Randolph County, Indiana - Chapter 5: Early ^ettlers, 1914 (part 3 of 5)

Our route lay across Blue Ridge, over the Holston, along French Broad and Crooked rivers, through Sawanna gap, over Cumberland Mountains, and so through Tennessee and Kentucky to the Ohio river at Cincinnati. We camped on New Year's night on a very high blufif on French Broad, with steps cut down to the river. We saw a live alligator, which to us children was an unusual sight. There was a severe snow-storm as we were on top of the Cumberland Mountains, and we had snow and cold weather from there all the way through. The Ohio river was frozen over, and we crossed on the ice ; boys were skating, and ladies and gentlemen were riding in sleighs on the river. Our folks were afraid to cross with their heavy wagons and big teams; and the men went over to Cincinnati and got men to come with long ropes and haul the wagons across the ice in that way. The hind wheels of Paul Way's wagon (which was the last one to cross), broke through the ice, and it was hard work to get the wagon out and across, but they succeeded. George Wilson (my father), was likely to have been drowned. He fell into an air hole up to his neck, and came near being sucked under the ice ; but he held to the ice and the men pulled him out.

We met a tribe of Indians (I think somewhere in Kentucky), going home with their ponies and their squaws. They had been to make peace, and to get their pay and their presents. There were 500 or more of them, men and women on ponies with the chief. Our company were greatly alarmed, but the Indians did us no harm. They asked for tobacco and bread, and they got what they asked for, so far as our folks had them. We were very glad to get along with them so easily as that. They went on their way, and our people passed on toward the Ohio, thankful to escape so cheaply.

That winter journey was a severe one, and to look back it is not easy to see how we were able to get safely through. But by God's mercy we were spared to come safe to our looked-for haven, and to reach the friends who had already made the trip, and to meet them in joy and thankfulness of heart."

iam Diggs had gone up White river from its mouth through the woods to Randolph county. Paul Way had gone back to Carolina to pilot the company through, and the others had stayed in Indiana. Henry Way and William Diggs went down to Wayne county during the fall and winter, and were married, and William Diggs and his wife are understood to have been the first family who settled on White river in Randolph county. Fannie Hill, of Jericho, oldest daughter of William Diggs, says her mother lived there for six weeks without seeing a white face, except probably her husband)."

Such moving and such settlements as this would not very well suit modern notions of pride and comfort. But such was the way of the pioneers, and thus this goodly heritage gained its brave and hardy settlers.

The Ways, the Wrights, the Moormans, the Diggs, the Pucketts, the Hills, and many others were numerous and noted in early times among the primitive settlers, and many of their descendants still remain.

[Note. - Truth compels us to state that the romantic travel up White river from near its mouth to the neighborhood of Winchester, is declared by William Diggs, Jr., one of the party who is supposed to have made the wonderful trip, to be wholly a "myth;" that their j.ourney was simply from Henry county over into Randolph, far enough indeed, but by no means such a journey as a trip the whole length of White river would have been.]

[Note. 2 - Jesse Way, who says he, too, was a lad in the same company of emigrants, though younger than Judith Wilson, insists that the party saw no company of Indians like that of which she speaks. It is difficult to see how she could imagine the fact, more so than to consider that Jesse may have forgotten the circumstance.]

[Note 3. - Another and perhaps a more serious objection to the correctness of her memory, is the question what Indians they could have been, and whither they were going. However, Aunt Judith insists that they met the Indians, let them be who they might be, and no matter where they had been or where they might be going.]

William Peacock

When I was a little boy, say six years old, I used to go with some older boys to carry dinner to the men who were building Cox's mill, on White

John Jones came about 1835. Benjamin Cox belonged to White river, and he used often to exercise at Jericho. Mr. Robinson has been a minister about fifteen years.

The early settlers were Henry Hill, Benoni Hill, Amos Peacock, Abram Peacock, Stanton Bailey, Jeremiah Cox, William Pickett, Joshua Buckingham.

George And Asenath Thomas, 1818

Asenath (Hill) Thomas was born in North Carolina, in 1815, and was brought to Jericho, Randolph county, Indiana, in 1818. Jeremiah Cox entered land in the neighborhood before Henry Hill came. Abram and Amos Peacock were the first settlers there. They came, also, in 1818, but before Henry Hill did. A Mr. Kennedy lived up White river, three miles away, near Mount Zion. Mrs. Thomas says, "We used to 'neighbor' with them, they lived so near us. We went by a 'blazed path' through the woods. An 'Indian trail' passed from the north and west through Jericho, and- past old Benjamin Thomas', east of Newport. The Indians would go in companies, fifteen or twenty pack-horses at one time. They would call at father's (Henry Hill's) for bread and milk. They thought milk was a wonderful treat. They would bring hickory kernels, moccasins, baskets, etc., to exchange for corn, meal, salt, etc. One of their chiefs was named Johnny Cornstalk. He often passed, and was always friendly. He was a stout, heavy man, with large limbs and high cheek bones. He would come in and stay and talk and laugh and enjoy himself for hours with us. The Indians mostly talked ver)- broken English, but he spoke our language quite well.

There was one bad Indian; the tribe had driven him off. He skulked round among the whites. 'Finally he shot a white man, and another white man shot him and wounded him, and still another man killed him. The Indians would not take him after he was wounded. The poor fellow got Mr. Lewallyn, of Ridgeville, to take him in. Mr. Lewallyn sent to the Indians to come and get him. They said 'No bad Indian; don't want him.' The man whom the Indian shot, found that he was at Lewallyn's, and came there and shot him as he lay wounded in bed." [This was Fleming. See other accounts elsewhere.]

"Friends' ^Meeting at Jericho was established about 182 1. They built a log-cabin church, no windows, but merely holes, with shutters. The seats vvtre ptiles, with legs. The women's side had a big fire-place; the men's side had a hearth in the middle, with a hole above to let the smoke out. They would use coals from the fire-place, with bark, etc., that would not smoke much.'

Benoni Hill, Henry Hill, Amos Peacock, Abram Peacock, Elijah Cox and Wm. Cox formed the meeting. The first preacher was John Jones, 1835. The first school was in 1822 or 1823, taught by Mariam Hill, consisting of twenty or twenty-five pupils, in Friends' meeting-house. Father Henry Hill once went to Richmond to work for money to pay his taxes, $1. He could get work at 25 cents per day. John Charles lent him $1, and he came back and .paid them. He has taken bacon to Richmond, and sold it at $1 a hundred, half in trade. Eggs and chickens, for awhile, were no sale at all. Bye and bye we could get 3 cents a dozen for eggs, at Winchester.

The first mill on White river, in this region, was Jeremiah Cox's - a water mill; a corn mill at first, then a flour mill also. The first run was gray heads; the other run was buhrs' from abroad. It was built in 1825, and stood forty-five years. It was somewhat famous in its day.

The lumber for Jeremiah Cox's house, owned now by Simon Cox - house still standing - was hauled fifty-two years ago from Richmond, and from Uncle Elijah Thomas' saw-mill, near Newport.

Henry Hill lived in a pole cabin, fourteen by sixteen feet; no windows, but a hole for four lights, with a shutter. He made a sash with his pocketknife, put in the lights, and then we had a witidow, and were grand for a fact ! Our hearth was rock and dirt pounded together. Cattle would get fat on the wild pea-vines, etc., but they died with what was called the 'bloody murrain.' They were fat and full of tallow, but they would be taken sick and die in a few hours. Father had four heifers "come in' nearly at one time, and three died suddenly.

People tanned their own leather in tan-troughs, made from big logs hewed out. George Thomas has a strip of leather tanned by Henry Hill forty-five rears ago. George has worn it in his suspenders forty years, and it is good and strong now.

People went to meeting in home-spun - the men in linen or tow shirts, and tow pantaloons, and deer-skin jackets; the women in check home-spun. All classes would go barefooted. After awhile, people began to have shoes, and women would carry their shoes in their hands, and put them on when near church."

James Clark, 1819

"We went to mill at- Moffat's, Newman's or Cox's. Our corn sacks would hold four bushels, but we would take two or three bushels, and put the sacks across the horse. Fruit was abundant - gooseberries, plums, etc. Our clothing was linsey, home-spun, or buckskin. Breeches, jackets, huntingshirts, were buckskin.

To Dress Deerskins

"Soak the skin soft; take off the flesh with a grain knife (a tedious job, two good skins are a full day's work) ; hang them up till dry; take deer's or beef's brains and dry them on a board, and put them into a sack with warm water, and squeeze them till like- soap-suds ; work the skin soft in this lather, two or three hours, wring it lengthwise as dry as possible, and stretch and pull it in every possible way till entirely dry. Do so (soak, wring, pull) three or four times, till white. Then cut off all the flash and smoke the skin soft and yellow. It is nice and warm when dry, but when wet it will stick to your hide."

Lost Child

"Once a child, Mr. Burson's, was lost - a three year-old girl. It wandered off three miles through the woods, to Micajah Morgan's. Mr. Morgan saw it clambering the fence, and took it in. Mrs. Morgan said, 'She looks like Enoch Burson's child.' Mr. Morgan started on horseback with the girl, and met Ephraim Bowen, hunting it. Mr. Bowen took the child and carried it home."

