524                     HISTORY OF CLAY COUNTY

Rockingham county, Virginia, over a hundred years ago. My father’s
name was Jacob Fillinger. There were thirteen children in our family—
six brothers and seven sisters—of whom I was the eldest. All are dead,
excepting myself and, possibly, one brother, who, when last heard from,
was in the state of Tennessee. We left Virginia and settled in Kentucky
when I was about twenty-five years of age and before I was married.
The mountain region in Kentucky in which we settled was then a wilder-
ness. We lived for a time in a cabin without door or window. For
three years we lived on venison, bear-meat and cakes baked of pounded
corn. I shot many a bear and deer.”
    “What about your coming to Indiana ?“
    “A good many years after I married Abram Shepperd, in Kentucky,
he sold the farm we had cleared up and made there and came here into
the wilds of Indiana, nearly sixty years ago, to make a new home. A
year after coming here my husband made a trip back to Kentucky, to
get $850 due him on the place he sold. He was gone five months and
I heard nothing from him. I wrote several letters, but could get no
answer. A neighbor said that if I would write a letter and tie on it a
black ribbon it would be sure to bring tidings in return, but it did not.
Spring-time was coming on and a piece of corn ground had to be
cleared. A couple of pioneers said that they would plow and put out the
crop if I could get the ground ready. I wanted to go back to Kentucky
with the family, but they persuaded me not to attempt it. I marked out
a piece of ground supposed to be four acres and went to work on it.
I cut the timber, rolled the logs, piled the brush and burned that four
acres ‘smack smooth’ and ready for the plow—all with my own hands.
I would clear a little spot on the ground from day to day to place my
youngest child, not old enough to take care of himself, and put an older
brother over him to keep off the snakes. I finished it one Saturday
evening, and on Monday morning it was to be plowed. On the interven-
ing Sunday I was surprised by the return of my husband, safe and
sound, with his money. He would not believe that I had cleared that
ground until I proved it to him by the few neighbors we had.”
    “Then you must have been a healthy, robust and able-bodied
woman
    “Yes, my standing weight was one hundred and thirty-five pounds.
I was as sound as a dollar. I knew nothing about being sick. Never
had a doctor to see me but once In fact, with thirteen children in my
father’s family, we never called a doctor but one time. I could wield
the ax, the grubbing-hoe, the scythe and the sickle and hold my own with
any man. For a number of years in clearing up our farm here it was the
rule with us that Abe would cut down the trees and I would trim after
him. I liked’possum, and when the dog barked at night to let us know
that he had one treed, if I couldn’t coax Abe to get up and go out to
help Towser, I would go out myself and help him get his game.”
    When asked if she did not have a personal recollection of the Long-
Phipps-Fox gang of desperadoes who rendezvoused in that neighborhood
and were connected with the murder of Colonel Davenport, near Rock
Island, back in the forties, the details of whose crimes were exposed by
Detective Bonney in a book entitled “Bandits of the Prairie,” the old
lady, as though revived by the inspiration of the memories of former
days, partially straightened up from her recumbency and replied:
    “Yes, indeed, I knew them well. They lived just a little piece below