234                         HISTORY OF CLAY COUNTY


and mothers who are now in their graves. For several weeks past the
weather and my health have been such that I could not meet with you,
but tonight I am truly thankful to God that the circumstances are so
favorable as to enable me to be with you. To gather from past recollec-
tion the things which will interest and profit you, requires a clear, cool
and calm head, and I can hope to meet your expectations only partially
in this respect. Several weeks ago I recited to you some of our surround-
ings and trials in opening up the virgin soil and impressing it with the
hand of improvement, and the benefits which you now realize and enjoy
as the fruits of our labors. I promised to tell you something about the
rise and progress of civil society here from the beginning of our local
history. When the county was organized I was but a boy, but I can
remember it well. Harrison township then covered the whole south end
of the county. James H. Downing, a Kentuckian, was the first justice of
the peace, and my father, John Cooprider, the first constable. True, we
had not much use for these officers just at that time, though they were a
necessity by the law. Though this was then a wilderness, yet the face of
the country was inviting. To give you correct ideas of the subsequent
necessity for officers of the law, I must go back to the time of my intro-
duction of the first hogs. My father went over to the Wabash and
bought some of Fisher R. Bennett. Soon after this a Mr. Brock, from
Kentucky, located near the site of the reservoir and brought hogs with
him. Eel river bottom produced luxuriantly a plant called “ramps,”
something like garlic, the bulb as large as plums, some as large as eggs,
and on this plant hogs fattened—they not only fattened but they multi-
plied bountifully until the supply exceeded the demand. Droves of them
were brought in from the surrounding settlements to live and fatten on
ramp. Soon the country was overrun by hogs. The report of ‘pork and
plenty’ on Eel river brought in the needy, the doless and the adventurer
from a distance—Kentucky and other sections—to slay and eat. For a
time things moved along in this way without trouble, but after a while
the ramp was eaten out and the hogs had to be looked after. But during
this time many were killed just as the meat was wanted, their heads and
hides left lying in the woods where slaughtered. Pork was then worth
but $1 a hundred, delivered in Terre Haute.
    “Under the law of pioneer times, if a hog was over six months old
and without a mark it became public property. Later, the law required
the mark to be recorded in the county recorder’s office. But many neg-
lected to do this, and then had trouble and expense in prosecuting those
who appropriated their hogs. But I want to impress upon your minds
that the substantial part of the community, those who came here to make
homes and build up the country, were not engaged in foraging the coun-
try in search of hogs regardless of ownership, yet we had to suffer the
reproach, even to the extent of our county’s being called Hog Thief
abroad. At one time I went to Putnam county, stayed all night at Pleasant
Garden, and there, at the hotel, where a number were assembled, on
learning that I was a Clay countian, I was sneered at as a hog thief. I
repeat, the innocent suffered alike with the guilty. Robert Birch and
his son, Billy, and their reputed partnership wife, Jennie, who lived near
Jasonville, came over to Eel river and drove away a bunch of hogs belong-
ing to Uncle Bobby Baber. Baber came over here and filed an affidavit
against them. My father was then justice, in which position he served
fifteen years and David White. Ed White’s father, was constable. The