Jay County IN Archives History - Books .....Chapter XIX 1896
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Book Title: Reminiscences Of Adams, Jay And Randolph Counties

CHAPTER XIX.

    Curtis H. Clark was born in Preble County, Ohio, February 10th, 1828. I was
then small and can't remember very much about my few first years of life. My
father and mother were Kentuckians and emigrated to Ohio on account of slavery,
and being religiously opposed to the system, although Grandfather Clark was the
owner of slaves. At the time of the great Caine Ridge revival he did not get
religion enough to emanicipate them and that did not suit my father, and he
emigrated to the then wilds of Ohio, and in a few years enlisted in Gen. Wm. H.
Harrison's army, or in other words, in the war of 1812, and served almost two
years. Was at the battle of Tippecanoe and at the battle of the Thames, but did
not claim the honor of killing Tecumsia. After; the war he settled in Preble
County, Ohio, and was married to Lucy Hardy. I can't give the date, but think it
was in 1816. In the course of time to them was born seven children; two died and
the other five lived to become men and women. I was the sixth child and next to
the yougesnt. We had very poor facilities for schooling, even in Ohio, at that
time. The school house in our district was a round log cabin about 20x20 feet,
and we had but three months school each year, and we lived two miles and a
quarter from the school house, and the district was full of scholars. Some days
there would be as many as twenty full grown young men and as many girls, and
that gave us little fellows a poor chance. But it is astonishing how one can
remember things so long ago. It is now sixty-two years since that school, and I
can tell the names of the scholars and things that happened then better than I
can what happened at Liber when I was thirty. I remember on the Christmas of
1834 the big boys was going to make the master, as we called him, treat to the
apple cider and ginger cakes or they would duck him in the creek near by.
Christmas came and with it all the big boys and girls, and it was very cold and
the creek was frozen over solid. Everything went well, until near noon a big
fellow by the name of Ned Felton, stepped up to the master and handed him the
written demand, and if not complied with the result. He was determined he would
not treat. At a given signal the big boys closed in on him and carried him to
the creek, cut the ice and asked him if he would comply with the terms. He says,
"no; I will drown first." Four boys, one at each leg and arm, gently let him in
the cold water. It took the third imersion before he agreed to comply with the
terms. I remember most all the names of the actors in this case and if I was
called into court to-day I could give better evidence on that than on many
things that have happened in the last few years. I write this to show how
vividly things may be engraven on the young mind. Another thing, I remember the
first funeral I ever was at. It was in harvest and mother was going and asked me
to go with her. I remember having my forebodings, but I went. After the
preaching they took the corpse out in the yard for the last view. When it came
our turn, mother took me by the hand and I can never forget the sight. They did
not embalm them days and this woman had passed into a bad state of
decomposition; the smell was unbearable. There were two women with a big brush
on each side of the coffin keeping the flies off. I asked my mother as we went
home if everybody had to die and smell. Many other things I might mention that
might be interesting to some, but I will now leave my Ohio home and go to Indiana.

    My father owned a small piece of land consisting of 65 acres, which he sold
for $800, $400 down and balance in one and two years' time. After paying all his
debts he had enough left to enter 160 acres of congress land, as we then called
it. He first went up to the Tegarden settlement, in Dark County, Ohio, but not
liking the looks of things as well as he expected, he concluded to go to
Indiana, or the Hawkins settlement, as it was called, on the Little Salamonia.
Here he found land in abundance for entry at $1.25 per acre. He had friends here
who all wanted new neighbors and all had the best land adjoining the best land.
A man had to be on the lookout for dry land at that time. He located on what is
now the James Haynes' place, in what is now Pike Township. He bought out old
Billy Bunch, who had squatted on forty acres and had put up a cabin and a small
stable; had cleared five acres and planted it in corn. This improvement he sold
to father for $50, so that he now could but enter only 120 acres, instead of
160, as expected, but he had the house and stable to go into and. corn and
fodder to winter our horse and cows, with the assistance of the browse from
trees we felled for said purpose. He now returned home and the preparations
commenced to move to Indiana, a great place in our estimation. The 1st of
November, 1835, we were ready to move; we had killed our hogs and every thing
now being ready it was a. great day for us children. Father had hired two
four-horse and one two-horse teams to move us. (We had but one horse.) These men
were regular teamsters and wagons as large as a canal boat with the
old-fashioned Pennsylvania beds. A man could walk upright under the cover. They
made it a business hauling goods to and from Eaton and Richmond to Cincinnati
the year around. We loaded our goods in these three large wagons and moved at
daylight, Thursday morning. By agreement Mr. Wilkinson was to meet us at Eaton
with another large wagon drawn by three horses, moving his son, C. C. Wilkinson,
to the same settlement, which consisted almost entirely of Preble County people;
Hawkins being first, in 1829, then George Bickle, George Hardy, Eli Longnecker,
Henry Welch, Ben Goldsmith, Wm. Isenhart and., John S. Mays those that made the
settlement for eight miles along the creek when we came. I left our train at
Eaton; we moved on to near New Paris and went in camp for the night. You may
think we had a high old time with those old waggoners, they being used to that
way of living, and we children totally unacquainted, but all went well on the
road. We crossed the Mississimewa at William Simmons and here our roads ended.
It was but a trace, with never but a few wagons along it now. Our train beat all
ever in these parts; two 4-horse, one 3-horse and one 2-horse wagons stretched
out them woods for ten miles -that Sunday morning and not one single house to be
seen on the entire route, but we landed at our home a little before sun-down and
all our friends for miles was there to greet us in our new home. We soon had the
beds out and with the help we had, made things look home-like. Our teamsters
stayed with us that night and the next morning bidding us good bye. We were
ensconed in our new home in the then wilderness. It was very lonesome for a
while, but we got used to it. Father hunted most of the time; he could make more
hunting than at anything else.

