Vigo County, Indiana - Chapter 8: Migration to the Highland at Terre Haute the Log Cabin Days of Vigo County and Its Principal Town, 1908

Chapter 8: Migration to the Highland at Terre Haute the Log Cabin Days of Vigo County and Its Principal Town

Curtis Gilbert IT795-1877) landed at the site of Terre Haute in 1 81 5 the day before Christmas. He was then nineteen years old. A native of Connecticut, he was a school teacher at seventeen, and at eighteen left for the west to seek his fortune. He went by water and land to Philadelphia, and the stage coach fare to Pittsburg being $30, he shipped his trunk and walked the distance in eleven days. Only two steamboats were plving from Pittsburg, and he took a keelboat to Marietta, Ohio, and he taught school and clerked in Ohio, and then proceeded to Cincinnati. Being offered a passage to New Orleans on a flatboat loaded with cheese, he spent the next month on that voyage, arriving a short time before the invasion of the British. Returning by barge to Louisville he walked from there to Cincinnati, clerked there awhile, and accompanied his employers to A^incennes, whence the latter sent him with a stock of goods to Terre Haute in December, 1815. The boat was anchored on the west shore opposite the fort, and part of the goods stored in a cabin attached to the fort, then commanded by Major Willoughby Morgan, who was succeeded by Major John T. Chunn next year. A partnership was formed between his employer. N. B. Bailey, and Mr. Gilbert July 5, 1816, Bailey to furnish goods at cost and carriage from Vincennes, and Gilbert to trade with' the Indians at and above the fort. The latter established a post near the mouth- of Vermilion river, building three little houses, one with shelves for a store, one for Indian quarters, and one for smoking venison hams. He had an interpreter from the fort. The goods were at first brought up by boat, but afterward by pony. In a fe\v months he became sick, and as soon as he was able to clamber into a boat he drifted down to the fort. An alarming state of feeling appeared among the Indians, and he was told the A^ermihon Kickapoos objected to his trading there and it was best to withdraw. Gilbert had a license signed by Governor Posey to trade with the Wea and Kickapoo Indians at Raccoon creek for one year, also one to trade at the fort, and one dated April 3, 1817, to retail merchandise in Sullivan county, which then included Vigo and Parke.

Gilbert, after parting with Bailey in 1817, formed a partnership with Andrew Brooks in the Indian trade, until he was elected clerk and recorder of A'ig'o county. He was commissioned postmaster of Fort Harrison, Sullivan county, December 4, 1817, until the postoffice at the fort was discontinued, October 26, 1818. The receipts of the office for the first quarter of 18:8 were $15.68, for the second quarter $35.50, and for the third quarter $30. On October 26th, he received notice from Postmaster General Meigs to transfer the postoffice to "Terry Haut." A bill rendered by the Western Sun at Vincennes, July 25, 1818, shows a charge of two cents each for advertising 38 letters. November 21, 1818, W. W. Hunt, assistant postmaster at Terre Haute, receipted to Mr. Gilbert for letters with unpaid postage amounting to $6.96, paid letters to amount of 18 cents, and one free letter, and letters not advertised postage due, for $10.30, unpaid newspapers 38 cents, and stationery, etc. This marked the beginning of the Terre Haute postal service.

The postoffice was in a two-story building on northeast Water and Ohio (site of present jail), built by Mr. Gilbert. The lot was secured from the Terre Haute Company before the first sale,, and the price fixed after the building was begun. This was called the first frame building in Terre Haute (disputed by L. H. Scott.) There were several log buildings at the time.

The court was held in April, first at Blackman's and then at Redford's tavern, and the court records were taken to the fort and kept there until Gilbert's house was finished, and then taken to the second story of the house, which was the clerk's and recorder's office until the court house was completed.

In 1820 times were uncommonly hard, price of produce dropped to one-third of its former value, people were in debt and land depreciated fully two-thirds. The best unimproved lands could be bought from three to five dollars an acre. Bank notes took the place of coin, driving the latter from circulation.

