USA > Kentucky > Hardin County > Elizabethtown > A history of Elizabethtown, Kentucky, and its surroundings > Part 6
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TERM
It was at this term that I had made an arrangement with my prede- cessor, Major Ben Helm, to resign as clerk, and I was to run the risk of an appointment. Of course it behooved me to do my best for a fair and correct journal of the court's proceedings, as my future prosperity depended on Metcalfe's choice, and I sent my old friend, Worden Pope, Esq., to sound the Judge. He reported to me that he thought that the Judge would appoint me. I replied that that would hardly do. Mr. Pope then said he was fully convinced that the Judge would give the appointment. I still doubted. Mr. Pope then told me that the Judge said he would appoint me. I concluded that would do.
On reading the orders I found I had made more mistakes than I ever had before. But I had relied on the Judge's promise.
Major Helm came into court and very gracefully resigned. I some- how managed to let the Judge know that I was a candidate to fill the vacancy. The Judge asked whom I offered as securities. I had forgotten that requirement, but half the bar volunteered. The bond was given and the Judge swore me. Now, if any one could imagine how a man would feel reprieved from the gallows, he might think how I felt. It was a life and death matter with me, just twenty-one years old, as poor as a church mouse, and a debt of $2,000 to meet, but the result was that by the help of a good friend I got out of debt, and so far have kept out of the poorhouse.
January 20th, 1817, James Guthrie, Esq., sworn as attorney-at-law.
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Same day William Farleigh sworn as deputy clerk. He was an efficient and faithful deputy, and although afflicted with a white swelling a great part of the time and which slightly lamed him for life, he never flinched from his duty, and during court times repeatedly wrote the whole night in bringing up the orders of the court. When Meade county was established he received the appointment of clerk, which he held nearly all the balance of his life, thirty or forty years, and there was no better clerk in the State, and according to my opinion, there was no better man.
Shortly after he went to Meade he became a member of the Methodist Church and remained a consistent member until the day of his death. His excellent wife was also a member of the same church. They were counted pillars and their house was always the preacher's home, with the latchstring always out.
March 10, 1817-Benjamin Chapeze, Esq., admitted to the bar.
February 10, 1817-Hon. Alfred Metcalfe, circuit judge, was sworn before the Hon. John Rowan, justice of the peace of Nelson county.
March 12th, 1817-Moses Saltsman, Phillip Saltsman and Lot Dickers put on trial for murder. Not completing the trial that day, the prisoners were remanded to jail and John Haywood, jailer, ordered to summon a guard, not exceeding twenty men. Next day Moses was found guilty of manslaughter and had accommodations assigned him in the penitentiary for two years.
September Ist, 1817-Judge G. A. Gaither appointed county attor- ney pro tem.
Along about this time the members of the bar became a little pug- nacious and many of them were calmed down by adding to the public treasury at the rate of fio each.
September 5th-William G. Wiggington, attorney-at-law; Larkin Smith, the same. March 9th, 1818, Hon. A. H. Churchill, the same. September 14th, James I. Dozier, the same. September, 1818, was the last term at which Judge Metcalfe presided.
MARCH TERM, 1819
Hon. John P. Oldham came in as circuit judge, and presided until the end of September term, 1820.
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JANUARY TERM, 1819
Hon. Paul I. Booker took his seat as circuit judge. He was sworn in on General Jackson's day, 8th January, 1821.
MARCH TERM
Richard Rudd, Esq., produced commission as commonwealth's attor- ney. June term, 1821-Daniel Poland and Daniel S. Bell sworn as attorneys-at-law. This brings me to the end of order book H.
And with an apology to my readers for boring them so long with the court proceedings, I must take my leave of that branch of the history and go back to the woods again and give a detail of the original build- ings and settlers of the town, allude to some early scenes, and afterward I propose to give my recollections of the bar, to be occasionally inter- spersed with a few anecdotes.
