Some recollections of my boyhood

Front matter

sPWW.

Glass Book.

BRANSON L. HARRIS Age 90

II

John Lewis, my mother's father, came from Randolph county, in the state of North Carolina, to the territory of Indiana in the year 1810 and settled in Wayne county, Green township, in the valley of Greens Fork, a little over a half mile south of Williamsburg. He and his family were the first settlers in Green township. I have heard him say that he knew of no white person then living either north or west of him. He and his descendants have lived on the same farm for nearly one hundred years. The nearest neighbor he had, except the Indians, was about six miles from where he had settled. His name was James Martindale, who lived six miles to the southwest. He came in 1809 and bought a good tract of land where the town of Greens Fork is. Forty-one years ago I bought a part of this land and I am yet living on it, and I expect to live here the rest of my life.

Ill

I was born in Wayne county, Indiana, on April 21, 1817. MyTather, whose name was James, came from North Carolina with his father Benjamin Harris and a large family to the territory of Indiana in the year 1807. My father's age at that time was about sixteen. My father, who married Naomi Lewis, first settled three miles farther west on Morgan's creek. In about two or three years he sold out and entered one hundred and sixty acres of land one mile southeast of Williamsburg on the road leading to Richmond. On this land he put up a log cabin and moved into it. After living there eight or nine years father sold his farm and bought another, one mile and a half southwest of Williamsburg on Greens Fork. I was nine years old when he moved here. Father lived on the farm until his death.

IV

I now wish to go back to my earliest recollection and note down some things that I saw and heard. The first thing I will speak of is when I was very young, not more than four years old. I was out in the field with father where he was hoeing corn. As I recollect, it was a cloudy evening. All at once the wolves began to howl. I said, "Daddy, I want to go out in the woods where they are and see them." He said, "No, you can't go! They would kill you and eat you up." When he told me they would kill me and eat me up, this satisfied my curiosity. In those days some persons built wolf traps about six feet square out of small logs or poles. When they got the pen about five or six feet high, it was drawn in like building a stick and clay chimney, leaving a hole at the top, then baited inside with fresh meat. The wolf jumps in at the top. When in, it can't jump out.

Father very often would take his gun and go out hunting early in the morning while the frost was on, and often before nine o'clock he would come in with a deer on his back; or, if he had killed one that was too heavy to carry, he would take a horse and sled and haul it home, then dress and cut it up, and we would have some fresh venison. And often he would send me with pieces of venison to some of our nearest neighbors. Sometimes when he would go hunting he would bring in a turkey or a pheasant or two. At that time there was plenty of wild game. In the winter or early in the spring I have often seen deer in our wheat field eating the green wheat. The bear was not to be seen very often; occasionally some neighbor would kill one.

Father and mother's early home was a plain hewed log cabin one story high, clapboard roof, a door on each side of the house, round poles for joists, one glass window, a plank floor pegged down, loose plank floor overhead, stick and clay chimney, with a pole run across up above the jambs, high enough so it wouldn't catch fire, to hang cooking vessels and kettles on. Mother's cooking vessels were, a pot, an oven, a skillet, an iron teakettle and a johnnycake board. She cooked over and before the fire. The oven and skillet had iron lids. She baked corn pone and loaf in the oven, biscuit and pies in the skillet. She shoveled the fire coals out on the hearth, set the cooking vessels on the coals, put in dough, put on the lid and fire on the lid and baked. She hung the vessels over the fire to boil meat, potatoes, cabbage, and other things. Our food was simple, but wholesome. We drank milk, and spicebrush and sassafras tea. (I have seen tea made of red sycamore chips.) It was a long while before coffee and tea came into use. Every one made his own sugar and molasses in the spring.

VI

The first mill that I recollect of was what was called a "tread-wheel mill." I can tell but very little how it was built. This much I recollect; the machinery was propelled by the weight and the moving forward of the horses. There was a round platform placed a little above ground, some fifty to eighty feet in circumference. The horses were placed upon the platform at a certain place, tied by the halter. When the horses step forward, that sets the platform to moving in its circle. The machinery that does the grinding is attached to that. They only ground corn. I have no recollection of ever seeing but one. The mill was three miles from where father lived, on the road we went when going to see Grandfather Harris. This corn-cracker was on Nolens Fork, three miles east of where we lived.