In the next year, 1 82 1, a great deal of sickness prevailed and many of the prominent citizens died. This year Mr. Gilbert's young wife (daughter of Peter Allen) and infant child died.

from a six-pound cannon. In this year Mr. Gilbert visited his Connecticut home after an absence of ten years. The following year he was elected one of the trustees of the Vigo County Public Library, and was re-elected clerk and recorder and again elected to the same office in 1832. He took an active part in the organization of the branch of the State Bank in 1834, and the records of the time show his active connection with many affairs that cannot be mentioned at this place.

An undertaking that was vital to the future prosperity of Terre Haute as a city was largely due to Mr. Gilbert. Originally Lost creek, which enters Fort Harrison prairie about four miles northeast of Terre Haute, in times of freshet overspread all the land between the high land on which the town was bulit and the ridge on the east, for miles in extent, causing much sickness and the destruction of valuable property. Gilbert worked for years to unite public sentiment and to secure the passage of an act by the legislature (1837) providing for the drainage of Lost creek. The movement met much opposition. A survey was finally made and the route adopted as it now is.

At the expiration of three terms after twent_v-one years as county clerk (unparalleled in our local history), Mr. Gilbert declined re-election and turned his attention to his farm and lands. In 1839 he was elected president of the common council, which made him acting mayor, but resigned soon for ill health, and was succeeded by Henry Ross. In 1843 he moved from his town residence at Sixth and Ohio to his farm. When first elected clerk he went to Vincennes to learn the duties of the office under the father of T. C. Buntin, clerk of Knox county.

When Gilbert was elected president of the Branch Bank in 1845 it was during a period of depression, and in the faithful discharge of his duties he traveled about the country visiting delinquent debtors and reviving suspended paper, and exercised so much tact and diligence that little or no loss was sustained. The silver lying in the vault of the bank at the time was packed in a trunk and taken by him on the boot of a stage coach to Cincinnati, where it was converted into good paper at a profit. The bank was put on a good footing and its stock continued to be a good investment. He resigned the chief office of the bank in 1849 on account of ill health, but was elected again in 1850 and served until 1853, when he was succeeded by L. G. Warren. At the expiration of the original charter of the bank he was elected president to wind up the affairs of the institution, in which he was very successful, and then united with the old stockholders in purchasing the new branch of the Bank of the State of Indiana, in which he was a director.

The Jenckes family, which has been represented here since 1816, was a typical pioneer family, such as New England sent so many of to settle up the west. We find its sons and daughters in Indiana, Louisiana, Florida, Cuba and Liberia, and from it have a realistic view of the sacrifices and self-denial of the pioneers who left the comforts of the old east to begin life in the log cabin era of the west.

The father of the Jenckes, who settled on Fort Harrison prairie, was a well-to-do man who lived in a good house (worth $10,000 in 1817), in Providence, had a farm and house at North Kingstown, on Narragansett bav, 18 miles from Providence, where he lived in summer, and property in Boston, the rent of which went to help a son settle in Indiana, and other property. He had several sons, - John, Daniel, Bowers, Joseph, who came west. He had given them all a college education and at least three studied law. The family was an old one and one of its members was a founder of Brown University (named for a relative).

We find from old family letters that the oldest son, John, came to Terre Haute, representing the family, and bought land, and that it was the intention of the whole family to emigrate, including the daughters, who were just growing up. The father said that the girls, who were eager to come, did not realize what it meant to give up their old house in Providence to live in a log house.

