Johnson County, Indiana - Chapter 3: By D. D. Banta, 1888 (part 1 of 2)

Chapter 3: By D. D. Banta

- Hardships of New Comers - Domestic Animals - Mast - Hog Stealing - Situation of New Homes - Primitive Tools - Mode of Farming - Hunting Incidents

SETTLEMENTS were first made in Johnson County early in 1820. All of the New Purchase was open to immigrants by that year, and when the time came for laying it off into counties, it was found that settlements in all had been begun about the same time. In all, the growth was slow in comparison to what has been seen in new counties further west* in a later day. At the end of the first year there were not to exceed twenty families in Johnson County. During the second the number increased to about fifty-five, and at the close of the third it was not less than 100. It took ten years to bring it up to 800.

The majority of the first settlers of Johnson County visited the country and selected the place of their future abiding before moving. The greater part of these made some sort of arrangement for shelter before coming. A few bought lands on which cabins hail already been built by earlier settlers. Others unaided, or with hired or volunteer help, built their own cabins, while others still, hired the work done altogether. A cabin of two rooms, finished after the fashion of the times, usually cost about $50. Not a few at the beginning moved to the country without knowing where they were going to locate, and having no promise of shelter. Occasionally one of these found an unoccupied cabin in the woods, into which he moved and lived until he could built for himself. Samuel Herriott, who came to the county in December, 1820, finding such a cabin on Sugar Creek, moved in. It had been erected the fall before, and was unfinished, having "neither door, floor, nor chimney." His wife, after raking a six-inch snow out, drove forks in one corner of the cabin and laying poles therein, crossed them with clapboards on which she made the bed. This she curtained with the wagon-sheet, making it quite comfortable. In the center of the floorless cabin, against a stump, she set a fire burning, which gave warmth to the family, and over which she hung the pot when she wanted it to boil. In this primitive abode Mr. Herriott and his wife lived till about the first of February following, when they moved to their new home on the west side of the creek. This new cabin had a puncheon floor when they moved in, and Dame Herriott, more than fifty years afterward, speaking of her " one big pot and two splint-bottomed chairs," declared that when the men could sit on the edge of that puncheon floor and eat their dinners out of that pot, she " felt well fixed."*

But unoccupied cabins were not of common occurrence. The greater number of those who ventured to move to the country without having homes prepared beforehand, or friends to give them shelter, camped in the woods while building their cabins. In 1822, Andrew Pierce came to the White River settlement. His wife and he had walked all the way from Pittsburg, each carrying a bundle containing all their worldly goods. At their journey's end, which they reached after the winter weather had begun, they camped by the side of a log in the woods, till, with the help of the neighbors, a rude cabin was built, in which they found shelter. Benjamin Crews, who moved to Nineveh early in the spring of 1821, camped for eight weeks before his home was made. The season was so far advanced, and the necessities for raising a crop so great, that the first thing he did was to clear a field and plant it in corn, after which he put up a cabin. Sometime in 1826, Thomas Henderson, who was living at the Big Spring, notified his neighbor, Simon Covert, that a family had moved into the woods some miles to the westward of his place, and he proposed that they go and see who it was. Shouldering their axes, they set out, and at the end of a five miles' tramp, they found Mrs. Gwinnie Utterback, a widow with her family, consisting of eight sons and one daughter, camped in the woods a short distance south of the present site of Union village. The two pioneers, with the assistance of the Utterback boys, fel[ to with a will, and soon had a pole cabin up, into which the widow and her household at once moved, and began life in the Indiana wilderness in earnest.

At this distance an air of romance is cast about many occurrences that no doubt were painfully matter of fact to the parties concerned, at the time. In the fall of 1830, Garrett Terhune and his brother James, arrived from Kentucky, and settled on the east side of Union Township, a mile west of Peter Vandiver's place. Garrett Terhune had a family of ten children, and he paid a man $30, all the money he had, to move him out. No preparation for shelter had been made, and when the end of the journey was reached, the movers' goods and their families were literally turned out in the woods. The brothers at once built two open camps ten feet apart and facing each other. In the space between they made the camp fire, at which the meals were cooked, and around which both families gathered of nights listening to the moan of the autumn winds in the tree tops and the howl of the prowling wolves. At the end of six weeks they abandoned their camps for a double cabin which they had erected in the meanwhile. Peter Vandiver, Terhune's nearest neighbor, moved to the country in 1826. Ten children were in his family and they were without shelter. The father, assisted by the older sons, immediately built an open camp, twelve by twenty feet, into which the family moved and lived till a better house was made.

The " open camp," as it was called in the early days, was quite frequently met with at one time in the Johnson County forests. The most of those who came to the county without homes prepared beforehand, found shelter till that could be done, in the hastily constructed open camp. The greater number of the early settlers had cabins prepared before moving. This was specially true of those who came from the southern part of. the state, and. from Kentucky. 'But it would seem, that of these, the greater part moved into unfinished homes. The man who came in advance to build was quite often ready to return for his family and goods, as soon as his cabin was raised and had a roof on. Door, window, floor and chimney could be attended to afterward. Robert Forsyth's cabin was without floor, door, chimney, daubing, chinking or loft, when he moved to it. John P, Banta came to the county, a year before he moved, and built a cabin, put a roof on, chinked the cracks, and made a mud and stick chimney. When he moved to it in September, 1829, it was without door, window, floor or loft. William Keaton and his wife moved into theirs before a place for a door, window or chimney, was cut out. The top log of the door span had been cut out and the family climbed in and out as best they could, till such time as a larger entrance could be made.

It was so common in the pioneer times, this moving into unfinished cabins, that it seldom or never caused comment. It may be safely assumed that during the first ten years after the first white man moved to the county, more than half of the people who came to find homes, lived for a time in unfinished cabins. Quilts and blankets hung over cabin doors and windows, gave protection against wind and weather for weeks, and in some instances, for months, to a large per cent, of the people who came during those first ten years.

The first cabins were primitive structures. They were made of round logs felled on or near the home site. Some were square enclosures, but most were parallelogram in form. Sixteen by eighteen feet was a common size, but some were 18x20. The roof was held in place by weight poles. The cracks between the logs were chinked with wood and daubed with tempered mortar to keep out the rain and cold. The back wall and jambs were made of dry earth invariably dug from beneath the floor and beaten so firmlv into place as to stand the fires of many winters. Mounting above these was the mud and stick chimney, which, after a few years, usually had to be propped with a pole to keep it from falling. Slabs of ash - blue ash preferred - hewn to a face, made the floor - a floor that gave a silvery brightness at the touch of the scrubbing broom and mopping cloth. There were no carpets in those days, but in most families, Sunday morning saw the cabin floor as white as the table linen. If there was poplar plank to be had, it went into the cabin door, but if there was none, riven oak boards, smoothed with a drawing knife, answered the purpose. On wooden hinges the door was apt to swing, and its fastening might be a wooden pin, or better, a wooden latch with the string hanging out.

In the construction of many of the first cabins, not a nail, not a scrap of iron entered. Wood and clay composed it all. A " worm" fence around it protected it and the door-yard, from the cattle and hogs. Very soon a better order of cabin architecture followed. The two roomed cabin with its clapboard roof nailed on, its logs scotched, its doors and windows cased in sawed stuff and painted blue or red, was to be seen everywhere. HSometimes the two rooms would be separated by an " entry," making a form of cabin known in some quarters as a "saddle-bags cabin," but usually, the line dividing the two rooms, consisted of a wall of logs, through the middle of which was cut the " inside door."

Into the majority of the primitive cabins, the Johnson County pioneers moved during the autumnal season. Most of them came in wagons, but not all. Andrew Pierce and his wife walked all the way from Pittsburg, carrying packs on their backs. Stith Daniel, who settled near the present site of Trafalgar, packed through from Kentucky on horse back. Richard Perry., who came in 1823, brought part of "his goods in a two wheeled vehicle, drawn by oxen, and packed the residue on horse-back. He was ten days traveling 200 miles. Ladd, who settled at the bluffs, close to the line, moved all the way from North Carolina in a sled. George Bridges came to the country with two wagons, one of which was " home-made." The wheels were made of thick oak plank with iron tires. Not infrequently the wife and mother rode on horse back, and the biggest children walked. Mrs. John Doty rode all the way from the North Bend, below Cincinnati, and carried the baby. Mrs. Nancy Forsyth rode from her old Kentucky home on horse back. At the crossing of the Driftwood, she took on a sack of meal and carried her two year old baby in her lap before her, while the baby carried the pet house cat.

