Dubois County, Indiana - Chapter 9: The Pioneers of Dubois County -Their Homes. Social Life, Labors, Characteristics, X\nd Nativity, 1910

Building sites - House-raising - Dinner at house-raising time - Puncheons - Clapboards - Divorces - Neighborly calls - Spinning - Industry of the pioneer women - Homespun clothing - Stick chimneys - The sugar camp - Spelling matches - Block houses - Fort McDonald - Fort Farris - Fort Butler - Oldest map of Dubois county - The character of the pioneer of the Irish Settlement - Courts - Judges - Hon. William E. Niblack - The pioneer doctor - Pioneer doctors at Jasper; Huntingburg; Ferdinand; Holland; Haysville; in Madison township - Fear of Indians before war of 1812 - Friendship - The first adopted Red Man in Dubois county - Pioneer merchants - Court house at Jasper destroyed by fire - Territorial penal laws - Negroes - The first newspaper in Dubois county - Fire destroys valuable papers - The six townships, and population of each - Exports of county - Our pioneers came from Kentuck}', North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia, Tennessee, Maryland, Georgia, Ohio, and Pennsylvania.

The first settlers selected btiilding sites in the timber and generally near springs. It may seem thoughtless for them to clear timber for a farm when they could have gone to land in Indiana or Illinois that had no timber. But, it was not thoughtless. The pioneers came from a timber country and knew how to use the axe. They needed the wood for houses, stables, fences, and fuel. A yoke of oxen and a horse or two would raise a crop on the clearing. The pioneers were really wise in electing to settle in the forest. They raised nearly everything they had to eat and to wear.

The pioneer, having hewn his logs, and having all things in readiness, passed word around and the neighbors gathered in, from a large section of country, to help raise the house A house-raising was an event that called for much rejoicing in the community of widely scattered settlers. It meant a new home, a new familj-, new neighbors, and new interests. It was an occasion for the keenest enjoyment, for the fullest and freest interchange of innocent mirth and jollity, for unlimited cooking, and for the easing of the every-day burden of care and anxiety.

The women cooked all day long on the day of the house-raising, and wonderful meals were the result. Here is a fair list of things the pioneers had to eat upon such an occasion. They had roast venison, roast pork, roast wild turkey, quail-pie, dried berry and pumpkin pie, - all baked in

Dutch ovens on the hearth of a huge fireplace. The meat in those days was nut-fed, and had a juiciness and fine flavor that a present millionaire could scarcely buy at any price. No other mode of cooking gives food the same flavor it gets by roasting in the long-legged Dutch oven, over and under a bed of red coals. They also had turnips, potatoes, boiled green pawpaws, and baked beans. The different kinds of corn bread were baked in the old-fashioned Dutch ovens on the wide open hearths. They also had parched rye coffee, sweetened with maple sugar and made thick with yellow cream. Tea, of at least some flavor, was made from the bark of the spice bush which grew among the underbrush nearby. Sometimes tea was made of sassafras. Hunger was the "sauce" that made the food all that the heart could desire. Hardships were pleasures in those days, and the more people that could gather at a dinner, the more all would eat. The courage and self-reliance, the grand hospitality and unselfish friendship of the pioneer days were to be commended.

During the house raising some men were splitting logs and making thick boards called puncheons. As late as 1907 there were still some to be seen in the county. These puncheons were fastened to the sleepers of a house by means of wooden pegs and thus made a floor. The ceiling of the room, if any at all, was made the same way. The roof was of fourfoot clapboards made from straight logs, held in their places on the rafters, not by nails, but by heavy weight poles laid across them and fastened down at each end of the roof.

A "china-closet" consisted of shelves laid on pegs which had been driven into the log walls. The furniture was made by the faithful, but not very skillful, hands of the husband, who was a " Jack-of-all-trades" and moreover was fairly good at them.

