Sketches of my own times

Contents

CHAPTER ONP:

Page

In the Forest Primeval — The Homestead— The Garden — The Double Log Cabin— The Baptist Monthly Meeting— The Seimon or Discourse and What Followed It i

Chapter Three

The Harvest— The Harvest Dinner— The Stubble-Call— Holidays — Christmas and New Year — The Sang-Hunt — Election Returns — The General Muster — The Seamstress and the Shoemaker — Interstate Commerce — Products and Customs of the South — The Keel and Fiat-Boat — Roads and Highways — The War of the Roses 24

Chapter Four

The Corn Crop — Tlie Show — Expansion of the Frontier — The

Founders of Indiana 42

Chapter Five

School-Days — Senator Albert S.White — His Speech at the Whig Meeting in 1840 — Whig Mass-Meeting at the Battle-ground — College Course — Vacation Work on the Farm — The Mexican War — The Old Town and the New 57

CONTENTS

CHAPTER SIX Pa(;e

The Schoolmaster — ^ Boarding Round — Spelling, Reading, Writing and Ciphering — The Society of Debtor and Creditor — Law Studies — Admission to the Bar — Towns of Indiana in 1849 — A Typical County-Town — The Old Squire — William M. Kenton 74

Chapter Seven

Law Practice — Jury Trial in the Pmbate Court — Albert S. White— Joseph G. Marshall— Rufus A. Lockwood— The Camp-Meeting— Election to the Legislature— The Grand Prairie and the Blue-Stem— The Prairie Fire— The Need- Burn — The Prairie Fire-Brigade 97

Chapter Eight

The Farmer on the Prairie— The Prairie Grove Homestead — Senator Pettit— Mr. Justice Blackford— The General Assembly of 1853 116

Chapter Nine

Service in the General Assembly of 1853— The Bench and Bar of Fifty Years Ago — Law, Latin and Legal Maxims — Joseph A. Wright— John A. Wilstach— George W. Ewing —Albert G. Sloo — Mr. Justice Worden 135

Chapter Ten

I'ulitical Campaign of 1854— Campaign of 1856— Ashbel P. Willard— Democratic Mass-Meeting at the Tippecanoe Battle-Ground — General Lewis Cass of Michigan — The Prophet's Town — Election to the Legislature in 1858— A Contested Senatorial Election — Doctor Graham N. Fitch — Doctor John W. Davis 153

CONTENTS

CHAPTER ELEVEN Page

The Uemocratic State Convention of i860 — Canvass for Lieutenant-Governor with Oliver P. Morton — The War of the Rebellion in 1861 — War Meetings and Measures — Canvass for Congress in 1862 Against Schuyler Colfax 183

Chapter Twelve

The Senatorial Election of 1863 — Senator Lane — Albert S. White — President Lincoln — Chief Justice Taney— Uemocratic State Convention of 1864— Gen. Mahlon D. Manson — Second Race for Congress Against Mr. Colfax — Third Race for Congress Against Colfax, His Success and Subsequent Election to the Vice-Presidency 199

CHAPTER THH'ITEEN

Indiana Statesmen at Washington in 1869-70 — Senator Pratt — Colfax and Morton — Canvass of 1872 — The County of Brown — James S. Hester — Election of Mr. Hendricks to the Governorship. 214

Chapter Fourteen

Election to the Legislature in 1874 — Joseph E. McDonald — Thomas A. Hendricks — Benjamin Harrison — Last Fugitive Slave Case in Indiana — Mr. Justice Davis — Judge Walter Q. Gresham — Campaign of 1876 — Antecedents of the Campaign — Prior Course of Political Debate — Candidacy of Samuel J. Tilden — Gov. James D. Williams 232

Chapter Fifteen

Revision of the Statutes of Indiana, 1879 — James S. Frazer — County and Township Government — Campaign of 1880 — William H. English — William S. Holman — Disappearance of Ancient Customs and Institutions — Exit of the Camp- Meeting and Joint Discussion 251

