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Shelby County |
Home 1915 History Index |
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Shelby County |
Home 1915 History Index |
CHAPTER VIII - REMINISCENCES OF THE PIONEERS (CONT'D)
I was born in Wayne county, Ohio, November 22, 1834, and at nine years of age my parents moved to near Goshen, Indiana. In February, 1856, I started west, going to Pekin, Illinois, where I worked on a steam saw-mill over a month. About the first of April, I reached Iowa City, Iowa. There was then no railroad in Iowa, except that from Davenport to Iowa City. At Iowa City I fell in with a man moving from Indiana to Panora, Iowa. He had a few cows to be driven and I helped him to drive them. I walked and drove from Iowa City to Panora. Reaching Panora, a man named Walters and I started for Carroll county, Iowa. Reaching Carroll county, we found a man from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, putting up a saw and grist mill combined. As I was a carpenter, I secured work in building the mill and was employed nearly a month. Then Mr. Walters and I walked back to Panora. As we could not find any road leading into Shelby county, and that was the place we were really striking for when we left Panora, we struck south from Carroll county, intending to take the old stage road that ran across Iowa from Davenport to Iowa City, Des Moines and Council Bluffs, but on the first day we saw a man, who informed us that there was no house on that road from twenty to twenty-five miles. We could see one house which he said was five miles distant, but it was out of our way. Not wishing to go back, we made for that house and as the road wound around on the divide we took a straight course, which was the worst trip I ever had. It was on July 28, 1856. We got into brooks or creeks, some with banks so steep that we could hardly get up or down. In the sloughs or other places the grass was frequently three to six feet high. Finally reaching the house, we had to beg permission to remain all night, which we were allowed to do. The five miles straight across seemed a good ten miles. The house at which we stopped was Bear Grove. The next day we took a different course and arrived at the Hopkins bridge on the east Botna, from which point we made our way to Bowman’s Grove. At Hopkins bridge, we were told that it was twenty-five or thirty miles without a road, but that a couple of teams had started across about a month before, our informants not knowing whether they got through or not.
So, after we had secured a lunch, we struck out for Shelby county, and the journey was so hard and slow that we thought we might have to sleep out on the prairie all night. The wagons that had run over the tender grass in June had turned the prairie yellow, where the tracks were. Those tracks were our guide, but we lost it at one place, finding it again later. We had our lunch at Indian creek, and got through to Bowman’s Grove the same day. Glad boys we were and tired too. That was July 10, 1856, and it was then I met a young lady whom I had intended to marry. Here I was, six hundred miles from my old home in Indiana, two hundred miles from a railroad, sixty miles from town and forty miles from a postoffice. You may know that I seldom heard from my loved ones at home. Our postoffice was on the old stage road at Macedonia. At this time there were only eight families at Bowman’s Grove and only about sixteen or seventeen in the east part of the county. The Galland’s Grove settlement was larger, having perhaps twenty-five or thirty families, I can’t tell exactly. The county court was then held at Manteno in Galland’s Grove. I remember that Peter Longcor, of Bowman’s Grove, and I walked over to Manteno to attend court. We counted it twenty-five miles with a house between the two groves. I bought eighty acres of prairie land one-half mile east of Bowman’s Grove and seven acres of timber. Being, as I have said before, a carpenter by trade, I built a log house fourteen by sixteen feet, made shingles out of native wood to cover it, split laths to nail shingles on, split out puncheons for a floor, made stools in place of chairs, put a chimney made of prairie sod in, to cook and warm by, and also made some bedsteads out of poles and also cut sticks to put straw ticks on. I made a table out of walnut slabs and also took a store box and put up on the wall in place of a cupboard, for the dishes. We all felt happy, as we were all on a level and stood about on an equal line. I often saw men go to church barefooted and nobody thought anything of it. Of course there were some things not so pleasant, as when we had to go so far to market and to mail. Most people were obliged to go to Council Bluffs, which was about fifty-five miles distant, and some went to the Coon river, which was perhaps sixty miles away. Our postoffice, Macedonia, as I said before, was distant forty miles. The first time I ever saw Council Bluffs was in the fall of 1856, when J. R. McConnell and I went down the West Botna from Bowman’s Grove until we got to the stage road, which we then followed to Council Bluffs. On the way we came to Macedonia and stopped and mailed some letters. We made the trip in six days, and did not waste any extra time. It was the only safe way we could go, as there were no bridges across the streams. The winter of 1856 was a hard one. There came a fearful blizzard, which lasted three days and piled up the snow in terrible drifts. Then rain came, and it froze as fast as it fell. There was a half inch of ice all over the snow, so no teams could be taken out and driven. It was then that J. R. McConnell, who was very fond of hominy, said to me, “Let’s make a hominy mortar,” as he called it, “and we will have some hominy.” I said, “All right.” I was then making my home with the family of Mr. McConnell, so we got a dry oak log and sawed from it a block, perhaps three feet long. All round the outer circumference of the log at the end of it we bored holes coming obliquely to a point in the center of the log, then took the center out, burned the sides to make it smooth, so when the storm came we had that mortar on hand. We made a pestle of an iron wedge, which we placed in the end of a split hickory stick, which we suspended vertically from the end of another hickory stick, the other end of which was placed between the logs in the side of the log cabin, some feet above the puncheon floor. This pestle was worked up and down by a person who took hold of the vertical hickory stick, the spring in the other stick carrying the pestle back at the end of each downward stroke. The bowl or mortar was