Work, Money, Etc

"At one time I hired out, mowing, twenty-six and a half days, at 25 cents a day. (Eighteen years old.) We used shin-plasters, mostly, for money. We seldom could get silver. The coins were commonly cut up into pieces, called 'sharp-shins.' Shin-plasters disappeared by and by, but silver was still very scarce. Sugar and deerskins were all we had to sell for money. Sugar, $6 a hundred; deerskins, from 25 to 50 cents apiece; fawn-skins, 25 cents; doe-skins, ZJV'^ cents; old buckskins, 50 cents. Land was, at first, $2 per acre; one-quarter down, not less than 160 acres. About 1820, the price was put at $1.25, and 80 acres; and afterwards, 40 acres, all down. Many paid entry money and could not pay the rest, and lost their land. Afterwards, the law was made so as to allow a 'floating claim,' i. e., the money paid might apply to a part of the land.

There was a mill north of Spartanburg - Jessup's mill. I went there once. There was no roof; the mill stood open. The miller's house was across the creek from the mill, and a foot-log between. He would take a peck measure full over, turn it in, come back and talk awhile, and go with another peck, and so all night long; just about a peck art hour."

Deer Hunting

"Next day I killed my second deer. I had killed the first deer near Overman's. I shot that first deer, and asked him to help carry it in. 'No,' said Overman, 'I can't leave planting corn. You just take it on your shoulders, and its tail between your teeth, and climb a sapling and hang it up.' I didn't do it, however. But for my second deer. I was hunting a horse in the range. As I was going round a pond at the head of Nolan's Fork, a deer sprang up ahead of me, and I drew up my gun and let fly, and down came the deer. In 1821, I was staying with a cousin, north of where Spartanburg now is. We had been planting corn, and when that was done I went hunting. I saw no game till, finally, I came to Beaver Pond. The deer tracks were abundant, but no deer. Coming to a thick maple-top, I laid my rifle in it, and cleared away the twigs, and made a 'rest' for my gun. About sundown I saw a deer cross, but too far off to shoot. About dusk there stood a doe in plain sight, about twenty steps away. I shot and she went. I hunted for her, but no doe could I find. I went back to my 'rest' to watch for deer again. Presently along came a big buck, not ten yards distant. I moved, and he 'bounced.' About 11 o'clock, I heard the water go 'plug-plug.' -Soon I saw a deer about 20 steps from me, running its head into the water, and flapping its ears. I sighted for two minutes, and shot, and the deer ran. I got down to load the gun, but I had not powder enough ; and so I went to the cabin about 12 o'clock. 'Where have you been all night?' 'Beaver Pond.' 'Shooting deer?' 'Yes.' 'What luck?' 'Had two shots, but haven't found my deer.' In the morning we went out and found both deer, dead, not ten yards apart. This was the Napoleon died, 1821.

Once I was chasing a gang of deer, and the sky clouded up and I -started for home. All at once there stood four deer gazing at me. I let drive at them. After loading again, I went to the place and found the 'hair cut' and scattered on the snow. I followed the trail and saw blood plenty, and at length found the deer, dead, lOO yards from where it had been shot. I hung it up, skinned it, left the meat hanging, and, going back, I found another place of 'hair cut.' I followed thatj;rail, also and the first I knew, there lay the other deer, dead, in a thicket of spice-brush. One shot had killed both deer. The carcass of the dead buck lay stiff and cold where it had been shot down. I did with that as with the other, and went to the cabin. Next morning we brought in the venison, and splendid meat it was, too, I can tell you."

Solomon Wright

"My grandfather, James Wright, was a Carolinian Quaker, who fled to the wilds of the Holston, in Tennessee, to Escape conscription into thearmy, in the war of 1776. My father, John Wright, was puny at first, and was rocked in an old trunk-cover lined with the skin of a sea animal, the hair on which is said to rise and fall with the tides. As he grew up, he gained strength and vigor. He married Margaret Reece, in Carolina. About 1804, the Wrights emigrated to Ohio, to military lands. In 1814, or thereabouts, the twelve-mile strip came into market, and some fourteen or fifteen families, who lost their lands on the military tract through a flaw in the title, came, soon afterwards, to Randolph county. They had fine improvements in Ohio, but they lost the whole. James and Abram Wright moved first of this company. My father came out and selected some land, but did not move then. James and Abram Wright settled on Eight-mile creek. William Haworth came with them. William Diggs and Armsbee Diggs came from Carolina about the same time. William Way, Sr., and his sons, William, Paul and Henry, all grown and married, came also. I think these came in the fall of 1815. James and Abram Wright moved soon afterwards from Clinton county, Ohio.

March 10, 18 16, my brother Isaac (one of the triplets), and myself started, with one horse for us both, from Clinton county, Ohio, to go to the woods of Randolph. With a few things in a sack slung across the horse (among them, seven or eight apples - the last of the season), we set off in high glee, I being fourteen years old, taking turns in riding, or as it is called, 'riding and tying,' a very common practice then. Our route was Waynesville, Springboro, Eaton, New Paris, Williamsburg, Ind., and so on to

Randolph. We got to brother James' glad enough. Isaac said, 'I had to walk nearly all the way. Solomon was so chicklegged he could hardly go at all.' We went to work on father's place to clear and build. One day I had laid off my coat and vest on the leaves, when the fire ran and caught them, and burnt leaves, coat, vest and all. As I held up the smoking shreds. Uncle Haworth cried. 'Save the buttons!' 'There are no buttons to save' was the curt reply. There was I, a poor lad fourteen years old, one hundred and twenty miles from home, with no clothes but shirt and pants. I had to wear an old overcoat of brother James', a world too large and long, which made me the laughing stock at all the log-rollings. In warm weather, I gladly shed the old coat and took to shirt and pants.

I stayed through the summer, and were turned home; and in about a year father and I came through with a load of provisions. A year after that, father moved to his land. Cabin creek was so named on a trip we made to David Connor's, below Wheeling. Seeing a group of Indian cabins on the bank of the creek, some one cried, 'Let us call the stream Cabin creek,' and Cabin creek it is to this day. Muncie was so named from Muncie [Montzie], an old Indian. The Indians complained of Connor's whiskey. 'Too much "Sinewa," they said. I saw the first lot sold in Winchester.

Once in school, near Dunkirk, on the last day, the girls got behind the chimney and pushed the fire-place and back wall over into the house, and scattered the clay all over the floor - grand fun, they thought.

My oldest boy, George Washington, killed a bear. He was quite young, and people would ask, Ts that the boy who killed the bear ?' He skinned the bear and brought it [the skin] home.

One day some white men and Indians were jumping near the mill-pond. One white man jumped with stones in his hands. The Indians were angry. One of them threw the stones into the pond exclaiming, 'No fair !'

Nathan Thornburg came one day and said, 'We are starving or meat.' We went hunting, but found nothing. Just as we were going home, a deer started up. I shot the deer and cried to Thornburg, 'There is your meat; go get it,' which he did.

One evening a man came and said, 'There is a bear over the hill yonder.' We went, and, sure enough, the dogs had treed a bear. Thornburg snapped and I snapped. He stuck in a new flint and shot the bear outright. One man said, not very long age, 'The telegraph cannot come here; there is no water-course.' Once, as we were traveling near Smithfield, we came upon a gang of Indians, lying on the ground under the oak trees. The dog barked, and they jumped up and hastily wrapped themselves up in some way. One

Indian asked me for 'big ax, to cut bee tree.' I told him, 'No; got none.' He brought me some venison, as black 9s black cloth, and gave me a piece. I took it. The young man with we took none. The Indian was displeased, and said, 'No good white man.'

In 1833, my wife noticed the 'stars falling.' She went to the door and cried, 'O, come and look, quick, or the stars will all be down !' While we were moving from Ohio, as we std|)pedone evening, a young man sat on a stone and sang:

Between Williamsburg and White River, an old ewe 'gave out,' and we laid her on a tree-root 'in the wilderness.' Seven weeks afterward we found her there, feeding about, and took her home. A great many Indians were here then. I used to hop with them and shoot at a mark. We lived in harmony till two young white men went down below Stoney creek and stole two Indian ponies and escaped to Ohio. Shortly, the Indians went after them. They said, 'No good white man; steal Indian ponies.' I always noticed that, in the Indian difficulties, the whites were mostly to blame, and that the trouble generally arose from stealing their horses or from selling them liquor.

A while after we came to Randolph, father sent me to mill, on the Stillwater below Greenville. I followed the Indian trail through the forest, seeing not a living soul, except that I met some Indians, who, upon my asking them 'how far to Greenville ?' held up six fingers, to mean, as I supposed, six miles. When I got to Greenville, the old fort was there in decay and partial ruin, and not much of a town. Passing on, I found the mill on Stillwater, some miles below, got my 'grinding,' and returned safetly home."

[This was probably before 1820. Solomon Wright is probably mistaken, by at least one year, in his idea of the time when he came to Randolph. It seems well settled that William Diggs and the Ways came in the fall of 1816, and that the Wrights, etc., none of them till at least the spring, or, more probably, the fall, of 181 7. They did, some of them, certainly arrive that fall, and that was probably the time, December, 1817, when William Wright went to White River, as told by John Fisher, he thinking that wagon the first to White River.]