The fall of the year was usually chosen as the time to move, of necessity. The wretched condition of the Indiana roads as found at almost all other seasons of the year, operated largely to bring this about. From the season of the beginning of the fall rain, on through the winter and spring and till the summer drouths held the land in their dry embrace, it was next to impossible to haul a load from the Ohio River to central Indiana. Some years the dry season was of such short duration that the mud-roads held sway the year round. George Kerlin, who moved to the country in the month of September, 1831, found the roads next to impassable from the Ohio River out. At any other than during the dry season, it was a hard day's ride from Franklin to Edinburg and return. It occupied all of one day to ride to Indianapolis. When once in his new home the pioneer was apt to find his lines in any but pleasant places. His cabin was cheerless. Everything was new. The conveniences of life were scant. Much had to be left at the old home that could not be supplied in the new. It is difficult to convey to the people of this age an adequate idea of the unsupplied wants of the people who lived in the early days. Poverty abounded everywhere. There were few, indeed, who had money, and the majority lacked in everything that is now deemed essential to comfort.

In 1820, a man with his family, came to Johnson County from Tennessee, whose earthly all, was a "rifle-gun and fifty cents worth of powder and lead, a little scant bedding and a skillet and piggin." Another man had a "straw tick, a broken skillet, a bucket, a riflegun, a butcher knife and a steelyards." Still another man's outfit of culinary ware was a coffee pot and a few pewter dishes. And one man after clearing his little field for corn planted the seed with his axe, He had neither horse, plow or hoe, nor money with which to buy them. James and Moses McClain, who moved to this county from Oldham County, Ky., in 1827, brought their two families and their worldly goods in one two-horse wagon. Moses had no money and James had 25 cents. Garrett Terhune, as we have seen, paid all his money to the man who moved him. He had a wife and ten children to maintain, besides two horses and a dozen head of cattle. The story of the hardships endured by this man and his family, as. told by a son who survives, presents a most pathetic picture of the times. The first and second planting of corn failed, and the third which came was ruined by the frost. There was no £rain for the cattle and many of them died. The horses were so poor that they could not work in the plow beyond two hours at a time, but had to be turned out to graze. Before the second year's crop came, Mr. Terhune had to have corn for bread. "I never ate acorns because I had to," said James, the son, "but I ate acorns because I was hungry." The meal was low in the barrel and the corn pone was cut into twelve pieces of equal size at each repast. The father without money went to the hawpatch to buy bread, where he met a distant relative who sold him the needed grain and waited for the pay. Thus they tided over their day of distress till the. new cropcame.

William Keaton had a somewhat similar experience. Being out of breadstuffs, he left a sick wife and a family of little children,, and went to the neighborhood east of Edinburg to bu}' corn, without money. But, unacquainted as he was, everyone refused to sell to him, and then he went to TannehilPs mill. It had so happened that as he moved from Kentucky, he had brought a few pounds of wool which he had left at Tannehill's carding machine. The wool was still there and uncarded, and, in his extremity, he persuaded the miller to hold the wool as security for a grist of corn, and was thus enabled to return home with meal for his hungry family. Sometimes, during the first few years, breadstuffs could not be had at any price. The years 1824 and 1825 were exceedingly hard ones. The raccoons and the squirrels destroyedthe corn patches to such an extent, that many who would have been provided otherwise by their own crops, had to work elsewhere. John Doty's family, living on White River, subsisted for weeks on dried venison, and his was not the only family reduced to this extremity. Twelve miles north of Indianapolis, on Connor's prairie,, was an abundance of corn, and to that Egypt, many went from all parts of the country, and were supplied. On one occasion, Peter and Samuel Doty, John's sons, set out with their axes on their shoulders, and a few dollars in their pockets, to buy corn at the prairie. After they had gone four miles, Daniel Etter, a neighbor, overtook them. He left at home a wife and nine little children. Etter was without money, but he had a butcher knife - probably

At their journey's end the men found work, and in due time the Dotys, with the money they had and, with that earned, announced their intention of returning; but Etter was not ready to go. He had earned only twelve bushels and had his butcher knife and steelyard still on hand. Never had the outlook seemed to him quite so full of gloom before. He had made a hard struggle to maintain his family, and it seemed as if every year the difficulties became greater. " I cannot," said he, " return to my wife and children with only twelve bushels of corn. It is useless to try to live in this country any longer, and the sooner my troubles are ended the better." His friends, assuring him they had no intention of leaving him behind them, proffered to take his knife and steelyard and try their luck in the corn trade. That same evening they found a man who wanted a steelyard, and with that and the knife, thirty more bushels of corn were bought, and Daniel Etter was fairly beside himself with joy. The men at once went to work on two large dug-outs, into which the corn was laden, and after being lashed together they were floated down the river and landed at the mouth of Honey Creek, whence the precious grain was distributed among the neighbors.

Most of the Johnson County settlers brought domestic animals with them to the new country. In the beginning these were left mainly to shift for themselves. Men who were hard pressed to get corn to make bread for their families, made little effort to secure it for their beasts. There was no pasture, however, according to the present signification of that word, but the range was boundless, and a pioneer cow, hog, sheep, and even horses, soon learned to find a living in it. Probably most of the animals brought to the country were woods wise when they came,, but if not, they soon became so. All soon became "rangers, learning to go where the picking was the best. The readiness with which the domestic animals adapted themselves to their environments was often a subject of comment among their owners. Some curious stories are told relating to the early domestic animals. The pioneer describing his moving was apt to speak of " driving " his cattle and other stock, but he was not always -accurate in the use of the word. After a few days' travel there was usually no driving, the stock following close upon the teams of their own accord. When Charles Dungan came from Washington County, Va., he brought two cows. For a few days they had to be driven, but after that they followed the teams as faithfully as the dogs, and although the roads were lined with movers, never once did they make a mistake in wagons.

The Pioneers

They knew their owner's wagon, and when the camping place was reached at night they lay down, and were ready to resume the journey in the morning.

Amid the Johnson County forests, hickory, beech, oak and walnut trees grew in great abundance, and seldom failed to bear a bountiful mast. The strain of hogs common in that day, was a shifty one, and usually kept in good condition the year round. During the fall season when the new mast was falling, they became fat and were killed out of the woods for bacon. As early as 1824, wild hogs had become quite numerous along the border, and there were few men of the county who did not kill their meat in the woods. So wild were some droves that it required as great, and indeed sometimes greater, skill, to hunt them down than even the deer. The habit of the drove of returning at night to their usual bed enabled the hunter to creep up and get one or more shots in the morning. Not uncommon was it for the pig hunter to dig a hole in the earth, and filling it with water, drop in heated stones till a temperature was reached suitable for scalding, after which he dressed his meat and hauled it home.

The fat hog of the early days, it must be borne in mind, differed much from the fat hog of" these days. It never became so fat it could not run with great swiftness, and if a ranger, as most were, it was sure to be more or less wild. Indeed, the tendency of the hog to relapse into a wild state, was more marked than in any other animal. Perhaps it was because the hog was less looked after than any other domestic animal. The writer remembers a barnyard fowl that had been overlooked by a moving family and left to shift for herself on an unoccupied farm. At the end of three months she was wilder than a quail, and at the approach of man would fly into the top of the tallest tree. The first lot of hogs that were driven through from central Indiana to an Ohio River town, was in 1824 or 1825. They were purchased in the vicinity of the bluffs on White River, by a man from Ohio, by the name of Jacob Lowe, and were turned into a large field on the old Whetzel farm, and men were employed to drive them back and forth for several days in order to train them for driving on the road.

The farmer's anxiety concerning his hogs was less for their food than for their safety. If they did not turn wild and thus escape him, they were liable to be killed or stolen. The foxes and wolves preyed upon the young pigs, while a bear did not scruple to pull down "a full grown hog on occasion. But the owner feared the hog thieves more than the wild animals. The thieves infested every quarter of the countw Amid the dense woods, and far beyond the hearing of the ne'arest settler, it was no hard matter to run down with trained dogs young swine and mark them with the thief's own mark. It was still easier to go into the woods and shoot a fat shote. Joseph Voorheis, who settled about three miles north of Hopewell, hearing a shot in the woods, went in the direction of it till he came to a couple of men who had killed and were skinning a hog. They appeared quite friendly, and affecting great admiration of his gun, one of them took it as if to look at it. No sooner was he disarmed than their demeanor changed. They threatened his life and the man really thought his end had come. The hog thieves reminded him that " dead men tell no tales," but finally relenting, they made him swear never to reveal what he had seen, and true to his oath, he never told it till after he moved to Iowa about thirty years ago, and after both thieves had long been dead. One of these men was a son of Nathaniel Bell, the first representative Johnson County had in the state's prison. Bell had long been suspected of hog stealing.