CONTENTS

CHAPTER SIXTEEN Page

Fourtli of July, 1881 — Assassination of President Garfield — Independence Day at Kentland — The Declaration and Ordinance of 1787— Articles of Compact — The Centennial of 1916 — Rural and City Government — Internal Growth and Development of the State — Campaign of 1886 — The Off Year — Senatorial Election of 1887 — The Dependent Pension Bill 267

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN Canvass of i8g2 — The Stump Speech — Comparison of the

Speech and Press 289

Chapter Eighteen

In the Senate of the United States — Session of 1894 — The ' Nicaragua Canal Bill — The Constitution of the United States 304

Chapter Nineteen

Third Election to the Senate — Governor Claude Matthews — Election of United States Senators by the People — Campaign of 1894 — Daniel W. Voorhees — Campaign of 1896 — Party Schisms— Those of 1848, i860 and 1896 329

Chapter Twenty

In the Senate, 1896-1898 — The Republics of Cuba and Brazil — Foreign Relations — Cushman K. Davis — The European Family Compact — The American Compact — Italy and the Latin Races — Robert Dale Owen — The Doctrine of Monroe 348

CHAPTI'.R TWENTY-ONE

Campaign of 1898 — Ancient Worthies of the Hustings in Indiana — Tilghman A. Howard— His Career and Character 378

SKETCHES

OF MY OWN TIMES

Chapter One In The Forest Primeval The Homestead The

GARDEN THE DOUBLE LOG CABIN THE BAPTIST

MONTHLY MEETING THE SERMON OR DISCOURSE

AND WHAT FOLLOWED IT

The recollections of my boyhood all gather round a log cabin which stood in the early thirties on the south bank of a small stream. This branch ran west from our place for about two miles, to a point where it entered into Sugar Creek — whence the waters of both flowed together until they fell into the Wabash River on its eastern side, a short distance below the old town of Americus. The cabin had been completed but a few days when we moved into it, and was built upon a tract purchased by my father, at the public land-office in Crawfordsville some years before. Our new dwellingwas made of rough logs, laid up in the bark, and covered with clapboards. These clapboards, well laid, make a better protection against rain and snow than the common shingles, which were used, at that time, very little in the country. The clapboards were riven from

I oak blocks with the frow, and shaven smooth on the upper side with the drawing-knife.

The floors were made of puncheons — large slabs of hard wood, three feet wide, three or four inches thick, with a length of five or six feet ; these were split from blocks of the proper length and smoothed on the upper side with the adze. The puncheons did not rest on the ground, but on pieces of timber called stringers or sleepers, which were scjuared, leveled on the upper side, and joined into the lower logs of the house a little above the surface. The floor of the loft or atticstory of the main house was of sawed plank, closely joined together at the edges. The doors and windows were fitted into their places in the wooden walls more neatly than one would now suppose it could be done with such materials. The cracks between the logs and around the frames of the different openings were chinked, that is, filled with small pieces of wood fastened with wedges or nails, and then carefully plastered with clay until the crevices were closed.

The chimney and fireplace were prominent features and were of large dimensions. A man might enter the chimney from the hearth with slight stooping. The hearth and the bottom of the fireplace were of beaten clay tamped down heavily with the maul. The front of the fireplace was ten feet wide, the back six feet; the fore-stick and backlog of the winter fire were of corresponding size and length. The chimney was built of split laths and clay-plaster, both specially prepared for the purpose. Our chimney was designed and built by an artist, then called a chimneywitch, one quite noted in the settlement, who had made it his study from long experience to determine just how the flue should be framed and shaped so as to draw all the smoke upward and yet allow the heat to be thrown forward into the room. It was not every one who could make a good cat-and-day chimney, so called for the reason that in the first settlement of the country, the down or fuzz of the cattail flag was used in mixing the clay mortar with which it was plastered, both inside and out.

It was surprising how these primitive structures withstood the action of fire. I remember seeing, from time to time, the charred remains of log cabins, destroyed by the flames, among the ruins of which stood erect the cat-and-clay chimney.