CHAPTER XV
BACK TO THE WOODS AGAIN
As it has been before stated, in the year 1780 the first settlements were made around the present site of Elizabethtown, then Jefferson county, Virginia, and the three forts of Col. Andrew Hynes, Hon. Thomas Helm and Hon. Samuel Haycraft were erected. They were rather stockades, afterward called stations. The manner of erecting these forts was to dig a trench with spades or hoes or such implements as they could command, then set in split timbers, reaching ten or twelve feet above the ground and having fixed around the proposed ground sufficiently large to contain some five, six or eight dwellings with a block house, as a kind of citadel with port holes. That was considered a sufficient defense against Indians armed with rifles or bows and arrows, but with a siege gun of the present day a well directed shot would level a hundred yards of these pristine fortifications. The mode of attack by the Indians when in sufficient force was to try to storm the fort, or by lighted torches thrown upon the roofs of the buildings within to burn out the besieged, but they rarely succeeded in setting fire. If in small force the Indians would shield themselves behind trees and watch a whole day for some unwary pale-face to show himself above the forti- fication and pick him off. But this was a two-handed game, for it some-
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times happened that the red skin in peeping from his tree got his brains blown out. It was very rare that the siege was continued after an Indian was killed, for those Indians were remarkable for carrying off the dead and wounded, even on field of battle. It was a war custom of the Indians never to take an open field fight, but always treed or lay low in the small cane or high grass, and this mode of fighting was more universally adopted by the old and experienced braves than by the young and untaught warriors. If by deploying the whites could get a raking fire upon the red man, they retreated hastily to more distant trees and renewed the fight, and if by force of circumstances they were compelled to come to a hand-to-hand fight they fought with the desperation of demons, using the scalping knife, war axe and war club. The latter was formed of a hickory stick about three feet long and there was fastened to the end a stone curiously wrought from one to three pounds weight, one end of the stone representing the blade of an axe, the other end representing a sledge hammer. A collar was cut in the stone near the end or poll, in which groove the stick was fastened around either by twisting the stick, or with thongs of leather fastening it firmly in the end of the stick, split open so as to receive it. Many of these stone axes are found now in Kentucky. They are always made of brown stone as hard as granite, and when wielded by a strong arm are a formidable weapon. They also used another weapon made of flint, small in size, in the shape of a dart. These were for arrow heads. I have picked up hundreds of them, and nearly every Kentuckian forty years old is familiar with them. The supposition is that this latter weapon was used for killing birds or small game.
In olden times our white boys fastened them to arrows, but not being skilled in archery they were found to be of very little service to them and served only for boyish amusement.
The colony which came to Kentucky with my father, Samuel Hay- craft, Sr., consisted of his wife, my mother, Jacob Vanmeter and wife, Jacob Vanmeter, Jr., Isaac and John Vanmeter, Rebecca Vanmeter, Susan Gerrard and her husband, John Gerrard, Rachel Vanmeter, Ais- ley Vanmeter, Elizabeth Vanmeter and Mary Hinton. All of them, with my mother, were sons, son-in-laws and daughters of Jacob Van- meter, Sr. Hinton was drowned on the way in the Ohio river. There
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was also a family of slaves belonging to the elder Vanmeter. These all settled for a time in the Valley.
The most of them opened farms in the neighborhood. The men and women married and propagated at a round rate, averaging about a dozen children, and they have so multiplied that their name is legion and are now scattered over nearly every State and Territory in the Union, and can be found in all grades of society and profession, and of all kinds of names and every shade of color except black-they have not gone into that as yet. There is no vouching for what will be in the next hundred years if the present progressive system of equalization in- augurated by Sumner is carried out. But before that happens I hope to be hors de combat, which means defunct.
Other colonists shortly after, perhaps the same year, settled in the Valley. Judge Thomas Helm, with quite a family of children and blacks, came to the same garden of Eden, to-wit, Severn's Valley, and his family, moved by the same impulse, have multiplied and replenished the earth in a very commendable manner. They, too, have scattered far and wide and filled positions of honor and profit equal to any in the State. Then came the Millers, the Thomases, the Browns, Shaws, Fremans, Swanks and hosts of others, who all have done their parts honestly in peopling the earth. They, too, have taken the wings of the morning and (figuratively speaking) flown to the uttermost parts of the earth. These all braved the savages of the forest for years, lived on wild meat, and clad themselves in buckskin and buffalo wool.