The first lumber I ever saw was whipsawed, and this was not very common. The way they arranged to do the sawing was as follows : The first thing to do was to build a scaffold by setting four forks in the ground some six feet apart one way, and twelve or fourteen the other way. The forks would have to stand above ground some feet and then two skids were laid across for the log to rest on. The logs that I saw them sawing were five or six feet above ground. The log was hewed square, and when it was put upon the scaffold it required two men at least to do the sawing. One man stands upon the log, the other man stands directly beneath. Then they pulled and pushed the saw up and down. This whipsaw mill was built near-by the tread-wheel mill.

As far back as I can recollect it was quite a task to go to mill to get the wheat and corn ground. There were no mills near that made good flour. There were but few mills in the country. These few were run by water. There were times in the year when the water was very low and they could do but little grinding in a day. They would have to stop grinding until they could gather a head of water. Then they could start up again and grind a short time. A great many persons would hitch to their wagons and take a load of grain to mill for themselves and neighbors, and very frequently there would be so many loads in ahead of them they would have to wait a day or more for their turn to get their grain ground. The distance that some families would have to go to get to mills that had a bolting-cloth and run by water power was from ten to thirty miles. Sometimes it would take two days to go to mill. The two mills that I knew of were Newman's at Richmond, and Goodlander's on Greens Fork, from fifteen to twenty-five miles down the creek. I also knew of one mill that was run by water in the north part of Wayne county that ground wheat and corn. Grinding wheat was very tedious and tiresome. The bolting frame had to be turned by hand with a crank like a grindstone or a coffee mill. When I got large enough to go to mill father would put a bushel and a half in a sack and throw it across a horse's back. Then I would get on the sack and ride to the mill. I would stand on a box to be high enough to reach the crank so I could turn the bolting cloth.

VII

The first school I ever went to was in a small log cabin, clapboard roof, stick and clay chimney. The cabin was on my grandfather's land, not far from where Williamsburg is now. The first book I had to take to school was the "A B C," as we called them, and "a, b, ab's" printed on a piece of paper about three or four inches wide and pasted on a board with a handle made in this shape :

IS

We had no intermission. The schoolmaster kept books from eight o'clock in the morning till half past eleven ; and from one o'clock until four or five o'clock in the evening. The children were seated upon slab benches. I had to go about one mile to school through the woods.

The first three or four schoolhouses that I attended were built of small logs with clapboard roof. The top log at each end of the house was about four feet longer than the other end logs in order to make an eave to the house. They would get a nice little poplar tree or gray ash that would split straight and split it in two, take one-half and put on one side of the house and the other half on the other side of the house on the ends of those logs that projected from the corners of the house and edge them up to keep the clapboards from sliding off, then they would put on a big pole lengthwise on the house. These poles were called ribs. Then put on another end log at each end of the house just long enough to hold the ribs, then slope the ends off so the boards could be put on; and so continue till they got the house ribbed, then the house is ready for roofing. The first course of boards were laid on the top log of the house and the next rib; then they would take a pole, not quite as large as they laid the roof on, and lay on the boards to hold them from sliding or blowing off. They also would have to take two or three short pieces of split timber (called knees) and lay up and down on the boards between the top poles to keep them from sliding or rolling off. They were called weight poles. And so continue laying course after course until the house was completely roofed. They then would chunk and daub the house with clay or mud, build a stick and clay chimney, cut out a log, most commonly on the north side of the house, put little sticks up and down between the logs a few inches apart and paste paper on the sticks, then grease the paper. This was to give light. On the south side was the door. On the right side as you went in was a glass window where the teacher sat with chair and table. There was a large fireplace inside. The floor was made of puncheons. We had slab benches to sit on with no backs to them. In cold weather when our feet got cold we would ask the master to let us go to the fire to warm them.

