Life and times of S. H. West

Contents

.. Page

A Trip to Kansas and Nebraska ..... 51

Trip to the Yosemite Valley ..... 77

Preface

I have no authentic records or traditions of my ancestors that extend back more than three generations. If I could find some definite and reliable scrap of information in regard to some of them, and the times in which they lived, it would be a source of great interest to me. I get the impression that some of my descendants may have the same desire to know something of their forefathers. Therefore I write this book for their special benefit.

I have had a wide and varied experience in life. I have not followed beaten paths in thought or action, but have blazed my own pathway, sometimes in open defiance of public sentiment.

In this book I have tried to present myself just as I am and have been, without polish or style, and make no pretense to either literary or scientific attainments.

It is not my present purpose to place this book on sale, because most of it would be of but little interest to the general reader. But there are some things in it that I desire to place in durable form.

My prophecy in regard to the future of the negro race will be substantially fulfilled and will be a lasting monument to my memory. This book will be better appreciated fifty years hence than at the present time.

The facts in regard to spiritual phenomena as narrated in the appendix are of vast importance to every human being. In time those phenomena and similar ones will be the basis of the religion of the civilized world.

I dedicate this book to my descendants and all lovers of religious liberty and progressive thought.

Simeon Henry West.

The above was written a year ago. Since then the work has grown upon me. It is now evident that as many as one or two hundred people may want to buy the book.

For that reason I will issue a small edition for sale.

Aphorisms

No government can be formed without a surrender of a portion of personal liberty.

Society has a right to protect itself by the enactment of laws in restraint of vicious practices.

Drunkenness is one of the greatest curses of the human race.

No one should have the right to appear in public in a drunken condition.

In some cases pre-natal influences renders a person unable to resist the impulse to drunkenness when in reach of intoxicating liquors.

Absence of opportunity is the best protection for all from evil doing.

We may not be able to reform the habitual drunkard, but it is our highest duty to try to prevent the making of a new crop of drunkards.

But few people are able to resist all kinds of temptations when opportunities are abundant.

Temperance will be promoted by placing intoxicating liquors as far out of reach as possible.

Nature knows no Sabbath, but it is well for man to set apart one day in seven for rest, meditation, recreation and rational enjoyment.

LIFE AND TIMES OF S. H. WEST.

Chapter 1, Family And Early Life

I was born on the 30th day of January, 1827, in a log cabin in Bourbon county, Kentucky, near the road from Paris to North Middletown, six and one-half miles from the former and three and one-half from the latter place. This was in the vicinity of Massy's Mill on Stoner Creek. My father's name was Henry West; he was born in Mason county, Kentucky, on the 15th of February, 1804. His father, Simeon West, was born in Virginia, and his father, John West, was a citizen and probably a native of the same state. My paternal ancestors were of Welsh-English descent. Of their characteristics or acts I know nothing. When I was a child I heard traditions that our family was related to a famous hero in American history, but I have no definite data on that point, and therefore dismiss that branch of the subject with the remark that it is of but little real importance who our ancestors were or what they did, but the main question is what are we, and what have we accomplished?

My father's mother's maiden name was Elizabeth Hopkins. She was of Scotch descent and born and raised in South Carolina. She first married Major Bedell, of the Revolutionary army. After his death she married my grandfather, and they emigrated to Mason county, Kentucky, where they raised a large family of children. Of these Maria died in early life. Lysander raised a family in Kentucky and moved to Indiana, where he died. Simeon lived many years in Kentucky, moved to Tennessee and died there. Thomas H. was among the early settlers of St. Louis, Missouri, where he accumulated a handsome fortune. Henry, my father, lived in Kentucky until 1 85 1 when he emigrated to McLean county, Illinois, where he died September 10, 1885. John spent the most of his life in Kentucky, then moved to Missouri, where he died. Eliza married Jack Fielder and lived and died in Pike county, Missouri. Cynthia married Asa B. Eades and lived and died in Paris, Kentucky. Elizabeth married Thomas Eades, a brother of Asa, lived a long time in Paris and Lexington, Kentucky, and died in Kansas City, Missouri. Caroline married Thomas Stewart ; moved to Rush county, Indiana, where she died.