These all struggled onward and upward, without any legal organiza- tion, but were a law to themselves, and fair dealing and justice was meted out with as liberal a hand as at the present day, notwithstand- ing the present standing army of governors, judges, lawyers, justices of the peace, clerks, sheriffs, constables, coroners, assessors and tax gath- erers. Then no fellow came sneaking in and asked how many acres of land you owned, or how many horses and cows you claimed, or how many dollars you had in the sugar trough under the bed. Nobody was sued for debt, for there was no need of debt, and nobody owed any- thing but good will; nobody worse false teeth or wigs; nature's food stuck the hair tight, and teeth were not rotted out by using pound cake, syllabubs, sally-lunn, macaroni, chicken salad, stewed oysters or such like conglomerations. A hunter could be on the ground, covered with
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a buffalo skin and six inches of snow on that, having drunk a half pint of bear's oil, and wake up in the morning cured of the worst cold known . in those primeval days.
I have before stated on the first day of June, 1792, Kentucky was made a State of the Union. In 1793 Hardin county was formed. Up to this time the settlers in the Valley had no county seat or place desig- nated for erecting public buildings.
In 1793 Col. Andrew Hynes laid off thirty acres of land adjoining the land of Samuel Haycraft in Severn's Valley, on which to erect the buildings of the county. This place was afterward named Elziabeth- town in honor of the lady of Colonel Hynes, whose name was Elizabeth. The difficulties arising upon the question of its being the county seat has been fully recited in the preceding part of this history.
The town was not regularly established until 1797. This thirty acres of land was a rich spot on the side of Valley creek. It was laid off in a singular shape, an oblong square with an obtuse angle at each end, per- haps done so on account of the shape of the Colonel's land, being at one corner of his tract and very heavily timbered with tremendous poplars, wild cherry, walnut, ash, sugar tree, hackberry, hickory, beech, gum, etc., the undergrowth spicewood, dogwood and leatherwood.
After it was laid off into streets and alleys the trustees made sev- eral sales of lots at auction. The lots were half acres except at the corners of the public square. These lots were quarter acres. The whole number of lots was fifty-one. The best lots sold for about £3 IOs and others went lower. Bidders were slow, as the heavy forests to be cut down and the lots to clear involved in expense three times as great as the value of the lots. But there were found some stout, hearty and strong-armed men patriotic enough to undertake the Herculean task. The first operation was to clear off a spot some thirty feet square in which to erect a round log cabin-puncheon floor and clapboard roof, confined to the house by weight pole, with an eave-bearer, against which the boards rested. As to windows, it is rather doubtful how they were constructed, as there was no glass to be had, and making of a sash was not dreamed of. The chimney was built of wood, with fireplace nearly across the house, never less than seven feet wide in the clear. The first section of the chimney ran up a little higher than the mantlepiece, which was a stick of oak timber about one foot square and about six feet high.
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It was walled inside up to that with stone and clay, then the chimney narrowed abruptly to about three feet square, and was constructed with what was then called cat-and-clay, and as some readers may not be posted as to cat-and-clay, I will undertake to enlighten them by a de- scription. First a stiff clay was made, intermixed with straw or grass cut into nibs, then some oak timber was split up into a kind of lath, similar to tobacco sticks; the balance of the chimney was built up of first a layer of clay, then a round of sticks, then clay, and so on until the desired height was obtained, the clay all the time covering the sticks inside and out about three inches thick, the sticks showing the ends about four inches ; then a lubber pole was set in across the chimney in- side, on which were hung pottrambles, on which to suspend pots and kettles for cooking, boiling soap, rendering lard and heating wash water. The old-fashioned long-handled frying pan was universally used in frying chickens, rabbits and squirrels, turkey breast and venison, etc.
The good dames became very expert in the use of the frying pan. I have often seen them at it when frying pancakes. When one side was sufficiently done the pan was withdrawn from the fire, two or three quick motions were made to loosen the pancake, and then by a sudden twitch up, which nobody except a woman could do, the cake was lifted in the air so as to turn a summersault and was caught in the pan with the done side up and then finished.
The writer has frequently heard discussions among the gentle sex upon the pancake frying art, contending that no woman was a complete adept in the business until she could toss a pancake out at the top of the chimney and run out of the door and catch it in the pan. But under- stand me, reader, I cannot vouch that this feat was ever performed. It was considered the ne plus ultra of panning.
The length of this number will compel me to defer the inner arrange- ments of the cabin as to sleeping, loaf baking, turkey roasting, etc., to the next chapter.
CHAPTER XVI
In my last chapter I was building cabins for town houses and went slightly into cooking, and as lightly as some may think of it, that old- fashioned cooking was as far superior to the new-fangled Frenchified
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mode of macaroni fricassees and gumbo as day is to night, and it would be worth a ride of ten miles on a snowy day to any man of proper taste to partake of a dinner of olden times, but it has been crowded out and can only be found on the outskirts of civilization among the hills. It may possibly have an existence in some of the mountain counties of Kentucky. If so a month spent in that region would restore a man to health and appetite more than double the time at Crab Orchard or Grayson Springs.