He would often kill two or three deers a day, and besides the meat the hides
brought a good price; from 37^4 cents fo 75 cents. We had our smoke house nearly
full of dry deer meat at a time. This was good at all times and ready for use;
the hams, (there was nothing of the meat kind better) after being smoked were
sliced and fried in butter. Our worst trouble was to get milling done, as we
called it. The nearest mill was a little water mill on the Mississinewa, twelve
miles away and only run about three months in the year.

    In April, 1836, Dr. Bosworth moved in and was our nearest neighbor. They
were eastern people and well educated; the great difference in our talk and
conversation almost put a division between us that was insurmountable, but we
all had to have favors; we adopted some of their ways and they adopted some of
ours and we soon became fused, as the saying is, and other Yankees came in and
land of nativity forgotten.

   s In June, 1836, my mother died very suddenly. She had eaten her supper and
lit her pipe, went out on the porch to smoke and took a spell of coughing and
broke a blood vessel and died in five minutes. This was a terrible trial for us
children, for we loved our mother above all others and confided everything in
mother. There had been two funerals in this neighborhood before mother's, John
Hawkins and Uncle George Hardy. They had split blue ash puncheons and made
coffins for them, but now the question was, what will we do? It being very warm
weather, something must be done at once; no planks nearer than Winchester, no
nails nearer than Deerfield, twelve miles away. Dr. Bosworth came to our relief;
he had a new poplar wagon bed he had made to move in, which he offered as the
best he could do. Now the qusetion of tools and nails. The country was gone over
from Obediah Winters to Ben Goldsmith's, a distance of eight miles, and all the
old rusty nails that could be found were donated. Late in the evening the
coffin, or in other words, the box, was done and mother was laid in and then we
took the last sad view of her remains; the top or lid was then put on and nailed
down with the hammer and common nails, then carried by hand half a mile to its
resting place. This was a different funeral from the present. Two years from the
next August, in 1838, father took sick and in two weeks he died. He had
commenced to build a new house and had brought three poplar batten doors for
house. Those they took and made his coffin, in which he was buried. There was a
young man at our house building a saw mill and had nails and screws to make it.
Here I am at the age of 10 without father or mother, thrown on the cold
charities of the world. We broke up house-keeping and went back to Preble County
and staid one year, and I was lonesome, as all the rest of the family were in
Indiana. I had a good place and was well used and hated to leave the old man
that had taken me down there, as he was going to move out to Indiana, and told
him he had brought me there he must take me back. When the old man bid me
goodbye he cried, and so did I. When he got on his horse to start back I had a
great notion to mount on behind again and go back to Jay County, but as it had
got to be, I stayed with C. C. Wilkinson the next winter. I remember going to
mill on horseback; early in April we shelled five bushels of corn and put it in
two sacks, 2 1/2 bushels in each, and in the morning, just at daylight, cold and
frosty, light scum of ice, he put one sack on old Bet and histed me on it; the
other on Rock, and he mounted, to go twelve miles to the mill. It was almost
through the woods and briddle paths, as they were called. We got to the mill a
little before noon; the old miller told us we could get our grinding in two
hours. We got it all right, but it was growing cold and we twelve miles from
home. I was not well clad for the weather and before we got half way home it
began to freeze, and when I got home and was taken off the horse I could neither
stand or walk, I was so near frozen and so hungry. By and by I thawed out and
ate a hearty supper and was all right. In August, 1840, I was bound out to Hiram
Rathbun for seven and a half years, or until I was 21 years old, for the
consideration of $100 and one years schooling, a freedom suit of clothes, to
cost at least $20. I served my time as per contract and was a free man at 21.
Since that time I have had many ups and downs, as most men. I was the fist man
to volunterr for three years in Jay County, in 1861.
                                  CURTIS H. CLARK.


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


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