Northwestern Indiana from 1800 to 1900A regional history written by Timothy H. Ball . . . .
Source Citation:
Ball, Timothy H. 1900.
Northwestern
Indiana from 1800 to 1900 or A View of Our Region Through the Nineteenth Century.
Chicago, Illinois: Donohue and Henneberry. 570 p.
NORTHWESTERN INDIANA FROM 1800 TO 1900
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CHAPTER V.
PIONEER LIFE.
From the year
1830, or rather as early as 1829, when the first families of early settlers came
in among Indian residents and Indian owners of the prairies and woodlands, down
to the year 1840, when but few of the children of the wilds remained, the white
families that here made homes were true pioneers. They led the true American
pioneer life; but different in one respect from
the pioneers of the Atlantic sea coast colonies, and of the South, and of some
in the farther West in later times, inasmuch as the Indians, among whom for a
time they were, remained on friendly terms, and there were no massacres of
families no wakeful nights when on the still air came the Indian warwhoop, no
need for building barricades or resorting to forts or stockades for the
preservation of life. A few, it is true, there were, in the neighborhood that
became Door Village, who had settled as early as 1832, who thought it needful to
build a stockade fort when the Black Hawk War in Illinois broke out; but they
soon found that there was no need. The days of peril from
Indians east of the Mississippi, and of perilous excitements had passed,
before much settlement was made in North-Western Indiana.
Some settlement had been made in White County, and some alarmed families
left their homes when the rumors
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reached them in regard to Black Hawk. More settlement had been made in La Porte
County before the Black Hawk War of 1832, and the opening events of that war did
cause some alarm and some preparations for defense. In May, 1832, information
was sent to Arba Heald, near Door Village, from
whom in 1831 Sac Indians had stolen some horses,
that hostilities had commenced at Hickory Creek, in Illinois, and immediately
the inhabitants of that settlement, forty-two men among them, erected
earthworks, dug a ditch, and planted palisades around an enclosure one hundred
and twenty-five feet square, located half a mile east of Door Village. About
three miles further east a block house was built. General Joseph Orr, a noted La
Porte pioneer, who had received a commission as Brigadier General,
from Governor Ray in 1827,
reported the building of this fort to the Governor of
Indiana and was by him
appointed to raise a company of mounted rangers for service, if needed. This
company he raised, reporting to the commandant at Fort Dearborn and also to
General Winfield Scott. Mrs. Arba Heald refused to repair to the stockade, but
obtaining two rifles, two axes, and two pitchforks, determined to barricade and
defend her own home.
For the rangers, although they did some marching or scouting, there proved to be
no need. The chief, Black Hawk, was soon captured and the alarm in La Porte
County was over.
The alarm could not extend over those then unpurchased and unsurveyed lands
where there were no white families, and in La Porte and White counties it caused
but a little break in the quiet of pioneer life.
Although the pioneer period has, to quite an extent, been placed between 1830
and 1840, during
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which time some of the Indians remained and some
settlers were still "squatters," yet the real pioneer life in its general
aspects continued, and will thus in this chapter be viewed, until the first half
of this Nineteenth Century was closing; and as the second half of the century
opened, the era of railroads in Northern Indiana
commenced, when modes of life rapidly changed.
This gives us pioneer or frontier life till 1850, or for a period of twenty
years.
What was this life? In all our land, from the
Atlantic to the Pacific, there is not much to be found that is like it now. It
is difficult to picture it vividly before the minds of the young people of the
present.
Hon. Bartlett Woods, of Crown Point, in an article on "The Pioneer Settlers,
Their Homes and Habits, Their Descendants and Influence," prepared for the Lake
County Semi-Centennial of 1884, gave some fine pen-pictures of this variety of
life.
In a history of Indiana forty pages of a large
volume are devoted to a description of it. A more brief view will be given here.
