Delaware County, Indiana - Chapter 6: A Study of Origins and Sources - Prominent Pioneer, 1908

Having learned the general location of the first settlements in the county, there remains a task with more personal interest. Unfortunately, it will be impossible to give more information about many of the pioneers than is contained in the list of original entrymen. Record is made there of those who purchased land of the government, whether with the intention of permanently settling or for the purpose of speculation. Several thousand different persons are named as entrymen of land from the government in this county, and yet the majority of them are unknown to the present generation. A considerable number of those purchasing land of the government never resided in the county, their purchases being simply for investment or speculation. Of these there could be nothing to say in a history of the county, since almost without exception they contributed nothing to the permanent development of the county. Then, of course, many entered land, lived on it a short while and moved out of the county, disappearing from sight and knowledge of all their neighbors. While only a comparatively small percent of the entrymen deserve historical recognition for their worth as settlers, it is unfortunate that the record is so meager of some who were strong men in their sphere and gained the high esteem of their fellows while establishing homes in their county.

Where had the early settlers lived before coming to this county? By what routes did they come? What caused them to locate here? And how did their origin influence the development of this county?

One of the most interesting themes connected with early Delaware county history is concerned with the answer to the above questions. In this modern age, when men are becoming more cosmopolitan in their conditions, when provincialism and the influences of state and section are less plainly impressed on individuals, it is less pertinent to inquire regarding birthplace and original home. Yet it is almost equally common as a question between strangers as they take the first steps to acquaintance. It is not intended to answer each of these questions categorically. A study of the early settlement of any locality suggests such questions as the above in a series, and historical curiosity impels us to endeavor to answer these queries while considering the early settlers of Delaware county.

It cannot be said of Delaware county, as of certain counties in northern Indiana and southern Michigan, that its early settlers were of New England stock. Many New Englanders can be found among the pioneers, but they were not the predominant class in numbers. All the Atlantic states from Vermont to South Carolina furnished settlers. Many of the county's best known and most influential families were from Virginia and the Carolinas. In the individual history of the settlers, going no further back than their birthplace, it would seem that a very large percent came from Ohio and Kentucky and western New York. But it will be understood that these localities were intermediate points in the westward migration, to which the family made the first stage of its journey, or stopped a few years until civilization caught up with them, and then pushed on deeper into the wilder-

From North Atlantic States. Of typical New England origin was the Muncie pioneer, Goldsmith C. Gilbert. He came of a family of pioneers, one of his grandfathers having been the first settler at Cavendish, Vermont. Just across the line in Washington county, New York, Goldsmith C. Gilbert was born in the last decade of the eighteenth century. Ten years later he accompanied his uncle up the valley of the Mohawk to Jefferson county on Lake Ontario, then the western frontier. In 1814 came another pioneer migration, through the sparsely settled country to Lebanon, Ohio. Mr. Gilbert in 1823 completed the final stage of his western emigration when he settled in Delaware county. The rest of his history is closely identified with this county. He bought the Hackley reserve, later donated part of it for the site of Muncie, dug the mill race on the peninsula of north Muncie and erected a mill that later became the property of Jack and Russey and finally came into the possession of the Wysor estate, and at present owned by Mr. Wallace Hibbets. He operated various mills and factories, and was no less prominent in public affairs. He took a foremost part in the railroad agitation that during the early forties seemed likely to result in a railroad from Muncie to Fort Wayne. He was a member of the legislature at that time, and his efforts to get a charter granted to the proposed railroad were his last important labors. While returning home from Indianapolis in January, 1844, he was taken ill and died at Pendleton. None of the pioneers surpassed him in enterprise, public spirit, or the energy which accomplishes the essential work of the pioneer. He had the New England conscience and adhered to the highest standards of integrity. He was a Universalist His daughter Mary J., who was born in Muncie in 1826, was the first white child born on the site that was soon afterward selected as the county seat. She married Dr. Daniel H. Andrews, one of the early physicians, who died in 1856, and she later became- the wife of Joseph W. Edmonds.