about a foot deep. Everybody’s bread ran out, so we went to pounding corn. We made course hominy and also some fine meal. There were sixteen of us in the family, and that was the way we got our living. Some parched the corn and then ground it in a coffee mill. Some had buckwheat and ground it in coffee mills. They baked the meal into Johnny-cake, as they called it. The hominy was cooked. Thus we were all in the same boat. No one could go to mill at our settlement. We had one cow giving milk and had plenty of potatoes and all these things furnished our living for over two months. Everybody was well and happy and the supply of corn and potatoes was sufficient. One bright morning Mr. McConnell looked out at Indian Grove, now known as Correction Grove. He said, “Let’s go out to that grove and see if we can’t find a deer.” So four of us started out right after breakfast. We had one small rifle and two dogs. We took a straight course of eight miles and soon reached the grove, where we found an elk track. We soon jumped him up. He was a very large fellow, with a great rack of horns. We could walk on top of the snow, but the elk broke through the snow in the timber. The snow at that time was more than knee deep. The elk would start to run, but the dogs would stop him so he could not run very far. We shot him five times before we got him and he fell down on the ice of Indian creek. We skinned him with our pocket knives and unjointed his back, so that we had the meat in two pieces, which we dragged down the creek about fifteen rods where we thought we could put it up, so that the wolves could not get it, but found that the load was too heavy for us to lift. We then laid the meat on the ice and put the elk’s hide over its head and horns, and one foot. We then put gunpowder over and around the carcass to keep the wolves and wildcats away and then went home. The next day four of us took a one-horse sled and started to get the elk. When we arrived we found the meat unmolested, but where we had skinned him everything was gone. We all estimated that elk would weigh, dressed, at least four hundred pounds. I tell you that meat looked good and went well with pounded corn and hominy, as we had no meat in the house before. The horns of the elk were about three and one-half feet high when stood on the ground. They are now in Goshen, Indiana, and could not be bought for fifty dollars. I want to tell you there were some tired boys when we got home that evening. We went sixteen miles. We brought back the head, horns and one front leg to show how large the elk was. We felt that he was put there for us, as we needed meat so badly. There were a good many Indians at that time, who would come round through the summer and fall mostly. There were at that time many wild animals, such as elk, deer, wolves, wildcats, badgers, coons, skunks, weasels, a few wild turkeys, prairie chickens, geese, ducks, etc. I shot a white crane, which when stretched out was over four feet tall and somewhat more than seven feet from tip of one wing to tip of other. The meat was the finest I ever ate. I shot one wildcat at Bowman’s Grove. I also saw one that Mr. McConnell shot. They are built like a cat, only larger. They are as tall and as long as a common dog, but not as heavy. Going to Council Bluffs, in the winter, was a dreaded task. Men of the neighborhood tried to go together whenever a trip was necessary. I remember at one time, five of the neighborhood all had hogs killed the day before we started. The day was fine and not very cold until about noon. While we were eating dinner it began to snow and become colder. Before we got to Beard’s you could not see any distance at all. We stayed there two nights and one day and the next morning started out as soon as we could. We reached Council Bluffs at candle-lighting, a distance of sixteen miles from where we had been snowed in. In those days we did not have fur coats and there was no such thing as overshoes. It was no wonder we dreaded starting out on a trip from Bowman’s Grove, which meant thirty miles without seeing a house. In the winter when the days were short, one had to “hustle” to get to Beard’s, which was the first house at which we stopped. The prairie, during spring and summer, was full of snakes, one not knowing at what moment one would come in contact with them. There were rattlesnakes, vipers, also boot snakes, blue racers and other kinds. I was always afraid of rattlesnakes and vipers. I never shot but one wolf and he was asleep. The neighbors all said, “Ha, ha!” and that I could not have got him if he had not been asleep. In the spring of 1857, Jonathan Wyland commenced building a sawmill in Bowman’s Grove. Isaac Plum had the building of it and I secured work there, as I was a carpenter. In the spring of 1858 Mr. Plum took the work of putting up a building in what is now North Harlan, I think in the same tier of blocks in which the court house in Harlan now stands, the building on which I worked being about two blocks south of the branch or creek in the extreme north part of what is now Harlan. I can, therefore, truthfully say that I helped build the first house in Harlan, and that I feel glad and more proud of the little city of Harlan and to know that I saw all of that country a wild prairie with wild animals living on it. Little did I think to live to see such a beautiful city here in Shelby county as Harlan is at this day. Often I went as far as ten miles to help put in bridges so men could cross, which services were performed absolutely free. There was no one to pay us three dollars per day for our work. It was just volunteer work, and we were glad to do it. On September 12, 1857, I was married to Miss Juliann McConnell and in the spring of 1858 went to Indiana on a visit, driving a team. In the fall of 1860 I moved back to Shelby county, so I went the journey twice with a team. The first trip took seven weeks on account of much rain and high water. On August 24, 1865, my wife and I were baptized in the Dunkard church near Bowman’s Grove, and I became a deacon in 1880, and so remain at this time. My wife died August 9, 1897. I have been in twenty-six different states and have been from the Atlantic to the Pacific coast. I have been to Washington, D. C., and have taken a seat in the President’s mansion at Washington. I have always loved to travel, but am getting too old to do much of that now, as I am in my eightieth year. I am one of the very few first settlers of Shelby county yet alive. I trust that my story told in my simple way will nevertheless interest the people of Shelby county.
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