There were then, it should be recalled to mind, no railroads leading out
from the Eastern cities,
from Boston, New York, and Philadelphia, across all the great Valley of
the Mississippi. The mountain ranges and the dense forests were great barriers
then between New England and New York and the new Indiana
and Michigan Territory. Until 1837 Michigan was not a state. There was in
that year a canal from Troy to Buffalo. Some
steamboats were running on Lake Erie. There was a short horse-car railroad
extending out from Toledo. Some vessels passed
around, it was said "through the great lakes," and took freight to the young
Chicago. Some
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schooners sailed on Lake Michigan. Here, in this northwest corner of
Indiana, there were in
1830 no roads, except Indian trails, no bridges, no mills, no stores, except,
perhaps, some Indian trading posts, no workshops of any kind. All the
necessities and conveniences of our modern civilization were then to be made.
The families came in strong covered wagons drawn sometimes by horses, but often
by oxen. The men brought a few tools, especially axes and iron wedges, hammers,
saws, augurs, gimblets, frows, and some planes. The women brought their needles,
scissors, thimbles, pins, thread, yarn, spinning wheels, and some looms.
Especially the men and boys brought their guns and bullet-molds, for on the
grand Indian hunting grounds they were, entering, and that game, which had been
so abundant for the Indians, was as free and as abundant now for them. Game laws
then were not.
A few cooking utensils these pioneers brought with them, tea-kettles,
bake-kettles, skillets, frying-pans; also a few plates, cups and saucers,
knives, forks, and spoons. Their household furniture, tables, chairs, bedding,
were very simple outfits for housekeeping in the wilderness.
After a location was chosen, and that must be near water, the erection of a log
cabin was the first work, and then a little clearing was made, for these first
settlers staid by the trees. They built few cabins in the open prairie. In the
heavy timber of our eastern border and in the groves or woodlands skirting the
prairies, along the Tippecanoe and Iroquois, and near to Lake Michigan, and on
the borders of the little lakes, here and there cabins were erected, and what
was called "squatter life" commenced. It was a wild,
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a free, in some respects a rich, a delightful life. The land like the game was
free to all. Each one could go when he wished, locate wherever he chose, take
whatever he could find on the prairie or in the woods, provided he interfered
with no Indian and with no other settler's rights. He could cut down trees,
pasture his few cattle, cut grass for his winter's hay, plow and plant the soil
anywhere, careful only not to infringe on any other who was a squatter like
himself. Largely was each man a law unto himself. It was a large freedom. And
well was it that these squatters brought with them the power of self-restraint
acquired in their eastern homes. Well was it that they kept in practice where
scarcely any law but that of God was over them, their moral and religious
principles, and so formed virtuous and religious communities.
From at first a dozen and then a score of pioneer
families, there gathered in several hundred families scattered over this region
before 1840 came, and for ten years there were some Indians left among them.
But now we may, to some extent, look at their modes of life and see them in
their homes, in their schools, at their social and religious gatherings, and at
their work.
After the cabin was erected, the main tool used in its construction having been
"the woodman's axe," the few articles of furniture from
the wagons were placed within upon the "puncheon" floor, and the rude
bedstead was constructed by boring, if one was fortunate enough to have that
very needful frontier tool, an augur, a hole in one of the logs, about six feet
from one corner, the proper height
from the floor for a bedstead, and then another
four or five feet from the corner, in a
corresponding log that formed a right
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angle with the other; then cutting two saplings and
making from them
the one sideboard and the footboard for the bedstead frame, and cutting a good
solid post for the upright and boring two holes in that, and inserting in these
the prepared ends of the two pieces of saplings, the other ends also prepared
being placed in the holes in the walls, and see! the frame of the bedstead was
all up. It had one post. The head board was the log wall, one side was the log
wall, one side and the foot-board were held up by the sapling post, and only a
little more ingenuity was then needful to enable one to stretch a bed cord for
the support of the hay-filled tick or mattress. But if the family had not been
so thoughtful as to bring bed cords, which were in such general use in those
days, then poles were cut and fastened to the side sapling and to the opposite
log. This might require additional use of the augur, a tool next to the axe and
saw in its usefulness. But the luxury of one of these primitive bedsteads, on
one of which the writer of this slept on his first visit to Lake County, was not
always enjoyed. What the pioneers called the "soft" or smooth side, the hewed
side, of a puncheon answered quite well in those days for resting weary limbs.