lolin came out and cultivated his farm near Fort Harrison. Then Daniel came and Bowers (whose son died at Fort Donelson). Then the old father came out, much as Jacob went down into Egypt to see his Joseph. He came in the family carriage, which survived many years until it perished in decay. His traveling outfit was worth $1,000, He died soon after in a mysterious way. John and Daniel established the first distillery in Vigo. They got into some business complications with Brown & Ives. Brown & Ives was the greatest financial power that Rhode Island ever knew. They were the rivals of the Spragues, the calico printers. The Browns and Spragues also were political rivals and owned the state, and furnished it with governors and senators. They were related to the Jenckes and when John came west in 1S17 he bore a letter of introduction from Senator Brown to Senator Taylor of Indiana. Thus it was easy for Brown & Ives to become interested in the Vigo county distillery. It was to adjust their interests that Joseph came west, and we find a bill of sale in the old papers by which Daniel transferred the distillery property, the tread mill which drove the machinery and the ten oxen that drove the tread wheel to Joseph.

Greater Terre Haute And Vigo Couxty

Isabelle Greene. She was descended from the brother of General Greene. The Greenes were a large part of Rhode Island. Four generations of them had given governors to the state, and another a lieutenant governor. Joseph went from the academy to Brown University and went to A'irginia as tutor in the Scott family. His pupil went into the navy and became an admiral and came out to Indiana to live at Crawfordsville in the latter part of his life. Then Joseph came to Indiana. Preserved among his old papers are the copies of the letters he wrote at the time. A number of them were the letters he wrote to Isabelle Greene, whom he had met years before at academy. They were the love letters of old time, but such letters as intelligent and earnest people would write. He describes in one the house she was to live in, the one called the "Hills." Miss Isabelle appeared to have rejected the advice of relatives and made up her own mind about coming out to Indiana. And so they were married, ^^'e can tell it was in 1833, because while they were on their wedding tour they were entertained by Henry Clay, and we have a note from Henry Clay, which is a pleasant and valuable relic. The old note has scorched edges, coming very near destruction in a fire a few years ago. It was addressed to Joseph S. Jenckes, at Captain Postlethwaite's, Lexington, and is in the small, neat hand of the "great commoner" :

Dear Sir - I regretted that my absence this morning from Ashland prevented my seeing you when you called and left the letter of Mr. Greene, which I have just received. Mrs. Clay expects this evening at about six o'clock a few of our connexions to eat strawberries, etc. We will be most happy if Mrs. Jenckes and yourself, dispensing with ceremony, would be of the party. The afternoon now promises to be the best we have had for some days.

On the note Air. Jenckes put the date, 1833. The Air. Greene referred to was Airs. Jenckes' brother, the lieutenant governor of Rhode Island.

Among the historical letters preserved by the old pioneer, Joseph Jenckes. is one written from Daniel to John Jenckes, at Providence, Rhode Island, April 24, 1819, which reveals one very interesting phase of life in Terre Haute at that period. From this document it appears that colored men had a very uneasy lot in old Vigo county, although slaverv had been abolished bv the constitution in 18 16.*

*The act of 1807 of the Indiana territorial legislature authorized the owners of negroes and mulattoes over fifteen years of age to bring them into the territory and have them bound to service by indenture for such time as master and slave might agree upon. If. the slave would not agree to indenture his owner would have sixty days to, yemove him to any state where slavery existed. , ."^'^ ,-*

Daniel's free colored man had some trouble. He says : "Oliver has got very uneasy ; the people call him 'Jenckes' negro waiter' and it alarms his pride. I have had some fuss with him to keep him quiet. If it was not for the kindness I have shown him and his gratitude for it I could not keep him. I make it a practice to keep him at home as much as possible. I advised you in my last of my intention to take Major Chunn's negro fellow and of the terms, as the girls (two sisters from Rhode Island) have concluded to come on. I shall close the bargain if possible as I well know that the sum, $320, and terms of payment are favorable for a 3'outh like him, brought up in this climate, and whose term of service is more than twelve years. At any rate, if I do not want him he can be disposed of to Lambert on the same tenns."