Our cabin was divided on the ground floor by a close wooden partition, in which a door was hung, opening into a bed-room, lighted by a window in the west. The east end of the building was occupied by a large apartment called the sitting-room, that had a back and front door nearly opposite each other ; it contained the mantel and cliimney, and was lighted by a front window in the south. The loft or upper story was low ; a man might stand erect in the middle of it, but at the sides not without stooping. It was divided by a partition like the room below. In the west end was the spare bed and guest-room. In the east end of the loft the boys of the family slept. Our dormitory had a small window in it near the southeast corner, which we named Wake iip, because when the first light of the dawn appeared there, we were called and it was time to rise.

The kitchen was a lean-to, on the back or north side of the house at the west end. with a door in its east side and a window opposite. It was built, roofed, and floored like the cabin, but the story was lower. The kitchen-hearth and chimney were large and wide. The bright tin reflector for baking, the spit for roasting, the iron crane with its accompaniment of kettles, and the spider constituted the furniture of the kitchen, and although its utensils were not so numerous as at present they were well adapted to their several uses. We often spent a winter evening in the kitchen, and were amused with the concert of the crickets on the hearth. Their notes were clear and cheerful, not loud, — we listened to hear them. This fireside music gave a very quiet and homelike presence to the scene. ■ But the stove, the range, the furnace, and the register have long ago banished the romance of the hearth, and these minstrels of the ingle-nook have since disappeared from our homes.

The well was in the L or angle made by the house and kitchen, some distance from either. It had been dug and curbed before the house was built, my father being determined to have the certainty of a good supply of water before other improvements were made. The water was excellent, and was drawn by means of a sweep. The bucket was of oak, iron-bound but not moss-covered. My mother was well a-cquainted with the pretty stanzas of Woodworth's concerning the "scenes of my childhood." Nevertheless the bucket was scoured and kept scrupulously clean. She said that although the moss-covered bucket might be a very picturesque idea in a poem, yet in the plain prose life we were leading it was better to have the bucket without the covering.

Our house stood upon the shoulder of a bluff or small hill, which rose perhaps twenty feet above the level of the waters in the creek, and sloped down gently toward the north to the edge of the stream. Toward the east the hill ran down a short way to a little hollow or ravine, and just across this hollow were the stable and other out-buildings of the farm. The house and barn-lot being inclosed by separate fences, stood apart and left an open lane down to the creek or branch, as we called it, by which the horses and cattle went for water. About forty acres of the land had been cleared and made ready for the plow, but the dwelling and other buildings were not within the line of the main clearing ; it was better to have a lane between the small inclosures of the house and barn and the larger fields.

Although there was no public road of any kind running by the house, yet it was easily accessible from the east or w^est ; the branch made its approach from the north more difficult. The high woods in which we lived were open, singularly free from brush and undergrowth ; you could ride on horseback or drive a wagon in almost any direction without meeting any obstruction except the trees. A fallen trunk might here and there stop the way ; sometimes this was chopped in two, and the ends thrown apart so as to allow a team to pass between them, but oftener we drove around the log rather than cut it.

Our house-yard and garden contained about an acre, which was inclosed by rough split pickets or palings. The garden was soon plowed, harrowed and planted with the ordinary vegetables. Their growth in this virgin soil was rapid and luxuriant, especially that of the vines. These had been planted by way of precaution close to the western boundary of the garden. They ran riot toward the latter part of the season ; they climbed over the fence, spread away beyond it, and cucumbers, gourds and squashes hung upon the palings outside. Besides the vines and vegetables, my mother had a bed in the garden, prepared under her own eye, which she called the health-plot. Here were found such old-fashioned herbs as sage, mint, rue, cummin, lavender, anise, thyme and basil — each in its own row. The more hardy herbs, the hoarhound, catnip, tansy and horseradish, were banished to the fence corners. The earth was not disturbed at all near the cabin. Nothing grew around the house except the grass, which was kept short by tlie scythe. The house-lot being cleared of weeds and brambles was soon covered by a turf of bluegrass, which seemed indigenous to the soil.