The ample fire-place, the chimney made of clay and sticks, the sticks split out
with that other needful frontier instrument, a frow, and laid up as children
make cob-houses, the clay between the layers and on the inside spread over thick
and well to keep the wood from taking fire, --
this fire-place furnished a place for cooking, and the blazing logs with hickory
bark furnished some light at night. But more light was often needed. The most
primitive method of obtaining this was, to take an iron tablespoon, fill the
bowl nearly
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full with some of the fat
from the fried meat, insert the handle of the
spoon between the log's among "the chinks" of the wall, lay a piece of cotton
cloth in the fat, and light the end, and thus light was obtained by means of
which, when visitors were present, some families took supper. But others used
candles, having brought the molds with them, by means of which with candle
wicking they made first-class tallow candles. But a more rapid way of making
candles, and affording a pretty sight in a winter evening, was the quite common
way of dipping. Small wooden rods were easily made, and on these the wicks were
placed cut the right length for a candle, having about six on each rod. The
tallow, melted and quite hot, was in a large, deep vessel, and into this the
women and girls dipped the wicks that were on the rods. At each dip the wick
took on a coating of tallow and time was allowed for it to cool between the
dips. When the melted tallow became too shallow to cover all the wick hot water
was poured in to fill up the vessel, the melted tallow rising to the surface.
Thus the process was continued till the full sized candle was formed. In this
way, before the oil wells were dug or kerosene known our pioneer women made
candles. And a good many dozen could thus be made in one evening. An American
home needs fire by day and light at night, and with these were the pioneer homes
provided. There was much sewing and knitting to be done in the long winter
evenings. No machines to work with then. There were books to be read, and
sometimes papers, for many of these families were far
from being ignorant; and
it seems remarkable now, looking back from
our bright kerosene and electric lights, into those
homes of sixty-five and sixty years
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ago, how much was accomplished by what would now be called the dim light of
those "tallow-dips." The writer of this, a pioneer child once, remembers well
when giving in his youth, to a small but cultivated audience, one of his
earliest public addresses, and being then closely confined to his manuscript,
how on one side of him stood "Deacon Luce" and on the other "Deacon Cushing,"
each holding in his hand a candlestick with a tallow candle to shed light upon
the written page. (It was a different kind of light that went forth that night
from that written
page.) A picture of that room, the young reader, the audience, and the candle
bearers, would be amusing now. There was no humor about the reality then. Those
two noble, Christian men have gone, and the pioneer days have gone; but to a few
gray-haired men and women now, Ossian's words may be true, that the memory of
days that have passed is like the music of Caryl, pleasant but mournful to the
soul.
Home life is an important part of true life, and so we have looked into those
early homes to see that warmth and light and industry and thrift were there. The
light of love was surely there. The cards and spinning wheels and the scissors
and needles in expert hands, are doing their proper work, and the boys have
bullets to mold and whip lashes to braid and axe handles to make. There is
employment for all.
It is now 1837; and wild as is all this region still, there are families
scattered over it who are to build up civilized institutions and civil and
religious life. The smoke that now goes up into the sky, curling above the tree
tops on a clear, frosty morning, is no longer from
Indian wigwams and hunting parties
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alone, but from the
cabins of white men, mainly, who with their women and children have come "to
possess the land." Social life has commenced. With social life, the families
becoming acquainted and neighborhoods forming, school life also begins. Some of
the earliest schools were held in the homes; but log school houses were soon
erected, having the stick and clay chimneys, large fire-places, and windows
without glass. The public school system of Indiana
was quite in its infancy then, but persons were
appointed by the State to examine teachers. These examinations were private or
might be so. There was no law to the contrary. One could be examined alone
whenever or wherever he could find the examiner. Each examiner asked his own
questions and these were not generally many or difficult. The examinations were
short. One half hour was time enough. The public money paid to the teachers was
correspondingly small in amount. Sometimes one dollar, sometimes two for each
week, the teachers boarding in the different families free
from expense. This feature
of the teacher's life had its advantages and pleasures, and also its
inconveniences. It insured an acquaintanceship between the teacher and the
parents of the pupils, and was probably some help in the matter of school
government. The inconveniences need not be named.*
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*One young teacher had an experience of more than inconvenience. Perhaps it was
her first school. The time came to board a few days with a certain family. She
went home with the children to the house. The dog was cross, but the children
kept him off. When bed-time came the woman of the house, a widow, the mother of
the children, showed the teacher to a little room well enough furnished and not
specially lacking in neatness; but before leaving she very unwisely said to the
teacher that no one had slept in that room since her husband died there with the
smallpox. It did not matter, so far as the imagination of that young girl was
concerned, that months had passed since then, or that the room, which was
somewhat probable, had been fumigated, washed, cleansed. She begged to be
allowed to stay somewhere else, to lodge with the children, anywhere other than
there. But no. There she must lodge. The door was closed upon her. That teacher
said she prayed all night. Prayer kept reason on its throne. But it was a night
of terror. She did not return to that house again. She has daughters now
teachers in our schools. They have no such experiences.