SLEEPING
Men, women and children are so constituted as to require sleep, and a comfortable arrangement ought to be made for it. Well, the house is up and covered and the chimney built, then in one corner of the house four forks are let into the ground, shaved poles are placed on either side in the forks and cross-laid with clapboards, then whatever fixing may be on hand, as a bed will be laid on those boards, and laying pride and ambition aside, it is better than the present spring mattresses-that is for the head of the family. Another fixing in another corner is put up for the children.
Next a loft (called in those times upper story ) is prepared, and there the boys are put to sleep.
BAKING AND ROASTING
Every family that had pretentions to housekeeping had a bakeoven out of doors, and how was the backoven made, some uninitiated reader will ask. Be patient and hear: First a foundation was made two feet high by setting posts in the ground at each corner ; a capping was placed on that, representing sills ; on this a floor was laid of split timbers ; on this dirt was laid, on that a stiff coat of clay about five inches thick ; this was sleeked over by hand or paddle if they had no trowel. Then the oven must go up; a stiff, well-mixed clay was made, intermixed with nibbled straw or grass; then the oven was built of this clay in the shape of a goose egg cut into two parts lengthwise ; a square hole for a door was left in front, and a small round hole at the back was made to let out smoke or extra heat. To prevent accidents the builders sometimes laid up carefully dried bark of the required shape for the inside and the oven was built to fit on it. It was then left to dry a day or two. The bark was fired and burn out, which completed the oven
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and at the same time fitted it for baking. During that operation the oven, first being cleaned of ashes, the door was stopped by a piece of plank and the back hole was stopped up to keep in the heat.
I remember being at an old-fashioned wedding when quite a boy. (Boys went to weddings without being specially invited.) It was at the house of a well-to-do farmer and it was perfectly astonishing to see the quantity of roast turkey, chicken and pig, with huge loaves of bread, puddings, custard and pies, that were drawn out as necessity re- quired. Nothing could equal it, except the rapidity with which it was consumed by the hundred and fifty guests that stood in the house and out in the yard. Perhaps some long-faced cynic may think this history is running into the ground by detailing such minute and trivial matters. I will just say to such that this history is intended to lead the present generation back to first principles and to show off things as they really were in honest home-spun garb. Most historians take up notions full grown and in full blast and leave you to conjecture how they were conceived and brought forth and grew into manhood. Moreover, it was intended to incorporate in this history such inside matter as never was before and in all probability never will again be found in history.
It is absolutely ridiculous for a man not to look beyond his nose. In that view of the case this history is intended for use in future years and perhaps ages. It is intended for the future occupants of Elizabeth- town. For who can tell what Elizabethtown will be with her delightful and healthy location, with her enterprising and energetic population, her railroad facilities, her fine water, and her surrounding of intelligent and gentlemanly farmers, the best fruit country in the world, and her future manufactories that must spring up, and when it becomes a large city it will be well to look back upon her starting point.
Excuse this digression. The foregoing description of one house and fixtures and our doings in Elizabethtown will do for all up to the year 1801. The first tanner was Jacob Bruner. The first shoemaker was Joe Donahoe. He kept no shop, but took his kit to the house where a pair of shoes was wanted, or if a whole family were to be shod Joe would do it if kept sober. He sometimes by way of variety was fastened in the stocks, but if a man could keep him sober and bear with tobacco juice he squirted over the floor, he would stick to his last for two weeks at a time in a fruitful family.
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The first tailor was a Scotchman named Archibald McDonald. He had no shop or shop board, but tailored around wherever needed. He sat and sewed in a chair like a white man, and by this means was pre- vented from cabbaging cloth if he had been disposed to do so.
He was also a dancing master, of good physique, wore knee breeches and could outstrut any man in the State. He stood much on his dignity and used high-swelled words. Once in a debating society he was talking of the conglomerations of the superstructure and anatomy of the physical monstrosity called man, and being at a loss for a suitable word, uttered profane language. The president called him to order, and he made the laconic reply "Inevitably" and sat down.
