USA > Indiana > Morgan County > The pioneers of Morgan County : memoirs of Noah J. Major > Part 6
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animal body were widely different. In an hour or two after the stomach was relieved of the bread, the person was all right. Not so with the milk sickness. Not one in ten ever fully recovered from a virulent attack, though many might live for several years.
At this time there were no smut mills or other ma- chinery for cleaning wheat, not even a fan mill. It was ground as it came to its turn in the mill, just as you took it there. It was often trodden out under the feet of horses on a dirt floor, and the chaff blown out by means of two men holding a quilt or sheet, which sup- plied the fanning power, while the third man let the wheat and chaff down through a large wooden riddle. The first millstones were niggerheads, picked up wher- ever they came handy. And so it was: between the horses' heels, niggerheads, and dirt floor, he who ate most wheat bread had the most "sand in his gizzard." Not so with the corn bread. When a crop of good white "hackberry" corn thoroughly ripened it was a joy for- ever in a hoecake, johnnycake, mush or corndodger, and equally good for hominy and fritters. It was care- fully picked and shelled by hand, and had none of the flavoring of the aforesaid wheat. None but highly cul- tivated (?) people ate wheat bread in those days. But long since the tide has set in in favor of wheat. Now it is smutted and polished, rolled and bolted, and makes the best "white bread" the world has ever seen, while corn, though still "king," has been given a back seat by the millers, who persist, as a rule, in dumping it in the sheller just as it comes from the farm wagons. They may tell us their machinery thoroughly cleanses the corn, however dirty it may be, but no machinery can substitute sound for rotten corn.
But in those days the mills rapidly multiplied; the
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roads grew better "by neglect," the grains, both corn and wheat, were better matured, the distance to mill shortened, so the task of keeping "bread for the eater and seed for the sower" grew lighter as such succeeding year rolled by. This was good for our fathers, but our mothers must still mix the dough and bake the hoe- cakes and dodgers as of yore.
"Man's work is from sun to sun, But woman's work is never done."
Never done in the beginning of a new settlement, where, to the ordinary cooking and washing of dishes, pots, pans, and washing and ironing clothes, were added picking geese, shearing sheep, making soap and punkin' butter, washing and picking wool-which was even more burry than the worst flock of "church sheep" you ever beheld-carding and spinning, reeling and col- oring, warping and weaving webs for beds and tables and cloth for wearing apparel. To this was added cut- ting, fitting and sewing garments, knitting socks and stockings, patching and darning, day by day, year after year. Then, too, there was the baby, a periodical vis- itation of every eighteen months or two years, to be dressed and undressed, nursed and cared for as the case demanded. They milked the cows, churned the butter and made the cheese, tended the garden and looked after the pink and senna, rue and wormwood, saffron and sage, and, for the pure love of it, planted rows of marigolds, pretty-by-nights, touch-me-nots, cocks- combs and bachelor's-buttons, and the inevitable morn- ing-glory, which climbed over the windows and around the doorways.
But where did they get time to do all this work? At home, most assuredly. The wife and mother of that
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day abounded in staying qualities. She was, in- deed, the mainstay of the family, notwithstanding the more pretentious boastings of the "lords of creation."
In the busy months of spring and summer the men plied the ax and mattock, the plow and hoe, and were much of the time at home; but after this they roamed the forests at their own sweet wills. If time hung heavy on their hands, or they happened to have a fit of the "blue devils," they chased the fleet-footed deer or angled for the saucy black bass that was looking for a blue shiner.
If the exhilaration of fishing and hunting in those days, when the woods were teeming with wild animals and the rivers rippling with fish, would not recuperate the lost energies of a backwoodsman, he must needs be sent back to the old homestead to die in peace and be gathered to his fathers.
