Posted on: Randolph Co. Indiana Biographies
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Surname: Cox, Keys, Pickett, Shultz, Brumfield, Turner, Peacock
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Jericho Friends
Randolph County, Indiana
Continued War Years
Surnames in this are: Cox, Keys, Pickett, Shultz, Brumfield, Turner, Peacock
The names starred are those certainly at Jericho at one time or another.
Perhaps there
were other lists at other periods during the operation of the draft. A
man, whose name
was drawn for military service and who did not go because of conscientious
objections,
was required to pay $200.00 or a levy was made for that amount on any property
that he
may have had, The human side, involving concern for the welfare of the
boys away
at war, was not the only facet of war influence. Help was scarce. Prices
of all things were
high and quality was poor, even as in the case of more recent wars with
which the present
day reader is familiar. Daniel Keys states that brown muslin cost 75ç per
yard, calico
45 cents per yard, coffee 65 cents per pound and sugar 30 cents per pound.
Land
values also soared, and men of the Community and County speculated freely
in land to
their sorrow during the panic of seventy-three. It is likely that Land
values, up to the time
of the war, had not averaged much more than ten dollars per acre. Benjamin
P. Keys
bought forty acres of land in 1846 for $150.00. Daniel Keys states that
a good milk
cow was worth ten dollars in that year; wheat sold for 31.5C per bushel
and that the land
Benjamin Keys bought at almost $4.00 per acre was considered by the neighbors
to have
been overpriced. Aside from the coming of the railroad in 1852, very little
happened to
raise prices till the war came.
During the war, William Pickett sold land to Elias Cox in S19 R15E for
$30.00
per acre. Peter M. Shultz bought his land, S29 R1SE, for $40.00 per acre.
Jesse
Brumfield paid William Turner only $22.50 for land in the same section
in the year 1865.
A record of price paid during the war was required because of stamp taxes,
which were
paid. Prices as high as $75.00 per acre are recorded.
Help was a serious problem to the farming community that had depended greatly
on
manual labor for all farming operations. Machinery was largely unknown.
Daniel Keys
states:
"Farmers, during the war, could not hire much help to work on the farm.
The
surplus men were in the battle fields instead of in the wheat fields. Consequently,
we had
to join together to save our crops."
Money was more plentiful than it had been at any time before the war. As
a result
of war, inflation of the currency, and of little Government regulation
as we have known
in recent wars, this money was spent for things which folks of the neighborhood
would
have considered luxuries before the war. This tendency was noticeable in
housing.
It was during the war years and immediately afterward that a great many
of the old, tall,
high-ceilinged, brick houses with their mansard roofs were built. Many
of these still stand
today. In the year 1868, Daniel Keys engaged in the making of brick. That
year he made
300,000 brick; the next year he made 400,000; and one year he made as many
as 600,000.
He states he built a brick house for Amos Peacock in the year 1871, which
is no longer
standing. The third Jericho Meeting-house (the present brick) was built
during the war
years, as described later.