HISTORY OF CLAY COUNTY                              195

218,516 votes, the next highest number, 171,160, a majority of 47,356.
The party of three representatives of the Tribune, accompanied by other
tourists, left Terre Haute on the 2d day of July, were joined by a similar
party at the State Capital, representing the Indianapolis Star, and set
sail from New York on the 4th, returning on the 19th day of August.
The itinerary of the tour of seven weeks included Ireland, Scotland,
England, France (Paris), Switzerland, Germany, Holland and Belgium.
These representatives of the press were given an absolutely free trip.
Mrs, James was accompanied by her husband, Dr. Oliver James, who
was the consulting physician to the party. Mrs, James was much elated
over her success in the contest and the opportunity of touring Europe,
as it had been with her, from her school girl days, an ardent desire and
in after years an ambition to cross the ocean and visit lands on the other
side, of which this was the realization. While engaged in the contest,
weeks in advance of the closing, from intuition or other cause, she
became so thoroughly imbued with the thought and convinced of her
winning the goal, as to forecast the result to the family.
    Mrs. Eliza Pell, widow of Richard Pell, daughter of George G.
Mckinley, now in the seventy-fifth year of her age, has resided all her
life-time on the farm on which she was born. Her residence is on the
National road, a half mile east of the Harmony crossing, practically on
the site of the first brick house built in the county.
    Of the pioneer women of Clay county and of the state at large, but
few, if any, surpassed in service and experience the record of Mrs. Lydia
Moss, wife of George Moss, Sr. From the time that the family came
to the county, in 1831, she practiced midwifery and treated women and
children for the period of thirty years. Mrs. Moss was supplied with the
medical library of her day and with the approved instruments and appli-
ances then employed in obstetrics. Her field of service covered a large
area of country, extending beyond the borders of the county, at times
as far west as the Wabash and as far east as White river. In diseases
peculiar to her sex she was accepted as authority by both the public and
the profession, and is said to have treated, including cases of obstetrics,
as many as twenty-five hundred. Much of the time, to reach her patients,
she traveled through the unbroken wilderness, the only roads then being
but bridle-paths. Though unattended, she did not fear nor hesitate to
brave the forest by day and by night with her trusty steed and armed
with some convenient weapon of defense. To the howling wolves she
paid but little attention. She rode a fleet Kentucky horse of fine blood,
inured to her service, named “Selam,” which she could mount by a
spring from the ground. Mrs. Lydia Moss was the grandmother of John
C. Moss, of Ashboro, and great-grandmother of Ralph W. Moss, M. C.
    In the month of November, 1908, C. S. York, Brazil, dealer in
musical instruments, put out a prize writing contest in advertisement of
his trade. A $350 Kingsbury piano was offered for the greatest number
of times that the sentence, “C. S. York sells the old reliable Kingsbury
piano,” could be written on one side of a postal card. Contestants were
numerous in this trial of skill. The competition closed, Friday, Novem-
ber 27. Mayor R. L. Shattuck, John G. H. Klingler and N. M. Menden-
hall were the judges and awarding committee. Mrs. Lena Wilson, near
Brazil, was the winner of the piano, who placed this sentence of eight
words on the face of an ordinary postal card 1,716 times. The total
number of words was 13,728, the total number of letters 66,924.