. There was little offered in the way of amusement or recreation for the pioneer wife. Devotion to family interests made her life one unceasing round of toil and self-sacrifice. If, when overworked, when worried and all worn out, she complained of her hard, monotonous life, she had in her husband a veritable Job's comforter, like Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zopher, except there was only one of him. He proceeded to comfort her with these words: "You know, Patsy Jane, that the Bible says somewhere, I can't tell just where, but I know it is there, for I read it once myself, and have never forgot it, because it struck me as such a proper thing to be in the Bible, that the man was made first, and the woman was made for the man, and not the man for the woman, and after they both fell down in Eden it was said to her: 'Thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee.' And there are other scriptures, such
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as : 'What can't be cured must be endured,' or words to that effect." Having delivered himself of this mas- terly speech, Bildad subsided and Patsy Jane went on with her work, not always convinced, however, of the truth or justice of her husband's logic, but acquiescing for the sake of domestic peace.
§12. SICKNESS AND SORROW.
Not least among the many drawbacks that beset the homes of the early settlers was the periodical ills grow- ing out of malaria. This subtle poison to human blood was as invisible as the little devils in rum. It was lurk- ing in all the low, moist, rich lands throughout the country, particularly in old deadenings, where the forest trees were rotting, and where the sun, for the first time in centuries, was kissing the dewdrops on the ground. It is somewhat remarkable that in all the animal king- dom the human family alone is susceptible to its deadly effects.
The old saurians bathing in it from year to year grew fat and sleek and to an enormous size, while one single summer and fall season was sufficient to transform a strong man or woman into the semblance of a tallow- faced ghost and take all the elasticity out of their steps and luster out of their eyes. Many men chose the higher and thinner lands for their homes, instead of the rich river and creek bottoms, preferring short corps to long spells of sickness. Even then they did not entirely escape the ravages of miasma, though its most deadly effects were in the lowlands. Sickness usually began in July, sometimes as early as wheat harvest. This was unfortunate, as many men were compelled to work when they ought to have been in bed, but they could
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not see their corps go to waste without making a heroic effort to save them.
Hot weather with copious showers of rain the last of July brought us face to face with cholera morbus, diar- rhœa, flux, and various forms of fever, all born of and nourished by miasma. One would have bilious fever, another remittent fever, still another intermittent fever, while a fourth would have ague-a sort of miniature earthquake-in the chimney corner. This last form generally came late in the season and was not thought to be dangerous, though to one unaccustomed to the sight it looked as if the patient would be dead in an hour after the shake began. Last of all came the "dumb chills," which were harder to cast out than the dumb devils of old.
The very early settlers had to combat these diseases with such remedies as were at hand and with such knowledge as actual experience could impart. The home remedies for chills consisted mainly of tonics made of a decoction of dogwood, wild cherry bark, and boneset. If this did but little good, it was thought to do no harm. Home-made cataplasms and mustard drafts were freely used. In addition to the above-men- tioned remedies, the more thoughtful mothers culti- vated many medical herbs in their gardens from which they prepared remedies for both old and young. With the exception of the periodical return of malarial fever, they were usually healthy; indeed, so far as can now be known, there was no great difference in the number of deaths per capita before and after the coming of the regular physicians.
April and May were the healthiest months of the year; August and September being the most sickly ones. Lung fever, as pneumonia was then called, was
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quite common in winter, but in a milder form than it now appears. Deaths from consumption were more numerous then than now, but deaths from apoplexy and heart disease were almost unknown, while insanity and suicide were seldom heard of. As all children and most men and women went barefooted in summer, and as stubs more and more abounded, stumped toes and stone bruises caused continued wail during the warm season, while toothache and sore eyes kept it up the year around. Ever and anon a leg or an arm was broken, or a foot cut with a chopping ax.
But these last-mentioned were considered among the lesser ills, and not of much importance when compared with a severe attack of bilious fever, the most dreadful of all. There was plenty of rheumatism and liver com- plaint, but neither gout nor typhoid fever. At times "ague cakes" would form in men's sides as big as a corndodger, and as a natural result would take all the "wind" out of the owners of the cakes. These "cookies" were formed by chronic ague. Dropsy often followed and carried the sufferer to the grave.
