USA > Indiana > Morgan County > The pioneers of Morgan County : memoirs of Noah J. Major > Part 7
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20
Besides hunting the turkey with the rifle, there was another way of taking them. A place would be chosen which they most frequented ; a pen built of small poles, ten or twelve feet square, four feet high, and covered with the same material. It would admit of as much light as possible. Then a trench would be dug in the ground across the pen and out under one of the side walls to a
315
THE PIONEERS OF MORGAN COUNTY
distance of eight or ten feet. Then the trench, beginning inside at the wall, would be securely covered over with a slab for about four feet, leaving the remainder un- covered and the bottom sloped up to the surface so the turkeys could walk up to the level of the pen inside. The trench was likewise sloped to the surface of the ground outside of the pen. When completed, shelled corn was strewn on the bottom of the trench from end to end and inside of the pen. Corn was also scattered out- side, about the end of the trench. If the turkeys fol- lowed in the trench, still picking up the grains of corn, until they passed the slab and were once entirely within the pen, they would get bewildered and run round and round trying to go through the cracks of the pen, and would never find their way back through the trench. Often five or six would get in at once, sometimes a pen full. There were stirring times in those pens when men went to take out the game.
There was once a boy by the name of Truman Higgs who by himself tried to "land" a pen full of old gobblers. They battered him with their wings and, in their fright, unwittingly scratched him with their feet until he was glad to crawl back through the trench and seek rein- forcements.
Whether or not there were ever many elks in this county, we cannot say. We never saw a man who claimed to have killed one, but we heard of him; how- ever, there is conclusive evidence that, at some time in the past, not very remote, some of these noble animals had ranged our forests. Their horns have been found everywhere, and particularly along the banks and sand- bars of White river. The last and most perfect brace of antlers we ever saw was taken out of White river by Otis Davee while fishing about a mile above the Barnard
316
THE PIONEERS OF MORGAN COUNTY
bridge. They still were joined to the skull and in a state of good preservation, although they had been buried three or four feet below water for perhaps hundreds of years. The last we saw of them they were in the Republican office at Martinsville.
Now we turn back to wolves, panthers, wildcats, and bears, which claimed the attention of not only the pro- fessional hunter, but all other men, and women, too, for the very sight of a panther or howl of a wolf terrified a timid woman.
Of the above named animals, the wolf was not only the most numerous, but decidedly the worst enemy of the old settler. His love for lamb, mutton, and pig meat, his keen scent, agility, and adroitness, made him a howl- ing success as a marauder. Everybody made war on the wolf and his annihilation was accomplished, not so much with the rifle-for he was seldom seen in the day- time-as with wolf pens and steel traps. Alone, the wolf was cowardly ; but in gangs they were daring and dangerous. They multiplied much faster than the panther or bear, but many of the young ones perished with hunger during their first winter. This was not the case with cub bears; in midwinter they could live for some time in a good den without food. Panthers were never very numerous in Indiana forests, but wildcats were nearly as plentiful as raccoons at the very begin- ning of the settlements. There were enough of the common brown bears to give the hunters and their dogs something to be remembered more than the amusement of the chase.
The gray fox and gray squirrel were the only kinds seen for fifteen years; after that time the red fox and red squirrel began to appear and have taken the places of the former. Opossums were quite plentiful and harm-
317
THE PIONEERS OF MORGAN COUNTY
less except when visiting henroosts, and afforded fine sport for the boys, who with their dogs hunted them at night. The polecat or skunk, and the groundhog still hold their own as to numbers. Like the poor they will always be with us. The raccoon is occasionally found, but is fast disappearing from sight.
There were many otters, and a few beavers, the for- mer remaining along White river for many years. The mink is still found along the creeks and river banks. The mink, red fox, skunk, muskrat, and coon are about all that are left for the trapper.
There was a time in central Indiana when the gray squirrel and wild pigeon surpassed in numbers all animated things. The flight of the latter, back and forth, east and west, for days at a time, was so great as to fairly astound the beholder. As far as the eye could see until it touched the horizon, a cloud of these birds was on the wing for an hour or more each day ; and the sight and sound by night of a pigeon roost was one never to be forgotten. The branches of the trees were so full of the birds, the limbs were constantly cracking, breaking, and falling to the ground. Men and boys killed them with clubs by the hundreds, from off the underbrush. But it was unsafe to walk under a roost after nightfall. Where all these obtained food, or how far they went for it each day, was a question often asked but never satisfactorily answered.