Vermont was the birthplace of another prominent pioneer of Muncic, Elcazer Coffecn, a relative of the above Goldsmith Coffccn Gilbert. Born in 1/99. "is parents crossed the state of New York to Jefferson county in 1 801. We arc not informed what route he took to reach Lebanon, in southwestern Ohio, in 1822, but it is probable the Ohio river furnished the route for the greater part of the way. Arriving in this county in 1833, Mf- Coffeen became an early merchant of Muncie, was proprietor of two saw mills, and at one time had a woolen mill on Buck creek. He lived in Muncie until 1869, and also spent his final years here. He was concerned in many affairs by which his name is permanently fixed. In 185 1 he laid out a suburb of Muncie called Coffeentown. He was an associate judge, a member of the legislature, and as long as he lived in Muncie was closely connected with its progress.

In the early history of southwestern Ohio and southeastern Indiana it is interesting to note the large contribution of settlers made by the little state of Delaware. In the country north of Cincinnati it would seem that almost a majority of the pioneers were from that state. In the neighborhood of Dover, Delaware, was born Minus Turner, in 1807. His father was also a native of that state, but about 1810 joined the tide of migration down the Ohio valley, settling first at Lexington and then at Covington, Kentucky. In 1823 he moved up into that part of the "twelve mile purchase" that became Randolph county; he spent the last years of his life in Delaware countv. One of the unfortunate results of the removal of a family from one of the eastern states to the new west was that the children were usually deprived of the advantages of thorough schooling. Kentucky at the time Minus Turner was a boy there had the most indifferent school facilities, and when we consider that so many of the residents of Delaware county and elsewhere in the state during the thirties and forties had been deprived of schooling while growing up in a new country, it is not surprising the census indicated so much illiteracy in this state. Minus Turner in later years made up somewhat for the lack of early advantages, and by superior business ability and native intelligence became one of Muncie's most respected citizens. He learned the trade of mason and bricklayer from his father, and after his permanent location in Muncie in 1829, he went into the business of making brick and burning lime, his brickyard being located on West Main street. His house is said to have been the first brick house in Delaware county, and about 1831 he erected the Willard block, of brick, since replaced by another Willard block, but which in its time was a very important building in the village. On the southeast corner of Main and Walnut street, where now stands the Patterson block, he completed, in 1839, a brick building which was also one of the landmarks of the city until it burned down. He burned and laid the brick, doing the latter work partly by moonlight.

He opened it as a tavern, and as such it passed through many hands - a Colonel Saver, Hoon, Hunter, Jo Davis (and it was long known as the Jo Davis House). In December, 1844, a Muncic paper calls it the Eagle House, "formerly kept by Col. Saver, lately by William Russey, and at this date leased by S. Gifhn.*'

From Delaware also came one of Muncic 's early merchants, John Jack, ulio was lxjrn at Wilmington in 1804. It will be profitable to notice, during this study, the great number of Delaware county settlers who made Wayne county, Indiana, an intermediate place of residence between the far cast and this county, or entered this county through the Wayne county gateway. Mr. Jack came to Wayne county in 1825, wdicre he followed his trade of (.inner ami currier several years, and in 1836 moved to Muncic. Perhaps .1 very few of the oldest Delaware county citizens can remember the store and trading establishment kept by the successive firms of Bloomfield and Jack. Uloomfield, Jack and Russey, and Jack and Russey. For a time he .ind associates conducted the woolen mill established by Mr. Gilbert. His enterprises were among .the largest in Muncie during that period of its history. At one time he was engaged in pork packing, an industry then in its infancy, and he is said to have lost heavily by these transactions.

John Jack died in 1859, leaving a widow who continued to reside in (he house at the northwest corner of Washington and Mulberry streets for a third of a century. Mrs. W. L. Little, Mrs. J. M. Kirby, Mrs. J. E. Howe were daughters of Mr. Jack.

