The Richmond palladium and sun-telegram. [volume] (Richmond, Ind.) 1907-1939, 1912-08-19
interesting Narratives of
Deer and Bear Hunts
Heard at Old Settlers Pic
mic Last Saturday.
IRECALL TIME WHEN
v INDIANS WERE HERE
.James Martindale Was Play
mate with Indian Boys and
Learned to Speak Tongue
of Tribe.
palladium Specially


CENTERVILLE, Ind, Aug. 19.-Not
staid historical facts and the data
drawn from the historians chronicle,
but thrilling anecdotes from the biog-
raphies and lives of pioneers, stories
of bear and deer hunts, and anecdotes
of the lives of the pioneers of Wayne
county, held the attention of the hun
dreds who thronged to the ffty-third
annual picnic of the Old Settlers as
sociation held here last Saturday.
The visitors evidently were salts
fed to know that the historians of the
county had chronicled faithfully the
events that made for the history of
the county and the district, and they
were eager and on the alert to hear
what the sons and grandsons had to
recount about the lives of their fore
fathers.
The address of Judge Henry c. Fox
of the circuit court, who began his
study of law in Centerville in 1854
with George w. Julian, was replete
with episodes of the lives of some of
the noted early lawyers of the Wayne
county bar.
Daniel brooks, Of Liberty, was the
Oldest person attending the picnic. He
said he was born near Abingdon, July
1880, and that his parents came to
this county from Virginia in 1912.
Fled To Block Houses.
Many Indians" he said, "harassed
the settlers, and frequently danger
from the natives became so oppress-
ing that the settlers had to take ref
uge in the block houses along the
river. Wild turkeys and deer were
plenty and not infrequently bears
would come out of the woods into the
clearings o1ethe settlers. We made
many trips TO Cincinnati, over rough
roads, with barrels of flour and return
ed with barrels of salt to trade with
the Indians. My parents planted peach
seeds as soon as they had cleared
several acres for an orchard, and by
the time l was a boy the trees were
bearing fruit. We made brandy of
the peaches and traded it for commod
tiles on the Ohio river"
James Martindale, born in Green's
fork, which was named after the
a playmate of the Indian boys of that
tribe. He learned the customs of the
Indians and was able to converse with
them. At the age of fifteen he made
his frst trip to Cincinnati. He helped
transport dry goods for a store at
Greensboro, and also helped in the
transportation of coke for a foundry
at Hagerstown.
Nathan Modlin, born December %,
1927, in Wayne county, entertained
the descendants of the pioneers with
stories of the trips he made with
four-horse team to Cincinnati. His
first trip was made via Eaton and
Hamilton. He almost lost his life, he
said, in the high waters of the Miami
river His father crossed the Allie
gheny mountains in a one-horse
wagon.
Joshua Mackey. a native of Preble
county. Ohio, where he was born in
December 1929, said that he was in
terested in the milling business in
early days, which kept him along the
rivers where he constructed water
power mills. He was an ardent sports
man, having many encounters with
ferocious bears and savage wolves, he
averred.
Corn Husking Bees.
Isaac Chamness. born in May, 1929,
spent his early years in Wayne county.
He told of the early log rolling con-
tests and corn husking bees.
The days when there were no
and Indians were still to be seen,
were revealed by Edword Y Teas, who
came to Indiana in 1882. He saw sew
eral hundred Indians pass through
Wayne county on the National Road
from Ohio to eastern Kansas, where
they were placed on a government
reservation.
The mulberry silk worm "craze"
and the rhubarb wine excitement, "get
rich quick" schemes, which impover-
ished many prosperous families in
Wayne county in the first half of the
last century, were the topics with
which Charles w. Starr entertained
the assembly. He built the Starr
house, a hotel at Main and Eighth
streets. from which the stage coaches
departed for Indianapolis.