Among the little quadrupeds given a home in the Indiana forests, none were more numerous than the gray squirrel. Supposing five squirrels to each acre, this would give thirty-two hundred per section, or one million two hundred eighty thousand squirrels that were skipping over the tree tops in 1818, the year that Cyrus Whetzel first set foot in Morgan county. The reason
318
THE PIONEERS OF MORGAN COUNTY
for this overwhelming number was their natural protec- tion from their enemies. They were brought forth in cozy little nests made in hollow branches of trees, of which there was always a plentiful supply. The mother generally chose a home with a door just big enough for her admittance, thus securing her young from the ravages of birds of prey, and providing a good warm bed safe from the stormy weather of March and April, the time when they came in numbers ranging from four to seven. The young squirrels usually came out of their nests about the time the buds started on the hickory trees, upon which they fed for a time. Aside from the destruction wrought by man, the squirrel was, in a good degree, secure. Neither the wolf nor panther could often catch the little animal, and as to the bear, he was not "in it." Wildcats and foxes may have caught some few squirrels, but they could never have diminished the number to any perceptible degree. Here, as in the case of the quail, man has been the destroyer; just the rifle, with which he was very skillful, shooting a squirrel's head off four out of five shots, at a distance of forty yards. Then came the shotgun, with which he has com- passed the complete destruction of the gray squirrel, the most graceful, nimble, and amusing little forester in the world.
The woods now seem lonely to one who rambled through them seventy years ago, when the bark of the squirrel and the voice of birds were heard on every hand, nor will such scenes ever come again to the eye of men. If every man was swept off the earth to-day as by the flood of old, five hundred years would not give back what he has taken or destroyed in the last hundred years in the way of forests and forest birds and animals. Gigantic oaks, poplars, and black walnuts,
319
THE PIONEERS OF MORGAN COUNTY
aristocrats of the forest, have fallen by the saw and ax and their bodies are scattered to the four winds. To-day there is not in Morgan county a first class walnut tree standing within ten miles of a railroad.
A great change has come over our county, and for that matter all over central Indiana, in the last eighty years. To get even a faint view of things as they ap- peared to the first settlers, let us in our imagination go hunting with them.
There were then about fifty-four families in the county, and every family had at least one hunter-good, bad, or indifferent; for be it remembered that all men were not successful hunters of wild animals any more than successful hunters of fortunes. Hunting was a trade that had to be learned, and some men could never learn it; they could not even get within gunshot of a deer or turkey. The game would see them first and flee away. Others there were who, when in sight of a deer, became so nervous they could not hit a barn door with a rifle ball. These were said to be afflicted with "buck ague," and they soon gave up the chase to their more successful neighbors who often shared with them the spoils of the day, for the followers of Boone were usually generous hearted.
If there was any one thing more than another that concerned the pioneer hunter, it was his gun, ammuni- tion, and deer dog. He was very sparing of powder and lead, and did not waste much of these on small game. The guns were flintlock and single-trigger prior to 1820. Later the double-trigger, and about 1837 the cap lock came into use. But the hunters were slow to adopt any new-fangled thing in hunting. Some used the United States musket, others the yager, both loaded with an ounce ball and three buckshot. There was also
320
THE PIONEERS OF MORGAN COUNTY
the smoothbore rifle, loaded with a single bullet. The foremost hunters used the rifle of large caliber. The complications of the flintlock and double-trigger often got them out of repair, and in wet weather they made "long fire," sputtering around like a damp firecracker, causing the game to be missed. This sometimes pro- voked fiery words from the hunter.
A man walking the streets of Martinsville to-day dressed and accoutered as was Berry Jones the day he killed an old she-bear and her two cubs about two miles south of town would inaugurate a first-class sensation. He was arrayed in a blue hunting shirt or wamus, fringed all around and fastened with a belt. There was a scabbard in which was stuck a bloody butcher knife. His feet were shod with Indian moc- casins and his head covered with a coonskin cap with the tail hanging down his back, shot-pouch and powder- horn slung over one shoulder and old "Long Tom," his trusty rifle, on the other, while he fairly danced a jig as he rehearsed his battle with the bears. Mr. Jones had one qualification of a President of the United States- he could eat bear's paws of his own killing.
