In the early history of the Whitewaters the military spirit ran high. Aspirants for office then as at the present day, were solicitous to make popularity out of military affairs. But as time ran on the military spirit began to abate and officers to resign. A little reminiscence here may not wholly have passed from remembrance among the few remaining pioneers on the Whitewaters. The earliest statutes of Indiana required all inferior officers to serve five years, unless the Brigadier-General, for sufficient cause, would accept a resignation. It is said one Captain Morris, of Brooklyn, tendered his resignation to General McKinney, and assigned his reasons: “First, that he was not fit for the office; and second, that the office was not fit for him.” It was accepted on the first. The whole system seemed to be on its last legs, when all at once there arose into public notice in the county of Wayne the man for the occasion, in the person of Major Lewis. He was a young man; like Julius Caesar, of a weak body, with the military ambition of a Charles XII. Although but a Lieutenant, he became a candidate for Major, and having no opposition, was triumphantly elected. The first step of the young Major was to provide himself with a splendid blue uniform coat covered with gold lace and large gilt eagle buttons—a coat Napoleon himself might have worn while commanding at Austerlitz—a chapeau in imitation of the one worn by General Jackson at the battle of the Horse Shoe, surmounted by a towering red plume with white tip, epaulets that might have graced the shoulders of Blucher as he led the Prussian army to the aid of Wellington at Waterloo, a true Damascus blade in its brilliant scabbard, reaching to the feet, boots of the Swatara order reaching up to his seat, with a pair of gold-plated spurs with shanks a foot long. The great military parade to revive the spirit of the Revolution was to come off near the East Fork of Whitewater, under the command of Major Lewis in person. Captains were required to be early in the field with their respective commands armed and equipped as the law directed. The great and memorable day at last arrived. The parade-ground was early filled with waving plumes and crowds of anxious citizens. The aid-de-camp of the Major came galloping into the field in full uniform, directly from the headquarters of the Major, and halted at the marquee of the Adjutant. In a few minutes the order from the Major was given in a loud military voice by the Adjutant, who was mounted on a splendid gray charger: “Officers to your places, marshal your men in companies, separating the bare-footed from those who have shoes or moccasons, placing the guns, sticks and corn-stalks in separate platoons, and then form a line ready to receive the Major.” The order was promptly obeyed in true military style, when at a distance, Major Lewis was seen coming into the field with his aids by his side, his horse rearing and plunging like ‘Old Whity” at the battle of Beuna Vista. The brilliant uniform of the Major, and his high, waving plume, pointed him out distinctly (reminding one of my military friend on the occasion of receiving a distinguished guest in the Presidential campaign, at Richmond, when marshal of the day, of a more recent date.) The line was formed; the Major took position on a rising piece of ground about a hundred yards in front of the battalion. Rising in his stirrups and turning his face full upon the line he said, “Attention, the whole!” Unfortunately the Major had not tried his voice before in the open air, and with the word “attention” it broke, and “the whole” sounded like the whistle of a shrill fife. The moment the sound reached the line, some one at the lower end, with a voice as shrill as the Major’s, cried out, “Children, come out of the swamp, you’ll get snake-bit.” The Major pushed down the line at full speed, saying. ‘Who dares insult me?” No answer. The cry then commenced all along the line, “You’ll get snake bit!” The Major turned and dashed up the line, but he had sense enough to see that it was the military system that was in disrepute, and not Major Lewis that was the main object of ridicule. He dashed his chapeau from his head, drew his sword, tore his commission to pieces, and resigned his office on the spot. The battalion dispersed, and general military training from that time forward on the Whitewater was at an end. At a later date there was an attempt to revive the military law in Eastern Wayne county. An early pioneer, who had received the title of Colonel in the war of 1812, did occasionally drill and muster the young hoosier sprouts of Richmond and vicinity. On one occasion, a bright summer day, when I was pumping wind for a son of Vulcan on the lot where the Odd Fellows building now is, I saw this Colonel on the commons near where the Post Office now is, drilling the boys. The Colonel was dressed in true military style, having white trowsers, yellow vest, a blue broadcloth coat, with brass buttons, high coat collar and a claw-hammer tail, a two-story bell-crowned hat, with a feather, plucked from a bird of a foreign clime, elevated several inches above his hat, epaulets about the size of two pewter plates upon each shoulder, and a long sword dangling by his side. They went through the military tactics at the motions and nods of the commander, some with their rusty shotguns, and others with their trusty rifles, while the remainder were supplied with sticks, &c. But long since this custom has entirely ceased, and is remembered as among the things that were, on the Whitewaters.