The grasses now common on every farm, were not indiginous to the soil. Blue grass, timothy, red-top, are all interlopers, and came after the settlements were begun. In the nature's deadenings, and along the margins of the open swamps, wild grasses grew scantily in patches. There were not many of these places to be found, however. Wild pea vines afforded a more bountiful and nutritious herbage than the wild grasses of the country. As the " deadenings " increased in acreage and age, the pasturage grew better. But the pioneers had to wait a good many years for the grass in the deadenings. In the autumnal season, the cattle fed on the acorns, like the deer, and at all seasons the thick underbrush afforded a nutritious browse on which cattle, horses and sheep " picked for a living." During the inclement winter weather when stock were loth to leave the clearing, the farmer felled lin, ash, maple and other trees that his stock might browse on the twigs. He, whose animals ranged the woods in quest of food, faced a constant fear of their loss by straying. The habit of wandering was apt to grow on all ranging animals, unless they were driven back to their homes at stated intervals. Statutes were passed providing for the return of straying beasts by the finders, but so common was the evil, that at one time hardly a farm could be found on which the recent loss of an animal was not lamented, or a posted one could not be pointed out. Every farmer had his " ear-mark," and every hoof of stock he owned, save his horses, bore it. This mark was made of public record, and by means of it, many a wandering beast was reclaimed. Upper and under-bits, smooth crops, halfcrops, slits, swallow-forks, holes, and the like, at one time, disfigured one or both ears of every cow, hog, or sheep in the country.

The hardships from the straying propensity of animals was felt in its greatest severity by the new-comer. We know that he and his wife and children suffered from home-sickness. So severe was the attack now and then, that families moved back to the old home, to return to the new after the spell was over. Most families visited the old home in a year or two, and thus tided over the spell. Among the early settlers was a wide-spread belief that their domestic animals not infrequently suffered the pangs of home-sickness. At times an irresistible desire would seem to overcome a horse, a pig, and sometimes a cow, to return to the old place, and much trouble came to the settler in consequence. Samuel Owens had a horse that repeatedly went back to the old home in Clark County. Some curious stories have been told, illustrating this disposition to return, the following two of which are well vouched for:

Daniel Covert moved to the county in September, 1825, bringing with him horses, hogs and cattle. His horses becoming disquieted, set out for their old Kentucky home, but he overtook them near Columbus, and brought them back. Next, his hogs disappeared, but he recovered them all save one sow and eight shotes. These, after a vain hunt, he gave up for lost. Sometime during the winter, business called him to Kentucky, where he remained for a few weeks, and then set out for his Johnson County home. On his way back, a short distance south of Graham's Fork, in Jennings County, and not less than fifty miles from home, he met his sow and eight shotes, and a new litter of pigs, on the march southward. On inquiry, he ascertained where she stopped on the way for her new progeny to be born and to grow in strength sufficient to bear the hardships of the further journey. In the early part of January, 1823, Daniel Pritchard moved to the Blue River settlement, from Henry County, in Kentucky. Among other domestic animals he brought a sow with a family of pigs, six weeks old. In a day or two she and her pigs were missing, and after much hunting he gave them up as lost. But in a few weeks a letter came from his old home, announcing their safe return. The entire journey they had made, of over a hundred miles, swimming the river on the way, and not one was missing.

Central Indiana, at the time the first settlers came, abounded in wild animals, some of which, the deer, notably, was a blessing, while the most of the others proved a curse. Of all, the most malevolent was the wolf. He was a prowler and a thief. He hunted singly and in packs. The pioneer who killed a deer, dare not leave it in the woods over night, unless he sprung it to the top of a sapling. John Smiley, while living on Sugar River Creek, left his meat hanging under a shed at the end of his cabin, far above the reach of the most active dog, but the wolves came, and leaping up to it, dragged it down and devoured it. Young calves found by them in the woods they were sure to devour, and on one occasion, a pack ran down a full grown cow, belonging to Garrett Terhune, and killed her. When found, they had chewed one leg off, and eaten other portions.

But it was in the destruction of sheep that the wolves did the greatest injury to the pioneer settler. To the wool he looked for his winter clothing. It made jeans for his own coat, and flannels and linsey woolseys for his wife's dresses; and it was therefore next in his economy to bread. Levi Moore, as written elsewhere, penned his sheep under his cabin; a few pioneers joined the pen to the cabin, while the greater number built a sheep house more or less remote from the dwelling place. If. by any chance, the flock was left unhoused over night, its decimation was probable before morning. On the occasion of a great storm of wind and rain that arose late one afternoon, John Doty's sheep failed to reach shelter. That night the wolves assailed them, but the leader of the flock, an old ram, made such a valiant defence, that he brought home early the next morning, every ewe and lamb unscathed. Unfortunately, however, for the hero of the occasion, his injuries were so severe, that after a few days he died. Of ten sheep taken to the Indian Creek neighborhood by Richardson Hensley, in 1824, seven fell victims to the wolves within three weeks.

Let us approach the pioneer's new home. We find his cabin in the heart of the green woods. If a creek flows in the neighborhood of his location, we will be quite sure to find him living on a bit of high ground near that creek, for there he will find natural drainage; but if no creek be near, on the highest, dryest knoll, he could find on his purchase, has he built. Hard by his cabin site is almost sure to be a spring of running water, which he imagines will flow forever, but which he will be quite sure to see dry up about the time his farm is cleared. Look which way he will, green trees lifting their stately columns skyward, are crowned by an interwoven mass of branches that, when the vernal foliage puts out, obscures the sun till the autumnal frosts cut it down. Beneath is a dense thicket of spice-wood, hazel, green briars, young saplings and other underbrush, and underneath that, down trees scarcely less numerous than the standing, lie rotting in the dank soil.

Amidst this thick, moist woods, the new-comer must chop and grub and burn out his fields if he would eat bread of the corn of his own tilling. No sooner is he settled than he begins the laborious work. Marking out his proposed field, with a strong arm he begins the toil. Every thing " eighteen inches in diameter as high as the knee," is felled, which, with all the down logs, save the great oaks and poplars, is made ready for rolling into heaps. All trees over that girth are left standing, and about their roots, sticks and brush are piled and burned to ensure speedy death and consequent failure of the next summer's foliage. The big logs he leaves till a more convenient season - a season that will hardly come ere the scorched trees rot and fall, and make the second clearing but little less laborious than the first.

This was the general plan, and diligent was that man, who, during his first fall, winter and spring, prepared, unaided, his five, six or seven acres for rolling. Now and then a man cleared smooth. The late Theodore List had one such field of nine acres cut in the green, and he told the writer that a man could have walked all over his field on the logs without touching earth, before they were rolled. It required four days' hard work with a large force of hands to roll those logs. How destructive to human muscle must have been the log-rollings of the early days! One day, two days, the log-roller might have endured without any material depletion of bodily strength, but when it came to six, eight, twelve, twenty, thirty, and in some instances even more days than that, year after year, rolling into heaps, both green and water-soaked logs, there was such a draft on the vital powers as made men grow old before their time. John Tracy rolled logs "from fifteen to twenty days every year until the country was cleared up." John Carson, as late as 1840, rolled logs twenty-two days in one year. James Ware rolled for thirty days one year. Peter Vandiver rolled " from twenty to twenty-five days every year, and went from one to five miles." Theodore List rolled twenty-four days in one year; Melvin Wheat twenty-two; George Bridges "over twenty"; Taylor Ballard "thirty days in common," but "rolled in one year thirty-five days," and Samuel Herriott thirty-six days, but he was a politician. But the pioneer farmer did not always have his logs rolled before planting and tilling his crop. Not infrequently he was so hard pressed that he was fain to plant amid the down logs. He found it all he could do to grub and burn the brush. The first crop of corn Simon Covert raised he planted amid the logs. Serrill Winchester felled his trees in winrows, and planted in the open spaces between. John Henry, of Nineveh, planted with the hoe amid the logs, and tilled his corn with the same implement.