My grandfather was not old enough to take a part in the Revolutionary war. During his life in Kentucky he acquired a competency in land and negro slaves, but he was addicted to intemperate habits that disrupted his family and caused them all to leave home. My grandmother was one of the noblest of womankind. My father was the last of the family to leave home; he was then fifteen years old. He worked at various things until he was seventeen, when he apprenticed himself for three years to Philip Ament, of Bourbon county, Kentucky, to learn the blacksmith trade, and he learned to be a superior workman. Two or three weeks before his time expired he married Mary Liter, a daughter of Henry and Catharine (Boyer) Liter, of Bourbon county, Kentucky. They were of pure German descent. They raised a large family: Nancy, the oldest, married Abram Giltner, settled near Crawfordsville, Indiana, where she died. My mother, Mary, died near Georgetown, Kentucky, in 1848. Henry lived and died near Crawfordsville Indiana. Joseph lived many years in Kentucky, then moved to Missouri, where he died. Catharine died in early life. Elizabeth married Abram Liter, and lived and died near Jacksonville, Illinois. Eliza married John Taylor, and after his death married Russell West and settled in Champaign county, Illinois, where she died. Lucinda married Daniel Mclntire and died in Bourbon county, Kentucky. Malinda married William Taylor, of Lexington, Kentucky, where she was still living at last accounts. Mathias married a Miss Boone, of Bourbon county, moved to Fleming- county, where he died. Adam married and lived in various places and died somewhere in the Green river country, of Kentucky. Philip A., the youngest, married a Miss Boone and died in Bourbon county, Kentucky.

I do not know that my mother was related in any way to the late L. Z. Leiter, the great merchant of Chicago, but the use of the names Nancy, Mary and Joseph by both families would indicate that they were common family names.

When my father and mother were married he was not yet free, but his boss told him that one boss at a time was enough, and he released him from further service. But even then his condition was not promising, he had a wife to provide for and not a dollar to begin with. By the time he procured a scant outfit he was $300 in debt, but he struggled on bravely and became a very skillful workman. He excelled in making and repairing mill irons, all edge tools, chains, shovels and tongs, and the fine branches of blacksmithing. Yet that trade was not to his taste, and he quit it entirely when about 33 years old, and engaged in farming, stock raising, buying and driving fat stock to the Cincinnati market. In 1840 he bought and moved onto a farm near Georgetown, Scott county, Kentucky. Later on he sold that farm and afterwards bought another within a mile of Georgetown, where my mother died in 1848. In 1 85 1 my father sold out and moved to McLean county, Illinois.

My father and mother were the parents of eight children, as follows : Mary Ann, who married Montgomery Crumbaugh and moved in 1841 to a farm near LeRoy, Illinois, where she died in 186 1. I was the second child and came to Illinois with my father. Catharine E., who married Moses H. Cawby in Kentucky in 1848, and came to McLean county, Illinois, in 1853. Louisa, who married Dr. H. Jackman, of Lancaster, Kentucky, and is now a widow residing at Harrodsio Life and Times of S. H. West.

burg, Kentucky. Lucinda died in Kentucky in 1848. Martha married G. W. Hedrick and now resides in LeRoy, Illinois. John W., who died in 1861 at the age of 25 years, and William M., who died in infancy.

Now to go back to my earliest years will say that one day when I was a small child my father was cleaning out the spring; after dipping out the water he was scraping out the mud when I asked him for a drink, — he told me to go to the house for water. I waited a minute or two and then, with much vehemence, said: "G — d — you give me a drink of water." Then he came out and gave me one of the best whippings of my life and the effect was excellent. Men about the blacksmith shop had amused themselves by teaching me bad words and habits. About the next year after this incident I was passing, with my father, through a piece of woodland containing some fine, large sugar trees. With an inquiring turn of mind I asked him who made these trees? He said they grew out of the ground. Then I asked : "Who made the ground?" He answered: "God made the ground." Then I asked : "Who made God ?" This question, asked in the simplicity of childhood, cannot be answered by the wisdom of all the ages. How little we know. If the wisest man of earth should attempt to trace out the origin of things he could soon be stumped by the simple questions of a child. All believe there is a great Supreme Power, but no mortal or angel can tell the form or attributes of that Power. On this subject we absolutely know nothing.

I gave indications of traveling proclivities at a very early age when I threatened to "take Perry and another nigger and go away off where nobody lived and start a blacksmith shop in a fence corner." Perry was a white boy apprenticed to my father to learn the blacksmith trade.

As I advanced in childhood my first important adventure was an effort to get me started to school. My sister had been going to school for sometime. The morning I was to start the teacher came by our house and my father went along to see that I got to school all right. He and the teacher walked together and my sister and I followed. I had a dread of the school and didn't want to go. I gradually dropped behind and when the teacher, father and sister turned down the lane that led to the school house, I quickly climbed over the fence on the opposite side of the road and made a hasty circuit through the woods and was entirely out of sight before I was missed. I wandered around and got home by rear way before noon. The next day my father stayed right with me until I was landed in the school house.

