548	HISTORY OF CLAY COUNTY

remains to the grave, and that he should be buried in the upright posi-
tion. His triple request was only in part complied with. The body
was given a reclining position, resting at an angle of perhaps forty-five
degrees.	The Things That Were Not Done.

	Articles of association of the Central Road Company were filed at
the December term of commissioners’ court, 1873, proposing the con-
struction of a plank, macadamized, or gravel road from Staunton, by
way of Brazil, to a point one mile east of the town of Harmony. The
capital stock of the company was $16,000, divided into 320 shares of $5o.
	On the 13th of April, 1861, at a meeting held at Center Point, the
“Clay County Plank Road Company” was organized, to build a road from
Bowling Green to Brazil by way of Center Point, on the Rockville-
Bowling Green road to Birch creek crossing, thence to Brazil by the most
practicable route. The capital stock of the company was fixed at $40,000
in shares of $50.
	A year before the building of the present Eel river bridge at Bowling
Green, James P. Thomas gave out that he would build a toll bridge the
following year at the point of his ferry crossing.
Solving a Big Problem in Pioneer Times.
	In pioneer times it was a perplexing problem with the land-holders
who wanted to clear up and cultivate their grounds as to what to do
with the timber. In Van Buren township, among the early “hardy sons
of toil” were two who set about to solve this problem something more
than a half century ago. John C. Weaver, over on the east side of the
township, and Daniel Easter, over near the west side, proceeded to
build saw-mills, the former on Croy’s creek, and the latter on Otter creek.
Then each provided himself with a yoke of cattle, when they were ready
to “crack their whips” and go at the problem with assurance and satis-
faction not only to themselves, but to their fellow-pioneers. They cut
and hauled logs to their mills, gave their cattle a rest while they sawed
them, then hauled the lumber to the Terre Haute market with the same
cattle, making the round trip in two days’ time, by driving twelve hours
a day. Whether they had taken the precaution to place their solution
on paper for occasional reference, does not appear. But as a sequel,
assuming that they encountered as many as ten of the primitive monarchs
of the forest to the acre which would cut from four to five ten-foot logs,
and that they hauled five hundred feet of lumber to the load, applying
three hundred days to the year, they would still be at work on their
first one hundred and sixty acres. From these figures and facts, as an
inkling, the reader may, in a measure, appreciate the immensity of the
problems which confronted his parentage in planting and nurturing the
civilization enjoyed by the present generation. This pair of old-timers
were specimen characters of their day. Weaver is remembered as the
man who always called an eating-house, or lunch-room, a “re-sto’-rant”;
Easter, as the man who gave emphasis and positiveness to his speech by
the accelerated chewing of his quid of tobacco.
Clay County Products Shipped to the Old World.
	The Brazil Daily Times, January 5, 1909, contained the following
paragraph: “Clay county has furnished the old country considerable
material of late. A few weeks ago the Clay Products Company shipped
to Canada a big consignment of conduits to be used in underground