"About the time grandpa settled on this farm, he saw a young fawn floating down White river, rescued it from the water and put it into a hollow sycamore ; and when he came back from hunting, took it home. He kept it several years. Grandpa says, 'I put a bell on it, and it would go off into the woods, and wild deer would follow it; and when I would hear the bell I would look out for the deer and kill them.'

He became awful cross, and when anybody came, he would turn his hair back, bow up his neck, meet them at the gate, and they had to stand back or 'be floored.' One day, two boys were going to meeting, and 'Buck' made them 'climb' to get out of his way ; and he kept them up their saplings till it was too late for meeting. At last he 'bunted' over one of the children, and grandpa shot him.

Abram Wright and Isom Garrett were pioneer teachers. One taught at Dunkirk and one on Green's Fork, and the schools used to meet to 'spell' against each other. Those 'spelling matches' were gay times, and were useful, to boot.

To persons inquiring the way to Winchester, Charles Conway used to reply, 'Just go on as far as you can get among the logs and brush, and you are in Winchester.' Paul W. Way surveyed the town plat, and Abram Wright carried the chain for him. David Wright 'cried' the lots at the first sale. He said to David Wysong, 'That young man is good-looking, and he would look still better if he would bid just a little higher.' Hiram Mendenhall and others, between 1830 and 1840, joined their possessions and formed a 'Community' at Unionsport. The town still stands, but the 'Community' was dissolved long, long ago.

The first teacher at Cabin Creek was Mary Ann Ring. Grandpa sent the two oldest children. The little 'chits' hid their dinner, tied up in a rag, under the floor before they entered the schoolroom on the first day.

by them in temperance, anti-slavery, etc. Fanny, the youngest, now the wife of Judge R. S. Taylor, of Fort Wayne, used to stand on a chair and recite :

In the 'Separation,' most of the^ Cabin Creek Friends left the 'Body.' Amos Bond, J. H. Bond, Solomon Wright, etc., were noted Anti-slavery Friends. Great enthusiasm prevailed, and lectures, papers, pamphlets, etc., were the order of the day. The underground railroad track passed this way, and 'Cabin Creek' was one of the chief stations.

When 'Birney's vote' was found to be about 7,000, Hiram Mendenhall, who presented the 'petition' to Henry Clay, at Richmond, Indiana, said, 'Thank God, there are left yet 7,000 men who have not bowed the knee to Baal, nor kissed his image' - referring to the rumor that so many kissed Henrv Clay. Grandpa kept an inn for many years, as this road was a great A\'estern thoroughfare.

The Van Amburg show passed here once and the men, some of them, staved overnight, and the elephant stood in the yard, tied to a young walnut tree.

Some Mormon converts once camped at the creek ford, and their preacher declared they were going to Nauvoo, protected by the same power that guarded Daniel in the 'lions' den.' They seemed sincere and hearty in their faith. Abram Wright attended a meeting of Mormons, at which the people wept profusely under the words of a speaker who said he had prayed all night to be delivered from the devil, whose chains he could hear rattling down the stairs.

Samuel Peters, a highly, respected young colored man, used to board with us. He went South, after the war, was cashier of the Freedman's Bank, at Shreveport, Louisiana, and had been elected to Congress there, when he died in the fall of 1873 by yellow fever, which struck that city so fatally at that time. First burial in Friends' burying-ground at Cabin Creek was a child of Mordecai Bond's, and the next was Jethro Hiatt's wife.

First mill in Stoney Creek township was built at Windsor b-\- John Thornburg, 1827. The first cooking stove was owned by Solomon Wright, bought at Newport.

ner. Two men held the clanking chains upon his ankles as he walked into the house. 'Look at that and be honest, boys,' said grandpa to his sons, who were standing by and gazing at the poor fellow.

Eminent Quaker preachers of the olden time, in Randolph county, were Isom Puckett, Benjamin Cox and others. In later years, Martha Wooton, Daniel Puckett, Charles Osborn, etc., labored here to some extent, though not residents within the limits of the. county."

"I have owned and improved six different farms in this region, building six separate houses. When my father moved here I was too young to go to mill, but my brothers used to go to Solomon Wright's to mill and get wheat ground, unbolted, and then take the meal to an old man who had made a sieve by stretching a cloth over a piece of hoop bent round, and they would sift the meal through that and thus make flour.

Soon after father settled, the State road'was made from Winchester to the State line toward Greenville, right past father's cabin. I saw the men going along blazing 'the trees.' Judge Edwards said that when Paul Way surveyed the road, he had a man go along the county road and blow a horn, so as to keep him in a straight course. When they reached the 'Dismal,' they hunted a narrow passage for a crossing, and curved the road to hit the spot.. The State road was the leading highway in this country, and, for many years, an immense amount of travel passed upon it. I have counted eighty wagons of movers in one day, going to western Indiana, Illinois, etc. My father's cabin was a stopping-place, and we have had so many at once that we boys often had to go to the hay mow to sleep to give room to the lodgers.

Years afterward, when the West had become somewhat settled, cattleused to be taken east in immense droves. I have seen 700 or 800 in a single herd. David Heaston's, James Griffis', and my father's were the chief places for movers and for droves. Father used to charge a man for supper, breakfast, lodging and horse feed, ^tlV^ cents. The old National road was another great thoroughfare.

An old man, Banta, built a bridge over Greenville creek on the State road, and I helped him do the job. We went out there to work, camping in the woods. His folks neglected to bring us any provisions, and for three -days we lived on bread and water.

He got money to enter his first land by hauling wheat to Lewall)m's mill, at Ridgeville, for Hour ; and by buying pork, potatoes, etc., building a flat-boat, and taking the boat-load of bacon, flour, etc., down the river to Logansport, and selling his load to the Indians.

He entered land east of Winchester (Kemp farm). A company, of whom Jesse \\'ay was one, went down the Mississinewa river with loaded flat-boats, and Jesse lost his boat, and his load, too, in trying to run the dam at Byles's mill on that river.

An Indian 'trail' was simply a path through the woods. The path would be trodden so as to be plainly visible. Sometimes the amount of pony-travel would be so great as to make a heavily-trodden track. 'Trails' passed in various directions : One led from Muncie to Greenville, straight as an arrow. One from r^Iuncie to Fort Wayne ; one from Godfrey Farm to Fort Wayne, etc.''

"When a girl, I went with my mother to a quilting and corn-husking. When we got there nothing seemed ready, but the boys went to the woods and got some poles for frames; the women pieced the quilt and carded the tow, and so they quilted the quilt, each woman quilting where and how she pleased. Doubtless, the quilt was just as warm, which is the chief thing after all. One woman got drunk. She said she was getting her 'nats upon the taps;' and she would go out and help cook. A\'hisk\- was everywhere. Stillhouses were plent}-, and much whisky was made and drank. My father settled in Union count)- in 1817. He owned the first mill in that county, and my oldest brother built a factory. My father came to Ohio from Xew Jersey in 1802, to Waynesville, and I was born there. He resided at Cincinnati eighteen months, then at Covington, operating a woolen factory, and building the first good house in Covington. He li\'ed thirtv-six vears on the East fork of White river, and then moved to Richmond, residing there for four years. He died in 1852. eight}'-four years old.

Some men from Union countv- took the first (and only) two flat-boats down the East Fork of WhiXt Water to _Xew Orleans. There was a heavy freshet and the water was very high. There was a great crowd to see them start, from all the countrs- round. They sold their load at New Orleans and came back all the wav from that distant market on foot."

Thomas Ward

"The first money I ever had, when a young lad, as my own, was 12^ cents. My brother and I sold a pair of deer-horns for 25 cents, and I had half. I managed, afterward, somehow, to get 87^^ cents, and loaned it to father, he promising to give me a sheep. His 'sheep' proved to be a lamb, but I raised it and traded it for a pig, and then that for a calf, and so on. Afterward I came to be the owner of a colt, which I traded again, and so on from small things to greater, till, by the time I was twenty-one years old, I had become the owner of six hundred acres of wild land."

"I began very early to trade for things. Father let me have a pig or two, and I traded for a calf and then for a motherless colt, and so on. I bought my own clothes. As before stated, men would come along and hire me to survey and deaden land, and I would do the surveying, and hire the deadening for less than what they would give me. At one time I entered an eightyacre tract for $100, and sold it shortly after for $200. I used to trade in furs and peltry, and would make, sometimes, $200 in a single winter, or even more in that way.

The first land I ever entered for myself I carried the money in my hand all the way to Fort Wayne, traveling on foot the whole distance. There was a nice Indian sugar orchard which T wished very much to own. We found out that another party was planning to enter it, and I started on foot with money for that, tract, and also for some that father wished to enter. I had the money tied up, and carried it in my hand the whole way. The 'specie circular' had lately been issued, and in just three days it was to take effect. I got to John Brooks' the first night, gave Mrs. B. the money to keep and went to bed. The next day I got to Adam Miller's, near Bluffton. The third day I tried hard to make Fort Wayne, but the traveling was very bad, the snow being nearly knee deep, and I was but a boy (eighteen years old, or perhaps less), and I had to come short of the mark. In the morning I went to the registrar's office, made application for the land for myself and my father, got my certificate from that office and went boldly to the receiver. Colonel Spencer knew my father and knew me too, for he had stayed at my father's at dififerent times. I told him the whole story - the paper money, the sudden start, my hard travel on foot, and how I had missed by a few hours, and what a disappointment it would be to lose my land after such a chase for it.