Once upon a time, when the military spirit was in vogue, an early settler was elected Captain by his neighbors, but being desirous to acquaint himself before the day of muster, on the morning of that memorable day he had his “gude wife” to prepare him an early breakfast, and while she was doing so he embraced the opportunity of pacing the yard in front of the door of the cabin. It so happened he had a hole under his cabin to put his vegetables in, but had neglected to have a covering to the entrance into it. In his military maneuvering by forward and backward steps, it so happened the Captain in one of his backward marches unfortunately fell into the cellar among some debris and empty barrels, making considerable noise. At this the wife, with sleeves rolled up and apron on, with knife in hand to turn the steak in the frying pan, rushed to the door to ascertain the cause. The Captain, who was in the act of crawling out, said to the good woman, “Go back; what do you know about war?”

Mill-boys

During the intervening time of going to school I was the main mill-boy, and was frequently posted off with a grist of about two bushels, put in a tow meal sack, on the back of Coaly, and I on top to balance it. Not unfrequently in a dry time I had to return without the grist being ground, for each had to wait their turn. It was not so pleasant to ride bare-back. Near the mill I had to pass through the lane of a new farm, where an early orchard had been planted, and was beginning to bear apples, the first in the neighborhood. The old gentleman owning it had a pretty lively time in keeping mill boys out of his orchard. He was a tobacco-raiser also, and was a great chewer of the weed. I have a recollection of seeing him carry in his pocket an enormous twist of his home-made tobacco, done up similar to the flax, before described. It was said he chewed about a pound a day. On one occasion, when waiting for the turn of my grist, I fell in company with a school-mate, about my age, who came to the same mill; while there it afforded an opportunity for me to renew my accusation of his appropriating my ink-stand to his own use at school. I valued the ink-stand much, being made by my father out of lead, but he denied taking it. I believed he had it, and I went for him on the mill floor. The rattling of the mill prevented Friend Cox from hearing our beligerant talk; perhaps some other customer informed him and he immediately stopped the mill and took us under his friendly care, lecturing us sharply. On my part I have adhered to his advice ever since. But I believe my contemporary friend, who is now a minister among the Friends, of some prominence, in a large city, did not profit by the advice strictly through his after youthful days. One day this school-mate, not long after, when under the guardianship of a Friend, a farmer, went to Richmond, then a small town, with a wagon and team. He took the horses from the wagon and fed them, leaving the aforesaid school-mate to watch the town cows from robbing the horse-feed. Some town boys came around while the Friend was attending to some business, and tormented the country-boy till his angry passion rose to a fighting pitch, and he went for the boys right and left. One he had down choking him very much as I did him at the mill. At this moment the Friend put in an appearance, and separated them, giving his wayward adopted son a lecture similar to that of the miller.

The Family Moves

Not long after these little events just related, a stranger rode up to our double hewed-log house and wished to know if he could obtain lodging for the night. He had a respectable appearance and was in middle life. My father’s house was an asylum for all new comers. After peace was declared often friendly Indians, in passing along, tarried with us, saying they wanted always to stop with Penn’s children. This Friend, who had come from the Miamis, was looking somewhere on the Whitewater to buy a farm. The next morning my father showed him the metes and bounds of his land and improvements. Suffice it to say, before leaving, a purchase was made, and the next day my parents went to Richmond with him to execute a deed, receiving half the money down, all in silver. I recollect of my father obtaining two shot bags of Robert Morrisson to put the money in, and placed the bags in the bottom of the carriage, and cone home. It was some months before possession was to be given. That money remained in those bags without the protection of lock or key; no fears seemed to be apprehended of it being stolen. My parents had their reasons for selling our home-place. One was that my older brothers were married and settled, leaving too large a farm without help to work it, and probably another was, the great distance, near five miles, to meeting. My eldest brother concluded he would “go west and grow up with the country,” where he again settled in the woods, but had a pretty hard time of it, being but a farmer, he had no way of getting money. Some of these early settlers would keep dogs and have guns with which they hunted over the unbroken forest for wild game, that they might obtain their skins and scalps; but my brother had no liking for either. It was rarely that he caught a coon with his innocent dog to get the hide, for which he could receive a silver quarter. Combinations of circumstances were such that he, in a few years, came back to the Whitewaters and settled there again.