If any of the scholars misbehaved he would call us up to his seat, question us, and whip us, if he thought we deserved it. If he thought whipping was too severe punishment he would have us sit on the dunce block, or weave "sole leather," and let the scholars laugh at us while we shot the shuttle through under our knees from side to side, as we would raise our bodies by putting our hands on the floor and raising ourselves a little. Then we had to bump, bump, then shoot the shuttle back and bump, bump again until he said, "That will do." All teachers were not guilty of punishing in that way, but I saw it in more than one school. I went to one school where the teacher would punish scholars with a ferrule he had to rule our copybooks. He would take hold of the fingers and straighten out the hand and strike the boy across the palm of the hand, which was a severe punishment. All the masters that I went to until I was fourteen or fifteen years old kept a pretty long switch in the schoolhouse. In some of the schools that I went to the scholars studied out loud. The books used when I went to school were a Primer, Webster's Spelling-Book, the Introduction, or English Reader, and an American Reader, and Adams' Geography. Our writing table was on one side of the house where the paper window was. They bored holes in the logs just below the window, put in wooden pins and placed a broad plank on the pins for a writing desk. Some of the schoolmasters after books was called would let the scholars study their lessons awhile. Then when all had said their lessons, he would say to those who were learning to write: "Come and get your copybooks and go and write." Not more than three lines at a time did he allow them to write. And when they were seated at the writing table he would come and show them how to hold the pen and to shape and make letters, and so forth. We said four lessons every day; two in the forenoon and two in the afternoon. He would say: "Lay down your books and get the spelling lesson." After we had studied the lesson a few minutes he would say: "Put away your books and get ready to spell." We would form in line and he would give out the lesson to us word by word, and we tried to see who could get ahead. When one missed spelling a word the one below spelled the word. He went above him, or as many as missed spelling the word given out by the master. If the word was given out to the one who was at head and was misspelled by every one in the class on down to the foot of the class, and he who stood foot spelled the word right, he, by spelling the word, turned them all down and went up head at once.

We went to the springs for water. At some springs we would dip the water up with a gourd and fill the wooden bucket to carry to the school-house for the scholars to drink. We sometimes, on Christmas, turned out the master to make him treat us to two bushels of apples. If he refused we would carry him to the branch to duck him; but just before we would get to the branch he would say: "Let me down, boys, I will treat." And then he would send for apples, and we would have a holiday feast. In later times the teacher would sometimes treat to licorice and candy.

Spelling-schools in time were common through the country in different neighborhoods. The schools at the different districts would set a time to have a spelling-school, then give out word and invite other schools. We didn't try to see which school could beat spelling. Either two boys or two girls as captains would choose up, taking choice about. When all were chosen we then would spell to see which side would beat. The school teacher would keep order and give out for the scholars to spell. Whenever a scholar missed spelling a word he sat down. When the teacher commenced giving out, the side that got the first choice would be given the first word to spell ; then next to the other side, and so on alternately from side to side; and as one missed spelling a word he sat down until all on both sides were seated.

Some of the young people almost knew by heart the spelling-books or small dictionary commonly used. Frequently we had spelling-schools on Sunday afternoons.

In the early time, when I was a boy, there were but few singing-schools. I recollect of one man teaching singing-school, and I wanted to go but my father objected. He said it was a place for the rowdies to gather and cut up. Father still had Quaker blood flowing in his veins, although he married out of that church. I have heard my grandmother Harris object bitterly to congregational singing in church. My younger brothers took the matter in their own hands and went to singing-school and became good singers. I often regret that I didn't do as my two brothers did. I might have been much more useful in the church than I am.

VIII

At the time father lived on the road southeast of Williamsburg it was known by the name of Johnson's Mill. Many a time when out along the road I have been asked, "How far is it to Johnson's Mill?" by men who were traveling. At that time there were a great many men going west and north to enter land to make homes for themselves and their children. At that day the only way of traveling was to go afoot or on horseback, more especially when exploring a new country. Men who were out looking for land to enter for homes often called at father's to stay over night. Most generally there would be two men together. When they got their horses put away they would come carrying their saddle-bags to the house and throw them under the bed where they were to sleep. That was the only lock and key there was about the house. They carried their silver in their saddle-bags.