There were no flowers in the garden. The ready bloomers, such as the sunflower, the ragged sailor, atid the hollyhocks were planted round the well, not too close to it, where they grew tall, flowered profusely, and in summer made a gaily colored screen for the curb and the iron-bound bucket. The choice flowers were planted in a bed made in the front yard. Here grew pansies, pinks, marigolds, four-o'clocks, touch-me-nots, the larkspur, with the blood-red poppy and the peony. It is not likely that many of these old plants and flowers may be found in our modern gardens or conservatories, but they may all be found in Shakespeare, Milton or Isaac Walton. They are Anglo-Saxon classics. They have now become exotics, not of another clime, but of a former age. Yet their very names are redolent of the mother-tongue, and since they were strangers in the new place where we settled, they deserve the courtesy of mention.

I was acquainted, several years ago, with a gentleman of wealth and leisure who had undertaken the project of making a Shakespeare park or garden, which should contain growing specimens of all the trees, plants, shrubs and flowers, mentioned in the works of the poet. But he found, upon consideration, that the poet's plant-zone was too extensive and varied to be reproduced in our climate. He then determined to compile an herbarium after the same design. When I saw this, the last time, it had reached the compass of three volumes. Each page of the book held one specimen, a mounted flower or leaf. Above it was the name, below was a copy of the line or verse, in which the name appeared, with a reference to the act and scene of the drama in which it occurred. The volumes were elegantly bound, numbered and lettered "Beauties of Shakespeare."

Our cabin with its lawn and garden, in the familiar patois of the country-side, was a riglit likely place. We learned to like it very much. There were, however, in the settlement several better places than ours — others not so good. In those days the cabin of the settler was sometimes built in the woods, with the trees standing all round it, uninclosed ; the melon and truckpatch were in the rear, protected by a brush fence.

Then again you might find another cabin in the corner of a field, thus inclosed but kept otherwise without much attention to its surroundings, weeds and brambles growing close up to the doors and windows, and in the outside corners of the cat-and-clay chimney. Sometimes the cabin stood in the middle of the field; and the owner would tell you that he had placed it there because he wanted to live close to his work. The cornrows ran up nearly to the house, and in the late summer entirely concealed it from view; the foot-traveler might pass the place many times without seeing it, and if he wished to reach the house he must find the bars in the fence ; there he would take a well worn path which led through the growing corn to the door. These cabins were exceptional. It is not to be understood, however, that their inmates were in any way disparaged, forlorn or degenerate. They tilled their lands and gathered their crops, like their neighbors, and dealt with them on terms of entire equality. These people of the off-cabins were poor neither in spirit nor in goods. To use the phrase of that time, they kept a good house, lived in clover, and cared nothing for trifles. Their external appearance and surroundings were merely the effect of careless and contented indifference, and betokened rather the abundance of subsistence and resources than the lack of either.

There were several double log cabins in our neighborhood. One of these was the home of a Kentuckian, a man of some means, who had sold his possessions in his native state, bought a large tract of land in our country, and had been living on it some years. His double cabin was built of hewn timber, the yard around it was filled with choice shrubs and fruit trees brought from the old settlements over the river, by which words he always described the country of his former home. The sides and ends of his house were bordered all round by a broad strip of sand and gravel. This kept the house dry and afforded no nesting for the numerous insects, winged and wingless, which in warm weather were troublesome. The gates and fences of the house-lot were of plank, its walks were well laid out and covered with gravel. He lived near Sugar Creek, sometimes called Big Sugar, and made good use of its long-accumulated deposits. The space between the two cabins in such a house was known as the entry, and was wide and roomy. The entry in this house was roofed with clapboards, and its floor was of clay and gravel beaten down hard and smooth. It was open at both ends; you could stand or sit in it, in the lO SKETCHES OF MY OWN TIMES

hottest day of summer, and yet feel a cool and refreshing draft of air in its shade.