"My dear sisters, I have this morning received the pleasing intelligence of your determination to visit this country. I have already said so much about it that I feel no pleasure in saying more. It has equaled my expectations, and if no calamity befalls your brother you can hear him say his prospects of wealth are such as would suit a more ambitious soul." (Sixteen years later, he had to say "it seems as if life is a series of disappointments.'') "I hope, my dear sisters, you will bring with you such things as a country destitute of every thing (but a good soil) may require to make vou not onlv comfortable but allow you the luxuries which have long been familiar to you. Bring a good many books ; get as manv as John can possibly spare the money for."

The negro fellow bought from Major Chunn, a defender of old Fort Harrison, was an indentured negro, who could be transferred on the block, like a slave, until his indenture expired. The constitution of Indiana, 1816, put an end to slavery and negro indenture, but the owners generally held on to the colored folks until the question was fought out in the courts years after. As the old French settlers had a right to keep their servants, the Americans claimed the same, as Mr. John Grammar, an Illinois legislator, once said when speaking of the indentures: "I will show that are question is unconstitutionable, inlegal and fornenst the compact. Don't every one know, or leastwise had ought to know that the congress that sot at Post Vinsans garnisheed to the old French the right to hold their niggers, and haint I got as much right as any Frenchman in the state? Answer me that, sir." So, let us hope . the Jenckes girls of 1819 had the undisturbed use of Chunn's negro fellow as long as they needed him.

A letter of December 19, 1817, from John Jenckes to Daniel, at Providence, gives a view of the rapidly growing settlement around Fort Harrison, and of the speculative interest in real estate. John had left Rhode Island in his own conveyance on October 21st, and pushing steadily along reached Pittsburg November nth. Then by horrible roads the journey was continued through Ohio to Lexington, Kentucky', arriving on the 23rd. After a week's rest, Mr. Jenckes pushed on toward Mncennes, hearing on the way that his Terre Haute land was posted for a tax sale, and arriving in Vincennes on the loth he wrote:

"We left Vincennes on December 17th, in a deep snow. Weather very cold and the creeks we had to cross so high that we had to swim our horses over. This we did by taking our baggage and saddles into a canoe with us and then took a horse by the bridle and the other paddled over the canoe. This in very cold weather and a snow storm is unpleasant business. But (thank God for it) I arrived here in good health, both myself and my horse, December 16, 1817, in time to pay my taxes. (Thev were due on the 17th.) I went with Elisha Brown to look at the prairie land in Fort Harrison prairie. It lays very handsomely indeed. On the plat which I left you will see in what part of the prairie it lies - S. E. quarter, Sec. 9, T. ii, R. 9. I bought second-handed after the sale and gave the man $50 for his bargain. He has. he tells me, been offered $500 cash for his bargain since I bought it. Though I expected land to rise I had no conception of it rising so rapidly during the year of my absence. A sale was made of land a mile and a half from mine at $15 an acre, one-half cash and the rest in 12 months. Land in the prairie is difficult to purchase at any price, as there is scarcely anyone who will sell, and many would be willing to buy. Of this vou may be assured that if the lands here are properly managed they are a very handsome fortune. The health has been good the last year. Out of between two and three thousand people in this neighborhood there have been but seven deaths, four of them children, and one man who was nearly dead when he came here. In Honey Creek prairie the people have settled about every half section and there is hardly a place from which you can not see ten to twenty houses (log ones). Wheat grows on the prairie the first year it is broke up, 35 bushels to the acre, and corn, 35 to 45 on the prairie without tending at all. Seed wheat will cost $1 a bushel. Pork dressed is $5.50: everything is high. I have, however, just purchased 6 cwt. neat pork at $5."

Indiana territory his father was so much interested as to be willing to sell his house, worth $10,000, to make investments in prairie land. At the same time he did not approve of John's inspiring his next brother, Daniel, with the western fever. The father was a pious man and advised his son "hope you will not be so much elated with things temporal as not to remember that your spiritual concerns are vastly more important." The father, with an eastern idea, was not willing to live in a western village, but suggested building a "mansion house" two to four miles out, an idea that was carried out by the Jenckes family and several of the early settlers who had better houses out in the country than could be found in the village.