He was a sturdy Democrat, and father was a steadfast Whig; but Colonel Spencer was a gentleman and a kind-hearted man, and he pitied the poor boy ; and he said to me, 'You shall have your land, and your father shall, too. I am going into Ohio on business of my own, and I can use the money myself.' So he took my money and I entered the land. But my piece was some four acres more than a full eighty, and it took $5 extra; and that was every cent of money I had. But I was determinetl I would have the land, let come what would ; so I paid my last cent and g"ot it. I told Colonel Spencer what I had done, and he asked me how I expected to get home. I told him I did not know, but that I was going to start and risk getting through. 'O, that will never do,' said he; and he insisted that I should borrow of him enough to take me home. I finally did so, and tramped home again, sending his money back the first chance I found. I had an uncle (Daniel Miller), on Robinson's Prairie, and I stayed the first night with him, the second night at Portland, and got home the third night. When I started in the morning from my uncle's, on my way from Fort Wayne, he told me of a nearer way through the woods ; that I could go by 'blazes' to the Wabash, and cut off several miles. I took his directions, and followed the 'blazes' through without difficulty. I thought no more of traveling thus through the thick woods, guided only by 'blazed' trees, than I would now to travel along a beaten road.

I have lost great amounts of property during my life. I put two hundred and forty-five acres of land near Ridgeville, and one thousand acres of Iowa land, into the north and south road through Ridgeville, when it was first worked on, and lost it. I did more- for the road than anybody else, living or dead. Others managed to secure their stock, but my loss by the road was $30,000 or more. Mr. Lewallyn's mill, at Ridgeville, was built, probably, after 1819. My father, Joab Ward, commenced building boats about 1835. When the country along the Wabash, etc., began to settle up, the fact made a market for several years, and the people of Wayne and Randolph tried to supply it by sending their produce down the Alississinewa to the Wabash, and thereabouts. Boats were needed, and Ridgeville was the head of high-water navigation, and so father took to building boats and selling them to people to take their produce down the river on. He would build a boat forty feet long by ten feet wide, at 62^/2 cents a foot, i. e., $25 for the boat, all ready for floating. He would cut the timber green, from the woods, have two heavy side-pieces sloped rounding upward at both ends, cut a 'gain' in the lower edge to receive the ends of the planks which formed the bottom, pin the bottom planks to the sides and the middle piece, fasten on some pieces of plank at the top of the gunwale, so as to increase the depth of the boat (making it, perhaps, two feet), stop up the cracks, and she was ready to receive her load and to float along her downward way. This flat-boating could be done only in times of flood.

High water was mostly during the winter and spring. The business lasted perhaps ten or fifteen y^ars. The river floods became less, and the markets in that region ceased or were supplied in other ways.

Father built, in all, a large number of boats - thirty-seven in one spring. He used to hire hands to work for him, and board them at 12^ cents a meal.

One spring several boats started down the river, loaded with apples, potatoes, cider, etc. At the first mill dam below Marion (McClure's), one boat, belonging to Hampton Brown, who lived below Newport (Fountain City), in going over the dam, ran under and sunk and lost the whole cargo, and the boat was ruined. The men swam out to the shore and were saved.

At one time a raft came plunging down upon the swift-rushing flood. They contrived to land a cable and tied it round a tree ; but the raft broke in two and went over the dam. There were two men on the raft. One came ashore, but the other shot under the water and was never again seen alive. His dead body was found afterward, some distance below."

David Lasley

In Winchester there were a few log cabins, and a log court house. David Heaston came in 1819, a little southwest. In Winchester were Paul W. Way, Charles Conway, John Odell, John Wright (blacksmith), John Wright (judge).

I cleared oS the public square in Winchester ; there were three and onehalf acres; it took me three months, working all day and half the night, and I got $35 for the job. Moorman Way got more than double that sum ($75) years afterward for putting in new trees. It was all 'in the green,' there came a snow and the heaps would not burn well; much was sugar-tree, three feet and over. A very large elm stood right in the cross street. The timber in this region was sugar-tree, beech, hickory, walnut, oak, elm, etc. Oak was scarce, sugar-tree most abundant of all. There was much wet land in the region that nobody would have, that land is now the best in the county. I helped make a big cross-way on the State road west of Winchester, threequarters of a mile long. The logs were, many of them, eighteen inches through. Two of us built it in three months, getting $10 a month, boarding ourselves. Poles had to be put in between the logs a.t the top, and the whole was covered with dirt six inches deep. We had to cut many of the trees, standing kiieedeep in water, and the logs often floated as we hauled them, making the work of drawing them to the track much easier."

John Mann, Greensfork

"We used to grind out corn on a hand-mill. My father had one, and the neighbors were in the habit of coming and using it. It was hard work; a few quarts would tire a man completely out ; you had to turn with one hand and feed with the other (a few grains at a time). The mill worked very slowly, and we generally ground only enough for a meal or two at once. The way the mill was made and worked was this : The lower stone was laid flat and fast; the upper stone was fixed to turn upon a center piece in some \\ay, and was made to revolve by a pole, fastened (loosely) in a beam above, and in the top of the stone below, near the edge of the stone, in a shallow hole drilled in the surface. This drilling into the stone was hard to do, for there were no tools, and there was no way to fasten anything to the stone. These stones were about two feet across, home-dressed and home-made."

"When I came to Randolph, Charles Conway lived half a mile south of Winchester. John Wright (blacksmith) lived on the north side of Winchester. Paul Beard and Jesse Johnson (and perhaps others), were on Greensfork, near Lynn. There were some settlers down White river, but I did not know them. No settlers were on White river above us. John Cox, my father, came in 1818, with eight children; none are now living but myself. He died forty years ago. White River meeting was set up about 1820. The members were Benjamin Cox, John Wright (blacksmith), Jonathan Hiatt, Simon Cox, Thomas Ward, Joseph Moffatt and maybe others. Jericho meeting was begun soon afterward. The first school was about 1823 ; Isaac Pearson was the teacher. George Cox, born 1820, remembers riding

The first mill was on Salt creek, north of Winchester, water-mill, built by Solomon Wright; it ground very slowly, being in use some years. Jeremiah Cox's mill was the next - a flour mill - bolt run by hand. The first meeting-house was the White River church, warmed by coal in the middle.

The first doctor I knew of was at Winchester. The first store I knew of was there too. The first frame house was Jeremiah Cox's, built about fiftyfive years, and standing yet in good repair. The first child born in our settlement was my son, George Cox, born January 6, 1820.

Benjamin Cox and myself once started to go through to the Johnson settlement below Lynn, after some grain to take to mill. One had to go ahead and cut 'a road' for the wagon to pass. We had to 'camp out,' and a deep snow fell in the night."

Burkett Pierce

same fall that I did, and settled near Saratoga. (James Massey was here in 1818, before B. P. came). George Ritenour came two weeks after me and settled across the river. Meshach Lewallyn built a small mill in 18 19 (I think), a water-mill; it would grind two or three bushels a day; the meal would come by 'spurts.' A dog came in and tried to lick the meal; now he would get some meal, and now he wouldn't; it did not suit him, and he would throw up his head and howl, and then he would try to lick the meal again. ( This story has been told us of four different mills in the region, as also of one in Pennsylvania.)

Mr. Lewallyn afterward built a better mill, which became a noted point in those times for many years ; he built a saw-mill also. David Connor built a log shanty two miles east of Deerfield, on the Mississinewa, and traded with the Indians. He sold them flour, and salt, and powder, and whisky, etc., for furs and peltry. He took loads of furs and skins in 'pirogues,' down the Mississinewa, up Wabash, up Little river, across the portage nine miles to St. Mary's, and so. to Toledo and Detroit. He hauled his goods across the portage on wagons with three yoke of oxen. Brother Thomas and I went with him once. He had otter, muskrats, beaver, coon skins, minks, etc., a heavy load. He got his pay in silver, and bought a pony to bring the silver home. (This was in 1822.) He stayed at that point a year or two or so, and moved down the river to near Wheeling, and later, to below Marion, where he settled, built mills, and spent the rest of his life. He died rich a few years ago. I took hogs to him, which he bought and butchered. He showed me half a bushel of silver money. He was a 'smart' man, and a man of his word; but he would have his own way in a bargain. He made a of money. He did not like to sell to settlers, because he could not charge them enough. He commonly sold* to Indians, and his price to them was very high.