Notwithstanding all these rude primitive surroundings the pioneers were as happy as the day was long. They had no cares of state to crush them to earth. The government looked after their best interests, jealousy and strife were strangers, and the people of every neighborhood were very strongly attached to one another. They frequently helped one another in work requiring several hands. They were seldom sick, for the active outdoor life gave them good health; they ate their meals with keen appetites in thankfulness of heart, and they slept the sleep of the just. There was no call for suicide, and crime was almost unknown. Not many knew what a divorce meant, or had the means to procure one if they did, for in pioneer days, divorces were not granted by a local court, but by an act of the state legislature. Fashion made no demands on the pioneer purse or time. The old-fashioned flowers and the native wild flowers wafted their perfume through the open door all summer long. The birds sang in the woods, and many pioneers sang throughout the day while at their work. Except in rare instances it was a hearty, wholesome, honest existence, good to read about.

Busy people seldom get lonesome and pioneer people were verj^ busy. There were many calls for neighborly acts in pioneer days when all were so dependent on one another for comfort and pleasure, and all gladly responded to these calls. A woman with a family of little ones found it difficult to get her thread spun ready for the loom ; when such a condition became known, three or four neighbor women would shoulder their wheels and wend their way along the bridle path to her home and give her a day's spinning.

Pioneers often had to carry their corn fifty miles to get it ground into meal, and man)' a bushel has been carried on horse back from Boone township to Vincennes. Later, some pioneers from near Washington carried their corn to mills on Patoka river. It might have been a hardship to go several days without bread of any kind, as they frequently had to do, but they had potatoes and meat, and the pioneer women knew how to make an excellent rye hominy, which they kept on hand to take the place of the "staff of life." Both the men and the women worked very hard all the time. They did not believe there was any other way to do if they succeeded in redeeming their homes from savagery and from the wilderness.

The women made the clothing their families wore, and also the bed and bedding. The raccoon and wild cat skins were made into caps, and the squirrel and rabbit skins, into gloves. There were hatters and other tradesmen in Dubois county not found here now.

Women made garden, attended to the cows, dried meat before a great fireplace for summer use, and frequently lent a willing hand in the clearings. Ivove and hope sweetened and brightened every thing, and they did not seem ever to experience hardship or misfortune. But they had their full share of earth's ills, and now and then death cast its shadow among them. The grim monster is no respecter of persons. At times children especially suffered. Upon many headstones in the old pioneer cemeteries, one finds the birth and death dates painfully close together.

The pioneer women raised buckwheat, and their buckwheat cakes and maple syrup were said to have been delicious. Maple trees grew all about the forests and gathering the sap was not a difficult undertaking.

The men wore homespun shirts and when they went from home, they always carried their guns, in order that they might use every opportunity offered to get game for food. They drew their hunting shirt close about their waists, knotted the lower points in front, and such a bloused shirt made an excellent game-bag. As years went on new settlers came to the "Mud Holes " or to the " Irish Settlement " and soon became good helpful neighbors. They built comfortable homes, raised good crops, were successful in their undertakings, and thus the county grew and prospered.

In pioneer days, if a young man could build a good " stick chimney" or a good " stone chimney " he stood almost as high in society as a pioneer miller or blacksmith. The very first chimneys were made with sticks. They were lined and made fire-proof by using clay.

The sugar camp was the pride, the joy, the boon of every pioneer. Into a trough, rough-hewn, the sap was caught as it ran from the sugartree through an elder stem with the pith punched out. Emptied into barrels, it was conveyed on primitive sleds to the camp kettles for the purpose of being boiled into sirup or stirred into sugar. There were some excellent sugar camps along the " Buffalo Trace," and north of it in Columbia township. Frequently the " stirring-off " time was an opportunity for the young folks to gather together. From neighboring settlements the boys and girls would come, pair off, choose sides, and in pleasant, friendly rivalry contend for the deposit of maple wax to be found in the bottom of every kettle. This recalls to mind another pioneer pastime, namely, the "trap-matches," since called the "spelling-matches." Pioneers may have been poor penmen, but as a rule, they were good spellers.