How difficult it is to sketch a picture of life in early days, and leave out none of the lights and shadows. The pioneer's little field cleared and fenced according to the fashion of the times, the next step was to plow it and plant it in corn. Let the farmer of to-day, in imagination, enter such a field, with his well-muscled, full-fed team of horses encased in the best harness the most skilled workman can make, and hitched to a steel plow, the like of which the fore-fathers never dreamed, and how disheartening his work would be amid the array of green stumps and trees, and the network of green roots ! And yet how superlatively more difficult it was for the pioneer than it would be for the farmer of to-day. His team (if he had one) was small and weak for the want of proper food; his gears, home-made, even to the hames, to the tow-cloth, back-band, and to the single rope plow line. He was well off if his horse collars were not made of corn husks, by his own or a more skillful neighbor's hands. His plow was a shovel pattern, or a barshare, the former of which has survived in a modified form, while the latter has ^ong since disappeared. " This last was a bar on the land side with a broad flat share running to a point at the forward end, attached to a coulter, with a steel nose in front. The coulter extended up through the wooden beam of the plow; two wooden handles are attached to the beam and to the bar of the land side of the plow, the other handle connected with a wooden mold board, which pressed out the dirt and partially turned it. It was connected wit' the other handle by wooden pins or rounds."* le bar-share plow was a cumbersome and unsatisfactory implem. it. It had a long beam, six feet or over, the bar was often three L:eet or more in length, and the handles raked far backward. The distance that intervened between the ends of the handles and the noses of the horses, when in motion, would, if seen in a modern field, lead to a good deal of jovial criticism. Plowing with the bar-share was laborious work, and when the point of the long bar struck a root, the kick-up of the long geared machine was never to be forgotten. It was a standing joke among the pioneer farmers, that "a bar-share would kick a man over the fence and kick him after he was over." In a few years the bar-share was superceded by the "Cary" plow, an implement approaching in its general shape the modern plow, and that in turn gave way sometime during the 40?s, to the cast-iron plow. The shovel plow was the pioneer farmer's favorite. With it he broke up his corn ground and tilled his corn. His breaking shovel plow had a coulter filled to the beam, which dropped to the point of the plow at such an angle that whenever the plow struck an impediment, it automatically "jumped out of the ground and over the root and into the ground on the other side." During the first years little or no harrowing was done, the rough condition of the fields forbidding it. All grain sown broadcast on fallow ground was brushed in.

The pioneer farmer depended as much on the hoe as on the plow in tilling his corn. It was the rule with nearly all, to give the corn at least one good hoeing, which meant that the field must be gone over row by row, and the corn be hoed hill by hill. The new ground, after two or three years of cultivation, was prolific in weeds, which, with the plows in use, it was next to impossible to keep down; hence, the resort to the hoe. Of wet years, "pulling weeds" was a common mode of cultivation - a mode of culture that might have been designed by the evil one for the special torment of boys. The farmer of the early times owned but few implements, and nearly all of these were home-made. There was usually about one handsaw, one cross-cut, one broad-axe, one auger, one chisel and one drawing-knife to the neighborhood, and these came from the "east," and if not kept to loan, they might almost as well have been, . for everybody borrowed. If the farmer had a knack at working in wood, give him an axe and an auger or burning iron, and he could make almost any machine he was wont to work with. From the roots of an ash or an oak he could fashion his hames and sledrunners. He could make his own whifne-trees, stock his plows, half-sole or make his sled, make an axle-tree for his wagon, if he had one, make a rake, a harrow, a scythe-snath, a grain-cradle, a hay-rack, a loom, winding blades, a wash-board, a stool, a chair, and in a pinch a table, a bedstead, a " dresser " and a cradle in which to rock his baby. If he was more than ordinarily clever he repaired and sometimes made his own cooperage, but he usually patronized the cooper, and always the blacksmith, the tanner and the wheelwright. He had little use for the shoemaker because he mended all his own shoes and made most of them, and less for the fuller and tailor,* because his wife spun and wove all the cloth and cut and made all the clothes, and none at all for the house carpenter, because, with his axe, he could do about all the carpenter's work needed.

Let us return to the settler's new field. The breaking is done and the corn is planted. It may be late in the season according to the modern idea, but we must remember that the soil is virgin and that all vegetation grows rampant. Mrs. Nancy Forsyth remembers that her first planting of corn-beans shot up till the vines caught into the lower limbs of the trees. Simon Covert laid his first crop of corn by, within eighteen days after planting, and raised fifty bushels to the acre. But the luck more often went against the early agriculturist than with him. Many causes combined to jeopardize his corn crop. It ran the risks of late spring frosts and of the early fall ones, it was liable to be injured by cut worms, and there might be too much or too little rain. These risks are yet to be run but the pioneer farmer experienced others and greater ones, which happily the modern farmer knows little or nothing of. The wood-peckers pulled up the sprouting plants and pecked into the roasting ears to an injurious extent, little dreamed of tiow-a-days; and when the grain had ripened, the wild turkeys feeding upon it, lessened the crop more than we are apt to think. And so of the raccoons. As soon as it was in roasting-ear state, these animals invaded the fields and pulling down the stalks, devoured the young corn like so many pigs. Samuel Doty describing to the writer the devastation done by the raccoons said: " The sound of their eating in the corn patch was like the sound of the eating of so many hogs." John Doty had a field of three acres entirely consumed by the raccoons.

But the depredation of the grev squirrels was greater than that from all other causes combined. These rodents swarmed throughout the primitive woods. They prowled around the fields and found hiding places in the dead trees left standing therein. As soon as the seed corn was covered they began their work of destruction, and kept it up till the grain was absorbed by the growing plant. With what certainty a squirrel will follow the row and dig in the corn-hills only, till he found the grain, there are men yet living who remember. Thence on till earing time the rodents could do no harm, but no sooner were the grains found on the cob than the spring marauders, accompanied by a full grown progeny, returned, and between themselves, the birds and raccoons, the little fields stood a sorry chance. Some years they were worse than others, but all were bad. The years 1824, 1834 ancl 1836, were specially bad ones. During the squirrel visitations the farmer put forth his utmost efforts to protect his crop. The children were sent to the fields armed with every conceivable device for making a noise. They rattled " horse fiddles " and bells, and beat on fence rails and hollow stumps and trees, with clubs. Mrs. Jacob Halfacre, a daughter of John Campbell, the first settler of the county, remembered in her old age, that the first work she and her sisters engaged in after their arrival on Blue River, which was about the first of June, was to keep the birds and squirrels out of their father's fiveacre corn field. At daybreak he would waken her and her sisters, and they would immediately go to their respective stations in the field and begin the noisy demonstrations of the day. During the heat of the day the squirrels lay concealed in the woods, and they rested from their labors, but as the afternoon sun descended, the squirrels returned and they resumed their noisy demonstrations in the field.

resorted to. In some fields a dead-fall or other form of trap was to be seen in almost every fence corner. Nearly every farmer kept a gun, and it was used daily as long as the visitation lasted. Sometimes the farmers of a neighborhood would combine, and while one of their number would make the round of their fields, shooting squirrels as he went, the others would look after the tilling of his corn. Jacob Banta, who settled in Union Township, in 1832, had a hired hand, John Harrell, who, under his instructions, plowed half a day and shot squirrels the other half; and so faithfully did the hand perform his last half day's work, that the " stench from the putrid squirrels lying around the corn field, made the air sickening." The wife of John S. Miller, of Nineveh, with rifle on shoulder, patroled the woods around the field, and kept the squirrels out, while her husband tilled the corn. So good a shot did this pioneer woman become, that she could shoot her game in the head, making as few misses as any hunter in the neighborhood.

The stories told of the abundance of squirrels some years, and of their destructiveness, almost challenge our credulity, but the stories are, nevertheless, well authenticated. Mrs. Millie Owens says there were seasons when she could stand in her door and see "fifteen or twenty squirrels on the fence at any morning or evening hour." James Owens, her husband, killed 200 in one day. Jacob Bower shot twenty-six on one occasion "without moving out of his tracks." William Freeman, without arising from his chair at the breakfast table, shot nine from a hill of ripening corn in the garden in front of his cabin door. Thomas Patterson shot two from a neighbor's chimney, and they fell into the fireplace Within. " Sometimes they were so thick they would average one to every tree." No wonder they ate up the land. "Among the four families living in White River Township, in 1821," says Judge Hardin, "not a single bushel of corn was saved from the squirrels and raccoons." In the same year, George Barnett, on Blue River, bought a four-acre field of corn in the shock. "I helped remove the fodder," says Ambrose, his son, "and was the lucky one. I found one little ear of corn. So close had been the scenting of the grey squirrels, that thev had overlooked but one ear in the four acres." John Harter stored a few bushels of corn in his cabin loft, but the squirrels found it out, and ere he was aware, stole every ear. John Smiley had a four-acre field of corn just ripened, when it was invaded by a swarm of the rodents, and in two days, every ear was eaten or carried away.

For the first few years the pioneer farmers confined themselves mainly to raising corn. But after mills suitable for the grinding and bolting of flour became accessible, they began to raise wheat. In spite of sultry weather, the harvest season was a joyous one. The men of the neighborhood combined and went from field to field reaping and shocking as they went. They made a sort of social occasion of it, and thus the labor was lightened. At first it was with sickle the bearded grain was cut, but soon the cradle crowded the sickle out, but the social feature remained. A half dozen cradles mowing with military precision through the waving grain, and followed by as many binders, and the necessary complement of sheaf gatherers and shockers, was a cheering sight. The labor was hard, but there wras time and opportunity tor the jest and laugh. Harvesters, in those days, plumed themselves on their skill and endurance. Not every man was an expert cradler, but the ambition of every boy was to become one. More or less friendly emulation prevailed among every band of harvesters as to who should so far excel as to be conceded the leadership of the cradlers, and every one, whether cradler or binder, feared the odium that would attach should he, in the language of the times, " go to grass."