Lewallyn's son, Shadrach, shot an Indian in their yard. A patch of corn had been planted, and the boys were gathering it on a sled (as most of the hauling was done then). The Indian had bought some powder and whisky at Connor's, and he "cut up' and scared the boys. They unhitched the horses, and one of the boys ran, and the Indian ran after him and pointed his gun at the boy. Shadrach called out, 'What is the matter?' The boy said, 'The Indian is going to shoot me.' Shadrach caught his gun and undertook to shoot the Indian. Shadrach's wife tried to pull him away for 100 yards, but he shot and killed the Indian right there in the yard. This was in the evening. Shadrach went to his father's that night, and in the morning they covered the body in the hollow of a tree turned up. Old Meshach went to Muncie alone, and told the Indians what his son had done and that he should- be tried fairly, and suffer the penalty. He also told the Indians to come and bury their comrade and they did so ; fifteen or twenty came and buried him on the river bank on my farm. The young man was tried, but he was acquitted; and that made the Indians hostile. I went to Connor and talked with him, and got him to intercede with the Indians. Connor had great influence with them, and they would do almost anything he wished. He told them that I was his cousin, and that he wished they, would be reconciled. I had come into the county after the shooting and before the trial. The Indians had torn up the floor in the cabin I was to live in, and I fixed it. We sent some boys to get the cabin ready, and we expected to move up from Joab Ward's. While the boys were at the cabin, six or seven Indians came in. One of the young men set them a puncheon bench, and they sat down. Presently one of them, Big Nose, drew his knife, and caught my brother Thomas, and cried, 'Now I kill you; you killed my cousin.' Brother said, 'No, I wasn't in the country then.' 'You are a liar,' Big Nose cried. He held Thomas a long time, but let him go at last. Another young man, who was with Thomas, ran away 100 yards- and caught up his gun. The Indian caught my brother again, but finally said, 'I let you go. I no kill you this time - next time I kill you, sure." The other Indians smiled like, but said nothing. The Indian turned my brother's face toward him and said, 'Look, next time I kill you.'

The boy came and met us and told us. Joab Ward said, 'Follow the Indians.' I said 'No.' Then he said, 'Go back with me.' My wife stood there with the child, and she said, 'Let us go on,' and we started again. We went, and my wife followed, trembling, but when we got in sight of the cabin, all fear left her. We got to the cabin and unloaded, and there came along a big, burly fellow, and offered to stay with us. 'He was not afraid,' he said. He stayed. There was a big stump of a tree-root near by. Before bed-time he looked out and said. 'I see an Indian out there. I see his blanket and his eyes. He is going to shoot' The fellow got his gun and his axe, and stood ready a good while. I said, 'I am going to see.' 'Oh, no, he will shoot you.' I did go out; there was no Indian, only the stump and some snow. In the morning we went out to cut up the tree. I said, 'It would not do for an Indian to come and cut up like that one yesterday.' I looked up, and there stood an Indian ! He heard what I said, but he smiled and was friendly.

In about a month my brother went back to Ohio. He had not been long gone when six Indians came and hallooed from across the river, wishing to come across. Big Nose among them. I took my canoe, and brought them across. I charged him with his mischief. He said, 'No, me civil.' 'Yes, it was you.' 'No whisky.' They went up to Connor's, and by and by, retvirned. (One was called Killbuck.) One was so drunk that he could not walk alone; two of them were leading him across waist-deep. When they had come across, Killbuck said, 'We not been saucy.' I went into the house, but presently he came back, foaming with rage. 'You go and get your gun,' said he. 'How do you know,' said I. 'What did you come back for?' 'To show you I no coward, give me some bread,' said he. I did, and he went away pacified. That poor drunken fellow lay there all night with his feet in the water, dead drunk.

One night an Indian hallooed. 'What do you want?' 'To come in and warm.' I let him in. 'Me civil,' said he. After he got in, he began to curse, and swore he would kill the first man that came into the cabin. I quieted him down, and then he began again. He went on to Connor's, and in the morning he came back, and said, 'Connor told me "No," and I won't hurt anybody.'

In boating, flat-boats would jump the dams four feet high. People would bring fruit from \\'ayne county in wagons, and boat it 'down to settlers on the Wabash and elsewhere.

After Fleming was killed, about twenty-five Indians came and had a ceremony over him. They had guns, and marched up very solemnly. One old Indian made a speech. He spoke a long time ; KiUbuck interpreted. He said, 'Don't be scared, he was a bad Indian. We will be friendly.' As the man stood there speaking, he seemed much affected, and the tears streamed down his cheeks.

We used to go to mill at first to Richmond. David Wysong made a thread-mill (for oxen). One day I went with a grist, and, in the night, while I was there, the oxen slipped through, and stopped the mill, but they could not get out and were just hanging by their necks.

The first school was taught two or three years after I came, in a log cabin, kept by Mr. Stevens, at $i per scholar. There were perhaps twenty scholars. Half of the patrons could not pay. There were only two or three books in the school. The teacher would write letters on paddles to have the little fellows learn. I once drove thirty head of hogs to Ross county, Ohio, to have them fatten on the 'mast.' The Indians began to shoot them. I talked to them. 'Big Jim,' said 'Fat hog make good soup,' and laughed. When I came to the county, a big brush heap lay where the Winchester court house now stands.

Jacob Driver, 1 82 1

"Settlers when I came, in 1821 : John Sample, at Sampletown (Mill), Paul' W. Way, William Way, Henry Way, William Diggs (old), William Diggs (young), Littleberry Diggs, Armsbee Diggs, Tarlton Moorman, Robison, Mclntyre, Walter Ruble, John Wright and others.

Pelatiah Bond

In building a house, he bought nails at 25 cents a pound, and paid for them in cord-wood at 25 cents a cord, chopping the wood on his own land, and selling it on the ground at the rate of four cords for $1.

Daniel B. Miller, 1 822

"The settlers, when I came (on the Mississinewa, 1822), were, Riley Marshall, east of Deerfield;. William Massey, James Massey, Robert Massey, north of Miller's; Frank Peake, north of Mississinewa river; Samuel Emery, on the south side of the river; Burkett Pierce, west, of Deerfield, north of river; George Ritenour, west of Deerfield, south of the river; Martin Boots, between Deerfield and Ridgeville. He was the first blacksmith in that region. He moved to Fairview, afterward.

I was single, and came on horseback from near Cincinnati, via Richmond and the 'Quaker Trace,' to Riley Marshall's. I bought eighty acres of a non-resident owner, and boarded eighteen months at Riley Marshall's, going then to Wayne county to be married, and bringing my wife with me, on horseback, into the woods of Randolph. Judge M. thinks James Massey was the first settler in Ward township. Some of the Masseys were there in 1818. Burkett Pierce says James and another Massey came the same fall he did - 1820 or 1 82 1. Judge M. thinks, also, that Philip Storms came to Allensvil^e after he (Miller) came to Randolph, and that Connor stayed on the river above Deerfield, five or six years after 1822.

Lewallyn's mill ground very slowly. They said a pig crawled into the trough and licked up the meal, and that he would sc[ueal because the meal did not come fast enough for him. This is probably another version of the 'hound' story, so often repeated.

Martin A. Reeder, 1 822

"John Gass had settled at his place, southwest of Winchester, and was keeping tavern there when the Ways, etc., came from South Carolina, in the spring of 1817.

The first entry in Randolph county used to be said to be three miles east of Winchester, where Miles Scott now lives. That land was entered by Jeremiah Moffett, in December, 1812.

Anti-slavery societies began to be formed between 1836 and 1840, or sooner. The U. G. R. R. had a sort of organization, though not a very elaborate one. Lists of the stations, of the routes, of the men who would entertain and who would forward fugitives, etc., were kept for reference along the route.

At Winchester, Eli Hiatt was a chief promoter of the work. Others, were James P. Way, Frank Diggs, Jesse Way, Moorman Way, Dr. Cook, M. A. Reeder and others; George Bailey and others, at Huntsville; Zimri Bond, John H. Bond, etc., at Cabin Creek. Large numbers were in sympathy with the work ; some, in fact, who would hardly have been expected to do so. One man, a landlord in Jay county, who was then, and has always since been, a stanch Democrat, was nevertheless a constant and reliable helper in the U. G. R. R.

At one time, a company of twelve stopped at Eli Hiatt's. The pursuers came to town while the fugitives were still here. They knew the fugitives were not far off, but not that they were in town.

Dr. Cook went early toward Ridgeville, and, returning, met the manhunters - giving them such information as caused them to suppose their prey was ahead, and they pressed vigorously onward (four men, all armed to the teeth). The slaves were taken back to Huntsville, from there to John Bond's and thence to Camden, and so on toward Canada.

During the war of 1861, Mr. Reeder and his wife went as nurses in the hospital, etc., spending more than a year in that service, and going wholly at his own expense. He was at Washington City, at Gettysburg and elsewhere, witnessing many sad and fearful scenes of terrible suffering, and doing his utmost for its relief. He bore a commission from Gov. Morton, and recommendations from President Lincoln, which enabled him to go anywhere he pleased in the prosecution of his loving work, and he feels thankful for the degree of success which attended his labors in his country's cause. Gov. Morton's name was itself a 'power,' and, of course. President Lincoln's 'sign manual' was omnipotent, and both together became irresistible."

M. A. Reeder

Last week, Mr. Harris Allman and his wife returned, after an absence of forty-five years, to visit their former friends and comrades in this vicinity - now, alas, but few. His father, Matthew Allman, was a very early settler here, and in 1830 removed to White Lick, between Plainfield and Indianapolis. Since that removal, a wonderful change has taken place !

Winchester was then a solid forest. About eight families were at that time residents of the place, scattered here and there over the town plat, in small log cabins. The heavy timber was near on every hand. The streets could not be seen. Only three houses now [1875] remain standing that were here when Mr. Allnian left, and one of them has lately been reconstructed.