The first settlers, after providing for their most urgent wants, built what were called block-houses. These houses were constructed of blocks of wood, ten or twelve inches square at the ends, and from fifteen to twenty feet in length. The ends were doved-tailed or double wedged, so that they could not be forced apart. The logs or blocks were placed one above the other as ordinary log houses are constructed, each block wedging down to one beneath it, so that when completed, a solid wall of wood ten or twelve inches thick, presented itself to the Indians or enemy. The chimney was usually built in the center, so that it could not be torn down. Port holes were cut in the logs; that is, small holes, large enough to permit a rifle being put through from the inside, aimed and discharged. These holes spread toward the outside, so that a rifle could be raised, lowered or aimed by one within the house without much danger from an enemy outside. In this way the pioneer shot plenty of deer, bears, turkeys and other wild game without going out of his house. Fort McDonald was similarly constructed, but much larger, for it held several families when the Indians were troublesome. It was considered much as common property by the settlers. Fort Farris, near Portersville, and Fort Butler, near Haysville, were also blockhouses.

William McDonald built a log house near the base line on the banks of Mud Hole creek, a branch of Mill creek. The map made by David Sandford, the government surveyor, in 1805, shows the exact location of this cabin. It is the oldest map of Dubois county in existence. At this place the commissioners, who were to locate a county seat for Dubois county, met and selected the land upon which Portersville now stands, perhaps because it is on the banks of White river, streams in those days being valuable as means of transportation. Court was also held at the McDonald house until the first court house could be erected.

The early pioneer was not a man sordid, gross, uncouth, or entirely illiterate. Far from it. He belonged to a race of men intelligent, courageous, honest, freedom-loving, devout, and sincere. The pioneers of Dubois county were generally self-made; consequently but few failed in life. As an individual our local pioneer was tolerant, but he kept his squirrel rifle handy to maintain his theocracy and eternal right to his possession in the wilderness He estimated his endurance by the time between the rising and the setting of the sun. He lived with nature. He was imbued with such wisdom as God bestows upon every free agent. He was under no control except his own judgment, and was subject to the rule of government where it did not conflict with the law of necessity - as he interpreted it. His self-reliance, born of necessity, was developed by his knowledge and the force of human wants.

The lifehood of the early Scotch Irish settler, of the "Irish Settlement " was distinguished by an independence of character, never subtle, but radiant with open-handed and liberal charity for the judgment of others. He was greatest in inoffensive simplicity; he was always sincere because he could not be other than natural. His environments quickened his ardor for life's duties. Nothing ever led him to forget his manhood or his dignity, Though gentle and peaceable to a fault, woe unto the person that provoked him to anger, for then he would as soon fight as eat.

Under the early laws there were various courts, now practically consolidated into the circuit, though the commissioners' court represents a part of the early courts. All judges held their offices seven years. The " President Judge " was chosen by the Legislature and was usually some good lawyer. The "associate judges" and "probate judges" were chosen by the people. Clerks of courts and county recorders were chosen for seven years, justices of the peace for five years, and county sheriff's for two years. Among the local " associate judges " were B. B. Edmonston, Sr., Ashbury Alexander, Edward Wood, John Niblack, Daniel Harris, Henry Bradley, Willis Hays, Robert Oxley, Wm. Cavender, Col. Thomas Shoulders and Conrad Miller. Their service was under the first constitution of Indiana. As probate judges we find the names of B B. Edmonston, Sr., Daniel Harris, Moses Kelso and Andrew B. Spradley. The first citizen and native of Dubois county to sit upon the bench, as a circuit judge, in this county, was the Hon. Wm. E. Niblack, who was born at Portersville, May 22, 1822, when that town was the "county town." Afterwards he become a member of the Supreme Court of the state for twelve years. He was circuit judge from 1854 to 1858. He also served as a member of Congress previous to 1861, and from 1863 to 1875. He was a Democrat. Judge Niblack spent his early life on a farm, and when but sixteen years of age was sent to the State University. He was a surveyor for three years, and while following that occupation studied law. He was