Thomas Kirby had the thrift, the trading instincts, the energy, and withal the sympathy and thorough helpfulness of a typical son of Massachusetts. Born at Stockbridgc in 1804, attending school between his duties in a woolen mill, in 1827 he came west to Wayne county, and at Richmond began trading in furs, skins and ginseng. Only comparatively few people of this generation know what ginseng is; though within the last few years the demands of the export trade to the orient for this article have increased its culture in many localities. In the period when the lands of eastern Indiana were first being turned over by the plow, ginseng grew wild throughout this region. In the market reports of that time ginseng was quoted alongside of butter and flour and other staples. Mr. Kirby is said to have bought about six thousand pounds of the root every year, so that it was no small item in the commerce of the country. When Minus Turner located in Muncie in 1829 Thomas Kirby was peddling goods over the country about Muncie. representing a firm in Dayton, Ohio. His increasing prosperity was indicated by his selling goods at first from a pack on his back, then going about on horseback, and finally using a horse and wagon. He also had a general store on Washington street, west of High. His energy and keen business ability made him money. He bought large amounts of land, some of it being now covered by the city, and was soon estimated as one of the wealthy men of the county. He was a trustee of his township, gave large sums for the building of turnpikes, railroads and other enterprises of public or semi-public nature, and was an influential figure in Delaware county history up to the time of his death, on August 14, 1879. He was the oldest, in years of residence, of the pioneers still living, fourteen of whom bore his remains to their last resting place; most of these a few years later had found rest in Beech Grove. Of the concrete memorials of his career, such as people sec daily but which convey only superficial estimates of life, the best known is the Kirby House, which was erected by Mr. Kirby in 1871 and which more than a generation of citizens and travelers have known as one of the central points of Muncie.

In the valleys of the Miami rivers in southwestern Ohio, about the beginning of the last century, William Brady had found a home. William Brady participated in the expedition against the Indian villages along the Mississinewa during the war of 181 2, as previously described, and as a result of the hardships endured lived only a short time after that event. His pioneer home in Warren county, Ohio, was the birthplace, in 1803, of John Brady, whose career and that of his family has been prominently and closely identified with Delaware county and eastern Indiana for three quarters of a century. When a boy John Brady learned how to make saddles and harness, and at the age of twenty-one advanced nearer to the frontier, and lived for some years at Richmond, Wayne county, Indiana. He came to Muncie in 1836 and until his death nearly fifty years later was a citizen whose support was considered necessary in all public enterprises and whose influence was never refused in promoting the city's progress. He died January 14, 1884, and his memory was honored by the closing of all business houses and a temporary cessation of the ordinary vocations. For years he had been honored with public office, having served as associate judge, postmaster, mayor, member of the council and township trustee, and was always a Democrat, a leader of the local party. His wife, who died August 30, 1884, was Mary Wright, who had moved to Wayne county from Maryland.

A native of Yermont, where his grandfather had settled after 'coming from England during the colonial period, John Smith began moving westward soon after reaching his majority, and after tarrying awhile in the mountainous region of western Virginia and on a farm in the Muskingum valley of Ohio, he came to Delaware county in 1829. Throughout the active part of his lifetime he lived in Liberty township, an industrious and prosperous farmer, rearing a large family, some of whom are still identified with this county.