There is quite a collection of letters dated in the thirties that passed between Joseph Jenckes and his future wife, Miss Belle Greene. Farther than enough to notice the quaint formality of the old model letters one does not like to read them too closely. But it is noted that among the attractions of Terre Haute in 1832 was the countv library of 700 to 800 volumes, most of which Mr. Jenckes bought in Providence. That was a pretty good library for a village of 800 or 900 people. A receipt dated April nth, 1823, acknowledges $200 for books, received^ from the county library fund, and a number of lists of books bought by Mr. Jenckes, appear, from 1822 onward. They were such books as a university man might select. He stated that every county in Indiana had a library, and that A'incennes, founded the same year as Philadelphia, had 3,000 books (in 1832.)

Among a lot of books bought at auction in 1823 at Providence were some volumes of magazines. Homer's Odyssey, Fielding's plays in si.x volumes, one Testament, Grote's Greece, four volumes. Las Casas Journal, etc.

Mrs. Dewees' compliments to Mr. Jenckes and will be greatly obliged to him for a few tomatoes for the purpose of making catsuu, pickles, etc., provided he has them to spare.

told in the encyclopedias that in 1830 tomatoes were cultivated only as curiosities. Terra Haute then was one of the first places where the old ""love apple" was cultivated for the purpose of making catsup, pickles, etc., as Mrs. Dewees said, and not as a curiosity.

Ezra Jones, county commissioner, with his wife and nine children, was originally from \'ermont, whence he came overland by sleigh during the winter of 181 5 to the Allegheny river in western Pennsylvania, and floated down that stream and the Ohio in a rude boat, to join his brother in Kentucky. Then the two brothers on horseback came to Mncennes and Fort Harrison looking for homes. In the following spring the settlement of the family was made in Vigo county. Of the family that was added to the pioneers at that time, were the sons-inlaw of Oliver Jones - James and John Chestnut, and James Wilson - and also a brother-in-law, Elisha Bentley, all of whom settled on Honey Creek prairie. Ezra, with his four sons, settled nearer Terre Haute. The latter was skilled as a mechanic, millwright, architect, and was indeed one of the builders of Vigo county. He built the ]\Iarkle mill on Otter creek in 1817, and was among the first, if not the first, to build flatboats and ship produce to New Orleans. He built the first frame house on Fort Harrison prairie. Ezra Jones became an associate judge of the circuit court, and was one of the first commissioners of the county. His eldest son, Ezra, was sheriff of the county, 1835-36, and in 1838 moved to Iowa and thence to Santa Fe, New Mexico. The father died while returning from New Orleans, when 48 years old.

General Peter B. Allen, who landed at old Terre Haute with his family, June 4, 1818, was from Ontario county, New York, and a descendant of the family to which Ethan Allen belonged. From the timbers of the boat on which the family had come up the Wabash, one of the sons built a house (located on the Preston farm). Peter B. Allen entered land at 123^ cents an acre, and paid for it in Canadian warrants. (Markle. who came about the same time, paid for his land in the same kind of scrip ) . His land included the grounds on which the Polytechnic is located, also the poor house farm, and the Jackson or Preston farm. Though a New Englander it is noteworthy that he had ten acres of cotton on his place, sending his product to the Jackson gin at the cross roads near the present east line of the fair grounds-. He was a man of literary tastes and had a fine library.

The death of William Hodges at his home at York, Illinois, January 26, 1908, is especially interesting since it is the death of the first child born in Terre Haute. It is claimed that Mr. Hodges was born in this city May 23, 1818, and lived here until 1843, since which time he had lived at York. Mr. Hodges attended school in Terre Haute and for several years clerked in a general store owned by Chauncey Rose. He became quite well-to-do at York, being merchant, miller and postmaster. He also held many positions of trust in his county during his residence there. His birth preceded by only a few months that of Captain William Earl, who was born in Terre Haute September 22, 1818, and was for a long time considered the first white child born in the city.