The harvest season was characterized by its good living. The best cooks in the neighborhood vied with each other, and as a consequence harvesters lived off the fat of the land. . In many communities, perhaps in a large majority, whisky was deemed a necessity, and was passed freely with the water. In a few, butter-milk took the place of whisky, whilst in others, water alone was drunk. About the middle of the afternoon it was the custom in many places to send to the harvesters a basket of refreshments, the most important part of which consisted of the coffee pot, cream pitcher and sugar bowl. At the close of the day's work an elaborate supper was eaten, after which the laborers repaired to their homes, undisturbed by thoughts of dyspepsia, to rest and sleep, and be ready to repeat their experience on the morrow. In due time the wheat crop was taken to the threshing floor. This was usually prepared in the field by removing from a circular space, twenty or thirty feet in diameter, the grass, stubble and irregularities of surface, after which a few barrels of water were spilled over it, and it was then thumped with a maul, till the surface was quite smooth and hard, and solid. If the grain was flailed out out less pains were taken with the threshing floor, but usually the grain was tramped out with horses, and a hard floor became necessary. The grain the farmer removed from the chaff with a sheet. This was a slow process, requiring the labor of three persons, two at the sheet, and one to pour the chaff and grain. Fanning-mills were introduced slowly. Strange as it may seem, there existed in some quarters a prejudice against the fanning-mill, that kept it out for a good many years. In one neighboorhood the fanning-mill became a church matter, and it was seriously discussed as to whether it was not a violation of the laws of nature to raise the wind in so peculiarly an artificial manner. But the fanning-mill ultimately won.

The pioneer farmer long found his milling a difficult problem. The approved style of milling for many years was to carry the grist on horseback. For the first two or three years the grists were thus carried to the White Water Mills, a distance of sixty miles. As the country settled up the mills drew closer, and it was not long before the water mills on the creeks of the countv, Smilev's, Harter's, Ogle's, Thompson's and others, not to mention the horse-mills, afforded facilities for grinding nearer home. As late as 1S30, however, John Carson carried his grist a distance of twenty-two miles to mill. About the first of November, 1S24, John Stevens and Richardson Hensley sent their sons, with grists, to Tannehill's mill, on the Driftwood, about six miles north of Columbus. The corn had been gathered and dried for the purpose. The boys were Gideon Stevens, aged ten years,, and Elijah Harrell, his foster brother, aged eleven, and Bloomfield Hensley, also aged eleven. Each carried two bushels in a sack, strapped to the horse's back. It took two days to go and return.

How did the pioneer spend his winters? He fed his beasts. His horses he usuallv kept in an unchinked log stable, and his cows he left out of doors to endure the winter weather as best they could. It required man}- vears for him to realize the economic value of warm barns for his beasts, or to think it worth while to prepare a drv, comfortable place for his wife to do the milking in. He cut and hauled firewood from time to time, as it was needed; somewhere around his cabin was the woodpile, like as not it was near the front door. If a lane passed the front door, the woodpile was quite sure to be in that lane. To this woodpile he drew wood on his sled, principally limbs of dead trees from the deadening, or he dragged whole trunks of trees to it on the log sled or the "ljzzard." In the woodpile he cut his wood as he needed it, and bo'th cut and uncut took the rain and the snow and the sleet, the same as the unhoused cattle. The woodpile in the lane was a conspicuous place during pioneer times. Here the sled, the log sled and the lizzard were, also axes, mauls and wedges lay around. In process of time its mound of chips became the driest spot on the farm, and while it was not always suffered to become a bedding place for the hogs, it seldom escaped being the milking place and the sleeping place of the cows. There are men yet living who have a lively recollection of the odors that exhaled from the woodpile during the spring and summer weather.

On suitable days the pioneer made rails or worked in his clearing, and on bad ones he half-soled his sled, made a handle for his axe, mended his gears, fashioned a basket, and made and mended shoes for himself and family. Or, perhaps, he went hunting. Not all of the pioneers were hunters, but a majority were more or less fired with a love for the chase. And what a splendid hunting ground lay at their doors ! The woods were full of game - bears, panthers, wolves, deers, wild turkeys - what a rare catalogue for the lovers of forest sports! To some the chase brought in its season, lasting delight, while to all, the game was a never failing source of food supply. Johnson County was well supplied with most excellent " licks," to which the deer resorted in great numbers, all through the warm season of the year, and the merest tyro could kill a deer in a " lick." The county, as indeed all of central Indiana, abounded in a bountiful and variegated mast, on which the deers, bears and wild turkeys fed and fattened in its season, and little wonder the woods abounded in game. Joab Woodruff is said to have killed 370 deer in the fall of 1S22, and George Doty told the writer that he killed 300 in 1S21 and 1822. Samuel Herriott bought 600 deer hides one year. Nathan Perry says he has frequently seen as many as forty deer in one herd. Judge Franklin Hardin remembers to have seen as many as twenty-five on one occasion, corralled in a bend of White River. William Burkhart found Rock Lick, in Union Township, by pursuing a well beaten path, known as a run-way, leading to it for a distance of seven miles. Isaac Collier shot thirteen deer early one morning, at Collier's Lick, in the edge of Brown County. In 1834, Henry Mussulman started a herd of deer in the vicinity of Franklin, which he followed to within a short distance of Indianapolis, and thence back to their starting place, and during the chase killed six.

Venison was plenty indeed, and unskillful was that pioneer who . could not now and then secure one for his table. Many persons kept the larder supplied the year round. William Rutherford, on one occasion, knocked one in the head with an axe, as it ran past him where he was making rails. One, pursued by dogs, took shelter in Gideon Drake's sheep pen adjoining his cabin, and Mrs. Drake and a neighbor woman, closing the door of the pen, slaughtered it, and made venison of it before the pursuing hunter came up. One Sunday morning, shortly after King's cabin was built, Isaac Voorheis was sitting on the bank of Young's Creek, immediately south of Judge Woollen's present residence. Hearing the bay of a dog up the creek, he looked that way, and saw a deer coming toward him. Keeping quiet, it came down to a point opposite to him and plunged in, but the current carried it down against a log, when Voorheis rushed in and caught it, and in his hands it became venison for the family.

Wild turkeys were more abundant even than deer. Wherever there was food for them they were to be found in goodly numbers. Their " keonk" was a familiar sound to the inmates of every cabin. In the spring of 1823, a drove passed over the after site of Franklin, numerous enough to make a well marked trail a hundred yards in width, but they were extremely poor, and were, no doubt, migrating in search of food. Simon Covert has been heard to sav that for several vears after he moved to the neighborhood of the Big Spring, he could at any time within a two hours' hunt during the fall and early winter season, kill one or more turkeys. Jacob Fisher was an expert turkev-pen builder, and thought nothing of catching six or eight turkevs at a time in his pen. As late as 1S50, flocks of fifty were to be seen in the woods in Union Township, and in 1856, a wild turkev hen hatched a brood within fifty yards of John Barlow's house in Clark Township. Wild turkeys often did much mischief scratching up the newly planted corn, eating it after it was grown, and treading down the smaller grain before it was harvested. Richardson Hensley, of Hensley Township, lost his first planting of corn by the turkeys scratching it up.

Men who bring a wilderness, inhabited by wild beasts, to a state of civilization, never lack in romantic incidents with which to add flavor to the tales told in old age. There are but few, indeed, who do not yield to the charm of border life incident. Men who came in conflict with the wild beasts of the country, necessarily met with experiences that when afterward related, bordered on the romantic. However dangerous some of the encounters had with the wild animals by the pioneer hunters o; the county, no man ever lost his life, or for that matter, received serious injury, save Lewis Hendricks, who lived in the Sugar Creek neighborhood, in an encounter with a bear, when he met with an accident that left him disabled for life. He had wounded the animal, and in company with a neighbor, was hunting for it. One on either side of a brush fence in which it was supposed to be lying, they were walking slowly along, when it rushed out and attacked Hendricks. His companion ran to his assistance and shot the infuriated animal, but not before it had stripped the flesh from his arm, and otherwise injured him.

Hardly a hunter of any note lived in the county during the first ten years, who could not boast of his success as a bear hunter. Curtis Pritchard, William Spears, Robert Worl and Jacob Woodruff, while hunting, found three full-grown bears holed in trees. Kind- ling a fire in the hollow of one of the trees, one was smoked out and shot. Cutting the tree down before it fell, another descended and ran with such rapidity as to escape the flying bullets. Five dogs pursued it, and, after a half-mile chase, brought it to bay. Two of the dogs it killed outright, and crippled badly two others, before it was dispatched. The third beast was shot and killed as the tree fell in which it had concealed itself. Bear meat was prized by some as an article of food. Benjamin Crews had at one time 800 pounds of the meat cured and smoked like bacon, which he sold for the same price.

