The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1884-08-12
oLD Denies IN INpIANA.
"reminiscences OF the, Southern Part OF the
state SIXTY Years. Ago.

"Reminiscences OF the Southern Part OF the.
Seatei SIXTY Years. Ago.
Louisville cburier-J Journal, saturday.
At the old settlers meeting at Charlestown,
DR.. n. Field, who delivered the opening address,
said Things were NOT like they used to be- Now
people drink too much whisky chew too much
tobacco live fast and die fast, and consequently
the allotted life Of three score years and ten is
very seldom reached The coming. generation
could not tell Of the struggles of pioneer life,
but rather Of the elegance in which they were
reared The pioneers are leaving behind them
an indolent and extravagant generation. who will
plunge themselves and their country into ruin to-
crafty their pride We see this in our own day,
said the DocfeT-men failing who have not lost
a dollar hy ere or misfortune They simply fail
because they are not honest. The Doctor adj
vised young men to keep away from the cities
and to stay On q farm, if they have one, as the
cities were modern Sodoms
Dr. Jacob Brlner, of Utica, said be had been
in this State SIXTY. eight years, and visited New
Albany when there were only seven cabins there.
The first brick house put up there was by Mr..
Paxton, a Frenchman. Corn was worth 10 cents a
bushef potatoes 10 and 12eents, and other articles
in the same ratio. recolleet when the ladies'
would raise the fax, brake it, swingle it, hackle
it, spin it, and warp 1t. They had no carriages
then; only jolt wagons They had dugouts to
cross the creeks or rivers in. They were sin1ply
trees cut down and dug out remember the
close Of thewar, in 1872 whom my father went
out on a short tour. We used to get letters from
Green county, Tenn Ii took them from two to
four months TO reach rs We paid % cents post
age. They used to beat all their meal They
would cut down beech tree and burn ont a.
bowl in II and beat all their meal or hominy.
The school houses had hoop pole roofs, puneheon
floors, and claph0ard doors. The teacher hardly
knew bis A p as, and never could work further
in arithmetic than the rule of three, and the
teacher generally did not know the difference be
tween spelling book and grammar:
Rev. T. S. Brooks said he lived in this county
seventy one years We could not go to school
only in the winter time we had to work. got
most of my education from q man named Kill
gour who went to Congress afterwards. We
had the old Webster Spelling book and the New
Testament We had funny kinds of spelling
and pronunciation in those days. We pro-
orth-o- graphy, democracy dem .ocrazy, astrono-
mical astr0no Enieal. He was born in Ken
tpeky, but he liked Indiana the best. Why last
Monday they had an election there and killed
more men than they elected don't Like such
chivalrY as that
The reverend gentleman did up the latter
statement so brilliantly that the audience thought
Kilgour must have been a wonderfully good edu-
Gator In the way Of telling campaign lies as only
FIVE men were killed IN Kentucky at the last
election,
DR.. N Field said that when General Clark oe
cupied Corn island he built q block house there
and the families he left there raised the first
corn that ever was raised in Kentucky, and that
was the way it got the name He had seen the
first regiment raised in Kentucky to 60 fight the
Indians of the Northwest. They went across
the river at Shippingport, and went out into the
Territories by the way Of Bald Knobs Ship
pingport was as important place then as Louis
vile is There were great many keel boats
there These beatmen used to fight a great
deal They did not use pistols and knives
They used to fight with their fists, and afterit
was over they would make up and be friends
again. Louis and James Tafascon owned the
from that point In those days we had no
small currency, but we used to cut the Spanish
nriled dollars into halves quarters and small
fractions. We had no currency Of our own
Sometimes we would cheat in cutting these
theyffepfesented