The old settlers are mostly gone. M. A. Reeder has been longest a resident of the town, including, also, his mother, who is still living. Mr. Allman passed through the city (in company with M. A. R.), searching, almost in vain, to find the spots of familiar interest of the early olden time. Mr. A. pointed out many locations of objects then important, now to the younger generation unknown.

The old schoolhouse, on the site where now stands the residence of A. Aker, Jr. ; the old spring at which the scholars slaked their thirst, located on the east bank of Salt creek, about a rod south of the Washington street bridge ; the old Aker hotel, partly standing, just east of the city hall; the Odle storeroom, the first dry goods store, afterward the residence of D. Haworth and of Jacob Elzroth, Esq., and now occupied by George Isom; Haworth's cabinet-shop, now occupied by J. W Diggs as an undertaken.

The big oak tree, seven feet through, which stood where now stands Col. H. H. Neff's elegant mansion ; the "old fort and mound," near and in the "Fair Grounds ;" the "Ring Spring," one hundred yards west of the toll-gate on the pike leading westward; the big walnut tree, six feet through, standing where now Hon. E. L. Watson resides; the old Quaker (or Richmond) Trace, leading from the Wayne county settlements into these northern woods, which ran out the south end of East street, which trace is now nearly obliterated - these, and other landmarks unknown to the present inhabitants, were full of interest to one who spent his boyhood in our vicinity when all was rough and wild, full fifty years ago.

Isaac Branson Stoney Creek

Came to Randolph county, Ind., in 1822 (or sooner), entered land in the southern part of Stoney creek, in 1822 [Section 10, 19, 12], being the farm afterward owned by Abram Clevinger. This land he sold to Joseph Rooks, about 1825, and entered land again in the southern part of Nettle Creek township [W. N. W., 15, 18, 12], near Mr. Burroughs, March 26, 1816. They sold out again and moved to Delaware county, becoming pioneers in that region.

They raised a large family of children, enduring great hardships and peril. Mr. Branson died many years ago, but "Aunt Patsy" Branson, as she is called, resides with one of her daughters, in Muncie, Delaware county. She is nearly ninety years old, but very spry and strong, walking a mile or

They had peculiar hardships when they first settled in Randolph. They came into the woods with one horse of their own, though somebody's twohorse wagon moved them there. In less than a week after they arrived, her husband cut his knee with a frow, while splitting clap-boards for a roof to his "camp," and so badly that he could not step on his foot for six weeks; and much of that time he lay helpless on the puncheons of the floor. About the same time, his only horse died. The horse was not very good, but it was better than none, and it was all they had, and they had nothing to buy another.

They came in February, and brought four large iron kettles to make sugar in. Mrs. Branson and her husband's brother, a lad of seventeen, who came with them into their forest home, took hold and opened an immense sugar camp that stood ready to their hand, and actually cut the wood, carried the water, made the troughs, and produced about three barrels of excellent tree-sugar, all nice and dry, as good as need be. This sugar was indeed a "God-send" to the poor, afflicted family in the wilderness. Mr. B. hired a "plug" pony of his uncle in Wayne county, and contrived to do his work. After they got corn planted, he took sugar to Richmond and exchanged for corn and other necessaries. But their corn and vegetables grew splendidly, and long before the year was out, they had plenty of corn and potatoes and such things. They took to the corn as soon as it came to "roasting ears," potatoes as soon as they would do to cook, and sc[uashes as soon as they got large enough, and so on.

When Mr. B. went to Richmond with his sugar, he borrowed a wagon and a yoke of oxen, and took grain and things, also, for some other neighbor settlers, and the trip took a week or more.

Mrs. B. thinks they came in 1819, which may possibly be the fact; but if so, they must have resided here more than three years before they entered land, since that took place in the fall of 1822. And that, too, may have been true, as Mr. B. seems to have been very poor, and it may have been three years before he could raise the money for an entry.

Elder Thomas Addington

"Once, when I was a boy at school, the teacher would sleep in 'books.' There was a boy in school who was rather 'simple' and greatly given to 'pranks,' just because he 'did not know any better.'

One day, a mouse came running across the floor, and the 'simple' boy went to chasing it. The teacher was asleep, but the noise waked him. He looked up and saw the boy capering about the room. As he spied the lad, he caught his whip and chased the little fellow, whipping as he went. The poor chap gave no heed to. the slashing of the teacher, but went dancing ahead after his movise. At last he 'grabbed' with his fingers, clutched the 'varmint,' and turning short round, facing the master, cried, 'See, teacher, I "cotch" him!'

What the teacher did thereafter is not remembered. The laughing that the school accomplished just then was past all control, and the picture of that 'simple youth,' grinning in glee at his success in grabbing that quadruped, is a vivid thing in the minds of all who then beheld the performance of the feat."

"Settlers at that time were Joseph HoUingsworth, Albert Macy, Jesse Ballinger, Joshua Wright, William Stansberry, and others. Daniel Worth hved on the John Hunnicutt place ; John Bunker was where John Charles now resides; Morgan Thornburg lived near White chapel. Some of these had been on their places for several years."

Hurricane

"Eli B. Barnard says he was twenty-seven months old when the tornado took place. Their roof blew off, and they shoved the cradle with him in it under the bed to keep him from drowning, and he says he remembers that. This was where widow Ballinger lives northwest of Charles W. Osborn's.

A horse was hemmed in with the fallen trees into a place only a few feet square, and yet the horse was not hurt! One man, scared nearly out of his wits, had yet sense enough left to pray, and he cried, 'O Lord, ii thou wilt spare me this time, I will get away just as soon as I can go!' And he kept his word, the people say, and the next morning, picking his way to the nearest standing timber, he left for parts unknown.

William Pickett

"I have been a miller much of my life. I helped Jeremiah Cox build his mill on White river, in 1825. It was a water mill and stood on the place I (20) now own; Jeremiah Cox died soon after. Joseph and Benjamin Pickett bought the mill, Benjamin Pickett built a saw-mill, and in 1853, I bought the farm, 108 acres, and the two mills. The mills ran till the' 'five dry years,' 1864 - 69; they were pulled down in 1870. The river has far less water now than formerly. I worked as a miller three years at White Water, afterward off and on at Winchester, dressing buhrs, etc. A steam mill was built there about 1835.

When we were tearing down my saw-mill, a big post fell on me. While taking a sill from the second story (the mill was built double), a post, a foot square and eleven feet long, knocked me down and fell on me. I was confined several weeks. They thought I could not live; but that was ten years ago and I am here yet."

Wild Hogs

"Great numbers of wild hogs were in the woods, descendants of tame ones, brought by early settlers, that had become wild. The males would stay wild for years. They would get with droves, and in a short time the whole drove would become so wild that you could hardly get them back again. Wild hogs would attack people when hard pressed. John Chapman, Allen county, was attacked by a wild boar when out after the cows. He climbed a big log, and had to stay till the creature left. He had a fiste with him ; , the hog chased the dog and then took after Chapman himself. He had to stay on the log till some time in the night.

An immense male hog once attacked a cow, in Thomas Coates' lane. He stuck his tusk into her breast, and the blood spurted right out. He then struck another cow and knocked her down as if she had been shot. His tusk was broken, or he would probably have killed her. The children were in the lane, they saw the hog, and climbed the fence. The men chased him more than half a mile, and shot him again and again, and at last killed him.

This animal belonged to one of the neighbors, but the creature had gone wild. On the ATississinewa hogs were found wild in abundance when the settlers first came there, as people would let. their swine run in the woods, and after a while hunt them up again, to get them home, or to kill them for meat. They would go out and find the 'range,' and when snow would come several men would go on horseback, and shoot the hogs as they could find them. Sometimes the creatures would be four or five miles from home. After they were shot the hogs would be hauled home, by the nose, or on a sled or on a wagon. Once in a while people would make a fire out in the woods, and scald and dress them before taking them home."

Deer, Etc

"Deer sometimes have thirteen prongs. At first the straight 'spike' grows, the next year one prong on each horn, and so on. A straight horn is called a 'spike;' one prong is called a 'fork;' more than one, 'snags,' threesnagged, four-snagged, etc. Deer were fat in the summer and fall and poor in the spring. I have often killed old deer that had no horns. Horns of old' deer would be perhaps two feet long, when full grown.

I have bought salt that cost me $11.37 ^ barrel. I had flax seed to sell. I paid for hauling the seed, and the salt back from Dayton, and the whole cost me as above, $11.37 P^^ barrel."

Cholera

"As I was cradling wheat, a cloud gathered south of east, taking several hours. It covered nearly the whole sky. There was much lightning and thunder, and a little rain; I did not stop cradling. The body of the storm seem.ed to pass south. Shortly after I smelt a strong smell of burning sulphur, the smell lasting perhaps half an hour. It made be feel sick and faint, and I came near falling to the ground. Shortly after that the cholera broke out terribly at Lynn and other places." [See statements by Frazier, Johnson, Stone, etc.]