There were many other hunters than Jones, notably "Uncle" George Baker, of Baker township. He was a very early settler and a Baptist preacher, who some- times illustrated a point in his sermon by an incident of a bear fight. Zachariah Devee, an early settler in Madison township, had many bear skins to his credit.
A very lively bear hunt once took place on and around Senator Grant Stafford's farm. Early in roast- ing-ear time he discovered that a goodly sized young bear had "turned in" and was "hogging off" his corn in a field next to the river bank. There being plenty of water both for drinking and bathing purposes, young
321
THE PIONEERS OF MORGAN COUNTY
bruin concluded to board awhile with the Senator. Mr. Stafford intended to keep the affair a secret, but one day a neighbor saw the bear and forthwith began to organize a hunt. He came to Mr. Stafford almost out of breath and said, "I bet you can't tell what I saw down in your corn field, a bit ago." "No! Was it a ghost?" queried Mr. Stafford. "Narry a ghost," said the man, "but the biggest black bear I ever saw; and I'm out after the Koons boys and their dogs and some other fellers, and we will have more fun with that bear than you ever-" "Hold on there," said Mr. Stafford. "That's my pet bear; mine by right of discovery, for I spied him in the field about the first of August, and now we must let him get as fat as a hog, which he will if we don't frighten him away, and then we will get together with our dogs and guns and have all the fun and frolic that can be worked out of a bear hunt, besides the hide and hair oil, and fresh meat." The saying pleased the man and for a time he left the bear go in peace.
The news that a bear was camping down in Stafford's field worried the women and children no little, but there was really no danger so long as he was not molested by men and dogs. As a rule, a bear, like a wild hog, fights only in defense of his life, and then he fights to kill. No animal in North America is more tenacious of life or fights more stubbornly when once thoroughly aroused. In due time the hunt came off. The neighbor men with their guns and dogs-most of them ferocious curs-met together for the fray. It was fully expected that the dogs would make the bear climb a tree, and then the men would shoot him full of holes and end the sport. But his bearship exercised his own right to select his own battlefield and remained on the ground where
322
THE PIONEERS OF MORGAN COUNTY
he could use his teeth and claws, his only weapon of defense. He soon silenced the dogs, for toward the close of the struggle there was only one dog that would venture near him-the smallest of the pack. One slap of a bear's paw will send a cur dog over the ropes every time, and he will never come to the scratch again. The bulldog fares even worse, for if he dares fasten his teeth in the bear, he will be picked up and bitten through and through like a rat. He cannot shake a bear loose like he can a coon, and his grit is of no use in a bear fight.
We do not know all the particulars of this hunt, how many were engaged in it or just how it ended, but dur- ing the day the bear crossed and recrossed the river five times while the men and dogs were after him. Certain it is that while there may have been lots of fun for the hunters, there was none for the dogs and bear. A little reflection here will show us that man himself is as big a coward as the most cowardly dog in any pack. Not a man in that crowd would have gone near that bear armed with nothing but his fists. We can all be brave when armed to the teeth and we have good backing.
Here follow two more bear stories which the writer heard from one who grew up on the frontiers of Indiana and who was a good deer and turkey hunter, but never killed a bear. One night he and three other small boys, with a corresponding number of dogs, went on a coon hunt. They started around a corn field expecting to sur- prise a coon, for it was roasting-ear time. Suddenly the dogs began barking, and then followed a great rush toward the adjoining woods. At the fence there seemed to be a desperate fight going on for a short time. They, supposing it to be a wolf, yelled at "Bull" and "Ring"
323
THE PIONEERS OF MORGAN COUNTY
to "shake him, boys," meantime running toward the dogs as fast as they could through the brush and over the logs and ditches. They reached the scene of action in time to see something going up a tree, and it "weren't a coon, nuther." They had often seen bears on the ground in daytime, but they had never before seen one "treed." The bear had selected a big hackberry tree and climbed to the fork of it, about thirty feet from the ground. He seemed "awful big" to the boys, and the longer they looked at him the larger he grew in their imaginations.