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There were in these earliest schools some well educated and accomplished
teachers. There are no more thoroughly educated teachers now than were some of
them. Yet many of them, probably, had not received much special training. Those
thoroughly educated did not teach long. They were required in other lines of
activity.
Connected with the early schools was a part of the social life of those pioneer
years. The young people felt the need of society of some kind, and those of some
intellectual and literary aspirations sought this in the spelling schools held
evenings at their school houses, other exercises besides spelling being
introduced. And then literary societies were formed, the exercises helping to
educate the ambitious; the going to and from these
gatherings, sometimes on horseback, sometimes in sleighs, giving to all the
influences of social intercourse, leading to the forming of acquaintances and of
friendships, some of them proving to be life-long.
In these early days there were two varieties of people among the comparatively
few inhabitants, as
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nearly always in every community there will be, those of strong, abiding
religious principles, and those caring more for pleasure and for the enjoyments
of the present. Of this latter some, from the very
first, so soon as social life may be said to have commenced, sought their social
enjoyments in little dancing parties, whenever there were homes in which they
could meet. For literary exercises and intellectual enjoyments they had not much
relish.
The families of the other variety of settlers, who came
from eastern homes of culture and of church life, whose children did not
attend these little dancing parties, commenced religious meetings, organized
Sunday schools, and gave opportunities to all for attending to the higher and
grander interests of humanity. Thus among the earliest of the pioneers the
foundations were laid for the schools, the literary life, the intelligence, and
the church life of the present.
Those early religious gatherings were quite different
from most of the staid church life of the present. An appointment was
made for preaching at some dwelling house or school house, and at the time
appointed a true pioneer community gathered. Some came on foot, some on
horseback, some with ox teams, their styles of dress various, and if in the
summer time not only the children but some of the men barefooted, their dogs
coming with them, yet, all, the dogs excepted, giving an earnest attention to
the services. There was no organ and no choir, but some one would lead in the
singing, and, as books of the same kind were scarce, the hymns were often
"lined," and a variety of voices would join in the singing. If there was not so
much harmony or melody in the singing then as now, there was probably quite as
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much real devotion. There were, too, among these
pioneers some accomplished singers, and when a few of these met, as occasionally
they did, there was rich music, harmony, melody, devotion.
The pioneer preachers, as a rule, were well instructed men, men who were not
brought up in the "back-woods." And they were devoted to their duties and to the
interests of the people. The names of some of them will be found in other
chapters.
The singing schools were another interesting and characteristic feature of those
early days. As social gatherings they were very enjoyable, and some of the
teachers of vocal music in Porter and Lake counties, as Mr. Beach, of Beebe's
Grove, and W. H. McNutt, of Yellow Head, and Professor Tyson, of Boston, were
accomplished masters of their art.
Among the social gatherings were conspicuous also the Fourth of July
celebrations, quite different from the observances
of these days.
Let us look now, for a few moments, more minutely at the everyday life of these
settlers. After erecting their cabins the first great work was, to make rails.
They needed to become rail-splitters so as to build fences. It took no little
work and hard work to open up a farm, even on the prairies, much more in the
woodlands and in the heavy timber. It required more than ten thousand rails to
put a good fence around a quarter of a section of land, one hundred and sixty
acres. All the early fences were what is called the Virginia or worm fence, two
lengths for each rod. The cost of splitting rails in 1840 was fifty cents for a
hundred.