added, in 1S31, a young man of nineteen years, born and reared in New Hampshire, and destined, by his remarkable energy, business ability, and thorough integrity, to become a permanent influence in this county's history. Charles F. Willard was born at Charlestown, New Hampshire, in iSu. He received a good home training from his guardian (his father having died when the son was two years old) and had more than ordinary education, although he left the academy at Mcriden in order to take up the jcii\c duties for which he early bowed preference. At the age of fifteen he became a clerk in a store at 1 ochester, New York. In 1830 he moved to Dayton, Ohio, and entered the employ of the same house with which Thomas Kirby was then connected, and in February, 1831, was sent to Mimcic to assist Mr. Kirby in buying furs, ginseng and other products for the Dayton house. His aggressive business ability was shown when a few months later he bought the business of the Dayton merchant, and at the age nf twenty years became junior partner in the firm of Kirby and Willard. During the greater part of thirty-five years Mr. Willard continued in business in Muncie, and the family and estate established by him have remained in Muncie to the present time. He spent his last years with his son at Paincsville, Ohio, where he died in 1871. His brother, Dr. William C. Willard, was one of the early physicians of Muncie, and his activities in the city are mentioned in another chapter.

In the long march from pioneer times to the present the old settlers have been dropping off one by one, and of those who actually took part in the battle against the powers of the wilderness hardly any remain. And yet only a few years ago there were many who had seen the county when farming, trade and industry were in their crude beginnings. Although his death occurred in Muncie at a ripe age, on August 20, 1890, there arc hundreds of persons who remember Volncy Willson, who spent more than half a century of his lifetime in this county. His career and character were such as to make an impress on the community in which he lived. The family in the previous generation was from Vermont, but Volncy was born in Washington county, Xcw York, in 1816. He had a good education, measured by llic standards of the time, and taught several terms of school while a young man. During the first two years of his residence in Muncie, where he located in 1S37, he taught school in the village, and for some years he gave part of his time to this work. Seven years after settling in the county he was elected county treasurer, and held the office three terms. Farming was his principal business, however, and lie not only conducted a large estate but conducted it in a progressive and systematic manner that made him successful above the average. He had interests in several turnpikes of the county and also in several of the railroad lines* traversing the county, and his assistance was lent to many enterprises of local importance or value at the

As elsewhere stated, the men who developed Delaware county did not own any particular section as their previous home. The settlers were perhaps as cosmopolitan as those of any county in the middle west. Here were united in society and often in family tics those whose lives had been molded by Puritan New England and those who had known no influences and customs outside of Cavalier Virginia. Yankee thrift and southern liberality became valuable elements in the new social order growing up in the middle west. So far as the several recognized sections of the United States have produced each a somewhat different type of people, Delaware county has received samples from each of those types, and has developed a thoroughly : American civilization, equally removed from the dominating characteristics i of the north or the south, and from the peculiarities popularly ascribed to j the eastern and to the western people. 1

From the states south of Mason and Dixon's line came not a few of the families whose activities have been recognized as important in the county for two generations. Old Virginia was the mother of colonies as well as the mother of statesmen, and even before the Revolution her sons had f advanced into and across the Alleghany and parallel mountain chains, founding homes, clearing the forests, and forming settlements that owed allegiance to the mother colony until they became strong enough to be erected into separate states. Naturally, the bulk of this migration was south of the Ohio river or in its valley, but during the early decades of the nineteenth centurv a great many homeseekers pushed their way into the country lying midway between the great lakes and the Ohio. In addition to the usual incentives that led pioneers into new countries, some of the Virginians and settlers from other southern states were influenced to locate in the states formed from the Northwest Territory by the absence of slavery from that region. A number of examples could be found, of men who had become convinced of the moral and perhaps the economic wrong inherent in negro slavery, and had removed to northern states to practice their new ideals under favorable conditions. This was especially true of the Quakers from the Carolinas who settled in such large numbers in Wayne county and also overspread into Delaware county.