My next exploit was at Colcord's mill. My father took me with him there to get a grist of flour. We had to wait until the wheat was ground; meantime I was inspecting the machinery and got hold of the lever used in starting and stopping the mill, and raised it until the mill was completely stopped. The miller came rushing around in much excitement, but soon subsided. My next adventure was more exciting; in fact I have never read of anything similar in all history. It was on my first horseback ride. My father was going to Paris on court day and being somewhat proud of his only son and wanting to show me off as a little man, rigged up old Fan, a gentle mare, with bridle, blanket and circingle to hold the blanket on, and then put me on. I made the trip to town in good style, but on the return trip, when about half way home, my father and a neighbor got some distance ahead of me. Suddenly old Fan started up in a brisk trot ; I could not check her gait, my head became dizzy and I knew I would soon fall unless something was done right quick, and I did it. Old Fan was in a path on a bank on the side of the road, and leaning out over the path was a long curved fence stake, and just as we passed under the stake I cast anchor overhead by grasping the stake with both hands, and old Fan went on, leaving me suspended in the air. I called to father to halt and take me down, and was soon landed in safety. If I should live a thousand years, I could never forget the sensations I felt while casting anchor. Absurd as the act may look, I cannot now, after the lapse of more than seventy years, see how I could have done better.

After I got started to school I liked my school work very well, but the school facilities were very limited. My first teacher gave me one lick, the only whipping I ever got in school, and I didn't deserve that and never forgave him.

After I got old enough to work, my schooling consisted of about six weeks in the winter and about the same in the summer, until I was about sixteen years old, when my school days ended. When at the best age for learning, some financial reverses made it necessary for me to devote my time to farm work instead of school work. And while I have since then absorbed a fund of information on various subjects, I have always felt the need of a good education. In my boyhood days I had less opportunities than did any of my associates, as all their fathers owned slaves. But the whirl of time brings great changes in the affairs of men. The most brilliant of my associates went, in early life, down to a drunkard's grave. So far as I know I have been more successful in the affairs of life than any of my boyhood associates.

For many years I was the victim of a strange freak of nature. While gifted with a strong will power and unlimited moral courage, yet I suffered from a kind of timidity that I cannot explain. This was so evident that no teacher ever required me to write a composition or make a declamation, and after I was grown I could not make a speech of ten words to ten men under any circumstances or conditions. This weakness caused me great embarassment and continued with me until I was more than forty years old, when I made a supreme effort to overcome that defect, and succeeded. Since then I have not hesitated to address any assembly, when necessary or proper to do so.

From and after fifteen years of age I did a man's work on the farm, including the very hard work of hemp raising. At seventeen I helped a neighbor in his harvest and hay work, making a hand with four big, strong negro men, for which I received fifty cents per day. I didn't get ahead very fast at that rate, but I learned habits of economy that have been of great benefit to me ever since.

At that time our plows had wooden mouldboards. We laid off and crossed our corn ground with a plow, and dropped the corn by hand and covered it with hoes. Five hands and a team could plant eight acres in a day. Our grain was cut with grain cradles. I have seen some cut with hand sickles. The grain was all tramped out by horses or beaten out by hand with flails. Hay was cut with scythes, spread with wooden forks and gathered with forks and hand rakes. In the springtime, cornstalks were cut with hoes and gathered by hand. Scoop shovels were unknown. All shucked corn was handled by hand. This work was very wearing on the fingers. The corn was also shelled by hand, a cob being the only machine used. The first threshing machine I ever saw was when I was about twenty years old. It was called the "ground hog," from the fact that it was set flat on the ground when in operation. It had no separator, but the grain and straw all came out together at the tail of the machine, where a man had to stand with a hand rake and rake the straw from the grain. This required almost perpetual motion. A neighbor of ours employed this machine to thresh his wheat, and he also called on me to help. On arriving on the scene of action I was requested to work the rake at the tail of the machine. I complied with the request. The wheat was badly rusted, was quite weedy and had not been stacked, but had stood for some time in the shock. It was one of the hottest days in August. Under all these conditions I stood all day, facing the tail of that machine, raking the straw from the wheat. It was enough to have killed a mule, but I am still alive — sixty years after taking. On my way home that evening I prayed the strongest prayer of my life, and the burden of that prayer was that I might never see another threshing machine. A few weeks ago I was out to my old farm where my son was threshing with a modern self-feeding, self-weighing and self-straw-stacking threshing machine. Occasionally a young man would get up on top of the machine and sit down under a great sun shade, and pull gently on a small rope to regulate the pitch of the straw stacker. Seeing the ease with which everything was done, and knowing this machine could thresh more in an hour than the old "ground hog" could thresh in a day, I felt that I had been born fifty years too soon. However, it is probable that I enjoy seeing the wonderful improvements of the present day more than do those who never saw the old ways.

