Lafayette Daily Courier
Saturday, November 12, 1859
OLD SETTLERS
"In compliance with my promise made in a former number, that I would
give you a sketch of the early settlement of Fountain County, I now
proceed to the task, with such data as I have been able to procure.
The most authentic and reliable information I have found on the subject
is contained in an original letter, written by the Black Creek
schoolmaster to his "Cousin Bob," who resided in Wayne county, near
Richmond at the time he received the friendly epistle, which reads thus:
FORKS of COAL CREEK, FOUNTAIN CO., April 3, 1826
Dear Cousin Bob--In my last letter from Crawfordsville, I promised to
give you a description of this region of the country, shortly after our
arrival here. I shall now attempt to redeem my promise, though I
confess there is little to write about here, except the country, which
is in general in a wild, unreclaimed state, just as it came from the
hands of God, and the Indians.
You recollect seeing, while on your visit to our house in Montgomery
county last Spring, how the outside walls of the settlers' cabins were
covered with stretched coon skins, muskrat, and mink skins, and the
eaves of the house were surmounted with buck horns, and other trophies
of the chase. The same can be seen here on a more extended scale, and
as fast as they become dry, the skins are taken down to make room for
more.
We have in this neighborhood a blacksmith named JOHN SIMPSON, a most
excellent man, who is a perfect Nimrod in the hunting line. He kills
more deer and turkies in one week with his old gun "Betty," than your
favorite hunter, PHIN THOMAS would in a month with his Yauger. But it
may be because game is more plenty here than in Montgomery county, where
"PHIN" did his hunting.
It is a heavy timbered country here, and some of the settlers have a few
acres a piece cleared and under cultivation. I want father to move to
the Wea Prairie, on the Wabash River, where he owns prairie lands which
are much the easiest improved; but he thinks the country there entirely
too new to move to, for a year or two to come. I don't see for my part
how it could be much harder to get along any place than it is here; for
after we are through with our day's work--clearing, making rails or
grubbing, we have to put in a good part of our evenings pounding hominy
or turning the hand mill. But it gives us a relish for our hoecake, and
there is no dispepsia amongst us.
It is very thinly settled around the Forks of Coal Creek, and indeed,
throughout this new county of Fountain. I believe I know every family
around us, and as it will take but three or four lines of my letter, I
will give you their names and localities.
East of the forks lives WILLIAM COCHRAN, HIRAM JONES, BEN KEPNER and the
BROWNS. Further up on the south fork of Coal, lives HESTER, Esq.,
MENDENHALL, WADE, PETER EASTWOOD, BALL and GARDENER. Below on the
Forks, in our neighborhood, lives ABNER RUSH, SAMUEL RUSH, JOHN SIMPSON,
JOHN FUGATE, JACOB STRAYER, BOND, WILLIAM ROBE, BARNY RISTINE, EVANS,
and LEONARD LLOYD, a bachelor, who lives in his cabin alone--"Monarch of
all he surveys, and lord of the fowl and the brute"--on his own
premises, at least.
On the south side of the creek there are four families, viz: DEMPSEY,
GLASSCOCK, JOSEPH GLASSCOCK, JOHN BLAIR and PATTON. Down the creek in
another settlement, composed of WHITES, BRYANT, FORBES, METSEKERS, and
a few more families. Up the north for of Coal Creek, in the vicinity of
the Dotyite Mills, lives OSBORN, LOPPE, HELMES, JONATHAN BIRCH, and
SNOW.
There is quite an excitement about the location of the county seat. The
lower end of the county is in favor of Covington; but folks around here
prefer a more central geographical point. The Forks here are near the
geographical center of the county, but the arguments in favor of a
county seat on a navigable river, may prevent our getting it here.
I have found two species of birds here, different from any I ever saw on
White Water--the sand hill crane and parroquet. This new species of
crane is quite different from the common blue crane, being much larger,
and of a sandy, grey color. They go in large flocks like wild geese,
but fly much higher, and their croaking notes can be distinctly heard
when they are so high in the air that they cannot be seen.
Parroquets are beautiful birds, and fly in flocks of from twenty to
fifty in a flight. In size they are some larger than a common quail,
and resemble small parrots, from which they derive their name. When
full grown their plumage is green, except the neck, which is yellow, and
the head is red. The heads of the young ones continue yellow until they
are a year old. When flying, this bird utters a shrill, but cheerful
and pleasant note, and the flash of their golden and green plumage in
the sunlight, has a most bewitching effect upon the beholder, who, for
a moment, deems he is on the verge of a brighter sphere, where the birds
wear richer plumage and utter a sweeter song.
It is with regret that I announce to you the death of our excellent
dog--old Bose (the same Sandford Catterlin and me had the fuss about the
night we cut the coon tree that fell across McCafferty's fence, above
Crawfordsville). His death, which was a violent one, was brought about
in the following manner: A gang of cattle came into the sugar camp, and
commenced drinking water out of the troughs. Bose was sent to drive
them off. Eager, as he always was to do his duty, he seized a large ox
by the nose. The ox ran and jumped over a large log, drawing the dog
over with it, and striking the point of the hoof on one of its fore feet
on the poor dog's side and crushing in his ribs. He lingered a few
hours and died; but we buried him with the honors of war, by the side of
a large log. BYRON's dog, that he thought so much of, and wrote such a
pathetic epitaph upon, was not a better, true dog, than poor old Bose.
I did not get the school I expected, when I wrote to you last. Col.
L--- got it ahead of me." INCOG