In 1825, my father reconnoitered around in the Whitewater settlement, when finally he bought a small farm on the West Fork of Whitewater, a few miles nearer Richmond and several miles nearer meeting. In the fall of that year we moved to it, taking with us all our stock of cows, sheep and hogs, and “Coaly,” and an honest mare. Perhaps a brief description of this new home and surroundings may amuse, if not interest. The land consisted of sixty acres, some of the timber land quite broken as well as the cleared laud: it had on it a two-story hewed-log house, shingle roof, a few inferior log buildings for stabling, and a barn. I might here say I had a brother who, a short time before, had settled near by. That may have been the inducement in locating where we did. My father spent considerable money on this little place to make it more comfortable. It was not long after coming here, we heard the report that the milk sickness was around us, which we were ignorant of before purchasing. Upon inquiring of the neighbors about it, they said it was not in that settlement, but away up about Hillsborough that they had it mighty bad. But for some cause, the next year our cows all died; our hogs and sheep took a fancy to roam, and for what I know became attached to our neighbors, and hence we lost their identity. The spring following, I regret to record the demise of “Coaly,” whom I had rode to the mill so often, and who was so useful for general purposes on our other farm. I suppose it was not the milk-sick that killed him, for upon a post mortem examination it was found he died of the bots. I recollect of my father’s making great efforts to save his life. While I and my father were holding a rail, rubbing him over the abdomen, he fell broadside. We seemed to have much bad luck after coming here. The loss of that valuable horse was keenly felt in cultivating our first crop. The next day my father started out to buy another, purchased a mare of a neighbor for forty-five dollars in silver, brought her home with him, and with the assistance of a hired neighbor, did some plowing; but it was soon discovered that the newly purchased brown mare was baulky, and often refused to pull in the time of need. Perhaps the neighbor had forgotten to tell my father of that fault. One day my father sent me out with her hitched to a sled to haul home some fire-wood. The wood was placed on, but she refused to pull; my coaxing appeared to be fruitless. Father, seeing from the house the situation, came to us. His entreaties were of no avail, so he picked tip a pretty good cudgel and smote her behind the ear; this brought her to her knees. After the stunning effect was over she pulled the sled home. I began to have a little experience in farming that summer with a baulky mare. In plowing among the stumps I would often get pretty badly kicked and thrown some distance from the plow handles, not having weight sufficient to guide the bar-share plow. We managed, though, to raise some grain and flax. The first products I ever raised and brought to Richmond was the seed of flax, which I beat out over a log and winnowed with a tow sheet, to the amount of about three pecks. With this seed, which I sold to John Page, and the fleece of a pet lamb which I sold to Joseph P. Plummer, I purchased a wool hat.

I omitted to mention that we brought with us our dog “Bounce,” who soon after took an ailing and died; but I don’t believe it was the milk-sick that he died with, as our cows had died of before. To put him out of his misery, my father had me to go down the hill where he was and kill him. I went and let some pretty heavy boulders fall on him and went away, but next morning on going to see whether he was dead, I found him lying in a natural position. I left him in that position, and have never been back since. Not being much posted in dogology, I could not say what caused his death, but I presume he died of old age. After losing our cows, my father bought of the late Judge Hoover a superannuated cow, which soon after went the way of all flesh.

Not long after coming to this new place I made the acquaintance of a near neighbor who was a shoemaker, somewhat advanced in years; he was a Friend of more than ordinary acquirements, especially in the fundamental doctrines of the early Friends. He, finding I had a taste for reading, often loaned me books. He also seemed to discover that I had a latent genius in mechanism, and, if brought out, might render him some advantage, so he persuaded me that I could manufacture lasts for him to make shoes on. With this flattery, I obtained suitable wood and made a number of lasts for him. They were not rights and lefts; such were unknown in these days. He used to boast of my ingenuity to his customers. I also sawed peg-wood for him. We had a near neighbor that had a small carding machine that was run by water on the West Fork. He also had, near by, a small grist mill, which in that day had the reputation of making the best corn meal on Whitewater. I believe it was this good name of that mill that induced my brother, before mentioned, to take that load of meal to Cincinnati. He had a very long millrace to his mill, and but a small brush dam. One day, as he was grinding a grist, the mill come to a stand still. He started up his race to ascertain the cause. Near the dam (it was warm weather,) he found a neighbor’s female hog lying in the race. He removed the obstruction by throwing a stone at her, and hastened back to the mill, to be there by the time the water got down, and so the mill went on. While living at this home I finished my education, by graduating from a log school-house, near by, with honors, and a diploma on a quire of fool’s-cap paper. Having lost about all our stock that we brought on this little farm, except the mare alluded to, and she took to stump-sucking, and became weakly, my father traded her off for some useful furniture. This left him with his carriage without horses. A well-to-do farmer that lived in Union county, happened to come along, and he sold the carriage to him at a discount. As money was scarce, he had to wait a long time for his pay.

While living on this little farm I made but few associates among boys of any age. Their chief delight seemed to be in raising dogs; all appeared to vie with each other in having the most. Sometimes, in hunting or at log-rollings, their dogs would get to fighting, and occasionally the owners would get at it, too, about their dogs. Pitching quoits, wrestling, jumping and running foot-races on Sunday, was the general occupation. Some of the older ones of Friends’ extraction, when they came to Richmond, on election days in August, would frequently come in contact with some of similar proclivities and get bloody noses.

