HISTORY OF CLAY COUNTY                      525

us. John Long and Shack Phipps were missing from home the day
after my husband started to Kentucky and were gone about as long as he
was. Many a time did old Mrs. Long tell, when asked where they were,
that she did not know, but that they would come back with $850. This
proved clearly enough to my mind that they followed Shepperd to rob
and kill him. They were a tough gang, always annoying us with their
treachery and deviltry. When they were found out by the officers and
search was made for the goods which they were accused of stealing, all
the hollow trees round about their cabins were found stuffed with cloths,
muslins and other articles of which they had robbed the stores at
Bowling Green and other surrounding towns. I tell you they were a
hard lot. One morning I cut a good hickory club and went down there
to split old Mrs. Long’s head for milking my cow, but she got into
the house and bolted the door before I could reach her. John Long
and Shack Phipps were hanged, but not any too soon.”
    “Mrs. Shepperd, do you know what your age is?”
    “The old family record shows me to be one hundred and two years
old, but I am older, in my one hundred and fifth year, anyhow. That old
record showed us all to be younger than we are. You see, it came about
in this way. My father was opposed to his boys being called out to
muster and did not want them drilled for war, and to keep them at home
he set their ages back far enough to keep them out, and set back the
older girls’ ages to correspond, which was at least three years. Yes, I
am one hundred and five years old.”
    “How is your eye-sight ?“
    “0, I can’t see anything when I have this fever,” placing her hand
on the top of her head, “but when it leaves me I can see a little out of
my left eye. I have not seen out of my right eye for twenty years.
When out milking one morning, the sight went out suddenly and pain-
lessly, never to return.”
    Old and decrepit as was “Aunt Susie Shepperd,” she liked company
and was as free to talk to strangers as to acquaintances.
    She was never better pleased than when in attendance at the “Old
Settlers” meetings. At the annual meeting of the Clay County Society,
at Bowling Green, on the 7th day of September, 1892, the last she
ever attended, a pair of gold spectacles was awarded her as the prize
offered for the oldest woman on the ground, which, however, she could
not utilize as anything more than an ornament and memento.

                Old Men’s Thanksgiving Dinner Party.
    A Thanksgiving dinner was served a party of invited guests—old
men and neighbors—at the hospitable home of farmer Nathan A. Gib-
bons, near Center Point, Thursday, November 24, 1892. The aggregate
age of the party of eight, including the host, was 544 years, the eldest
79 years and the youngest 50 years, average age 68 years. The party
was composed of Martin H. Kennedy, a native of Pittsburg, Pennsyl-
vania, a resident of Clay county, at that time, for more than fifty years,
who operated a saw mill in the early history of the county, and hauled
his best poplar lumber to the Terre Haute market, where he sold it for
fifty cents a hundred; C. W. Moss, a native of Kentucky, coming to
Clay county in his boyhood, was a Mexican soldier, and after his return
home was elected sheriff in 1847 and re-elected in 1849; D. W. Hays,
a native of Ohio, a cooper by trade, came to Clay county while yet a
single man, engaged for a time in saw-milling, and was later proprietor