The first plowing, called "breaking," which was turning over the prairie sod,
required a large plow
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and a heavy team. Six or even eight yoke of oxen were
used, and such a team was called in the language of the pioneers, a breaking
team, and the large plow with its wooden mold-board and sharp coulter was a
breaking plow, used only for "breaking up" prairie. The furrows were wide --
eighteen or twenty inches -- and the green sward of the prairie turned over
smoothly and beautifully. When the time came for the second and third plowings
of this fertile land, it was found that the soil would stick to the moldboards
of all their plows, which rendered the next turning over of the furrow
difficult. The earth was crowded out from
its place the width of the plow, but was not fairly
turned over. The farmers longed for a plow that, in their language, would
"scour."
The following reminiscence was given by a writer in a secular paper soon after
the death of David Bradley, founder of the great agricultural manufacturing
company located somewhat recently near Kankakee, Illinois. The writer says:
"While visiting Jack Spitler's famous farm in Newton County,
Indiana, he witnessed the trial of a Bradley plow.
It was represented that the new fangled implement would scour, and the trial
drew a crowd from miles around. Much to the
delight of the farmers present the plow did the work as represented, and they
imagined that the zenith of agricultural implement invention had been reached.
"Up to this time," the writer adds, "no manufacturer had succeeded in making a
plow that would scour in heavy black or clay soil." The year of this trial is
not given, but it was not far, probably, from
1848. The farmers then had no idea of the improvements that would be made in
agricultural implements in the coming fifty years. In those early
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days, before 1850, the plowmen largely were obliged to
stop every little while and clean off the earth sticking on the mold-board,
either with the heel or, better, with a little paddle which they carried along
with them. And when they began to hold plows that would throw all the black soil
off and remain bright and clean it is no wonder they were delighted.
While this home work of fence building and breaking was going on, some of the
men were busy building dams, and erecting saw mills and then grist mills. They
imitated the already extinct beaver in making dams, but
from them they had not learned skill, for many times these man-made dams
would give way. But the mills were very useful, very needful. Each man took his
grain to the mill, waiting sometimes many hours for his turn to come, and
receiving at length, if he took wheat, flour and shorts and bran. Every farmer
could then eat bread from grain of his own
raising.
After provision was thus made for the first physical wants, carding mills also
having been erected, blacksmith shops built and furnished with tools and iron,
shoemakers and a few tailors commencing their work, stores having been opened
for both dry goods and groceries, in a few years, for all this pioneer work took
time, attention began to be given to the erection of frame houses, the burning
of brick, and then the erection of church buildings. In Lake County brick kilns
date from 1840, six years after the first few
families built their stick chimneys.
The first church building in La Porte County commenced about 1836; in Porter
about 1842; and in Lake in 1843.
A few words ought to be given to the earliest shel-
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ters for domestic animals erected by the pioneers. The axe was the great tool
before the saw mill could be built, and for the first stables posts were cut,
set upright in the ground, poles were laid upon these, posts with natural
crotches having been selected, and then cross poles or rails laid over all, and
these were covered with green grass or hay. Grass was one thing which the
pioneers had in abundance. For the sides, slanting poles or rails were set up
and covered with hay. These stables were sufficiently warm, but they were dark,
and so not good for the horses' eyes when the sun shone on the snow without.
Before grain was raised to furnish straw the hogs provided their own beds by
gathering leaves in their mouths and placing these in some sheltered nook.
From 1830 to 1835, except in La Porte County and
to some extent in White County, not many families settled in among the Indians.
But from 1835 to 1840 settlements, here and there,
were made over all the region north of the Kankakee River, hundreds of families
coming in and taking up claims before the land sale of 1839. Yet the population
was not large when the census of 1840 was taken.
Steadily along, yet not rapidly, improvements took place
from 1840 to 1845, many German families coming in and some of other
nationalities, seeking homes on new, unbroken land, or buying the improvements
of the true frontier families who were ready to penetrate into the wilds of the
more distant West. Along in these years some private schools were commenced and
several churches were built and frame houses were erected with brick chimneys.