IX

The high land seemed to grow all kinds of timber more than the bottom lands along the water courses. We had a great variety, such as yellow poplar, white oak, bur-oak, pin-oak, black oak, gray and blue ash, hickory, black and white walnut, maple, beech, and red oak, wild cherry, sugar-tree, sycamore, buckeye, black gum, and a great variety of undergrowth of various kinds. On the bottom lands the principal growth was sycamore, black walnut, white or hickory elm, some shell-bark hickory, blue ash, some white and bur-oak, and buckeye, and sugar-tree. The woods as a general thing were very thick set with underbrush, such as spicewood, ironwood and hazel bush and other kinds. Now, to keep from getting lost, especially the women and children, the men would have to cut and blaze out a trail, sometimes called a path, through the woods to and from each one of the neighbor's houses as they would go back and forth to borrow from and visit each other. Roads for several years after they were cut out through the woods were in many places very bad in crossing branches, and black, flat, wet land soon became miry so they would have to build corduroys. We would cut poles and logs and split timber and lay the same across the road in many places wherever the ground was low and wet, and sometimes throw some dirt on the logs so it wouldn't be quite so rough to pass over. Sometimes the bridge would be ten or fifteen rods long in marshy ground. It would be some time after a road was opened before the roots and stumps would rot out so we could plow and grade the road. It took a great deal of work to make and keep roads so they could be traveled. It was a long time before the people learned to make turnpikes.

X

My first visit to Indianapolis was made when I was about twelve years old. My father and mother and my younger brother Winston and myself went out to Indianapolis to visit my Uncle Obadiah Harris, my father's brother, who lived two miles west of that town. We went in a two-horse wagon. The road had recently been chopped and grubbed out. West of Knightstown most of the road was very bad. There were a good many places that had become miry. People who were going west had to cut out byroads sometimes for half a mile or more to get around those bad mud holes. So one day Winston and I concluded we would take it afoot along the main road, as the wagon was to go the by-road. We went on and kept looking for them until we became alarmed and scared. Winston commenced crying. We turned back. They became alarmed and halloed for us, but we failed to hear them. Father left mother with the team and came running back to see what had become of us. We met him where he left the road and took the byway. We stayed with the wagon from that on. We camped out one night on the bank of a creek, fed the horses and ate our supper out in the lonely, thick forest, and slept in the wagon during the night. In the morning, as soon as mother could get breakfast, we ate and started on. The big black horseflies were so bad father had to spread quilts over the horses' backs to keep them off. It looked like they would almost eat the horses up. We stopped and fed and ate dinner somewhere between Greenfield and Indianapolis, I can't now tell just where. I recollect very well what I thought. I thought it a very wet, flat country. The land along there don't look to me like it did then. The capital of the state was no great city at that time. The better part of the town was along Washington street, not far this side of the river. There was no bridge at Indianapolis, and we drove north and crossed Fall creek somewhere above the mouth and went up White river to where there was a ford and crossed over and got on the National road again. It was but a short distance to

Uncle Obadiah's after we got on the National road.

My father and his brother had married two sisters, daughters of John Lewis, and the families were always very much attached to each other.

When we drove up in front of Uncle Obadiah's house on the south side of the National road, my mother leaped from the wagon into her sister's arms and all cried with joy. This scene I will never forget.

XI

When father commenced clearing the farm southeast of Williamsburg he, like the rest of his neighbors, had no way to haul anything. People were too poor to own a wagon. They had to make sleds before they could do any hauling of any kind, such as hauling rails to build fences or getting wood for fires in the house.

They made and used what they called rail sleds some ten feet long. They would make boxes something like a wagon bed and put on the sled to gather their corn in, and they would take hickory withes and some straight poles and bind the poles and sled together with the withes in some certain way, so they could load on their hay and wheat and haul it to the barn or stack. I have helped my father haul a good many crops of hay and wheat on the sled with this kind of a rig.