They immediately held a council of war and decided that two of them would go to the nearest house and get a man with a gun to come and shoot the bear. The other two boys and the dogs were to stay and keep the animal on his perch until the man came. As the night was dark, they were provided with hickory bark torch- lights. Every man and boy in those days knew how to make and carry a torch, and as the forest was full of shellbark hickory trees, it was easy to keep the torches bright and lively.
Soon after the two boys started on the hunt of the man and gun, the bear grew dissatisfied with his elevated position and began to whine. The boys said, "Guess he got tired of bein' 'scroocht up' in the fork of the big hackberry." They thought they could surely keep him from coming down by kindling a fire at the roots of the tree. But this brought on the crisis, for as soon as the fire began to burn the bear determined to put himself on a level with boys and dogs; so down he tumbled into the burning brush, scattering firebrands, coals, and ashes in every direction. The dogs rallied and showed fight. They closed in on the bear, and for a minute there was a fearful struggle, the boys shouting
324
THE PIONEERS OF MORGAN COUNTY
encouragement to the dogs while keeping themselves at a safe distance. Reinforcements were now coming, and all at once they heard in the direction of the bear what in those days they called a "hellabalu." They sur- mised what was up and hurried at breakneck speed toward the battleground. By the time they got there "all was quiet on the Potomac,"-the bear was gone. One dog was dead, two were wounded and the other one refused to follow up the retreating enemy. This was a case where
"He that fights and runs away May live to fight another day."
One of the social customs of the pioneers was the evening call. That came in vogue after the cabin homes began to cluster. A mile or two was not considered too far to go and sit till bedtime. They usually came about dusk, bringing two or three of the smaller children, including the baby, took tea and talked. Winter was the best of the seasons for this kind of neighborly enjoy- ment, and, as no cards were sent, you would not know when the visitors were coming until they were on the doorstep. They usually chose a pleasant evening for the call. It was on such occasions as these that we heard hunting and other stories.
Brookville, Indiana, is noted as having been, at one time, the home of many prominent men of the State. Some were born there, others came from Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, and South Carolina. The most prominent were Noble, McCarty, Johns and St. John, Colescott, Goodwin, Eads, and Wallace Powers, the great sculptor, Drs. Davis, Dexter, and Murdock. These and many others settled in this little "niggerhead" vil- lage as early as 1814 or soon after the War of 1812
325
THE PIONEERS OF MORGAN COUNTY
ended and before the State was admitted into the Union.
Many of the young, and some of the middle-aged men were extremely fond of hunting wild animals, and sowing wild oats by way of giving vent to a surplus of animal spirits and overflowing energy.
Near the close of the eighteenth century a fearful tornado passed over the southwest corner of Franklin county, "cutting a swath" nearly half a mile in width through the forest across the headwaters of Laughery creek, and near where the town of Oldenburg now stands. The destruction of the large trees was com- plete, many of them having been wrenched out of the ground, leaving cavities that remained visible for years, while the hickory trees were twisted like withes, with their tops lying in every direction. An undergrowth soon followed, equal to a South American jungle, and became the finest hiding place for panthers, bears, wolves, and wildcats within a radius of twenty miles. In the summertime the copperheads, rattlesnakes, vipers, and lizards came in for their share of the hunter's attention.
Notwithstanding their numerous destroyers, the woods were alive with deer, turkeys, pheasants, and squirrels, making a veritable hunters' paradise, where to-day there is the seat of learning of a great church; and where once in the stilly evening naught was heard but the howl of the wolf, now ascends the voice of prayer and praise.
The hunters of Brookville soon found out where to spend their spare time in the exhilarating chase, and the after-feast of venison. They built near the "hurricane" a half-faced camp, such as was common in the old time ncar sugar orchards. The front was an open space wherein they made log fires of length and breadth to
326
THE PIONEERS OF MORGAN COUNTY
correspond with the temperature of the weather. When very cold, the fire looked like a burning log heap in a clearing. In the back part of the camp they erected a continental bedstead, long enough for eight or ten men to sleep on. Back of this they had a large trough in which to pack the venison hams. The deer skins were hung up about the camp. Some one usually stayed near the camp during the day, but not always, as there was little danger of wolves coming in broad daylight, to steal the dressed turkeys and deer hams; but they would come near of dark, drizzly nights and make the welkin ring with their hungry howls.