The most ferocious beast that roamed the woods was the panther. The bear, the wolf, and even the deer, would fight savagely when in close quarters, but each would run from the hunter whenever it could. The panther, on the contrary, was reputed to make battle with man without provocation. Two brothers by the name of Smith, living in Nineveh, in the early days, went to hunt straying cattle. They carried no guns, and when night came, they made a camp-fire and lay down and slept. During the night one of them was awakened by a noise, and stirring the fire to a blaze, he plainly heard a panther leap off through the bushes to an open space not far distant, where it stopped and lashed the earth with its tail. Several panthers were shot at Collin's Lick, one by a man named John Weiss, and under circumstances showing the narrow risk an unskilled hunter sometimes ran. Weiss carried a very inefficient arm, and had no experience as a hunter. He went to the lick to watch for deer, and while hiding in ambush, he happened to look around and was horrified to see close by, a panther crouched, ready to spring upon him. Without a thought, he brought his gun to bear upon it, and through sheer good luck, shot it dead in its tracks. Weiss never went hunting again.

Near the headwaters of Honey Creek, Samuel and John Bell were lying in wait at a marsh much frequented by deer. The sun went down and twilight was coming on, when Samuel's attention was directed to an object crawling toward his brother, who was several yards away. It was a panther, and he knew enough of the habits of the animal to know it meant mischief. But he was an experienced hunter, a good marksman and with all, had a cool head and steady nerves. Taking deliberate aim, he shot the beast through the head. More hunters, however, got into trouble with wounded deer than with all the other animals of the country. John Smiley once knocked one over, and on going to it, it arose to meet him with " hair turned the wrong way." Smiley sprang behind a sapling and it made a push at him with lowered antlers. Laying hold of a horn on either side of the sapling, he held on for dear life. Round and round both went until wearied with the fruitless contest, the buck smoothed its hair in token that his light was over, when Smiley let go, and he walked off undisturbed. Joseph Young, of Union Township, knocked a buck down cne day, and on touching its throat with the knife, it sprang to its feet and made at him. Young jumped behind a large oak tree and the deer took after him, but by hook and by crook, he managed to keep the tree between him and his assailant, receiving no more than an occasional pick of the horn. After its rage had abated, it gave its antlers a toss and disappeared in the thicket.

One of the most desperate encounters with a wounded deer was had by Henry Mussulman. To the throat of a paralyzed buck he touched his knife, when it gave an unexpected flounce, sending his knife flying through the bushes. It was a powerful deer, and the hunter who had his knee on its head and a firm hold of its antlers saw at a glance, that his safety depended on holding it down. Of course there was a struggle, and although the advantage at first was with the hunter, yet it soon became evident to him that the animal's power of endurance was equal to, if not greater than, his own. His knife was lost, and his unloaded gun was leaning against a tree more than twenty feet away. What was he to do? Realizing more and more that his safetv lay on keeping on top, he held on in grim desperation. In their struggle a spice bush was broken, and in the splintered stub he thought he saw a weapon of deliverance. If he could only put those baleful eyes out, the victory was his. One after another he broke off the splintered stubs, and jabbed them into the creature's eyes, till their sight was gone, after which he left the blind Sampson of the woods to stumble over the logs and thrash through the bushes in impotent rage, till he could load his gun and give it the death shot.

Another incident in this connection, may be mentioned. Jesse Wells, an old time settler on the Blue River, who was long wellknown as a Methodist minister, was given to hunting. On one occasion he " creased *' a deer, and proceeded to bleed it. Taking hold of its hind leg to turn it over, the creature came to life, and giving one tremendous kick, which knocked the knife so far away that it was never afterward found, the animal leaped to its feet and furiously assailed him. Wells was a lithe, active man, but in spite of his "best efforts to secure shelter behind a large poplar standing close by, the enraged brute succeeded in piercing his knee with one of the sharp prongs of its antler. Once behind the tree the animal abandoned the fight, and disappeared in the forest. Jesse Wells ever after walked with a stiff knee, which came of the wound received in that fight.

Thus far have we written, using the masculine he, his and him* almost exclusively. Of course she was there, the sharer in all the hardships that befell him, and in all his triumphs. But let us enter the cabin and catch a glimpse of her life. All through the summer and fall the wife has been as busy as the husband, and during the winter, if possible, more so. Perhaps the labor of cooking was not as severe as in this day of greater abundance. Certainly there wras less to cook, and for that matter, less to cook it in. The pioneer housewife had never seen a cooking stove. If she had a skillet, a metal oven, a boiling pot or two, a frying pan, a coffee pot, a griddle and a johnny-cake board, she knew herself to be well supplied with cooking utensils. She baked her loaves and pones and dodgers in the oven, and her biscuits and slapjacks in the skillet. Her chunks of venison, back bones and spare-ribs, she roasts in the metal oven. Into the same vessel she puts her sweet potatoes, Irish potatoes, and, when the orchard comes to bearing, her apples also, when she wants to bake them. If she wants a pound cake on an extra occasion, she bakes it in a teacup, set in that oven, or, if a pie, she slips the plate in which it is made into the hot oven or skillet. Her boiled dinners came out of the pot much as her granddaughter's do to-day ; and her chicken pot-pies, the favorite dish at every house raising and log-rolling, came piping hot out of the same pot or its mate. Naught came to her larder that she could not cook to suit the taste of those who sat at her board.

But cooking was to her a minor care. Children were apt to come in quick succession in her cabin, and they had to be clothed as well as fed, and upon her fell the burden of their clothing. She might, or she might not, have to go into the clearing and " pick trash" or "nigger logs," or "right up" burning log heaps. She might, or she might not, have to hoe corn and pull weeds or stand guard in the field to keep the squirrels out; but there was no escaping the clothing question. She was responsible for the jeans and the linsey. Her husband sowed the flax and sheared the sheep, for this was a man's work. If he pulled the flax and washed the wool he did well, for it was not so certain that this was a man's work. He broke the flax and peeled the walnut bark with which the wool was dyed, but there his work ended, unless the weather was very bad, when he might " swingle " the flax. She washed the wool and picked the burs out of it, and saw that a part of it was properly placed between layers of walnut bark in the drying trough, and then covered with water and left to soak till the ooze gave it the right color. That done, she dried it and washed it and, until the carding machines came, hand-carded both the colored and uncolored, into rolls and spun them into yarn, " sixteen to twenty cuts a dav, besides the regular housework." It there was an outhouse, the loom was set up therein, but if no out-house, it went into a corner of the cabin, even if a bed had to be pulled down to make place for it, and on that loom she wove the web of jeans, the flannels, the linseys, the tow-linen, and the table cloths, the sheetings, the towelings, the coverlets, not forgetting a web of linen " seven hundred fine " for her husband's Sunday and court-day shirts. If she was a good weaver she could weave three yards of jeans per day and do her housework, and five or six yards of flannel or linsey and do her other work.

But the spinning - -and I have not mentioned the hackling and the spinning of flax - and the weaving did not bring her to the end of her toil. No, indeed; she was the seamstress and the tailoress, and before the web was finished perhaps, she has had to cut off a piece for a garment for one of the boys. Hundreds of mothers in Johnson County did this. But whether she finished her web before thus cutting, or after, the burden of cutting and making the clothes for the family fell upon her. Her husband might patronize the tailor when it came to cutting and making his Sunday frock coat, but if his wife was particularly bright, he let her do it. At any rate she cut and made all his every day clothes; she cut and made the boys' "dandys," roundabouts, jackets, "warmuses," trousers and shirts, and knit all the socks; she cut and made all her own clothes, and all her daughters', till they grew old enough to help her. What toil was hers to be sure. There was no season of the year marking the end of her labors; no days of bad weather gave her rest. Not even the night could she call her own, for long after she had put her children to sleep, she darned and patched their frayed clothes. Even when she visited, she carried her knitting or sewing. Only when her hand was enfeebled in old age or palsied in death did she rest. The times were primitive, and fashions underwent little or no changes for a generation. Every young man of consequence was expected to provide himself with a broadcloth suit for the event of his marriage, which was to be the suit of his life, and to last for dry weather and Sunday-wear for many years. If his wife got a silk dress on that occasion, she was pretty sure to keep it till she could exhibit it to her grandchildren. "Spring bonnets" and "fall bonnets" were unknown. On all ordinary occasions, the "sun bonnet" was deemed good enough, but in most cabins, especially of church-going people, there was a box or deep drawer, smelling of rose leaves, which held among other articles of finery, " mother's bonnet." It was not the home-made, and it never went out of fashion, till the dear old head, which it was made to cover, was shut out from mortal sight beneath the coffin lid.

