Jay County IN Archives History - Books .....Chapter V Forty-Four Years Ago 1896 ************************************************ Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://www.usgwarchives.net/in/infiles.htm ************************************************ File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by: Joy Fisher sdgenweb@yahoo.com February 17, 2007, 10:33 pm Book Title: Reminiscences Of Adams, Jay And Randolph Counties CHAPTER V. FORTY-FOUR YEARS AGO TO-DAY! The Great Liber Spring was Discovered by Olney Whipple, Who Now Tells About it, and also Remembers Several Other Things. Many years ago, when but a small boy, I was out in the woods (it was nearly all woods then) digging sand on the hills in and about the old town of Liber, when I accidentally stepped into or upon a very cold, damp place, almost hidden with leaves and rank vegetation, and as it was so far up the side of the hill it caused me to stop and examine the spot. I had no hoe or mattock to dig out the damp leaves and so I used the sang digger, made from a crooked beech limb. I soon saw that I had found a very strong spring of the best water, which had for years, for aught I know, been running under the leaves until it was absorbed by the rich lomy soil of the banks of the Salamonia. Another reason for it not having been discovered before this date was that there was no road near by and owing to the steepness of the hill none but footmen could go up and down it. This happened on the forenoon of the 17th day of June, 1843. At noon I mentioned what I had found and father and I took a hoe and shovel and dug it out. Freed from obstructions the water poured forth in a large stream and made quite a small branch down the hillside. Along in the after part of the summer, after water became an object to many, J. H. Smith, upon his own account, improved the spring by walling it up and enlarging so that many pails of water could be taken out at one time without roiling it up-and it remained the same, gushing forth the pure crystal fluid to quench the burning thirst of him who perchance came that way. Smith carried the water in what he called a neck-yoke, worked out of the part of a buckeye tree, scooped or hollowed out so as to fit the shoulders and come down a little on the back, and then a round notch cut out to admit his neck. This brought the weight square over the shoulders, the ends of the yoke extending; each wav from the center until they came in line with the outside of the arms, and there was a rope then attached with a hook to fasten to the bail of the bucket. This took almost the entire weight off the arms, and a man could carry two pails of water half a mile with comparative ease. The spring in a short time became a noted place for basket dinners and there was many a happy hour whiled away by those who came to see and be seen and have a social and pleasant chat with their neighbors and those that came many times from the older settled parts of our adjoining counties. I believe the first lecture ever delivered on the hill was by Theophilus Wilson to a large crowd of the citizens of Jay, Randolph and Adams Counties. The stand was situated under a sugar tree on the west side of a large sweet oak that had been cut for coon, in the fall of 1835, by Jacob Ringer, who was the pioneer of that patch of cleared land where Isaac N. Taylor erected his "gambol roofed house." I will mention for the benefit of those who may yet be living that this man Ringer built in the spring of 1835 Aeyx-dtogvaoininn [sic] the old cabin that this man Ringer built in the spring of 1835 was occupied by him until some time in 1837, when he "lit out," and no one lived there afterwards except in the winter of 1838, when it was occupied by an old lady by the name of Parsons, the divorced wife of Robert Parsons, of Randolph County. There was but her and her son, Robert, and two daughters, Catherine and Lucinda. The oldest several years afterward married Josiah Penock, as his second wife; Lucinda married Agriffith Jones, also his second wife. The after history of the Penocks and Jones I cannot say. But the old cabin still stood, and in the summer of 1839, Elizabeth Bosworth, daughter of Dr. Jacob Bosworth, taught school in it, and I had the good fortune to be one of her pupils. She, in after years, married Lewis J. Bell and made him a good wife and kind mother. The Bosworth family are all well known to the present as well as the older citizens of Jay County as a highly respectable class of citizens, marked for their morality and temperance proclivites. John H. Smith, whom we mention as having improved the spring, used to impose enormous tasks upon his son, Peter, the only one that was with him, and if the task was not done according to his English idea, Peter had to take a thrashing. He repeated this inhuman brutality so often that Peter became deranged and had an attack of fits that came near taking him across to the other shore. I remember one night that he lay at the house of John Spade. He was so raving and distracted that it took three good men to hold him in bed. I was there and went with William Spade after Dr. Bosworth at night. It was raining and very dark and we had but a cow path to follow, but still we found the way. Dr. Bosworth was very indignant to be called up at that hour of the night and more so when he was told that John Smith wanted him to come and see what he could do for Pete. Dr. Bosworth was conversant with Smith's conduct toward Pete. When we got back Pete was easier, as his physical nature could not hold out against a continuous attack of fits. Smith mentioned that he hardly knew what to do, as he could not trust Pete out in the woods at work as he might fall a tree upon himself. Dr. Bosworth replied, "there has been too many small trees fell on Pete already!" Fortunately for the old man. Pete never had another attack after that night, and in the summer of 1846, George Smith, the younger son of John H., came out from Troy, Ohio, and then things were different. I do not know the exact date that Isaac N. Taylor built the college at Liber, as my father left Jay County on the 17th day of February, 1848, and it was many years before I came back to learn much of the improvement that had gone forward while I was away. Of the Whipples I will speak a word. In 1814 Reuben Whipple, my grandfather, came from the state of Massachusetts -walked to Delaware County, Ohio. My father came with him when he moved, in 1821, and they settled on the west branch of Allen creek. Reuben Whipple built a saw mill in 1822-23 and father, Jason Whipple, walked back to Massachusetts in 1824 and married Eliza Hellett in 1825 or 1826. Father worked in the machine shop and mother worked in the old Blackstone factory at the fall of Blackstone River, R. I. In the fall of 1829 father came west to Delaware County, O., and lived there until August, 1838. We landed in this county August 28, 1838, and sad to say, that there is but one living soul at Portland that was a man when my father came, and that is a man who has been more than any one else identified with the early history of our county and its many varied improvements-Robert Huey. He came as one of the pioneers, and he almost stands alone in the great army of those that came after him. There are but few left to speak of the happy days of childhood or to call to mind the many incidents of our early history-time has gathered nearly all the sheaves. Forty-four years more and we will live in history and our records will be weighed by their merits. Pardon me, dear editor, for this short note and I am ever yours. OLNEY WHIPPLE. Additional Comments: Extracted from: Reminiscences of Adams, Jay and Randolph Counties Compiled by Martha C. M. Lynch Ft. Wayne, IN: Lipes, Nelson & Singmaster Circa 1896 File at: http://files.usgwarchives.net/in/jay/history/1896/reminisc/chapterv483gms.txt This file has been created by a form at http://www.genrecords.org/infiles/ File size: 8.0 Kb