The owner of this mansion was a typical pioneer, stalwart and wise, full of activity and enterprise, fond of his farm and well skilled in its management. He was withal a religious man, strictly such in precept and practice, and, as he phrased it, of the Baptist persuasion. When the Baptist minister came, as he did once a month, to preach in the neighborhood, the meeting was held at this house, and the double log cabin was a very good place for that purpose. There were at that time no church buildings in the country and we seldom went to town on Sunday. The crowd assembled at the house named at the time appointed, of which notice had been given. The preacher took his place in the middle of the entry ; before him was set a small stand on which lay his Bible and hymn-book. The women were seated in the rooms on one side of the entry, the windows and doors being open, and the men in the same way on the other side. Separate _seaj:ing of the sexes at church was rigidly observed at the time, and indeed for many years afterward, both in town and country. All the children sat together in the entry just in front of the minister, but one or two of the elders sat with them as monitors.

Service began by reading a chapter, followed by prayer. The hymn was then lined out, and a person somewhat acquainted with music led in the singing; the audience joined in with vigor and evident satisfaction. The parts, bass and treble, were carried in the exercise, for the winter singing-school was ah'eady an estabhshed institution and the singing-master a weU known pubhc character. Then came the reading of the text and the sermon, or, as it was more commonly called, the discourse, which lasted always an hour, sometimes longer.

During the whole service there was the utmost decorum, no chatting either aloud or in undertone ; even whispering was regarded such a breach of good manners that it seldom occurred. The discourse was listened to with special interest. The service was plain ; the place where it was held abounded in flowers, but there was no bouquet on the preacher's stand, none on his person, nor were any flowers worn by the hearers. This extreme simplicity in religious exercise was not due to any lack of respect or regard; it was rather due to an excess of reverence for the sacred character of the time and place — an over-anxiety to avoid anything which might even appear to be out of harmony with the propriety of the occasion. Reverence seemed to be a natural trait of the hardy backwoodsmen — it fitted them like a garment and was deeply imprinted upon the hearts and minds of their children.

At the close of the sermon another hymn was sung, followed by a brief prayer and benediction. As soon as meeting broke, to use the vernacular of those days, the people crowded round the minister to exchange greetings ; many also shook hands with their host, thanking him for the opportunity of hearing the

Word, and hoping that the family had not been too much put out by the presence of such a large congregation. The host modestly disclaimed the thanks, said all were more than welcome, and heartily invited them to come again. As the people went homeward they talked by the way about the meeting, the singing, but chiefly about the discourse, which usually became the theme of conversation in the neighborhood for many days afterward.

It may be said they had nothing else to talk about — but this is error. They had the paper from the East with its column of news from Washington and of Foreign Intelligence. They had the county paper, the Delphi Oracle, named from a famous Greek original, with its local items and home articles ; they had grave c|uestions of early state policy, and always some election pending, for the sessions of the legislature were annual, not biennial as now. There was no scarcity of other topics for conversation. This predominance of religious subjects in the ordinary social intercourse of those days was due to that abundance of the heart spoken of long ago. R.eligion had a real place in the daily walk and actual conduct of men. The Vine and the branches took a strong hold of life and bore fruitful clusters of Eschol in the wilderness.

Chapter Two Life In The Backwoods Seventy Years Ago The

WINDFALL MAKE-BELIEFS WILD FRUIT AND

FLOWERS THE HIGH WOODS THE HOME SCHOOL

THE GRIST-MILL

Boy-life on the farm seventy years ago was very free and joyons. Even the work was Hke play while it lasted. After breakfast in the planting season, those who were old enough took their hoes, and went in pairs to the cornfield. One walked before and made a sort of bed in the plowed furrow for the corn-hill, the other dropped the seed-grain and covered it. The work of planting and tending was all done by hand with the hoe. Shovel-plows and cultivators, machinery of a later date, were unknown, and the stumps and roots in the new ground were too numerous, strong and tough, to allow their use. Corn was sometimes planted so close to the stump of a tree that it was hard to get enough earth to cover it, yet the hill grew as thriftily as others. The genial sun wrought wonders in that fertile soil. We always had three, sometimes four, stalks of corn in a hill ; they grew rank and tall, each bearing two, and sometimes three or four, full ears.