Daniel Durham, born in Virginia in 1801, came to Vigo county with his brother William in 1822. In emigrating westward he had first located in Tennessee and then in Kentucky. He had brought with him forty or fifty slaves, but conversion to Quakerism caused him to free them all. Not only that, but he bought a large tract of land in Kentucky, raised on it a big crop, and then turned it all over to the freed slaves to enable them to live until able to become self-supporting. When he came to Vigo county he was accompanied by a few of his former slaves. One of them, a girl, died and was buried in the family plot on the Lyman Durham farm. One was Si Lewis, who settled in Knox county and became the owner of 1,300 to 1,400 acres of land near Carlisle. The name of another was Armistead Stewart. Daniel Durham settled about a mile and a half south of the village, but he owned land from near Honey creek up to Hulman street and from the river to Seventh street. He owned the Chestnut property and nearly all the land down that way. Daniel was the father of John, Thomas, William, Daniel Robert, and David, and their generations are still represented in the county.

Scattered over the county and even in the town was many a log cabin whose small square windows might be of glass or oiled paper, and whose wooden latch, raised with a leather thong, let one into a room with puncheon floor, the roof above of clapboards (long oak shingles hewn out with an ax), the chinks in the log walls filled with clay or clay and stones, the big fire place lined with stones, while the chimney outside was built up with lath and clay, and inside its ample mouth swung the iron pot from the crane. At one side was the spinning wheel or loom, sometimes both. For a clothes and hat rack many a house had the antlers of a buck killed by the settler. On pegs in the wall or in a corner was the long rifle, with flint-lock, for percussion caps did not come into general use until after the ]\Iexican war. Other articles there were that would cause the twentieth century citizen to wonder at their use. The mortar and pestle, the grater for making cornmeal, the sieve of deerskin punched full of holes, the iron kettles for rendering lard in winter and for boiling maple sap in spring, the ash barrel through which percolated the water to come out as lye for making soft soap or to steep the corn for lye hominy - all these homely domestic articles could be seen at any of the homes on Vigo county prairies, of half a century ago. There were, of course, the threshing floors in the barn or in the open, where men beat out the grains with flails or horses walked round and round in a circle treading the seed from the straw.

We burned candles made by mother, and smoky-lard-oil lamps, is one old settler's retrospective view of early days. We wore boots that even a boot-jack would hardly pull off. In the high crowns of our hats we carried letters, papers and handkerchiefs. Alany a man owned a pair of saddle-bags to carry behind him and stout leggings coming to his knees to protect him from the brush when he rode on his journeys over the primitive highways. Or in his bugg}- was his carpetbag, rightly named (for it was made of figured carpet) .

Droves of fat hogs were seen waddling through the streets from earlv winter to late spring, is another observation of this pioneer. The farmer wives brought in rolls of Kentucky jeans and linseys, made on their spinning wheels and looms. Common articles of merchandise at the stores were indigo, madder and copperas, which dyestufifs account for the blue and butternut jeans. But dyes were also made from the hulls of walnuts and butternuts and maple bark, and from these the flannels and linsey-wolseys were given the colors that prevailed throughout the pioneer communities. The cotton chain used in weaving cloth and carpet was bought at the stores, but otherwise these articles were entirely homemade.

The swallow-tailed coat, the tall-crowned "beaver" hat, the black silk stock and the black silk handkerchief (a yard square of silk to be folded into a scarf or cravat and tied in a bow), these articles of stylish wear for men that are now familiar only through portraits or other representations. In Terre Haute Uncle Harry Ross was one of the last to abandon these old manners or customs. JMany an old man will remember how he used to soak his boots in melted tallow or linseed oil.