How the times have changed since the days when Johnson Count}* was being settled! It may be doubted whether there was a vehicle in the count}* the first ten years other than the road wagon or cart. The first carriage taken to Union Township was in 1831. In those days both men and women walked or rode on horseback, when making neighborhood journeys. Men's and women's saddles were unusually conspicuous furniture in the entries and porches of the cabins of the well-to-do of the early days. Quite frequently, however, husbands and wives rode double - a practice, when once begun, that was quite apt to be kept up till the third child was born. It was inconvenient to ride double and carry more than two children. Even swains and their sweethearts thought nothing of riding double.

I have been asked, "How were the cabins of the pioneers lighted of evenings? " The blazing fire in the large fire place threw a flood of light all over the cabin and its inmates. By the firelight the family talked, the children cracked nuts or played games, the mother spun or knit, and the youth of an inquiring mind read in such books as came to hand. If a better light than the fire-light was needed, it came from a metal lamp of rude pattern in which grease sputtered around a burning rag wick, or from a tallow candle. The fire on the hearth stone was an object of more solicitude in the e,arly days than in these. If it went out, as it sometimes did, what would the inmates of the cabin do? Borrow. There were no matches, and the flint and steel was always the last resort. There are men living, who, while yet boys, knew what it was to trudge through the snow, a half mile or more, to borrow a fire brand to renew the flame at home. In the summer season a log in the field or deadening would often be kept smouldering to keep fire in stock, while in winter the coals and brands would be carefully buried in the embers for, the same purpose.

Allusion has been made elsewhere to the frequency of evening visits among the pioneers. To light their pathway through the gloomy forests, the leader usually carried a firebrand, which he waved back and forth over the path ; or, if the night was extremely dark, he carried a torch made of hickory bark or of dry oak splinters; though some carried lanterns. A gourd bored full of gimlet holes and fitted with a socket within, to hold a candle, made a lantern that was sometimes seen, though the favorite lantern was the tin lantern, so aptly described by Longfellow, the poet, in " The Theologian's Tale":

The Pioneers. 35

Much has been said and written of the want of markets in the early days. Perhaps that want has been unduly magnified. The people had so little to sell that the want of a market could not have been greatly felt. As late as sometime in the 4o's, very little surplus produce was grown in Johnson County- All the corn produced was fed therein, and there was oftener too little for that purpose than too much. The first market for which there was any substantial demand, was the hog market, and it was not deemed any particular hardship in those days, to drive hogs in droves to the river towns. After a few years a little surplus wheat was produced, and the farmer who hauled to Madison or Lawrenceburg, receiving 25 cents, 37 }4 cents, or 50 cents per bushel, found little profit in it. But for many years there were few farmers who had more than one wagon-load to spare for the market. The majority found after setting apart the seed wheat and wheat for bread, that there was less than a load, and as a consequence, it was quite common for two neighbors to unite their teams and make up a joint load, and go together to the river town. About 1844, the wheat crops of the county began to increase to such an extent, that its marketing became an object of interest to the farming community. The railroad from Madison was slowly being built towards Franklin, and its ultimate completion was anxiously looked for. Between the 1st and 30th of October, 1846, 14,494 bushels of wheat were bought in Franklin at 50 cents per bushel, all wf which was hauled to Ediaburg. The cars did not reach Franklin till sometime between the 17th and 24th day of August, and $2.00 per cwt., although it sometimes sold as low as $1.00. Good work horses were worth from $25 to $50 each; milch cows from $5.00 to $10.00. Joab Woodruff bought twenty head of one and two-year-old cattle, when he came to the county, for $50, which was $2.50 each. Chickens sold, for 50 cents to 75 cents per dozen. Fat turkeys, tame or wild, from 15 to 25 cents each; butter, 5 to 8 cents per pound; eggs, 3 to 5 cents per dozen; saddles of venison, from 25 to 50 cents; maple sugar, 6% to 10 cents per pound; coon skins were worth from 20 to 40 cents, depending on quality; deer skins, 20 to 30 cents, but about 1824 or 1825, Samuel Herriott bought 500 at 6 cents each. Farm labor was worth from $8 to $10 per month, while 25 cents per hundred was the customary price for cutting timber and making rails. In 1 82 5, Henry Mussulman made rails for a bushel of meal per hundred, and 'the meal was worth 25 cents per bushel. Jacob Banta paid $3.00 per acre for clearing land eighteen inches and under. Corn brought from 10 to 20 cents per bushel; oats, from 8 to 12 i< cents, and ginseng, 25 cents per pound. This last article was for many years one of the chief articles of exportation. All ages and sexes hunted for, and dug, ginseng with great perseverance and industry, sure of a certain sale of all they could rind, at a good price for that day.

Foreign stuffs were of high price. Samuel Herriott bought four pounds of coffee at 50 cents per pound, as he came through Madison to this county, in 1820, and when George King moved out in 1823, he paid 62]/2 cents per pound in the same market. On the authority of the late Thomas Williams, it may be stated that Daniel Taylor, the first merchant in Franklin, sold two and a half pounds of coffee for $1, but the quality is not known. From the books kept by Daniel Mussulman, of his mercantile transactions in 1835 and 1836, it appears that prices ruled at that time as follows: coffee, 20 cents per pound; tea, $1.50; pepper, 25; salt, 2]/2\ sugar, 12 j£ to 16%; indigo, i6}4 per ounce; iron, 10; nails, 9^; sugar kettles, 5 cents per pound; book muslin, 75 cents per yard; calico, 37^2 to 40^ cents; flannels, 75 cents, and blue jeans, 37/^; wall paper (for window shades), I2}4 cents per yard; bed tickings, 30; domestics, 16^3, and shirtings, 25 cents; tin cups, 6% each; almanacs, same price; meal sieves, 75 cents; grass scythes, $1; sickles, 62^ to 75; wool cards, 37^ to 43; paper of pins, 12^; paper of tacks, 25; foolscap paper, 25 cents per quire; letter paper, 37/^; saddle blankets, $1.50 each; a "Leghorn bonnet," $2.25, and "trimmings for same," $1.43. The natural result of men's surroundings was to foster a spirit of industry and economy. The scarcity of money and the great difficulty of getting it, made men thoughtful in spending it. Luxurious living was not thought of, and extravagant expenditures were seldom indulged. And men were careful to look after their just dues. Not a few instances appear in the old records, of claims being filed against the county for 12^ cents, 18^ cents and 25 cents. It is in memory that a customer at a store was found on settlement indebted to the merchant in the sum of 18^ cents, and had not the money wherewith to pay. The merchant wrote a note which the customer signed and afterward paid. With the habits of industry and economy appertaining to the pioneers of this county, there could be but one result. They improved the county and accumulated wealth, and their well improved farms, and 'the great material wealth of to-day, are the necessary outcome of all this primitive toil and thrift.

The scarcity of money goes without saying. There was next to no money in circulation for many years after the first settlements were made. An era of speculation followed the close of the war, the evil effects of which began to be felt about 1819. Then it was the banks began to weaken, and in no state were the results more serious than in the new State of Indiana. " The hank of Vincennes, which had become the State Bank of Indiana, with branches at Corydon, Vevay and Brookville," failed, leaving for that day a large sum of worthless paper in the pockets of the western people. The money in circulation in Indiana consisted mainly of depreciated bank bills and silver, mostly of Spanish coinage. The lips, ninepences and quarters were kept in circulation till worn out, while the half dollars and dollars were cut into halves and quarters usually denominated " sharp shins."

For many years after the state government was organized, its fiscal officers annually reported the depreciation of the state's money in the treasury, for which the General Assembly authorized the proper credit. One such instance occurs in the history of Johnson County, and doubtless there were others. In 1826, the board of justices allowed John Campbell, the county agent, a credit of 13^ cents for depreciation of money in his hands belonging to the county library fund.

This scarcity of money was not as serious an evil as it may seem to the reader of the present. The pioneers were less dependent, in a certain sense, than the people of to-day. Almost every thing that went into the living of the people, was produced in the country, and out of the want of money, a system of exchanges arose, which made its want unfelt. The taxes were next to nothing, and but little money was needed. A man out of debt could get along quite well with an exceedingly small sum during the year. The ginseng that was dug by the family was readily bartered for coffee or calico, at 25 cents per pound. His deer hides and venison saddles, the merchant took likewise in exchange for " store goods." If he had one horse more than he needed, he gave it in exchange for clearing and rail making, and the little money he found in his pocket toward the end of the year, he paid out in taxes and for leather to make shoes for his family, not forgetting himself a hat, and once in a long while, his* wife a shawl, or an extra Sunday dress. Many a pioneer has been compelled for want of the necessary postage, to leave his letter in the postoffice for weeks. To all the other obstacles that the Johnson County pioneer encountered, add the scourge of sickness incident to the new country. For forty years the autumnal fevers withstood the skill of the physicians throughout central Indiana. These fevers, of both intermittent and remittent types, appeared oftentimes in their most aggravated forms, and occasionally neighborhoods would almost be depopulated by them.