About 1823 the doctors came to the rescue, greatly to the relief of the people, for, say what we may, we all want the doctor when any of our family or friends gets seriously ill. We may gainsay his practice, grum- ble at his charges, but nevertheless we take his pills, bear the ills, pay the bills-that is, some do-and say no more about it. Our first doctors belonged to the school of allopathy. As there were no drug stores for many years, each doctor kept his own medicines and compounded his own prescriptions. The condition of the roads was such that traveling was mostly done on horseback, and so the doctors rode far and near, day and night, through heat and cold, rain or shine, to see
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poor and rich, good and bad, all sharing alike their care and attention. They forded rivers and creeks when they were dangerously deep. They slept and ate "catch as catch can," and during the more sickly season slept, if at all, in their saddles. The doctor's horse, saddle, and "pill bags" were as well known to the public as the doc- tor himself, and many an anxious heart leaped for joy when the watcher cried, "The doctor's coming !"
Of the three professions, law, medicine, and the min- istry, that of medicine in the early days imposed decid- edly the greatest wear and tear of mind and body. Not one among the first doctors lived to old age, while many of the other professions passed their three score and ten years. But what about medical practice sixty years ago and that of to-day? I need say nothing about the present mode of treating fevers further than to contrast it with the old-time method. As before mentioned, bilious fever in its most malignant form was the most to be dreaded. A strong man in a few days would be completely prostrated. So sick would he be that he could not take a morsel of food, even a drink of cold water turned against him, while the fever was cremating him.
The scientific treatment was decidedly heroic, and none but a heroic constitution could beat both the dis- ease and the remedy. The first thing prescribed was a dose of calomel and jalap, or, as Dr. Murdock, of Brook- ville, called it, "gallop and trot." If it did not respond in due time, a bottle or less of castor oil was sent after it, much like boys send ferrets after rabbits in the win- ter time, and with similar results. Then, when the fever was at "high noon" next day, the patient was bled in the arm to the tune of a bowlful of blood. By this time he or she was about exhausted. If the stomach
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was still rebelious, it was covered with a "fly blister," five or seven inches. When the blister had fully rip- ened the "bubbles" were carefully punctured and cab- bage leaves or a cataplasm applied to soothe the burn. While all this was going on, if the blister happened to inflame, which it often did, and the patient had a poetic imagination, he or she would have some flashlight views of Dante's Inferno. Sometimes another and somewhat different attack was made on this "buffalo biliousness" by administering a dose of tartar emetic-pure and un- alloyed-followed by copious drinks of warm water, to prepare the stomach for action. In about five minutes the battle began and, with repeated doses of warm water, lasted until everything took the back track from the bottom of the stomach upward, chyle, bile, and de- cayed vegetation. Then our good mothers, who usually attended us in our dire extremities, gave us corn gruel, which reversed the order of things, so that in about an hour and a half the battle was over and the results, in most cases, satisfactory. In either case, for twenty- four hours the patient was denied that which he craved most of all-a cup of cold water. Ah! then, what vi- sions of bubbling springs and rippling rills, of moss- covered buckets and flowing fountains came into the mind during the rolling away of those twenty-four hours. We had no clocks or watches then, and it seemed in truth that Joshua had again commanded the sun to stand still. But after a while it slowly went down and we were glad to see the shades of evening coming on. All the night long, in our dreams, we saw wherewith to quench our thirst, but dreams are unreal and decep- tive, and, waking, we found that we were mocked; no fountains near, and the edict was still in full force. Then we listened to the wings of the bats, the cater-
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wauling of the cats, the jeering of the owls and the nighthawks, and the monotonous quarrels of the katy- dids. But all things which ought to come do come to those who patiently wait. Morning dawned, the noon hour came, and with it the privilege of quenching our thirst, which, strange to say, was much less than twelve hours before.
About the year 1826, as we were told, sorrow reigned supreme in many a cabin home. In August of that year flux prevailed as an epidemic. Children as a class were much the greater sufferers. The Angel of Death crossed many a threshold and claimed one, two, and sometimes three from the same family circle. Little green graves were seen here and there in the lonely forest, moistened with the tears of sorrowing fathers and mothers, with only the mockingbirds and orioles to sing their funeral dirge. When death came in those early days of the settlement the family ofttimes longed to lay the life- less form of the departed one in the old churchyard, where slept their friends and kindred. But that was in Virginia, Kentucky, or Carolina, and there was no speedy transportation; so a lonely spot was selected on one's own farm and dedicated to that sacred use. Hence, so many scattering graves are seen as we go through the country, many of them unkept and un- fenced. Many a form, lovely in life, beautiful in death, lies sleeping in those lonely spots :
"Where willows sorrowing weep, And hawthorne encircle the grave."