After the corn-crop was laid by for the season we had a long vacation. Just across the creek, north of the cabin, there was a windfall, a space of two or three acres, which some ancient hurricane had, many years before, swept over and cleared of trees as com-- pletely as if the ax had felled them. Their huge trunks, torn up by the roots, lay tossed and crossed on the ground just as they had fallen. A few young trees of the second growth had sprung up here and there, but there were many places in the windfall, quite open, covered with a thick turf of grass. This was the playground. A great deal of our time was spent along the banks of the creek, and we never tired of playing in its waters. We built stepping-stones across it so that other memljers of the household could pass over dryshod; as for ourselves, we went barefoot during the warm weather, and ruefully greeted the latter days of November, when we became unwilling martyrs to shoes and stockings.

Long excursions were made up and down the creek, and more than once we undertook a special journey of discovery. It was well known to us that our branch emptied into Sugar Creek about two miles to the westward; we wanted very much to see this place. We started on an expedition to this point, but some strange sight or sound in the dense high woods turned us homeward. We were very glad as we came back to get near enough to catch a glimpse of the open sky over the clearing and the white top of our landing-post. The journey to our new home had been made partly by steamer and partly by wagon. We made believe that the steamer might run up the Wabash to the mouth of Sugar Creek, and then come up the branch past our place. We had set in the earth near the stepping .stones a post made from a young linden tree, stripped of its bark, as white as if it were painted, so that the boat might be tied up and stop a while at our landing. These make-beliefs of childhood constitute the elementary groundwork of all the fiction in the world, both in respect to readers and authors ; and although often wild and improbable, they are never irrational upon the facts supposed. So the writer of the novel or romance, though he is well entitled to traverse the whole realm of fable, must yet confine his story within the bounds of reason, as applied to the circumstances of his chosen theme and characters, else his labor is vain. His work will be disregarded, not because it is untrue in fact but because it is false to the assumed conditions. False fiction is detected more readily than false argument. The faculties of taste are less difficult of exercise than those of the understanding.

We spent part of the day in summer gathering wild fruits for the table. In the open spaces, like the windfall, they abounded. Raspberries, blackberries, dewberries and plums were fine fruit ; the season closed with papaws in the late autumn. Every day also we gathered wild flowers and took them home. The flora of that early time was rich and varied. A bright scarlet lily was found in the shallow waters, and among the banks and braes of Little Sugar we had discovered two or three places where the lady's-sHppers grew, the yellow-golden and the purple-white moccasin flower. I can see them yet, dancing in the wind on their graceful stems; these were great favorites. My mother always gave them the place of honor, the center of the mantel-piece. Although she decorated this room with cut flowers, changed from day to day, there was a more permanent decoration for the fireplace. The mantel-piece was a broad slab of wood fastened high up on the wall above the hearth, and was colored deep blue with a dye of indigo. On this mantel were placed two earthen crocks, filled with mellow mold in which were planted seeds of the morning-glory ; the vines ran downward, covering the fireplace with leaves and blossoms. They were in the light, but always in the shade so that the blooms remained open all day and made a curtain dotted with red, white and blue.

My mother had a theory that the flowers growing upon vines were more vivid in their hue, when the vine ran downward ; that more of the plant-strength thus went into the bloom, since none of it was needed in climbing. We had often noticed a wild Virginia creeper in the edge of the clearing, that had climbed thirty or forty feet to the first branch of a tree, and then stopping as though tired with the labor, it had turned and run downward, hanging from the limb. Its clusters of blossom were larger than usual and were richly colored ; they looked from a distance like some kind of beautiful fruit.

This flowery curtain in front of the fireplace lasted all summer, and far into the fall. But on a frosty morning late in the season, when the boys came down from the loft, they were surprised to see a fire lighted at the hearth ; the curtain of many colors had been rolled up like a scroll and thrown into the rear of the chimney to be consumed in the burning; at the same time we could read upon a slip of paper pinned to the wall these words : "The flower thereof falleth, and the grace of the fashion of it perisheth."