Mary Hyatt Coats Pickett

"I was born in Grayson county, Virginia, in 1806. My father, Zachary Hyatt, came to Wayne county, Ind., 1814, and to Randolph county in 1817. Winchester, when I first saw it, October, 1819, had a court house and jail and three houses. Once father lay sick, and I was weaving. Suddenly I saw through the open door a deer crawling through a crack in the fence. There were two crooked rails, one up and the other down. The deer had one hind leg broken. I sprang out with my little thread-knife, and my sisters and myself, with the dog, chased the deer one-quarter of a mile to a pond about knee deep. The dog caught the deer by the throat, and we waded in and killed it with clubs. We dragged the deer from the water, cut the leaders of the legs, and tucked the others in so we could carry it with a pole, and in that way we bore it home in triumph. The men were away, except father, and he was sick. Once the men were shooting turkeys, and one lit down into the

I used to spin and weave a great deal. I have woven many a yard of tow, and linen, and woolen. I wove coverlets, etc., for the whole region, Richmond, Mississinewa, Wabash, etc. Mr. Lewallyn from Ridgeville, once brought five coverlets. I told him, 'I can't weave them, I have more than I can do.' 'Don't say a word,' said he, 'I shall leave the work, and you must do it, though it should stay here five years.' So, he left the work, and in due time I wove them. We used to card and spin raw cotton, and wool too. My price for weaving coverlets was $i apiece.

One day mother went away to be gone ten days. The flax was on the ground rotting. We girls took up the flax, dried, broke, swingled and hatcheled it, carded, spun and wove it; and by the time mother came home, the cloth was in garments and on the children's backs.

We used pewter platters, dishes, etc. [Mrs. Pickett showed a large ancient pewter platter, about a foot across, and heavy and thick, that her mother bought in 1818. It had never been molded over, and was about as good as new.]

My father sold his place in North Carolina, and got ready to move to Indiana. Everything was packed and loaded, ready to start in the morning. The boys got up before daylight, and fed the horses, and got the harness to 'gear up.' Mother said, 'you need not do it, father is sick.' In ten days, father died. Mother married again, and in a year or two, came to Indiana."

William Armfield Thornburg Stoney Creek

"When we first came, Richmond was our place of trade. We would go with the front wheels of a wagon, taking out the king-bolt, and fixing clapboards on the bolster and the 'slider," putting on our coon skins and deerskins and ginseng, and wheat if we could spare any, and the corn to be ground. The trip could be made as handily as you please. With only the two wheels, one could turn and twist almost any way around and among the trees. The 'truck' would be traded for 'store tea,' and cotton yarn, and powder and sole-leather.. If, a barrel of salt was needed, father would go with the whole wagon.

The first mill I ever saw was Sample's mill, a corn cracker. The mills then were small affairs, but we boys thought them something wonderful.

The third spring of our residence in Randolph, Samuel Anthony, father of E. C. Anthony, Esq., of Muncie, came to that place with a store of goods. Father needed some things. He said to my mother and myself, 'you go to Muncie with a sack of sugar apiece.' We filled the sacks; mother took hers before her, but I took a heavy sack. We got there in due time (twelve miles), and traded the sugar at 6^ cents a pound for coffee at half a dollar, and other goods as high as they could well be. When father built his mill, coffee and whisky had both to be furnished, or the men would not work. I had to go to Judge Reece's distillery in Delaware county, for the whisky, which when a lad, I have often done. Father and I once went to Richmond with two yoke of oxen and the wagon, carrying flour and ginseng and sugar and deer-skins and coon skins, perhaps $35 worth in all. The trip took four days (thirty-five miles). A man named Brightwell was in company. As they were about to start for home, Brightwell said, 'take a drink,' handing a bottle of 'ginger pop,' and as he drew the cork the 'pop' flew clear to the loft. Father drank and gave me some. As we came to a big hill father said to me, 'you tend the hind cattle, and I will see to the forward yoke,' locking the wagon, as he spoke, but taking the forewheel instead of the hind wheel. We went down the hill, but it was a terrible 'go,' neither of us knowing what the matter was. Just as we reached the bottom, I saw what he had done, and said, 'what made thee lock the forewheel?' 'The dogs, I did, didn't I?' said he. I told my brother, and he remarked, 'father was pretty tight.' However, he was no drinker, but he got caught that time."

Mrs. Joseph Brown, Jr

" My uncle, William Simmons, came early to Randolph county, Ind., and, I think, as soon as 1821. He lived just at the line between Jackson and Ward townships, directly on the Mississinewa river, south of New Pittsburg. He died in middle life, but was the father of twenty-one children by the same wife. They were all raised 'by hand,' the mother being unable to 'suckle' them. Twelve became grown, and ten are still living.

James Simmons (my father) worked one harvest for Chief Richardville, near Ft. Wayne. One day an old man passed along the road having a tall hat on his head and a bundle on his back, and being otherwise odd looking The boys began to 'poke fun' at him. Suddenly he laid down his bundle, took

When he was a boy at home, dttring the .'squirrel year,' James shot squirrels for weeks, throwing them to the hogs outside the field, and leaving them to decay upon the ground. It was a hard task, but they saved their corn by the means.

Daniel B. Miller and his wife came on horseback to their forest home, and she stuck a black locust riding switch into the ground in the door yard. It grew and became a fine, large tree, and a few years ago was there still.

James Simmons was a great hunter. It may be safely said that he killed more deer than any other man in Jackson township. When he was building his log house, he set himself to cut and hew four logs a day, and besides that to kill one deer, and he did it. They lived at first for two or three months in a 'camp' made of rails.

He has killed six deer in one day. At one time he ran a deer till away after dark and got lost, and in the night he kept wandering round and firing his gun. His wife heard the firing, and, thinking that he might be lost, she took the ax and pounded as hard as she could upon a 'gum' there was in the yard. He heard the pounding, and the noise guided him home.

In winter time, after supper he would sit and tell deer stories as long as anybody would listen. He used never to think about going home from hunting as long as he could see the 'sjghts' upon his gun, and often he would have a 'time' to find his way to his cabin."

"When I was a little girl, my brother (a little bit of a fellow), and myself were playing by a creek near the house, and a bear came and sat watch- - ing us from the opposite bank, a high bluff ten or fifteen feet high. I thought it was a dog, and was not scared. Presently mother saw the old fellow, and 'hissed' the dog, which came and 'tackled' the bear. She called to us, and we heeled it for the house. While the dog and the bear were 'tussling,' Jacob Harshman came along with his gun, hunting, and he shot and killed the bear.

They used to have some fun in those days, too. Cameron Coffin, a gentleman land-owner, came out to see his land; he was not used to the woods, and the 'bushwhackers' made game of him. One day he was at James Simmons' sugar camp, and the boys were making wax. Coffin was 'green' upon the subject of wax making, and they made some very hard and sticky, and got him to take a great chunk into his mouth to eat ; he chewed the wax till his teeth and jaws were all stuck fast together. He worked and worked and clawed and dug at the wax till he was nearly choked. Finally the stuff softened and melted somewhat in his mouth, and he made out to get clear of it ; but he had a terrible time, and the boys nearly died laughing at the fun. .Vt another time, they were walking a foot log over the river, and he undertook it; he did not know how to keep his balance, and the boys pretended to come near falling off, and shook the log so that he did fall off into the water waist deep. He was not used to such life; the backwoods boys were too much for him, and he 'got out of that,' and went back to the settlement where he came from, and left the jolly blades to play tricks upon themselves."

F. G. Wiggs, Greensfork

"Father left North Carolina when I was seven years old; we were six weeks and three days on the road, reaching William Arnold's (now Noah Turner's), May 5, 1826. I rode a horse (that pulled one of our carts) all the way. Father put me on the horse the evening we started, and I rode clear through. , We had two carts, and father led the other beast. Mother also walked a great deal; we camped under a tent through the whole journey; several families were in company: Joseph Copeland, wife and four children; Isaac Cook, wife and four children; father and mother and four children, eighteen in all.

Father lent Isaac Cook $25.00 to come with (which he paid afterward). Father bought eighty acres of Benjamin Puckett, agreeing to give $250.00 and a cart valued at $25.00. He afterward entered eighty acres, and mother lived on it till she died in the fall of 1881 ; we settled in the wilderness. William Arnold and Frederick Fulghum came just before father did. Fred Fulghum had come back to Carolina and told us what a grand place Indiana was, and father was not satisfied till he moved out there himself. Deer used to come into father's clearing, and they were so tame that they would not run away; father had no gun, and never shot any of them."

James W. Clark

"The first school I went to was held in a little horse stable made of slabs set endwise. David Semans taught the school. The seats were slabs with legs in, no backs, of course. The first church in the town was in 1837, on the old church lot, now (a part, of) the graveyard. Three carap-meetings were- fcM :near Spartanburg (in 1838-40 probably). The rowdies disliked Preacher Bruce. He was pretty 'sharp' on them. They had planned to Eog him. Tlkej were swaggering round with peeled canes. He disguised his dress-, gpt a 'peeled cane,' went down to the spring among the rowdies, arrd heaird aJI tEneir plans. He then went back, opened meeting, and told the astonished tricksters from the pulpit all their plot. The rowdies did not whip him. There were great revival meetings. At one time one hundred members joined'.

The first disciple meeting was held near old Mr. Stewart's a mile or so' west of town. Several persons joined. The Baptists held meeting at Mr. Cartwright's. He was a Baptist.

