Social Development of the County

            The early reputation of the county in regard to its social as well as its physical characteristics greatly retarded the growth of population in the county. There were no railroads, no newspaper until about 1854, and very poor highways, and so long as these characteristics remained prominent, the unsettled portions of other parts of the State secured the larger part of the immigration westward. The tide began to change, however, soon after 1850, and ten years later a new impulse was given to the community here by the removal of many of the hindrances which had been hitherto operative.

            The pioneers of Jasper County came principally from Ohio, Pennsylvania, with a number from Virginia and other Southern States and from New York. Most of these families had been pioneers in older settlements in the States from which they came, or had grown up in frontier colonies, which their fathers had founded, and had been trained in the stern school of experience to meet and conquer the difficulties of a new country. But the problem here, nevertheless, presented difficulties entirely different from those with which their earlier experience had acquainted them. The timber that skirted the margins of the rivers and sent out spurs here and there along the banks of the creeks and marshes, divided the vast open plain of grass and flowers in two great divisions. North of the Iroquois, the deceptive meadow was circumscribed by timber, while on the south the broad expanse of the grand prairie, marked here and there by a stray clump of undersized trees, stretched away toward the south, unbounded save by the horizon, and the pioneer with his little retinue of wagons was lost in this luxuriant wilderness like a convoy of sloops in mid-ocean.

            The first sight of a great prairie is one never to be forgotten. The beholder strains his eyes to take in its extend until the efforts becomes painful, while its beauty and richness foil the powers of expression. It is a new and wonderful revelation. Strange sights and sounds great the senses on every side. The piping note of the prairie squirrel, as he drops from his erect posture and seeks the protection of his hole on the first alarm; the shrill notes of the plover, scattered about in countless numbers, fitfully starting and running over the meadow; the booming of the prairie cook; the mad scream of the crooked-bill curlew as you approach its nest; the distant whoop of the crane; the pump-sounding note of the bittern; the lithe and graceful form of the deer in companies of three to five, lightly bounding over the swells of the prairie; the beautiful harmony of color and rich profusion of flowers –it all seems like a new creation, an earthly paradise.

            Every immigrant supplies his own means of reaching his destined home. The pioneer from Pennsylvania, Ohio, or the Southern States betrayed his nativity and prejudice in the schooner-shape wagon box, the stiff tongue, the hinder wheels double the size of the forward ones, and closely coupled together, the whole drawn by a tem of four or six horses, which were guided by a single line in the hands of a teamster riding the night wheeler. His harness was of gigantic proportion. What between the massive leather breeching, the heavy hames and collar, the immense housing of bear skin upon the hames, the head by iron trace chains, and the ponderous double-tree and whiffle-trees, the poor beasts seemed like humanity in a chain gang, or some terrible monsters that human ingenuity could scarcely fetter securely. The Eastern immigrant, from New York or farther east, was marked as far as his caravan could be seen by a long, coupled, low-boxed, two horse wagon, provided with a seat, from which, with double lines, the driver guided his lightly harnessed pair of horses. There was about each part of the outfit evidences of the close calculation of means to an end, and an air of utility which left no room for doublet as to the purpose of the maker in every part of it.

            The prairie country undoubtedly offered opportunities to the pioneer occupant far superior to those of a timbered country; but the general impression was that only the timber belts could ever be inhabited; the prairie, swept by the fires of summer, and by the piercing blasts of winter, seemed little better than a desert, and for years there was not a cabin in Jasper County built more than one hundred yards from the timber.

            PRIMITIVE SOCIETY. –The pioneer, having selected a site on some prospecting tour, or being attracted to a certain region by the report of friends, came with all his worldly possessions on wagons, and making selection of a farm, chose a site for his cabin, and set at once to built it. Trees were felled, logs of the proper length chopped off and drawn to the chosen site, and willing neighbors for miles about invited to the raising. Rude as these structures were, it needed no little handicraft to rear them, and it was not long before the special ability of each member of the community entailed upon him his special duty on these occasions. The logs, trimmed, saddled and properly assorted were placed in the pen-shape of the cabin; the gable ends were run up with regularity, shortening logs, shaped at the ends to allow for the slope of the roof; on these the long roof-posts, two feet apart, stretched form end to end, served as foundation for the roof, which was made up of clapboards, riven by the froe from bolts of oak, laid in place and held secure by weight-poles, made firm by pegs or stones. Then followed the sawing-out of the door-way, and windows, the chinking of the cracks with pieces of riven timber; the caulking with a mixture of mud and chopped hay; the construction of cat and clay. Hinges were supplied from raw hide, and the wooden latch, reached from the outside by means of an attached leather latch-string passing through a hole in the door, was often the only protection against forcible entrance. Later experiences introduced the use of heavy wooden bars; but the proverbial expression of early hospitality was the hanging-out of the latch-string.