Through all our ill luck we continued to attend Chester meeting regularly, part of the time on foot. Many incidents of my early recollections I could relate while going to that log meeting-house. They had a large fire-place in one corner of the meeting-house which was quite an accommodation to the young folks in the winter season. In summer the members would gather there about eleven o’clock on the middle of the week just as they came from their work; some I noticed were barefooted. On Sunday they had clean shirts on, well starched. Many of those meetings were held in silent meditation. But I recollect one summer day, when all within those rude walls was silent, excepting the occasional wail of a babe or the singing of some gay bird (I hope this warbler did not disturb their meditations.). At last the silence was broken by a Friend who sat facing the gallery with his back to the main audience. All at once he jumped from his seat and turned quickly around looking where he had been sitting, and said, “What in the world is this?” leaving all in that meeting to conclude he had been sitting on something; but the next sentence revealed that it was only a text that he had conjured up to preach from.

At another time the house was pretty full, as it was Sunday, and quite a number of young folks were in the back seats looking on, when a member in pretty good standing sat facing the meeting. He had seen his three score years, and carried a cane or staff. Sometimes when sitting in meeting he would get drowsy, and had a way of resting his head on the top of his staff. One day he had his mouth resting on the smooth-headed cane, when he got pretty sound asleep in that position. He was now watched by the boys, till finally all consciousness left him. His mouth opened, and the cane went several inches down his throat. Of course the boys laughed “right out in meetin’.” The Friends in the gallery didn’t know what they were laughing at till after meeting, when they were talked to about unbecoming behavior in meeting; on learning the cause it was looked over. But it was very naughty for the boys to laugh at the old Friend, yet who could expect much better, when they had dog fighting, wrestling, and ran foot races on Sunday after meeting?

Illness

About my seventeenth year and the second year of my experience in farming, near the close of summer, I was taken with my first spell of sickness. The neighbors said I had a kind of bilious fever. At any rate I was quite sick, refusing all food. Our only family doctor was living on the Middle Fork, near where Middleboro’ now is. He was sent for, coming several miles on horseback with his saddle-bags of medicine, comprising tartar emetic, calomel, jalop, caster oil, salts—not very well refined— and a thumb and spring lancet. He came to the bed-side, spoke kindly to me; he was of the Friends’ persuasion, a Pennsylvanian, near three score years. He had me to thrust out my tongue for inspection, then felt my pulse, at the same time pulling from his pocket his English watch, looking very wise, while counting the beats of my throbbing pulse. He said I was very bilious and had a high fever. He proceeded to give me an emetic, (I suppose the kind he gave his dogs on another occasion before mentioned, for it served me the same way) then had me to take calomel and jalop, for a physic, and with some instructions given, left. He returned two days after, found me still bad and administered more emetics and physic, and in addition bled me with his spring-lancet till I fainted and was carried to bed. He said be was “taking me through a course of medicine to prostrate the system.” I think in my case he was succeeding in that way effectually, but it was to break the fever, he said. The doctor continued his visits about every other day, and repeating his allopathic remedies for about two weeks. During that time no nourishment whatever could be taken, unless there was nourishment in his jalop, ipecac and bleeding. I think the doctor began to think he had an obstinate case, but he paid great attention to me. One day he brought his good new wife with him; I thought her kind offices and sympathies did more good than his medicines. He said he always succeeded to cure or break the fever by salivating his patients. He changed his medicines to something else, it may have been the essence of white clover, for it made me slobber like a horse that ran on a white clover-field. I noticed that they always got poorer, and so it was in my case. I was now reduced to a mere skeleton; life was about dispaired of. I remember that my brother said he could count the joints in my back-bone while lying on my back. But sure enough the fever was broken, for there was little left of me to create a fever. I have no doubt the doctor believed that the salivation was the salvation of me. With all due respect to that doctor I believe nature got the upper-hand of the old doctor, and cured me in spite of his strong medicine and bleeding and tinkering. But I always believed lie damaged my tenement irreparably. But strange to relate, for many years after, when matured to manhood, I suffered other tinkers of the same kind to try to patch up this same mortal body and make it passable to live in. After a long while I grew in knowledge, and learned enough to let them alone, so that I am making out with it till such time when I am promised a new one; then, maybe, I’ll be able to tell more than I know now about the doctors.

I will mention the pleasurable sensations or dreams I had when in that prostrated spell of sickness. Once a figure of a school-mate with all her beauty and rosy cheeks; who had passed away to the shadowy land a few years previous, seemed to be standing by my side. This so frightened me that I called to my mother, who was sleeping in the same room, to come and stay with me the remainder of the night. On another occasion I had the sensation of ascending from my couch until my eyes became dazzled in brightness; the sensation was the most pleasant imaginable, when I was aroused by the barking of the dogs, else I might have gone entirely up, and the loss to the world would have been my gain. The doctor made his last call, gave me medicine which quieted my nerves, and brought on a deep sleep, when I awake I will tell what I saw around me.