HISTORY OF CLAY COUNTY                                      17

Pucketts, the Stouts and others. The first of the pioneer weddings
within this territory was a double one, at the home of Byrum Combs,
later the Harry Dalgarn place, Rev. Samuel Briley performing the cere-
mony. The couples married were Emery Rodgerson and Sallie Combs,
Edward Combs and Barbara Fry. The Listons and Crists first settled
in Vigo county, coming over into Lewis township in 1837. The father
of Joseph T. Liston and Mrs. Henry W. Crist, who came to the Wabash
country at a very early date, ploughed the first furrow on Ft. Harrison
Prairie. A. J. Baber, who was fifteen years of age when Lewis township
was organized, in his local historical notes, says that the first election of
township officers was held in the open, under the spreading branches of
a large forest tree, on the James Briley, now the Bruce Chambers place,
and that the first political speech in the history of the township was made
under the same tree, by Jesse J. Burton, of Bowling Green, when he
was a candidate for the legislature in 1836. These statements are con-
firmed by the recollections of William L. Buckallew. George Hooker
was the first justice of the peace, and at his home on the Louisville road,
afterward the Osborn and then the Dalgarn place, was established the
first postoffice in the county south of the Lower Bloomington road, at a
date early in the forties. It was known as “Davidson,” and was dis-
continued in 1845, when Hooker quit the farm and moved to Greencastle.
    In the southeast part of the county, between Eel river and the Owen
county line, aside from the earliest settlers already mentioned, who pitched
their primitive habitations upon the Sand Hill and thereabout, were David
Owens, Frank Strader, John Gray, Joseph Griffith, John Brush, Robert
Thorlton,.Warren Blevins, R. A. Ferguson, Jacob Van Trees, Abram
Vanmeter, Ivan Rawley, Jacob Luther, Abner Brothers,, the Phippses,
Lankfords, Hortons, Daltons, Duncans, Whites and Poes. The first
hewed-log house in this territory was built by William Maxwell, at New
Brunswick, and the first frame dwelling, by Joel Owens, in 1853, on what
was later known for many years as the Cook place, two and a half miles
northeast of Clay City. The first orchard was planted by David Owens
on what is now the James Moody place, at Middlebury.
    But little is known historically of the few adventurers, or squatters,
who temporarily inhabited the western part of Washington township, now
Sugar Ridge township, prior to the advent of the Moss family into this
territory, five or six years after the organization of the county. Christian
Kintzley, who came about the same time, locating on the west bank of
Birch Creek, directly west of the present town of Center Point, is said
to have settled on the site previously occupied by one Thomas Little, a
preacher, without either congregation or salary, who, after a temporary
stay, abandoned the location, moving elsewhere. Mention has been made
also, of a forerunner of civilization named Mast and another named Car-
roll, one a hatter, the other a grind-stone cutter, neither of whom found
his occupation sufficiently appreciated and patronized by the then deni-
zens of the jungles of Birch Creek to justify setting up shop along the
course of the stream. But the coming of the Tribbles, Robert and Hiram,
Samuel Steed, Thomas Carrithers, John Huffman, David Lane, George
Grimes, Jacob Bilderback, John Knighton, Ezekiel Jenkins, Martin H.
Kennedy and others of character and industry, having commendable
aspirations and ambitions to gratify in laying the foundations of society
and building for the security and happiness of the succeeding genera-
tion, came upon the scene, intent on converting the wilds into fields of

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