And then the closing portion of pioneer life, from
1845 to 1850 rapidly passed. The railroads were coming; and
from frontier to railroad life the change was very
great.
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On the whole, notwithstanding some privations, this early life was pleasant.
Such freedom from conventionalities, such
hospitality, such equality, such freedom from the
tyranny of fashion, from corruption in civil
government, from millionaire influence, such an
aspect everywhere of true American citizenship, such an abundance of wild game
and of wild fruits free for all, although there was even then some wrong-doing,
it is no wonder that some look almost regretfully back to those good old days.
Pleasant and some thrilling recollections of the wild animals of the early years
belong to those who were pioneer children then. It took these wild animals,
especially the quails and grouse and wolves and deer, so abundant in those days,
some little time to learn that some new occupants were taking possession of
their haunts, and when the wolves would come suddenly, in the day time, into a
field of corn, and the deer would come suddenly upon a settler's cabin, while
the children were delighted, these animals were certainly surprised.
It was for the children a thrilling experience of this rich life, when in the
evening, returning home from some spelling school
or literary society, they heard the sudden, quick, sharp barking of the wolves.
While the pioneer children were not generally timid, two or three wolves could
do enough howling to quicken the flow of their blood and hasten their
foot-steps. Yet it was a sound which some of the New England born children loved
well to hear.
The pioneers sometimes had large "drive" hunts. A good example of these was one
in White County in 1840, in Big Creek Township. The boundaries of the hunting
ground were, on the north, Monon Creek;
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on the east, the Tippecanoe River; on the south, the
Wabash; on the west, the county line. At eight o'clock in the morning the men
and boys started along the outskirts of this large area, with no guns in their
hands, as they were only to scare up the game and send the deer and the wolves,
from grove and
prairie, inward to the center. They were to meet at two o'clock at Reynold's
Grove. There scaffolds had been erected, and on those were the sharp shooters
with rifles and ammunition. As that afternoon hour approached,
from each direction the
startled deer and frightened wolves began to appear, and soon the sharp reports
of the rifles reached the ears of the distant boys and men. On every side of
those elevated stands the deer fell, and when the riders and footmen reached
this central place they collected fifty deer as the result of that day's chase,
and found many dead wolves stretched upon the ground. How many broke the ranks
and escaped no one could accurately tell.
In some of these hunts, when not carefully conducted, most of the enclosed game
would escape.*
The common mode of hunting deer was not what is called driving, but what hunters
called "still hunting" or sometimes called "stalking." No noise was made, no
dogs were used to track them up. But some
__________
*Deer will rush quickly by the excited hunter. I came near being run over, in my
youth, by a large drove of startled deer, as I chanced to be, one day, in their
runway in the West Creek woods. There was no time to count their number, but had
they been crowded together like buffalo they would have trampled the young
hunter under their feet. It was a beautiful and a thrilling sight, as, one after
another, they bounded by, almost within reach of one's very hands. T. H. B.
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times a man would mount a horse from the back of
which he could shoot, and having on the neck of the horse a bell, would start up
a herd of deer and follow them up with his horse and bell as best he could. The
theory was, and a fact it proved to be, that the deer would in a few hours
become so accustomed to the sound of the bell and the sight of the horse that
the hunter could approach near enough to make a sure shot. Then he could strap
the deer on his horse behind him and return to his home.
The time may come, in another generation or two, when no eye-witnesses are
living, that the large numbers of deer which traditions will say were often seen
together, will be counted only as hunter's tales, and not entitled to belief;
but that those beautiful creatures that added so much life to the woodlands and
the prairies were here in large numbers, is now beyond any question. There are
some living who have seen them.
It is a well attested fact that when men were putting on the roof of what for
many years was known as the "Rockwell House," in Crown Point, they saw coming
out from Brown's Point, two miles northward, and
passing across the open prairie to School Grove, one mile southeastward, a herd
of deer, numbering, as well as they could count them, one hundred and eleven.