A part of the life of every settlement was the pioneer doctor. Tireless, sympathetic, and ever ready to answer the call of the distressed, his humanity triumphed even over the severity of the winter storm. His journey, by night may have been governed by the stars, or by a flash of lightning, yet he sped onward through the forest to the bedside of the sick one. If all human skill failed, his great soul ^^ ^^^^ was the first to invoke Divine and his being frequently exposed to severe weather generally made the pioneer doctor .short-lived. Dr. Aaron B. McCrillus seems to have been the first pioneer doctor in Dubois county. He was long a leading citizen of Jasper, where he died of smallpox. May i, 1851, aged fifty. His widow and children laid out two large additions to Jasper. Dr. McCrillus is often mentioned as one of the founders of Jasper. He was also the first physician at Portersville. In 1S38 Dr. John Poison arrived at Jasper, and died there, April 26, 1842, at the age of thirty-two. Both Drs. McCrillus and Poison served as state representatives. Their remains lie buried in the old pioneer cemetery, south of Patoka river, at Jasper. Drs. Kruse, Montgomerj', and Stephenson were also pioneer physicians at the new county-seat. Dr. E. Stephenson was born January 7, 1823, and died at Jasper, June 30, 1907. Dr. Kruse was the first physician to introduce vaccination into Dubois county.

Dr. Wm. Sherritt was an early physician at Jasper. He came to Dubois county as a physician in 1844, and practiced at Jasper and Haysville. He was also a pioneer politician. He moved to Paoli in 1847, where his remains lie buried. Dr. Sherritt died at Indianapolis in 1887. He was a cousin of Pioneer \Vm. B Sherritt. Dr. Sherritt was born in Virginia in 1820.

Among the pioneer physicans at Huntingburg were Drs. Kruse, Scheller, Hughes, Beeler, Messick, Adams, and Welman. Dr. Welman moved to Jasper, where he died, February 14, 1884. Ferdinand's pioneer physicians were Drs. Seifert, Keller, Sunderman, and Kempf, The last named was a member of the faculty of the Kentucky School of Medicine. He died at Louisville, in 1880. Dr. Kempf was a member of the Indiana legislature in 1859. He was the author of "The Wandering Cainidae, or the Ancient Nomads," published in 1879.

The early physician at Holland was Dr. Rust. About 1830, Dr. Spore became a physician at Haysville. Dr. William Sherritt was also an early physician at Haysville. About 1846 Dr. Edward A. Glezen located in Madison township. About 1852, he built the second building on the present site at Ireland. Dr. Glezen was born in Pennsylvania, May 20, 1824, and died near Ireland, February 11, 1901. The first physicians of the other towns in Dubois county can hardly be classed as pioneers. In 1850 there were but seven physicians in the county. Early physicians were often paid in farm products for their services. In 1850, Dr. Welman advertised in the Jasper Courier for hogs and cattle in return for professional services.

Man}' of the settlers in the northern part of Dubois county lived in a state of alarm during the years preceding the war of 1812. They feared the Indians. One "Buffalo Trace" pioneer thus described how he worked: "On all occasions I carried my rifle, tomahawk, and butcher knife, with a loaded pistol in my belt. When I went to plow I put my gun on the ploughed ground, and stuck up a stick by it for a mark, so that I could get it quickly in case it was wanted. At night I had two good dogs. I took one into the house, leaving the other one outside. The one outside was expected to give the alarm, which would cause the one inside to bark, by which I would be awakened, having my gun always loaded. I kept my horse in a stable close to the house and through the house wall next to the stable there was a porthole so that I could shoot to the stable door."

A lady pioneer of the Irish Settlement says: "My heart still goes back fondly to those early days, when the little cabin was gladdened by a neighbor stopping with a quarter of deer across his horse for us; or when we women friends met on the old bridle path - each of us, it might be, with a baby at the saddlehorn - to exchange the scant news of our forest homes. Every woman in the settlement could ride a horse sixty years ago. In those days whoever went to a postofhce brought away all the mail for his whole neighborhood, and faithfully distributed it. In those times, in a country sparsely settled, the "brotherhood of man" was a reality. The question of personal liking, of individual attractiveness, did not figure so largely as in older settlements. Every woman was your sister and every man was your brother, all were children of the wilderness and of inexor- able necessity. The memories of such times and such conditions are like memories of childhood, the family, the home. Good and bad, pleasant and painful, they are of one's very nature a part. I look back with love to my pioneer days."

