of the old settler ; he reposed as quietly in his little cabin home, miles from his neighbors, as did the babe in its sugar- trough cradle. This was a great gain over all former attempts at frontier settlements westward from the Atlantic seaboard. In our county "Old Glory" never waved over a bloody battlefield. The roar of cannon, the rattle of rifles, the yells of the charges, and the
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shouts of victories, these rock-ribbed hills and fertile valleys never heard. "But peace hath her victories no less renowned than war." Yea, more: "Peace is heaven, war is hell." Let us be done with wars. Our hands are clean of the blood of mobs or lynchings; murders and manslaughters we have had too many. Some escaped arrest, others broke jail and fled. Most of them had fair trials, while none were sentenced for life, or to be hanged. There have been at least five premeditated murders in the county, for which, if the prepetrators had received the sentence of the law, their last business on earth would have been "pulling hemp." The victims were a stranger, near the Old Bluffs, John Terrell and James Carter, of Washington township, and William Robe and Washington Brown, of Greene township. There have been about twenty manslaughters or homi- cides. Considering that the average population of the county for seventy-eight years would be as much as three thousand souls, this may not be so bad a showing.
We are an intelligent and educated people to-day, who will compare favorably with the best; but while our boys and young men attend church with a flask of whisky in one hip pocket and a revolver in the other, we should not boast of our advancement in morals and manners, or in temperance and church work. There is still plenty of room for ministers and missionaries, at home as well as abroad. Morality and Bible spirituality have not kept pace with intellectuality and the material development of the county, since the beginning in the memorable winter of 1822-'23.
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II. PIONEER HOME LIFE.
§8. MARRIAGE AND HOUSEKEEPING THEN AND NOW.
Families go before housekeeping, and marriage goes before families, and the principal incentives to marriage are much the same in all the ages. So long as men and women are in existence, they will marry; or, if not, one of two things will happen-the race will become extinct or brutality will reign supreme.
Some strenuous efforts have been made by feather- headed philosophers to establish a free-love system-a sort of fast and loose plan of playing at honeymoon- but the consequences and complications which naturally followed soon brought it into disrepute, for such a system was no better than that of the common barbar- ians. The solemn vows of marriage, that are of God's ordering, will never be improved by philosophers nor legislatures. Under certain circumstances they who marry do well, and they who marry not do better. "Let every man have his own wife and let every woman have her own husband," and let them strive earnestly and honestly to make their homes and their home associa- tions things to be more desired than "palaces and pleas- ures through which we may roam," for amusement only.
But as we started out to write how people married and made homes and "got on" in the world fifty or sixty years ago, we will stop moralizing. After four or five years of settlement the conditions favoring mar- riage were much better than they are to-day. The common wants of life, which fully satisfied common people, were ready for the hands of the industrious,
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wise, and prudent. The luxuries of life were yet far out of sight, and the magnificent was not even dreamed of. No false fads were then rattling in the brains of housekeepers. There was no dissatisfaction with the imperative duties of home life. Indeed home was as a general rule altogether the best place to be. People were generally contented with such things as they had or could readily obtain. There was much less class distinction than to-day and a pure democracy shed its benign influence over all.
These conditions made it easy for young married folks to begin housekeeping at once. The girl wife didn't demand or expect the boy husband to be in possession, or even in sight of his thousand dollar salary, before marriage. It was said in these days that they "married for love and worked for riches." That may have been, because love was much more plentiful than riches. It is better to grow lovely, than to grow rich; for they that will be rich fall into divers temptations. Anyway, they were so deeply in love in those backwoods, and so blissfully ignorant of what was to come, that they never thought of that much coveted thing denominated a dollar, which, nowadays, is continually ringing in some people's thoughts, especially when "matchmaking." True the fathers and mothers wished to be assured that the prospective son-in-law would be able to care for his family, in an honest and manly manner; for they would rather bestow a daughter on a man without money, than on money without a man. If we say here that the happiness, well-being, and home life enjoy- ment of a half-hundred years ago, was as good or better than to-day, the answer may be: "You were an opti- mist then,-you are a pessimist now." Old folks always think they did "beat all the world" when they were
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young, and that the world is going to the bad, as sure as they are going to their "setting sun." We plead not guilty to this soft impeachment. We are still opti- mistic, and believe that goodness must prevail; and that the world is slowly coming to know what is best worth knowing, and when it gets properly educated, it will do what is best worth doing; and that is to make and maintain reasonably good homes, - lovely homes, "Sweet homes," where books, birds, and joyful little folks do most congregate; and where souls are filled with the "milk of human kindness," and character build- ing is founded on the "Rock of Ages." However, just now there is a class that has voted home a "bore," housekeeping a nuisance, and servants a fraud. They get married, get disappointed, get discouraged, get "broke up," get mad, get divorced, and get "walloped" all through life, because they don't know how to get married and how to stay so. Society is somewhat to blame for this state of affairs. Many young people of to-day wish to marry; they love perhaps as ardently as young folks ever loved, but their affection is diluted with society fads. Married people of moderate means can no more meet the demands of modern society, especially in our towns and cities, with its balls, card parties, receptions, theaters, Saratogas, Long Branches, and Hot Springs, and at the same time give such atten- tion to the affairs of home life as will assure reasonable success, than a Christian can serve God and Mammon. Self-sacrifice is the wellspring of sweet home. They who will brook no self-denial had better keep their necks out of the marriage halter. A family cannot be at home attending strictly to domestic affairs, and attend to fourteen society calls per week. But there are other causes which are helping to trouble the matri-
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