At the time of my birth the population of the United States was less than thirteen millions. Today it is eighty millions. There were no railroads, telegraph or modern improvements at that time. We had no free schools ; all schools were made up by subscription. We didn't know what a cooking stove was. When they first began to be used people were afraid of them, thought they were unhealthy. Matches were unknown. When our fire would go out we would have to start it with steel, flint, tow and punk, or go to a neighbor and borrow a chunk of fire. The inventions and improvements made since that time are probably greater than had been made in a thousand years before.

An amusing incident happened when I was about eighteen. Tom Brightwell and Joel Wiggins were old topers, living from one to three miles from my father's place. Tom had a blind horse that fell into a sink-hole near the road a short distance from our house. When he discovered the horse he came and got me to help get him out. By digging down the dirt on one side and shoving it under the horse we gradually raised him until we got him out. Just at that time Joel came along from

DON'T LET HIM SHOOT ME, SIMEON; DON'T LET HIM SHOOT.

town where he had filled up on booze. There was ill-feeling between the men and Joel began abusing Tom, and after quarrelling for some time Joel drew a large, old fashioned horse pistol and leveled it at Tom, who jumped and seized me in his arms and held me in front of him, yelling with all his might : "Don't let him shoot me, Simeon ; don't let him shoot." This was rather an embarrassing position for me to occupy, and I promptly tore myself loose from his fond embrace, and told him that I would not act as a breast-work for him. Tom then manifested a very mild temper, and Joel's war spirit subsided and he rode off, greatly to the relief of Tom.

A more important event occurred about a year afterward. A man, whom I will call Tandy Jackson, living in the suburbs of Georgetown, had rented a farm adjoining my father's farm. He was a teamster and owned a number of horses. He kept a family of disreputable, low down people on the rented place. His relations with this family ruined the happiness of his own home. His horses were breechy. He would never repair his part of the division fence between us. My father was away from home much of the time and the management of the farm devolved mostly on me. Jackson's horses were breaking into our place nearly every day. I kept our part of the fence in good repair and often requested Jackson to fix his fences and keep his horses out. He never made any effort to do so. The condition grew from bad to worse until forbearance ceased to be a virtue. One morning I went out and found eight or ten of Jackson's horses on our premises. I took a gun and shot four of them before breakfast, and it was only a fairly good morning for horses. Only one of them died, which my father paid for without contest or litigation. They got in once or twice afterward, then ceased their depredations forevermore. The disreputables threatened to kill me. One of the wounded horses belonged to the woman of the house. For shooting him I received the hearty thanks of Jackson's wife. My act was unlawful, hot-headed and impetuous, but the result was better and less expensive than litigation, as litigation goes. I would inculcate the highest respect for the law and the courts, but the delays, aggravation and cost of legal proceedings as now conducted, amounts, in many cases, to a mockery of justice. The dilatory actions of the courts and lawyers are responsible for most of the lynchings in this country.

I was nineteen years old when the Mexican war began. There is always much excitement and allurement about war. The most inspiring music I ever heard is the simple music of the fife and drum; and yet I did not go to the war, because I was much needed at home. My mother was opposed to my going. I have a physical defect that would have excluded me from the military service, and the higher instincts of my nature were opposed to war. I have no desire to kill a human being. With pleasure I look forward to the time when mankind will be evoluted above the plane of war. It may take long ages to bring this condition, but it will surely come.

I had a natural fondness for travel. Geography was my favorite study, and to this day I delight to read of new places.

The first political contest that I took an interest in was in 1844, between Clay and Polk. I became intensely absorbed in that contest. Henry Clay was my political idol. I can never have another, nor can I get over the disappointment of his defeat. However, my mature reason teaches me that his election would only have deferred the inevitable. Texas would have been kept out of the Union for a time, but annexation would have come later on, and with it the Mexican war.