When I ^^-as a boy, people hired me to hunt their cattle. I could gq< anywhere, and not get lost, day or night. When twelve years old, I used to^ grind bark for the tanner at eleven pence {12^ cents) a day. Wild hogs; were plenty in the 'timber.' I have been treed by them many a time. As I would be after the cows, the hogs would be in the woods, and they would see and chase my dog, and he would run to me, and they after him. Then the hogs would see me and chase me. I would begin to climb right sudden, you may guess, a high log or a tree, and there I had to stay till they would leave, which sometimes would not be anyways soon. The hogs would boo-boo around, and then seem to go away, and suddenly be back, and try to get at me again. These wild hogs had sprung from swine that had been tame, and had bred in the woods, and so their offspring had grown to be wild. My grandfather would let his swine run in the woods, and by-and-by he would find where they slept, and build a pen partly round their nest, and watch and shut them in. Then he would catch the pigs and mark them, and let the whole 'pack' go again. At killing time, men would go out and track and shoot them wherever they might chance to be found. When I was twelve years old, grandfather was chasing up and killing his hogs. The men would shoot them, and I hauled them to the road with a horse. I forgot how many I hauled that day. Grandfather marketed that pork at Richmond for $1.50 net.

A big poplar tree stood in front of Mrs. Hammond's house, and another large tree stood on my lot. When I was a boy, I had a young bullock, perhaps a two-year-old, that I worked. It was a tough job to catch him, the only way being to run him down ; and we would have a tedious race. One day I chased him a long time, and finally he plunged into a pond, and I after him waist deep. He stopped ; I gathered him by the horns, Frank Morgan waded

[Mr. Clark reckons himself to have been longest a resident of Spartanburg, since 1826, or fiifty-six years ago. Frank Morgan and he were boys then together, but Frank spent many years of his youthful life elsewhere, and, moreover, he died in 1880 at Spartanburg. Still, Mr. C. is* by no means an old man, but is active and vigorous as in former days.]

William Clevenger

I have been to fifteen log-rollings in one spring. The first show T ever went to was an animal show at Muncie. I walked fifteen miles and got there by 9 A. M. My father was a member of the Christian church, and a Democrat. He voted for Jackson the first time that Jackson was elected, just after he came to Randolph county.

He had just money enough to enter 120 acres. He had one old horse, and it died in the spring. He had no way to buy any, and he did without, borrowing sometimes, which was hard to do. He cleared ground, and tended it mostly with the hoe. By next season he got an ox-team. We plowed our corn with an ox, putting harness on it like a horse, and one boy would lead the ox and one hold the plow.

Father and his boys have cleared more land than any other family in Randolph county - more than six hundred acres. Father had no. wagon for years. He hauled everything on a sled. He never owned a good wagon. He bought an old one for $30.00, and got 'bit' at that. That was about 1836. He used that seven or eight years, and never owned any other. He made one crop with no team, and two crops with oxen. Then he traded the oxen for one horse. The oxen were young, and we could not 'break' them well. We did mostly with one horse. Sometimes in the winter we would have a boy behind the sled with a rope hitched to hold back with. We had no wheat bread till we raised some wheat to make it from, for a year or two, at least.

1 remember when there were only three wagons in two miles square among twenty-five or thirty settlers. Once we put horses to a wagon with twenty bushels of corn and wheat, and started to mill (Economy). The horses knew nothing of pulling together, and the wagon got sttick fast before half a mile. Six men took a horse and sack apiece and went ten miles to a mill, and left four or five to get the wagon out. The mill was owned by Nathan Proctor. Nathan Proctor, Elijah Arnold and others were charged with counterfeiting, thieving, etc. They were said to have a 'rendezvous' in the 'fallen timber.' Some were convicted, and the gang was broken up at last. One of them, arrested for passing a counterfeit bill, asking to see the bill, took it and swallowed it.

My father got his meat thus : He had a dog that would catch any hog. He helped his neighbors catch their wild hogs, and they would pay him in pork. The hogs were so wild they would not eat corn.

How to build a cabin with weight poles : Build the square, let the top end logs project a foot or so, put the butting pole farther out than the body of the house, have it split and notched and pinned with the edge upright, so as to catch the ends of the boards ; lay logs to build up the gables, with their ends scafed off to allow the roof boards to cover them, and the supporting poles so arranged as to give the proper slant. Put on the first course of boards, and lay a pole on the course far enough from the butting pole to receive the second course, keeping the 'weight pole' up by 'knees' between it and the butting pole. Put on the second course and another weight pole, and 'knees,' and so on to the top.

John Key

"Father came from Tennessee in 1829. He was a Methodist, and took great delight in the religious services of the olden time. When camp-meeting opened, he would move down to camp to stay while the meeting lasted, on a rude wagon with truck wheels made by sawing them from the end of a huge oak log. He had no wagon, and for home purposes used a sled. When father landed in 'Randolph,' he had just 37^/2 cents, one old horse, and five children. Pork was high afterward, and he sold four hogs for $50.00, and entered his first forty acres of land.

Swine would run wild, and often, while we were hunting them and the dogs were trying to catch them, the wild creatures would cut the poor dogs' throats with their sharp, strong tusks.

Once while some men were hunting wild swine, the savage beasts undertook to run into Dolph Warren's cabin, and scared the family inside well nigh to death. Squirrels would be so thick and would make such havoc in the corn that the children had to be set to scare the greedy 'varmints' away.

The pea-vines would grow as tall as a man's head, and as thick as they could grow, so that one could track a horse or a cow through the tangled masses of pea-vines almost as readily as through a snow-bank.

Wild plums would grow in the thick woods, loaded down with as nice fruit as one would need to see, gooseberries, raspberries and blackberries would grow in the 'clearings' and open places.

The state road through Deerfield to Ridgeville, etc., was cut out about 1830. Mr. Andrew Key helped cut it out from the state line west, and assisted in opening it, too.

Mr. Key entered forty acres at first (with that hog money), and afterward forty acres more ; still later, he bought out Collins (his brother-in-law).'"

"Andrew McCartney, born in 1804, in Virginia, came first to Jay county, in 1837. He has been married several times; once and the last time, to John Key's sister. He had had a large family, was a rough, harsh, cruel man. with whom no one could live in peace. He would boast of his scrapes and exploits, and, in fact, would readily find and plunge into enough of them to answer any five ordinary men.

In 1824, Daniel B. Miller lived in Jackson township. In a few years, the Harshmans came, and soon afterward, John Sheets settled on the Mississiuewa, and built a saw-mill. Benjamin Devor, Ezekiel Cooper, Thomas Devor. Christian Nickey, Dr. Diehl, the Mikesells, Baileys, Moses Byram and the Debolts, also moved in before very long.

March 24, 1824, Ward (including Franklin) township had seventeen families - Meshach Lewallyn, Benjamin Lewallyn. George and Henry Renbarger, Daniel Badger, Burkett Pierce, George Ritenour, William Odle, Elias Kizer, Allen Wall, David Connor, Reason Malott, William Massey, Riley Marshall, Daniel Mock, Jeremiah Lindsey, Joab Ward. Lewallyn had a mill that would crack five bushels of corn in twenty-four hours, if everything was in order. In 1829 he put in a hand-bolt and ground wheat, each customer bolting his own grist. A saw-mill was built about that time, near Deer- field. At the presidential election in 1824 five votes'iwere cast in the township of Ward. At that precinct D. B. Miller was inspector and Riley Marshall, clerk. Persons could vote anywhere in the county, and most of the voters went elsewhere to cast their ballots.

In 1836, George Ritenour built a grist-mill one mile west of Deerfield, with two run of buhrs, which did prStty good work. Samuel Helm built a saw-mill two and a half miles east of Deerfield. Collins & Fields also put up a saw-mill half a mile east of Deerfield. The village of Deerfield was laid out in 1 83 1, but did not improve till 1837, when Edward Edger came and brought a store, and from that time it grew and a great amount of business was done there.

A long time after the first settlement, William P. Charlton built a steam saw-mill at Ridgeville, and William Addington rebuilt the grist-mill, which were of advantage to the county round, but no town was established till years afterward.

There were but few settlers in Green township before 1835. John Life and Samuel Caylor, Bennet King, the Orrs, Cyrus Reed, Philip Barger, Elijah Harbour, Thomas Hubbard, Nathan Godwin, the Garringers and others came about that date or soon after. Fitzpatrick, Evans, Haynes, etc., lived at Fairview.

In 1824, Winchester was a field of stumps, with one store on the northeast corner of the square, owned by George Burkett. The old log court house was on the north side of the street, which lay north of the square. Charles Conway lived in a log cabin between the store and Salt creek, and there was a log cabin still nearer the creek. On the northwest corner of the square was a double log cabin, occupied as a hotel by John Odle. There was a small log cabin in the southwest part of the town, and the new log jail stood on the jail lot. Those were the buildings in Winchester in March, 1824. In 1825, Thomas and Joseph Hanna put a stock of goods into a new building on the north side of the square, and before many years Michael and Andrew Aker bought them out, and sold goods a considerable time. Meanwhile the Mansion House was built, and Jesse and William M. Way put a store in it; The brick across the street was built, and Jere Smith built the Franklin House. A. B. Shaw erected a hvkk on the northwest square. Moorman Way built the

In 1836, Elias Kizer and David Haworth put up a steam grist-mill east of Salt creek, the first steam engine in Randolph county. This mill was of great importance, as there was none north of it nearer than Fort Wayne. The new (second) court house was built in 1826, or thereabouts.