Familiar articles about every home of the early days were the ash barrel and soap kettle. The wood ash was carefully collected and preserved, was leached out in the ash hopper, and then on some bright day in spring the housewife started the fire under the kettle and in the lye boiled the jowls and other waste parts of the hogs that had been slaughtered the previous winter, until the grease and alkali were com- Ijined into soap.

smoke house, the apple and potato cave, the spring house or well house, remain of vivid memorv in the minds of all who lived any part of the old times.

The practice of killing pork and curing it for family use is not uncommon even in this day of central meat packeries, but some years ago it was a periodic duty in every domestic economy. It is related that the grandfather of one of our refined women of this generation, himself one of the prosperous gentlemen of the time, had made ready one New Year's eve to start on a long- trip overland by horseback to Virginia. His wife asked him if he would have time to kill a hog before he went. He replied, no, he would not. He had not traveled far on his journey before the good dame had done the bloody deed with her own hands, and in time had reduced the porker to all its component hams, shoulders, jowls, sides and

There was a dispute among the old settlers about the arrival of the first carriage in Terre Haute. The concluding word on the subject was said in the following card which appeared in the Terre Haute Express of November 27, 1873, from George B. Richardson, viz.: "It is stated that the first carriage brought to Terre Haute was brought by Lucius H. Scott, and that statement was corrected by saying that William C. Linton brought the first in 1827. I have a distinct recollection of a fine carriage with calash top, and silver-mounted harness, which my father, Joseph Richardson, brought to the county in June, 1816. It was used frequently by the officers of the fort and their ladies in taking rides over the smooth, level prairie, with neither fences nor roads to disturb their course. On one occasion in attempting to cross Honey creek (no road work had been done yet) the carriage was capsized in the creek, the top broken in pieces,, and the occupants got a good wetting. The carriage was never repaired, as there were no mechanics here at that time capable of making such repairs. This carriage was made in Connecticut, and bought in western New York by my father, taken over the mountains to the Allegheny river, and brought down that river to the Ohio and up the Wabash to old Fort Harrison on our family emigrant boat. It was started from C)lean May 1st and arrived June 2"], 1816."

Cotton raising, spinning and weaving were known to the first settlers of Vigo county. This seems a strange intrusion of a distinctly southern crop into a northern state. The only cotton field of which we have knowledge was near the site of the poor farm, which the venerable Henry

Allen well remembers. And in many parts of Indiana, especially about \"incennes. was to be seen that beautiful sight, a field filled with closely set green plants, with a snowy drift over them as the cotton was bursting from the bolls. The task of picking the cotton gave employment to some of the country boys and girls, and the farmers' wives spun it on their spinning wheels and wove it on their looms. Possibly some of it was carded at the old Fuller ox mill in Cherry street east of Sixth street.

E. B. Allen remembered a cotton gin on the Jackson farm two miles north of the fair grounds. He had seen a ten-acre field of cotton growing in this neighborhood. The cotton was spun on small wheels, for home use' and the product was not an uncommon one in this part of Indiana in the davs before the steamboat trade sprang up and it became cheaper to import this commodity from its more native southern fields.

Some years ago Mr. J. O. Jones, in a letter to the author of this history, corroborated Captain Allen's recollections about cotton raising in this county, and went on to say: "T well remember seeing cotton grow and ripen on my father's farm ; also on the ridge west of us. The stalks were about three feet in height, branching out. and full of good-sized bolls, well ripened and cotton ready to pick before frost time. I think it was raised on the prairie only, and to what extent I cannot say."