Lieut. Hiram McDonald, grandson of the pioneer William McDonald, reports that it was a common occurrence, in Boone township, to see a son or a daughter of the pioneer, walking by the side of the father carrying the long trusty flint-lock rifle, while the father held the plow. He also says that "A short time after my grandfather, William McDonald, settled in Dubois county, the Indians called on him, and insisted that the pale face should be initiated into the mysteries and secrets of the original Redmen. He consented, whereupon one of the braves killed a hawk, its head was cut off, and impaled on a tall pole, when all proceeded to the banks of Mud Hole creek. Pale Face McDonald was given the pole and required to hold the hawk's head above his own, while the Indians joined hands and danced about him in all their gruesome style. He thus became the first adopted Red Man in Dubois county, and lived to tell the tale to his future neighbors.

One of the earliest merchants in the county was George H. Profiit, of Portersville. He conducted a store there about 1825. He was a Whig and a member of the State legislature. He served as Congressman in 1839- 1843. Congressman Proffit was below the medium size, short, slim, and spare. He had a good mouth, small head, high forehead, bony cheeks, dark eyes and light brown hair. He was quick and ready, a splendid orator, and a power on the stump He was also our charge to Brazil, under an appointment made by President Tyler. His remains lie buried at Petersburg. Congressman Proffit was born in New Orleans, 1800, and died at Louisville, September 7, 1847. Congressman Proffit and Judge Wm. E. Niblack reflect honor upon the old " county-town of Portersville."

The Hon. Goodlet Morgan, the first assistant county officer of Dubois county, later a county commissioner, county clerk, and councilman of Pike county, and whom we freely quote, married a daughter of Congressman Proffit, on November 24, 1848.

The burning of the court house at Jasper, August 17, 1839, destroyed the old court records, and the loss of the trustee's office, of Bainbridge township, by fire, caused the loss of much interesting matter relative to the early laws and law enforcement; therefore a synopsis of the territorial penal laws, in general, is given, since the county courts were governed by them. When these laws were in force, Dubois county was a part of Knox county, to-wit: -

By the provisions of the territorial code of 1807, the crimes of treason, murder, arson, and horse stealing were each punishable by death. The crime of manslaughter was punishable according to the common law. The crimes of burglary and robbery were each punishable by whipping, fine.

and, in some cases, by imprisonment, not exceeding forty years. Riotous persons were punishable by fine and imprisonment. The crime of larceny was punishable by fine or whipping, and in certain cases, by being bound to labor for a term not exceeding seven years. Forgery was punishable by fine, disfranchisement and standing in the pillory. Assault and battery, as a crime, was punishable by fine, not exceeding $100. Hog stealing was punishable by fine and whipping. Gambling, profane swearing, and Sabbath breaking were each punishable by fine. Bigamy was punishable by fine, whipping, and disfranchisement. The law provided for the punishment of disobedient children and servants by the following section:

"If any children or servants shall, contrary to the obedience due to their parents or masters, resist or refuse to obey their lawful commands, upon complaint thereof to a justice of the peace, it shall be lawful for such justice to send him, or them so offending, to the jail or house of correction, there to remain until he, or they, shall humble themselves to the said parents' or master's satisfaction. And if any child or servant shall, contrary to his bounden duty, presume to assault or strike his parent or master upon complaint and conviction thereof, before two or more justices of the peace, the offender shall be whipped, not exceeding ten stripes."