The first mill was built by Samuel Haycraft. It was afterward owned by George Berry and was changed to a sawmill, being frequently put out of order by mischievous youths-like the lamp-breakers of this day.
After this time similar buildings were erected by George Berry, Jacob Bruner, Samuel Patton, Mrs. Jane Ewin, Mrs. Boling, Mrs. Llewellyn, Thomas Lincoln (father of the President), James Crutcher, Asa Coombs, Thomas Davis, Henry Ewin, James Love and David Vance.
Hewed log houses gradually took the place of the round log houses, with shingled roofs fastened with poplar pegs, plank floors and windows with sash and glass or greased paper instead of glass.
The first tavern of hewed logs was built on Main Cross street by James Crutcher and afterward sold to Asa Coombs, who was also justice of the peace.
When Major Crutcher sold that tavern stand he built another tavern house on Main street at the corner of the public square and hoisted a sign of a lion rampant on each side of the board. I remember well I was very shy of that sign and always passed on the opposite side of the street, for stand where you would that savage beast seemed to be star- ing at you. And from that day (about 1798) to this time (1869) Eliza- bethtown, to her credit be it spoken, never was without a first-rate eating house and sometimes three or four of them, and that fact has ever made the town a pleasant stopping place.
The first schoolteacher in town that I have a vivid recollection of was a lame gentleman named John Pirtle. He was the father of Judge
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Pirtle, now of Louisville. He occupied the Patton house, where Dr. Harvey Slaughter now resides. This house is on the opposite side of the street from the sign of the lion, one square above. This formed another obstacle to my boyish perambulations, as I thought then it was the habit of a school master to slash every boy he could get hold of. So this urchin in passing through this strait of Scylla and Charybdis put on full sail and tacked with considerable dodging, making several acute angles, and always experienced a sense of relief when safely through.
Of Mr. Pirtle, the teacher, I intend in my future number to give a more extended notice.
CHAPTER XVII
From the year 1780 to the year 1800 chimneys were built of wood or stone, for the art of brickmaking had not reached the wooded country. Some of those who emigrated from Virginia might have seen a brick, and if such a material had before that time been seen in this brickless country there is no man living who can testify to the fact. Therefore, I assert without the fear of successful contradiction that no brick was here.
The first stone masonry deserving the name was executed by John Ball on a stone chimney for my father's house. It was a three-story concern, built in the years 1798 and 1799, and took more than one hun- dred wagonloads to accomplish it. It was fourteen feet wide at the base and was nearly forty feet high. The town by this time was con- sidered to be looking up and had nearly one hundred and fifty inhabitants all told, counting whites and blacks, men, women and children. The public square was nearly cleared off and most of the timber used up, and be it remembered that every half acre had a sufficiency of timber on it to build a house, kitchen, stable and henhouse, and fence the ground, and to furnish firewood for an indefinite time, exclusive of the un- wedgeable forked logs rolled together and burned in log heaps.
THE FIRST BRICK HOUSE
About the year 1801 the town was taken completely by surprise by the fact that a brickyard was opened and a brick house was to be built by Major Benjamin Helm, the first citizen that had the means and enter-
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prise to undertake such an improvement. It was a bold start for the beginning. It was fifty feet long and twenty-five feet wide, a deep cellar under the whole building and walled up with huge stone. Two high stories of brick were reared upon this stone wall. The first story was eighteen inches thick and the second story thirteen inches. Charles Sawyer, an Englishman, was the bricklayer, and Robert Huston was the carpenter. One of the lower rooms was wainscoted with panel work of seasoned black walnut presses ; two more of those presses were also in the second story. The fire or mantelpieces were massive and curiously wrought of the same kind of walnut lumber. The floors were laid on massive sleepers of blue ash timber. The plastering was done by a Lex- ington plasterer. The plastering was more than one-inch thick, and the white or putty coat was put on so compactly and well troweled that a man could almost see his face in it. This fine, glossy finish required the expenditure of considerable elbow grease, and up to this time (a period of sixty-six years) there has been no such plastering done in this town since, and the blue ash floors are nearly as perfect as when first laid. I am thus particular in the description of this house, as it was in keeping with the character of the builder, who held the maxim through a long life that "what was worth doing was worth doing well," and to show what difficulties had to be overcome in completing such an undertaking at that early day. There was no lumber yard in the State. The plank was sawed at our water mills or with the whipsaw, and then seasoned by firing in plank kilns. There were no nails to be had short of Lexington.
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