A conspicuous example of the early settlers who came from the south was Dr. Samuel P. Anthony, one of the most successful business men and one of the best citizens that the county ever had. Why he left Virginia and came into the Ohio valley is an interesting point in the history of emigration. He was born in 1792, at Lynchburg, then as now in the heart of the great

Virginia tobacco industry, and doubtless the tobacco crop bad largely supr&rr.cntcd tlic family's yearly income ever since it located in the state. In i>i.', when be was twenty years old, he and his father moved to Ohio, and ir.rr a period of the service in the army, they located in Cincinnati, in 1814, srxl there established the first tobacco manufacture west of the Alleghany rr'untains. The availability of the Ohio valley for tobacco culture drew not few tobacco planters from Virginia, the original home of the industry, and ,1 it was that the Anthonys first became located on the western side of the A'irphanics. While at Cincinnati. Samuel P. Anthony applied himself to study of medicine, and following several years' practice in various parts of Ohio he located in Muncie in 1831, where he was to spend the remainder tf his life, which was brought to a close in 1876, when he was almost cighty- '... ur years old. Besides practicing medicine he sold merchandise, and, as n examination of the land entries will show, purchased great quantities of '.;-.<] in the county. He amassed a fortune, and. the estate which he founded -t cill one of the largest in the county. He was among the most liberal f.tf-.tributors and active promoters in the building of the first railroads trough the county. He was at one time president of the Bellefontainc and lr.-!anap.)lis (now the Big Four) Railroad and was a director for many i»rs; lie was also president of the Fort Wayne and Southern Railroad. i!i< only child was Edwin C. Anthony, who was born at Cincinnati in 1818 tr.J died in Muncie, June 7, 1884.

The Buckles family had left England in the eighteenth century and Waled in Virginia before the Revolution. In the years of dissent from :!< established' church and while the seeds of discord with the mother were bearing their first fruit, the Buckles family were active in the fiith of the Baptists. Before the close of the century the family had removed '..) Ohio, where in 1799 was born Abraham Buckles. Thirty years later he »:* ordained a minister of the Baptist church, and shortly after coming to Muncie, in the fall of 1833, organized the first Baptist church. He achieved ''r remarkable record of serving over forty-five years as its pastor, without

I -'- 'rvti'in if migration, crossed the mountains into Kentucky, moved to High- county, Ohio, in 1S18, and the following year to Randolph county,

|v ' - time Delaware county was in process of formation the family lived in v''di Carolina. Ralph He^th, the grandfather of the present generation in this county, came from North Carolina to Wayne county, Indiana, jn i iS-'S, and the following year settled in Salem township, this county, so that for more than three quarters of a century members of the family have been ' identified with the county. (See sketch elsewhere.)

The second physician in Mtincic was a Virginian by birth. Dr. L^ Minshall, born in Berkeley county, Virginia, in 1804, and educated for hi, profession in Ohio, came to Muncic in 1829, married the daughter of on« of the merchants at that time, and engaged in a successful practice until hij death in 1S36.

It would be easy to name many families that lived in the southern stales before permanently settling in this county. Stephen Hamilton, son of the Stephen Hamilton after whom Hamilton township was named, was born in Monongalia county in what is now West Virginia, in 1825, and four years later was brought to this county. Job Swain, for many years well known in Muncic and at one time mayor of the city, was identified with the settlement south of the Ohio, having been born in Tennessee in 1806. The family were Quakers, and in 1815 moved to tiie chief settlement of that sect, in Wayne county, Indiana, and from there Mr. Swain came to Muncie in 1828, where he lived nearly half a century until his death in 1877. Another Tcnncsscean, Jonathan Mills, was the first settler of Monroe township, coming there in 1821 from Wayne county, where he had located in 1819. John Barley, one of the early settlers of Nilcs township, who died there March 12, 1SS4. was a native of Frederick county, Virginia, born in 1812. Another Virginian, one of the most prominent and successful business men that Muncie ever had, was the late Jacob II. Wysor, who was born in Pulaski county, Virginia, in 1819, and came to this county in 1834 (sec sketch elsewhere). October 2, l888, occurred the dcatli of A. M. Klein, Muncic's pioneer jeweler, who was born in Loudon county, Virginia, in 1817. lie had moved to Ohio in 1837, and the following year to Muncie, where, in order to make a living by his trade, he became an itinerant jobber, and continued this until the county was better settled and a permanent establishment became profitable.