We had what we called log-sleds. They were very low near the hind end of the sled. This sled we used to haul saw logs to the sawmill when there was snow on the ground. We would roll one end of the log on the sled and chain it to the bench of the sled and let the other end drag on the snow. We often put four horses to the sled. In the winter we would in this way haul up great long logs to the house for firewood; then we would have to chop it before and after we got home from school — enough to do day and night. The woodpile stood in the weather; no one thought of a wood-house or of cutting wood except from day to day at the log pile in front of the house.

It was one of the duties of a boy to keep enough wood cut to keep up the fires. Green buckeye logs were the favorite for backlogs, as they would hardly burn at all. Then a big forestick laid on two stones or dogirons and smaller wood between. There are no such fires any more.

As well as I recollect there were no wagons made in this county for some time. My father had a man to make for him the woodwork of a wagon, a crooked-rail bed (they were called Virginia beds) ; the lock was fastened to the bottom rail of the bed. Father sent to Cincinnati for the iron and steel to iron the wagon. The people who moved here from the southern states had crooked-bed wagons. Families who came here from New Jersey and the eastern states had plank box beds most commonly.

I have already told about all I remember about wagons. I do recollect of seeing one of a different make from any that I have already described. I think there were but few of them made and used in this county. A man living west of my father had the one that I saw. I suppose he made it. The wheels were sawed off of a log from two to three feet through — perhaps a black gum. It is very hard to split. They were turned out for the spindle of the axle to go through. Perhaps the wheels were hooped with iron. He worked oxen to the wagon. It was a four-wheel wagon, and quite a clumsy vehicle.

There were no threshing machines of any kind. I can recollect seeing father thresh his wheat on the ground. Before threshing he would take his hoe and scalp off a spot of earth and pack it with his maul and make it as smooth and level as a brickyard. There he would thresh out his wheat with a flail, what little he had. Then he would get two of his neighbors to help him clean the wheat. At that time there were no fans. Then the two men would use a bed sheet, or a piece of woven flax or tow linen, a man at each end of the sheet; then by a quick revolving motion they would create wind enough to separate the chaff from the wheat. The third man, with a half bushel or basket filled with wheat in the chaff, would stand in front of the two men holding the sheet, pouring it out very slowly, while the other two men by the quick revolving motion of the sheet would raise wind enough to separate the chaff from the grain.

XII

In the early days men had log rollings in the fall and winter, and at all odd times would clear the land. When the timber was green they would chop it down with an ax, pile the brush and cut up the bodies of the trees in proper lengths for rolling. Men who had deadenings would in a dry time, especially in the fall of the year, cut or burn down trees. Those that wouldn't burn up as they lay we would "nigger off" with fire, as we usually term it, in proper lengths to pile in log heaps. I was at log rollings from the time of my first recollection every year until I was grown. At the first log rolling I remember I was not large enough to do anything except to carry the water and whisky that they always had in those days. Sometimes they would appoint two men as captains to divide the ground, then the two captains would divide the men by choosing man about, then they would have a race to see which side could beat. I helped the neighbors roll logs from the time I was large enough until after I became a man grown. I helped ten to fifteen days almost every spring or fall. We helped each other till we got done. We kept no account of time. The big heavy logs, those that were too heavy for men to carry, we would roll together, some six or eight or ten or more ; then carry and pile on top as long as you could get them to lie on, making log heaps. When the logs didn't lie up high enough from the ground for the men to get their handspikes under the logs, then they would lay their handspikes on the ground and roll the log on the spikes. Then very often it would take as many men as could stand on each side of the log to lift it and walk with it to the log heap. And occasionally there would be a log too heavy to carry and we would have to lay skids and roll it on the log heap. It took men of nerve and backbone to undergo such heavy work day after day for two or three weeks at a stretch. Yet the most of the people appeared to enjoy it. They were looking ahead for a better time to come in the future.