The years 1820, 1S21, and 1822, were attended by more fatal sickness in the southern border counties than has ever been experienced since. Whole communities in some instances fell victims to the prevailing diseases. So alarming did the mortality become, that by an act of the General Assembly passed December 31, 1821, Friday, the 2nd day of the following April, was set apart as a day for public prayer to "God Almighty, that He may avert the just judgments impending our land, and, that in His manifold mercies, He will bless the country with fruitful seasons, and our citizens with health and peace." That same year, 182 1, an epidemic of intermittent and remittent fevers set in during the latter part of July, in the new town of Indianapolis, and continued until some time in October, during which nearly every person was more or less indisposed, and seventy-two, or about one-eighth of the population, died.*

The fall succeeding the first settlements in the spring, the scourge broke out on Blue River, and prevailed to such an extent, that there were hardly enough well people to attend to the wants of the sick ones. In the eighteen families living in that neighborhood, two adults, one the wife of Joseph Townsend, and the other, Richard Connor, died. There were no sawed boards in the place suitable for making a coffin, in which to bury Mrs. Townsend (whose death is beiieved to have been the first" white person's in the county), and in the emergency, Allen Williams knocked the back out of his kitchen cupboard, and with the lumber thus obtained, made a coffin. About the same time a man by the name of Mills, died in the Whetzel neighborhood, near the Morgan County line, and hjs coffin was made of boards hewn with the broad axe out of wild cherry wood. The same fall Thomas Beeler, while endeavoring to found a settlement in the White River bottom, above the Bluffs, fell a victim to the scourge of the country. Up to 1836, there was little or no abatement in the malignance of the prevailing fevers. After that time there was a perceptible diminution of sickness throughout the county, which lasted up to about 1843, when the tide turned again, and for a period of five or six years, intermittents and remittents again scourged the land.

About 1859, tne first draining tile manufactory was established in the county, and it marked the beginning of the era of the final disappearance of the autumnal fevers. Since the wet lands of the county have been cleared and drained, a case of fever of the types, common in the early days, rarely is developed.

An attack of bilious fever, or of fever and ague, might run its course in a few days, and the patient be " up and about "' again. Indeed, with the " fever and ague " a great many were in bed only while the paroxysm lasted. And yet, apparently, the most innocent form of autumnal sickness might at anv moment, develop into a malignant type of disease, requiring instantaneous and the most heroic treatment, to save the patient's life. One might have two or three chills in as many days, each followed bv fever, and there be no cause for alarm; but if a "sinking chill" set in, the experienced ones knew how important it was to have medical attention at once. Unless a re-action could be brought about, the patient's death was quite sure to occur within a day or two. As soon as the doctor reached the bed-side of such a sick person, he began at once a course of treatment calculated to bring about the desired re-action. Stimulants such as brandy, capsicum and quinine were given in large doses, and applications of mustard were freelv made. Instances are given, where, during fourteen hours ioo grains of quinine and one quart of brandy have been administered before a re-action could be brought about. On one occasion, a man had a sinking chill, which was followed by a sweat that lasted two davs and two nights. At midnight a doctor visited him, and among other things, prescribed a dose of rhubarb. His wife got the medicines mixed, and instead of the rhubarb, administered 120 grains of capsicum at one dose. The next morning when the doctor returned, she met him at the gate with the tears streaming down her face, and lamenting that she was the unfortunate cause of her huaband's death. After examining his patient, and finding that he had passed the crisis, the doctor relieved the wife of her anguish by saying, " Madame, your mistake has saved your husband's life."

Doctors' services were hard to secure in the beginning, and the medicines known to the people, were powerless in bad cases of sickness. Elisha Adams, who died in the fall of 182^, was visited by a doctor who came from Columbus. Nor infrequently the doctors themselves succumbed to the prevalent diseases. At one time, in the town of Franklin, of five physicians, only two, Drs. Donnell and Ritchey, were able to ride, and so extensively were their services in demand, that they rede from place to place on a gallop, each riding daily not less than fifty miles. Judge Franklin Hardin gives the following graphic description of the condition of affairs during the sickly seasons : accelerated the crisis. Active stimulants only were found to be suitable. A quart of whisky in a night, with large doses of quinine, once more restored life and mobility to the blood and saved the patient. From the first of August to the first of October in each year, no business requiring labor was set apart to be performed. Sickness was the rule, and business was despatched, medicines provided and preparations made to meet the sickly season. After this was over, in any assemblage, one-half the members at least, wore pale faces. This was the age of quackery and quack medicines. After the quinine in the shops was used up, which was often the case before half the sickly season was over, the people had no remedy except in the use of boneset and gentian. The sick, therefore, readily fell in with any promised relief. Sappington's pills and others, with big names, heralded by along list of curative virtues, found a ready sale. Against the walls of every cabin, suspended from nails, hung two or three dozen small bottles already emptied of their contents, but with little, if any realization to the sick, of the promised benefit. A cart-load could have been gathered in a day, and such a collection would present to our children now an interesting and strange display of old curiosities, and form a long catalogue of quack nostrums."

It remains to take a glance at the intellectual and moral condition of the pioneers. We have seen something of the poverty of the people in general: the intellectual was as great if not greater. Border life seldom promotes mental activity. The home life of the pioneer was one of hum-drum toil. The subjects of his thought and conversation were usually of the commonplace. No newspapers came freighted with the world's occurrences, to stir the pulses of his life. He knew, and would know, nothing of what was going on outside of his immediate neighborhood, save as he might hear from the lips of an occasional acquaintance, or stranger whom he met from abroad. He had but few books, and read little in those he had. When he talked it was usually with one whose area of knowledge was no wider than his own. How utterly dry and dull and fruitless life must have been to the many in those days. There was, however, an excepted class. The men who indulged in the chase could not help being students to some extent of natural history. They studied the ways of the beasts and the birds. They learned to read the " signs " in the woods and along the streams, and became more or less experts in woodcraft. These men became educated in a certain sense, and in old age they, in general, could talk intelligently and instructively of what they had seen and learned of forest life.

dency of their surroundings, and longed that their children might be better. Most of them had been scantily educated in youth, and all expressed a desire to see their own children have the advantages of the good schooling that had been denied them. In accordance therewith, whenever the number of children in a neighborhood was enough to fill a school-house, one was provided, and a schoolmaster employed. Those first school-houses were of the most primitive style, and the first schoolmasters were in general meagerly educated, but both served their purpose. That first generation of scholars may not have been as well trained in the rudiments of knowledge as are their great-grandchildren of to-day, but the zeal for the cause of elementary training which they derived from their fathers and the poorlv equipped schools, they passed on down the line, and the great-grandchildren are reaping the benefit to-day.

The inquirer after the facts of the past is constantly reminded of the exhibition of lawlessness on the part of some at the beginning, and for several years after the county was organized. But it was mainly confined to lower grade crimes. An examination of the records of the Circuit Court of the county for a few years after its organization, discloses a state of society which indicates, at a glance, something of the moral condition of the people. At the March term of this court for 1824, the second term of court ever held in the county, of six causes on the docket, four were for batteries and affrays. At the September term of that year of twelve causes, eight were criminal, five being for batteries and affrays. At the March term for 1825, of fifteen causes on the docket, ten were criminal causes, seven of which were for batteries and affrays. At the September term of that year, of fifteen causes, eight were criminal and seven for batteries and affrays. At the March term for 1826, of nineteen causes in all, thirteen were criminal, and of these, eleven were for batteries and affrays. At the September term for the same year, of seventeen causes on the docket, ten were criminal, and of these, seven were for batteries and affrays. At the March term, for 1827, of thirty-seven causes in all, nineteen were criminal, and of these, sixteen were for batteries and affrays. At the September term for that year, of thirty-seven causes, twenty-one were criminal, and of these, nineteen were for batteries and affrays. And so on. The record shows that the fighting and quarreling prevailed to an amazing extent. The principal business of the circuit court (and we have no record of what was done by the justices) was trying cases of assault and battery and of affrays. In 1826 there were 173 votes cast at the general election held in the county, and eighteen prosecutions in the Circuit Court for fight- itog, which was one fight to every ninth voter. And yet in the face Of these figures, men whose memories took in the times when they were being made, were wont to say that " not half the fights in the county ever got into the courts," and I think their estimate was about right.