Letters are often suggestive commentaries of the time in which they are written. A number of the letters written to Thomas Kirby while he was a merchant in Muncie during the thirties have been preserved. They prove unconscious witnesses of some features of pioneer Indiana life that can no longer be readily understood.

In 1S35 Thomas Kirby imported a stove to Muncie, paying fifty dollars for it. It is likely that the stove was an object of curious interest here. Some pioneer accounts make no mention of stoves of any kind, the old fire- j.Lkc. with open hearth, crane, pots and bake-ovens, being the characteristic U Huns of the pioneer house. But stoves were by no means unknown, ami «rrc lisccl in Muncie as this letter shows. The stove was sent from Cincinnati, and the manufacturer writes: "I have sent you at the request of your vp.iher one of the improved Franklin Alterable Cooking stoves, same as h+ has in use. He did not know whether or not you would want the contruience of altering it into an open stove, for which purpose the Franklin hc>I and wings are sent, on condition that if not wanted they may be ^turned. . . . You will find it a great convenience if you should set i)ic Move where you could make a dining room of it in the winter." The -tiivc as pictured on the letter head was not an ungraceful utensil. The i vrn was opened when the stove was transformed into a heater, and by affixir-c the "head and wings" above mentioned was converted into an article of oi-mf'Tt and ornament.

The following letter and its request from Mr. Thomas Kirby's brother m Cincinnati piques our curiosity at the present time as much as it must !j\<r caused the former to wonder when he received the letter: "You will laugh at the purpose of my now writing. Can you procure say at $i or $1.50 iw\ send me say one quart of pure bear's oil when you send down your four hundred deer skins etc? I want it for a particular purpose if pure. If it *ill Ik.- the least inconvenience, don't do it. Should you send it through any ihrr |H.-rson don't let it appear outside what it is and direct it left at my Ixtnc." This was written in February, 1831.

In Dayton Mr. Kirby had been connected with the business house of William Stone, and shortly after his arrival in Muncie he receives a letter of rHoniragcmcnt from his former employer, who then goes on to say: "We tad a letter from Mr. Noble on Sunday. He wrote us that he started goods !:>";i Xew York on the 17th of this month (Sept., 1830), by the way of 1 for Lakes, and it is probable that they will be here by the 10th of next month, i »i!|'[»>sc you will be here by the 20th for new goods." It was a long way -ji transport goods up the Hudson, the Erie Canal, and from some point on IjVc Fric by river and overland to Dayton.

Writing from Detroit, Zebulon Kirby, another brother, states, under '-.:c Sept. 18, 1831, that "Red Deer skins Indian handled are worth 25 cents [<r pound here, quick at that - they might probably fetch something more." ilirn asks, "Arc your skins taken off and handled by the Indians? Skins «hich arc handled by whites or Yankees do not sell as high." During the «"-»rIy years of this county's history deer skins were an important article of " 'Timcrcc. Here is a copy of a handbill printed more than seventy years *£>> and doubtless displayed in many public places in this county: "Cash ;u:d for Ginseng and Red Deer skins. The subscriber will pay the highest "urkct price in cash or goods for ginseng well washed and dried and for

A letter from Zchtilon written in 1844 advises Mr. Thomas Kirby t0 market his pork in Detroit instead of at Cincinnati. "Wc were struck by the prices you name as being paid there and the prices that the article commands here. A Common article sells in our streets at three and a halt cents and all that will weigh 300 or thereabout brings 4 cents and some has been sold higher. A barrel of good mess pork (heavy) cannot be had here now short of 12 dollars. These prices are paid by packers, and there is considerable putting up, but they all complain they cannot obtain enough at the prices paid. Now it docs strike me that if you will pack as much mess pork as you can and cure hams and shoulders as you had last summer, cart it to the canal with your lard, and come up here with it at the first opening of navigation in the spring, you cannot fail to do well at least and it strikes me you will get about twice as much as you can at home, or have it net you by sending to Cincinnati."