But are not their names safely kept in the book of the recording angel?
In 1845 erysipelas scoured the country. It broke out in January and continued for five or six weeks. In some
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families the suffering was dreadful. In one household in our neighborhood a mother and grown daughter died the same day, while a third member of the family was not expected to live. This one, however, recovered, but in a family of eight only two escaped the disease. This was the family of John Garret, who then lived about nine miles north of Martinsville, and some of his descendants are in this city. Many other families were great sufferers from this epidemic. As the disease was contagious, it was with some reluctance that people ex- posed themselves in their attendance upon the sick. However, the sick were not allowed to suffer for lack of good nursing. The pioneers had a courage and fellow- feeling for those in distress that was truly commend- able. They were neither cowardly nor reckless in such cases, but, barring smallpox, no red rag ever came be- tween them and their duty to the suffering, for in those days the people never heard of the terrible bacilli. Now that we are blessed with so many scientific discoveries, selfishiness and microbes "doth make cowards of us all." In 1849 the cholera made its appearance in and around Martinsville. It did not appear to have been trans- ported, but its presence was probably due to local causes. For two or three weeks in May and early June the weather was very hot, with plentiful showers of rain attended with very little lightning or currents of air. Wet, sultry air was the condition, and diarrhoea pre- vailed to an alarming extent. During this time I met Dr. B. F. Barnard on his way to visit some country patients, and in the course of our conversation he re- marked, "If there were any cholera in the country, I would say I have several cases in the incipient stages." Four days later the doctor died of cholera, and in a short time two of his children, his father, and a nephew
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who was reading medicine with him also died, while his brother, Sylvanus Barnard, had a narrow escape. This created the greatest panic we ever witnessed in our county. Dr. Barnard was a young and highly respected physician, with a host of friends and patrons who were greatly shocked at his untimely death. He had fine social qualities which endeared him to the community in which he practiced; was a splendid nurse, often re- maining with a patient who was lingering between life and death. Perhaps it is not too much to say that no man in our county was ever so greatly missed, by sud- den death, as Dr. Barnard. The people generally were greatly alarmed, and it was reported that a widow living in town died with no one present but her little children. Cholera prescriptions everywhere abounded and pre- ventives were freely administered. It was on the 18th of June that the first case was reported, and by the 28th the worst was over. However, sickness was prevalent the rest of the summer and fall, due to flux, dysentery, and fevers. The people gladly welcomed the early frost which is one sure antidote for malaria. The removal of the forests, the ditching and tiling of wet lands, the con- tinued tillage of the soil, together with a better knowl- edge of the laws of health, and, in general, a more moderate and temperate mode of living, have greatly lessened the sufferings of the people from miasma. The present generation is comparatively free from the dis- tressing ailments of the first settlers. Aside from this, they have the help of the most scientific and best physicians that the world can produce. Instead of hav- ing to drink a pint of dogwood syrup or boneset tea (which is enough to upset the stomach of an ostrich), we now have the remedies nicely concealed in a capsule, which one may swallow as easily as a cherry seed.
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Blessed be that Indiana man who invented the capsule ! He should have a place beside him "who invented sleep."
§13. ECHOES FROM THE WOODS: HUNTING STORIES.
This fall, 1902, a day or two after the laws of Indiana turned the shotgun brigade loose, I looked out north and saw six men and three dogs hunting the quails that had been left over from the previous day's slaughter. Each man was armed with a breech-loading, double- barreled shotgun, with plenty of shells for all day; but alas! no quails were to be found, nor have we seen or heard one since. There were not more than two or three flocks hatched on the farm during the summer, and of these not one is left to tell the story of their destruction. Anti-prohibitionists are fond of quoting, "Prohibition does not prohibit." Here is a case where "protection" does not protect.