The camp equipage was conveyed on pack horses, as there was nothing but a blazed trail for the last half of the distance. A part of the trail was through what was called the "flat-woods," in which the hunters, despite their superior knowledge, sometimes got lost, and spent anything but a comfortable night. Those com- ing and going with the pack horses were ever on the alert and seldom lost their way by wandering round and round, as did the hunters.
One morning after the falling of a "skift" of snow, Mr. Kidd and my father started from camp together. After they had gone about a quarter of a mile, they came across a bear track. As the snowfall had some- what obscured the tracks, they were not certain whether the bear had gone by the last night or the night before. Mr. Kidd said, "While I am not hunting a bear fight this morning, I will follow the tracks awhile, as they are going in the direction I intended to hunt for deer." About a half-hour after they separated, my father heard the report of Mr. Kidd's gun, and before its roar had ceased rolling over the hills and hollows Kidd yelled with all his might, "Here! Here! come quick !" Suppos-
327
THE PIONEERS OF MORGAN COUNTY
ing he had accidentally shot himself, my father answered back and started on the run as fast as his legs would take him. When he came in sight, Kidd was walking around and brandishing his belt knife. There was con- siderable blood on the left side of his face which caused father to believe more firmly that an accident had hap- pened to him. But his fears were soon dispelled when Kidd pointed to the bear and told how it occurred. He said: "I was walking carefully along looking for deer and thinking very little about the bear until I was about ten steps from a fallen tree top which had fallen when the leaves were green. The leaves were still thick on the dead branches and other leaves had blown in on them and made a good shelter for the bear, who had stopped in out of the storm. As quick as a flash she came from under the brush and raised up on her hind legs. I never, in all my life, felt that I was so near death's door. I fired away at her-I hardly know how. I don't believe I took any certain aim, but fortune favored me as you see."
On examination they found that the ounce ball had broken her neck and a buckshot had killed one of the cubs. Mr. Kidd tried to save the other cub by penning it up in a hollow tree until evening; but it got out during the day and perished in the snow. When Mr. Kidd fired at the bear, the old yager being heavily loaded, came back at him and knocked a large patch of skin off his cheek bone, and that was how his face came to be so bloody. However, he never felt the kick or knew his face was bleeding until told.
There was a bear that roamed the "hurricane" and baffled the whole fraternity of Brookville hunters, with three friendly Indians as reinforcements. They named him "Bigfoot," after the Indian that Adam Poe fought
328
THE PIONEERS OF MORGAN COUNTY
with and killed. The bear had lost two toes off of one hind foot, supposed to have been done by a wolf trap, but he did not seem to miss them when in a "boxing bout." Men and dogs had ofttimes made war on him, but he never lost a battle. No matter what time in the day he was aroused, he never stopped running until dark, unless it was to "box" the dogs. While the chase was going on there was little chance for a shot at him. He was never seen to climb a tree. He either could not or would not. He looked to be twice as large as a com- mon bear. One day while Mr. Cory was hunting deer, he accidentally came across this bear, digging a hole in the ground. He crept up to within sixty yards of him and had a fair chance for a dead shot at him.
Mr. Cory was usually of steady nerve and a close shot at a turkey or deer, but he admitted that the sight of that noted bear and his good opportunity to get the biggest honor in the camp, "got him out of his head," and he forgot to set the trigger. He had a splendid bead on bruin and pulled the trigger just as the bear straight- ened up and looked around as if he "smelt a rat." "Old Chance" did not answer the call and Mr. Cory knew in a moment what was the matter; then in his hurry to set the trigger, the gun went off, and the bullet struck a tree about six feet above the bear's back. Bigfoot "left the diggin's" before the smoke had cleared away, and Mr. Cory realized that "there's many a slip 'twixt the cup and the lip." A short time after this three friendly Indians planned a campaign against Bigfoot. There was a good tracking snow on the ground and the weather was cloudy and damp-a fine condition for the fray.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.