In my boyhood days it was my greatest pleasure to hear the flow of eloquence from Kentucky's great orators. It was the custom at that time for opposing candidates for office to hold joint discussions during the campaign. From the time I was fifteen years old those discussions afforded me more delight than anything else that came in my reach. This was strange, as my father cared nothing for such things and never attended that kind of meetings. When about sixteen years old the great religious debate between Alexander Campbell and N. L. Rice, a noted Presbyterian preacher, was held in Lexington, Kentucky. Henry Clay presided as moderator at that debate. I had a great desire to attend, at least one day, this great contest of intellectual giants. My father was absent from home, but I obtained the consent of my mother and went one day, and enjoyed one of the treats of my life. We lived twelve miles from Lexington. I went alone and saw no one that day with whom I was acquainted. And thus it has been with me through life. Many things that I enjoy most are of no concern to my associates, and many things that they enjoy are distasteful to me. Among the noted orators I heard in those days were John C. Breckenridge, Thos. F. Marshall, Robert Wickliffe, Jr., John J. Crittenden, Ben Hardin, and many others. Col. Richard M. Johnson, the hero of the Thames, and slayer of Tecumseh, and ex- Vice-President of the United States, lived in the same county that I did. I often saw him in town on court days.

He was a noble looking man, whom I always venerated, but he could not make a speech. John C. Breckenridge was one of nature's finest samples of handiwork. He was of magnificent, commanding presence, splendid intellect, a great orator, and a model man. Except for the slavery troubles he would have been President of the United States. Thos. F. Marshall was the most fluent orator I ever heard, but he was of unsteady habits and uncertain politics, and consequently never attained the standing that his great talents would have insured him had he been reliable. He frequently made political speeches for the pleasure of speaking. His home was in Versailles, in an adjoining county. During the campaign of 1848 between Cass and Taylor, Marshall came over to Georgetown one court day and made one of the most eloquent speeches I ever heard. He had an immense audience, composed of men of all parties, because every- —2 body liked to hear him. He first took up General Cass, the Democratic candidate, and eulogized him to the highest degree. Then he took up General Taylor, the Whig candidate, and exhausted the finest words in the English language in praise of the old hero, and finally said that Taylor had but one fault, that was that he was stoop shouldered, but he said his friends could overlook that, and his enemies never saw his back. Then he said : "Gentlemen, you have heard my speech, and I will give any man a ten dollar hat that can tell who I am going to vote for." If Tom Marshall could have controlled himself and used his great talents for useful purposes, he would have made a big mark in life.

Another noted man at that time was Cassius M. Clay, whom I never saw, but admired him on account of his wonderful bravery. He was a man of ability and great will power, but very eccentric, and always in trouble with someone. His heroic efforts contributed largely to the emancipation of the negro race.

James G. Blaine, the great statesman, was a professor in the Western Military Institute at Georgetown, Kentucky, when I was about grown. That school was about one mile from my father's house. Thornton F. Johnson was the proprietor of the military school. He also ran a female institute. Among the teachers in the latter was Miss Stanwood, from Maine. It was here that Blaine first met, and afterwards married her. He bore the title of Major in that school.

In 1849 a convention was called in Kentucky to make a new constitution for the State. At that time the slavery question was of the greatest importance. The contest for delegates turned largely on that question. An emancipation ticket was put in the field, that was for emancipation and colonization of the negroes. In the county in which I lived there were three candidates for delegates to the convention : Gen. Wm. Johnson, who represented the radical pro-slavery democracy; Lucien Dickerson, an able young lawyer, who represented the conservative Democrats, and Evan Stevenson, a Methodist preacher, who was the emancipation candidate. The excitement ran high. The feeling engendered by an emancipation campaign in a slave state before the war can only be understood by persons who were on the ground. Scott county, in which I lived, was the summer home of many wealthy cotton and sugar planters of the South. They wielded a strong influence in the county. To be an emancipationist under such conditions was almost an invitation to social ostracism. I was raised a Whig, and cast my first presidential vote for General Taylor. On the slavery question I was in favor of emancipation, and that, too, right there in the hot-bed of slavery, and I didn't care who knew it. A few weeks before the election two young ladies, daughters of a wealthy slave owner, came over to visit my sisters. While there one of them asked me how I was going to vote. I told her I would vote for Stevenson. She threw up her hands in great disgust, and, in a sneering manner, said if I voted that ticket she would be forever done with me. I replied in effect, that I would regret to incur her displeasure, but would vote my sentiments though the heavens should fall. Her sister seemed to choke, then cleared her throat, and with much feeling said to me: "I think you are terribly wrong, but I glory in your spunk."