The quail family is practically exterminated, and the birddog and the shotgun are the prime causes. When nothing but the muzzle-loading rifle was the implement of death, the birds greatly multiplied; so much so that twenty-five years after the first settlement, one would not walk over a farm an hour without finding a flock of quails. At that time they were seldom shot. They were only taken with traps in the winter season. About the year 1850 the net was introduced, but the net and trap could never have so completely annihilated these birds as the dogs and guns have done. The sensible thing for the sporting fraternity to do would be to cork their shotguns for ten years and make their dogs into sausage meat. (The sausage could be fed to the crows.) After that time, traps only should be used. Of course, this
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would be a little hard on the "city sports," but they would still have the theater. the opera, the clubhouse, and other places of amusement, questionable and un- questionable. They certainly have no rightful claim on our farm birds. It might be a good thing to get the Legislature to fix a $5 tax on each shotgun, and send it along with the dog tax to the school fund; then we could increase the teachers' salaries. Perhaps, though. we would better see a good lawyer first and learn if such an act would be constitutional-the Legislature might not know about that.
But I did not start out to write about the present game law and the up-to-date hunters; but, seeing them trying to slip up on a bird or rabbit with eyes and ears wide open, finger on trigger, muzzle down, brought to mind the hunting days of old, when there were bunters "to the manor born," and deer and turkeys much more numerous than are rabbits and quails to-day.
But the old-time hunters, like those of the present day, had no "quittin' sense." I suppose they would have killed and skinned all the deer in Morgan county in one day if they could, and have sold the hides and horns to Samuel Moore the next day. (Mr. Moore once sent three wagonloads of bucks' horns to Louisville, Ken- tucky.)
As to the plentifulness of the larger game in this and adjoining counties at the beginning of the settlement by the white men, there can be little more than mere conjecture. Some placed the estimate as high as fifty deer to the square mile. This may not be too high, for William Fair, so long known about Martinsville, told the writer that one morning soon after he arrived here from North Carolina in 1825, he was walking along Skinner's Ridge, two miles northeast of town, and look-
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ing down the head of the ravine, he saw fourteen deer leisurely feeding on the peavine. As he had no gun he passed on, leaving them to the peaceful enjoyment of their morning's repast.
As this was five years after the coming of the white man and hunting had been the special employment of the squatter, the original number of these animals was probably greater than the above estimate. But counting four hundred square miles as the basis for our county, there must have been here in 1819 twenty thousand of these timid animals. This may at first seem startling, but there is nothing unreasonable in it after all things are considered.
First, as to the food question. Every old settler will tell you that the peavine of this country was most admirably adapted to the wants of the deer. Upon this they fed from early spring until the hard frosts in the fall.
For winter food, they had to depend on the oak and beech mast. When this failed, as it sometimes did, or when there came deep snows of long continuance with heavy crusts, then the deer ate bark, moss, and twigs. Of course, by spring time, they were often in very poor condition.
In the second place, this county was not a hunting ground for the Indians; at least there was no evidence of it at that time, and this fact would naturally diminish their destruction.
Panthers, wolves, and wildcats preyed upon the deer, and it seems marvelous that enough fawns escaped their teeth and claws to keep up the number supposed to exist in the uninhabited forests. But the deer family is almost as prolific as the sheep family, many does raising two fawns at a time. Every one knows how fruitful is a
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flock of sheep, and when fifty of them spread over a mile square of land, they do not seem very thick-one for a little more than thirteen acres of ground.
Next in importance was the wild turkey ; and in num- bers they were many times greater than the deer- probably five to one, or a hundred thousand for the county. In April, when the mornings were clear and balmy, the gobblers were heard in almost every direc- tion, and many of them were called up by the hunters and shot. The fall and early winter was the best time to hunt both the turkey and deer, as they were then unusually fat. Sometimes the turkeys grew to an enormous size. The writer's father, in the fall of 1833, killed a gobbler that weighed twenty-eight pounds, his head measuring ten inches. He was shot with a small squirrel rifle-flintlock-at the distance of one hundred and fifty steps to the root of the tree on which he perched, after flying from a hilltop about a half-mile across the river valley. He was so fat and fell so far that his breast was burst for five or six inches in length. It was wonderful that a bird of such weight could so long sustain itself on the wing. From the time it left the shell the life of the turkey was in constant danger from the rapacity of wolves, wildcats, foxes, and panthers; besides these, there were the hawks and eagles watching for it. The marvel is that they accum- ulated in such numbers.
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