Some of the earlier pioneers of Dubois county had been slaveholders in the south and they brought negroes with them. These negro remains are at rest in some of the pioneer graveyards of the county. It can not be said, as a fact, that these negroes were held as slaves after being brought to Dubois county, but they were servants who did as told. The court records of Pike county show that there were slaves in Pike county. On November 28, 1817, Ede, a colored woman, of Pike county, became of her own free will, an indentured servant of Francis Cunningham for thirty years. She received $280 in money, and when her thirty years of service had expired was to get "a feather bed, bedstead and clothing and two suits of clothes." Bob and Anthony were two colored men who brought suit for their freedom in Pike county, in 1817. They won. This is mentioned here because suit was brought before Judges Brenton and Harbison. Associate Judge Arthur Harbison then lived in what is now Harbison township in Dubois county. He was the only judge in this county, to ever try a case concerning the liberty of a slave. The case was in the courts five years before it was finally settled.

It is said that Eli Thomas, Silvis McDonald, William Brittain, and James and Eacey Ritchey, early pioneers, came from the south, and brought their negroes with them. This was not an unusual occurrence in Southern Indiana. An act passed by Indiana territor5''s law making body, in 1805, permitted slave holding, under certain restrictions. The law was abolished December 14, 1810.

The first newspaper published in Dubois county was the American Eagle. The files of this paper were destroyed by fire, at Paoli, Indiana, previous to 1899, and, no doubt, much early information about Dubois county was lost.

Henry Comingore was the publisher of the American Eagle, at Jasper. He arrived there July 4, 1846, and began the publication of the Americaii Eagle, in what was the County Assessor's ofiice in the court house of 1845- 1909. He continued the paper until 1848, and then moved it back to Paoli. There was no paper published in Dubois county for some time after the removal of the Avierican Eagle and legal notices had to be published in some near-by paper. The following notice appears in the American Eagle

The undersigned, treasurer of Dubois County, in the state of Indiana, is ready to redeem all the orders drawn on the treasurer of said county, and have been presented for payment, from the first day of March, 1844, to the 30th day of December, 1S48.

The paper was Democratic and supported Franklin Pierce for president and shows that Senator Benjamin R. Edmonston was the Deinocratic presidential elector for the first district in Indiana. Wheat, corn, oats, corn meal and potatoes were receivable on subscription to the Eagle as announced in its columns.

"The Hon. Henry Clay, died, at Washington City, twentj'-five minutes after 11 o'clock, on Tuesday last. Another great man has fallen. Both houses of Congress adjourned immediately on the receipt of the news of his death."

The Eagle was a four page, six column paper, and space was valuable. No other county near us has been more unfortunate in the loss of its early sources of information. Fire in the Knox county court house, fire in the Dubois county court house, the burning of the trustee's office of Bainbridge township, the thoughtless act of a clerk in the State House, at Corydon, in burning old documents to get rid of them, and the loss, by fire of the files of the Americayi Eagle make local historical research difficult.

Since 1850 is about the close of what might be termed the "Pioneer Period" it might be well to state that at that time Dubois county had but six townships, namely:

In 1850, there were three hundred forty voters in Bainbridge township. Then civil townships were much larger than at present. The town of Ferdinand had thirty-one houses, and one hundred fifty inhabitants. The population of Haysville was one hundred eighty-eight. Haysville had two stores, a ware-house, and a grocery. Huntingburg's population was two hundred fourteen. The population of Jasper was five hundred thirty-two.

In 1830, when Jasper became the "county town," the population of Dubois county was 1774; in 1840, it was 3632; and, in 1850, 5430. In 1850, the principal exports were hogs, cattle, horses, and corn. There were then in the county fourteen stores and groceries, four ware-houses, and one brewery; three Catholic, five Methodist, and two Cumberland Presbyterian churches; eight grist and saw mills and two carding machines. There were also fifteen blacksmiths, seventeen house-carpenters, five millwrights, three lawyers, seven physicians, three ministers and nineteen tailors.

Nearly all of our early pioneers came from southern states. Not all families can be named here, but one or both branches of the following families came from states as indicated, namely:

Ohio and Pennsylvania furnished several families. Scotland, England, Ireland, Switzerland, and France contributed a small portion. The various divisions of the German Empire contributed about one-half - these constituted the later pioneers. From the above source came the pioneers that created and produced Dubois county, and their descendants are its citizens at this time.