Following his testimonv about cotton growing. 'Mr. Jones, in the same letter, told about some other products of early agriculture. "My father." he stated, "raised hemp, of which he made cordage for his flatboats and other purposes; also flax, made into linen for summer use; also sheep, whose wool, made into cloth, clothed us in winter. He brought all sorts of seeds wanted in a new country, among them apple, peach and cherry, and soon had an abundance of fruit. This was an ideal land for the A'ermont farmer, where, as he expressed it. he worked six months in the year to make feed to keep his stock the other six months. Here with the feed of prairie hay the stock wintered well in the range : hogs fattened on the mast, and instead of having to spend the best part of a lifetime in clearing up a farm of timber he found half of his land already cleared ; all he had to do was to fence, plough and plant it. And such crops as this land produced in those early years - corn, eighty bushels to the acre, wheat forty, and other crops proportionately. Strawberries, blackberries and raspberries abundant in their season ; also grapes, plums, cherries, mulberries, pawpaws and persimmons. In the way of nuts we had the black walnut, butternut, hickory and hazel nuts and pecans, the best of all. in vast abundance. Then the prairie was a vast flower garden, blooming with beauty and fragrance."

It is but reiteration of an oft-told story to repeat the ills and troubles that beset the first settlers while making homes here. Newcomers were pretty sure to have malarial fever, chills, and "fever'n ager," etc. until they became acclimated. They were also affected by the limestone water, and eastern people carried bottles from which "40 drops" were put into the water before drinking. Farmers bought mixtures for chills and fever as regularly as they bought groceries. Mosquitoes,, though a pest, were probably not recognized then as disease carriers. The water hogshead beside every cabin, with its stagnant water, was a favorable breeding place for these insects, and no doubt was a source of danger to the residents. It is remarkable that mosquitoes as a regularly recurring nuisance disappeared from this vicinity in the '70s about the same time with the epidemics of fevers and chills. Quinine, the sovereign remedy of settlers, was once very expensive, being sold at from $2.40 to $2.85 an ounce. The removal of the tariff duty from this drug finally cut down the cost, and it is now one of the cheapest of household medicines.

Sickness prevailed along the Wabash country in 1820 to the extent of an epidemic. It nearly depopulated some of the early settlements. During the summer months' the fatal disease showed some of the characteristics of yellow fever. Dr. Hubbard M. Smith, the historian of Vincennes, an old physician, judging from all that he had heard, thought it might be yellow fever. The same conditions which propagated the disease in the vicinity of New Orleans existed along the Wabash, including the species of mosquito stegoinyia fascinata, which transmits the disease. In 1820 the water was so low in the Wabash that the grass grew luxuriantly far out from the shores, and decaying vegetation was the hotbed of malaria and the breeding place of the mosquito. At least it can be concluded that the sickness which carried off so many of the early settlers in Terre Haute and along the Wabash was a serious malarial disease caused by stagnant water, rank vegetation and numerour mosquitoes of the time.

Very early in the history of Terre Haute it was the custom to distribute funeral notices by carrier through the town on the day of the funeral or the day before. The custom originated when there were only weekly papers, and continued until after i860. The notice was printed with a black border. Several examples still exist. One dated as late as 1879 comes from a German family and is printed in both German and Eno'lish.

The friends and acquaintances of tlie family are respectfully invited to attend the funeral of Mrs. Emeline F., wife of A. C. King, from the residence at 4 p. m.

Yourself and family are respectfully invited to attend the funeral of Thomas Dueham from his late residence in Honey Creek township this afternoon at one o'clock.

Yourself and family are respectfully invited to attend the funeral of Salmon Wright from his late residence, South Market street, this afternoon at 2 o'clock.

How the native trees were used to designate boundaries in the early days is ilhistrated in a record in the circuit court of September, 1819. Moses Hoggatt, J. Butler and Elisha Bentley, having been appointed to divide the 200-acre estate of Henry Winter on the river bank in Honey Creek prairie, ran lines, the corners of which were marked by the following dift'erent trees : mulberry, black walnut, sugar maple, elm, hackberry, butternut, white ash. white oak, white walnut, buckeye, red bud. A similar case occurs in the marking of one of Terre Haute's streets, when the street corners were designated bv trees.