            The interior of the cabin was marked by the same general similarity. In each the wide fire-place shed abroad its genial warmth of hospitality or aided in the preparation of the table’s cheer. The crane, hung with iron pots and kettles, and the Dutch oven, half submerged in coals, were in all cabins the evidence of things not seen, and furnished forth, under the guidance of the deft housewife, a meal which is still sighed for as the grace of a day that is dead. The corn pone, or when so exceptionally fortunate as to be able to use flour, the hop-yeast or salt-rising bread, the chicken-fixings, the game, the fresh, luscious vegetables, are memories that more pretentious days have not dimmed in the hearts of the pioneers. The latter-day inventions of salaratus and baking powder had their prototype in the pearlash, which was prepared by burning the potash, so common then, upon the lid of the bake kettle; the sputtering, greenish flame produced by the process in the meanwhile enforcing upon the childish minds of the household the stern doctrines of the hereafter. The frontier home, as a rule, contained but one room, which served all the domestic and social purposes of the family alike, unchanged. Curtains arranged about the beds suggested the retirement of sleeping apartments, while the cheerful blaze of the fire-place afforded an unstinted glow to the whole establishment.

            The women of those days ate not the bread of idleness. They were indeed the helpmates of father, brother and husband, and nowhere in the world did man prove such an unbalanced, useless machine as the unmarried pioneer in this Western wild. While the man, with masterful energy, conquered the difficulties of a new country and asserted his sovereignty over an unsubdued wilderness, it was woman’s hand that turned its asperities into blessings, and made conquered nature the handmaid of civilization. The surplus product of the frontier farm sufficed to supply a slender stock of tea, coffee, sugar and spices, with an occasional hat for the man and a calico dress for the woman –all else must be derived from the soil. How this was accomplished, the occasional relics of a flax-wheel, brake, spinning-wheel, or loom, suggest. To card and spin, to dye and weave, were accomplishments that all women possessed. Housekeeping was crowded into the smallest possible space, and the preparation of linen, of linen woolsey, and stocking yarn, with their adaptation to the wants of the family, became, to vary catechism, the chief end of woman. About these homely industries gathered all the pride of womanly achievement, the mild dissipations of early society, and the hopes of a future competence; a social foundation, of which the proud structure of this great commonwealth bears eloquent testimony.

            But with all this helpful self-reliance indoors, there was plenty to engage the vigorous activity of the male portion of the family out of doors. The exigencies of the situation allowed no second experiment, and a lifetime success or failure hung upon the efforts of the pioneer. The labor of the farm was carried on under the most discouraging circumstances. The rude agricultural implements and the too often inadequate supply of these, allowed of no economical expenditure of strength, and for years rendered the frontier farmer’s life a hand-to-hand struggle of sheer muscle and physical endurance with the stubborn difficulties of nature. The location of the cabins along the lowlands that formed the margin of the streams exposed the early settlers at their most vulnerable point. During a considerable part of the year, the almost stagnant water of the sluggish streams filled the air with a miasmatic poison that hung in dense fog over stream and grove like a destroying spirit. The difficulty experienced in securing good water often rendered it necessary for the farmers to drink from stagnant pools, frequently blowing off the scum and straining the wigglers from the sickening, almost boiling, fluid through the teeth. That the fever and ague should stalk through the land, a veritable Nemesis, was inevitable under such circumstances, and many a hardy pioneer was cowed and fairly shaken out of the country in the chilly grasp of this grim monster. But having withstood these discouragements and secured a harvest, the greatest disappointment came in the utter lack of markets. After a year of labor, privation and sickness, the moderate crop would hardly bear the expense of getting it to market. How this country was settled and improved under such circumstances can be explained upon none of the settled principles of political economy. Retreat there was none; and that homely phrase, root, hog or die, was borne in upon the pioneer by his daily experience with a benumbing iteration that must have wrought ruin to any class of people of less hardy mental and physical health.

            In a community where the richest were poor and the poor lived abundance, there was no chance for the growth of caste, and familiar for miles around were linked together as one neighborhood by the social customs of the time, which, in the spirit of true democracy, drew the line at moral worth alone. The amusements of a people, taking their character from the natural surroundings of the community, were here chiefly adapted to the masculine taste. Hunting and fishing were always liberally rewarded, while log-cabin raisings, the opening of court with its jury duty, and the Saturday afternoon holiday with its scrub horse-race, its wrestling match, its jumping or quoit-pitching, afforded entertainments that never lost their zest. It was a common remark, however, that a new country furnished an easy berth for men and oxen, but a hard one for women and horses. Outside of visiting and camp-meetings, the diversions in which women participated at that early day were very few; husking and spinning bees, and large weddings, where the larger part of the night was spent in dancing, did not have the frequent occurrence so characteristic of the Easter States, and nothing here seemed to offer any substitute. So long as the community gathered here lacked easy communication with the outside world this state of things continued. There was a market at Chicago at this time, where a fair price could be had for the surplus crop, and the growth of the older settlements further east and south brought the advantages of civilization nearer to these outlying communities, but the lack of roads prevented the early enjoyment of these privileges.

Source: Counties of Warren, Benton, Jasper and Newton, Indiana by F.A. Battey & Co., 1883.