In 1843 and in 1844 as many as seventy deer, it is claimed, could be seen at one
time on the prairies in Newton and Jasper counties; and Mr. David Nowels, one of
the substantial citizens of Rensselaer, says that he has seen as many as
seventy-five at one time. While not a noted hunter, as his father was, he has
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killed as many as five deer in one day. He is authority
also for the statement that, in those earlier years of pioneer life, good
raccoon skins, black, would bring from
two to three dollars each, and a good, large mink skin
would sell for seven dollars, and a large otter skin would sometimes bring ten
dollars. Muskrat skins were not in so great demand.*
The facts are well attested that others have seen, some of whom are yet living,
from twenty to forty and fifty deer in a single
herd or drove, either quietiy feeding, or in that beautiful and rapid motion
which has given to us the comparison, one "runs like a deer."
Some few noted hunters were among the pioneers, equal, probably, in their
success, to Ossian's "hunters of the deer." One of these was V. Morgan, of
Pulaski County, Jefferson Township. The number of deer that he killed is not
exactly known, but it was estimated at four hundred. The last deer killed in
that township, according to the traditions, were shot in the winter of 1880 and
1881. Of these there were only three or four.
There can be no exaggeration in asserting that some sixty and seventy years ago
there were deer here not only by the hundreds but by the thousands; as there
were the prairie chickens or pinnated grouse here thousands upon thousands, and
wild ducks and wild geese and wild pigeons, surely by the millions.
__________
*Conversation in a visit October 16, 1899.
NAVIGATION OF
NORTHWESTERN INDIANA FROM 1800 TO 1900
FRONT MATTER AND DEDICATION
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION
CHAPTER 1
- GENERAL OUTLINES
CHAPTER 2
- THE INDIANS
CHAPTER 3
- THE EARLY SETTLERS
CHAPTER 4
- WHAT THE EARLY SETTLERS FOUND
CHAPTER 5
- PIONEER LIFE
CHAPTER 6
- COUNTY ORGANIZATIONS
CHAPTER 7
- OUR LAKES AND STREAMS
CHAPTER 8
- LAKE MICHIGAN WATER SHED
CHAPTER 9
- TOWNSHIP AND STATISTICS
CHAPTER
10 - RAILROAD LIFE
CHAPTER
11 - POLITICAL HISTORY
CHAPTER
12 - THE WAR RECORD
CHAPTER
13 - RELIGIOUS HISTORY
CHAPTER
14 - RELIGIOUS HISTORY
CHAPTER
15 - RELIGIOUS HISTORY
CHAPTER
16 - SUNDAY SCHOOLS
CHAPTER
17 - TOWNS AND VILLAGES OF NEWTON AND JASPER
CHAPTER
18 - TOWNS AND VILLAGES OF WHITE, PULASKI AND STARKE
CHAPTER
19 - VILLAGES, TOWNS AND CITIES OF LAKE
CHAPTER
20 - VILLAGES AND TOWNS OF PORTER
CHAPTER
21 - VILLAGES, TOWNS AND CITIES OF LA PORTE
CHAPTER
22 - EARLY TRAVELS
CHAPTER
23 - PUBLIC SCHOOLS
CHAPTER
24 - PRIVATE AND PAROCHIAL SCHOOLS
CHAPTER
25 - LIBRARIES
CHAPTER
26 - OTHER INDUSTRIES
CHAPTER
27 - SOCIAL ORGANIZATIONS
CHAPTER
28 - THE KANKAKEE REGION
CHAPTER
29 - DRAINING MARSHES
CHAPTER
30 - ANIMALS AND PLANTS
CHAPTER
31 - MISCELLANEOUS RECORDS
CHAPTER
32 - COURT HOUSES
CHAPTER
33 - ARCHAEOLOGICAL SPECIMENS
CHAPTER
34 - BIRTH PLACES OF PIONEERS
CHAPTER
35 - McCARTY
CHAPTER
36 - ATTEMPTS TO CHANGE
CHAPTER
37 - ALTITUDES
CHAPTER
38 - MISCELLANEOUS RECORDS
CHAPTER
39 - SOME STATISTICS
CHAPTER
40 - WEATHER RECORD
CONCLUSION
Transcribed by Steven R. Shook, April 2012