Gleaned from the Pioneers

[Under this heading we will aim to present, from issue to issue, reminiscences gathered at first-hand from surviving pioneers, and written in a popular vein. While the Indian story, immediately below, does not fell precisely within this scope, it seems as good a place as any to insert it.—Ed.]

AN INDIAN STORY

ALONG the Wabash and Mississinewa rivers, in northern Indiana, where the red man and his traditional lore are not yet quite forgotten, there lingers many a fugitive story which has never found the publicity of print. Those who know them are yearly becoming scarcer, but an industrious collector might still glean an interesting harvest. Here is a sample which we have picked up from Gabriel Godfrey, a son of Francis Godfroy, who was the last war chief of the Miami Indians. Gabriel Godfroy, the most notable Indian now to be found in Indiana, lives a few miles east of the city of Peru, on a small remnant of the ample lands once reserved to his father.^∗ With the true primitive instinct he treasures the unwritten history of his people as it has been handed down from site to son, and this story, told in a quaint style that must be largely lost in the writing, is only one of many. The narrative is gruesome, but reflects the Indian life and spirit, and has the ethnic value—the value of the folk-story.

Once a young Miami brave took to wife a daughter of the Wea tribe, further down the Wabash, and because of her left his own people to go and live among the strangers. While the Miami was still a stranger a marauding band of Kickapoos caught and scalped a Wea woman, and the cry arose for vengeance. A council was held, and when the braves sat in circle the head man of the village passed around with a war club, offering it to each in turn. If one took the club it signified that he accepted the leadership of a war party to pursue the enemy: but that not only meant danger—it: also meant disgrace to the leader if the expedition failed. One by one the braves let the club pass. Ere it reached the Miami he thought much. To accept it was to risk much, but to let it pass was to show fear, and he had his reputation to establish among his new friends; so when it came to him he took it and became chief of the war party, pledged to avenge the wrongs done his people.

Then the armed braves started out on the trail. Ere long they came to the rude picture of a buck cut on the bark of a tree. This was the totem sign of the leader of their foes, and the carving was an act of bravado. When they saw the sign the Weas paused and spoke discouragingly to each other. They knew the Buck. His boldness and his craft were notorious, and often before they had sought vengeance for his deeds, but to no avail. To pursue him now was of no use, they said, and they would have turned back; but their Miami leader said no—they must follow and pit cunning against cunning. So they followed for many miles, the trail growing hotter, till at length they came in sight of their enemies' smoke. Then they went warily as wild beasts creeping upon their prey, and when they had drawn near two of them, disguised as wolves, crept closer yet and found the Kickapoos lolling beside their fire, the leader being distinguished by a buck tattooed upon his thigh. When the two Weas returned to their companions a council was held. They outnumbered their foes, and it was decided that the party should creep up and, if possible, kill all but the Buck—him they would take alive and be revenged for all the trouble he had caused them. They managed well, and the Kickapoos were shot down before they could offer fight, but when they came to lay hands upon the Buck he was so strong that he threw them aside like children till one Wea, older and more experienced than the others, struck him across the muscles of his arms with a war-club, when his hands fell powerless. So they took and bound him. When the Buck saw that no further resistance could avail he bade his captors burn him then and there and save themselves trouble, for he would not go with them to be sport for their village. This was not what they wished, for their greatest glory would be to return to their people leading their prisoner in triumph to be sacrificed before them all. No cruel forcing that they could devise, however, would make him go. He taunted them, defying them to burn him there, until at length they bound him to a tree and piled the fagots about him. When the fire began to burn he asked for a pipe to smoke. It was given him, and as the flames licked about his flesh he caimly smoked until, the life slowly driven out the pipe dropped from his mouth and he hung limp in his bonds. So he frustrated his enemies at the last, but they returned in triumph, having ridded themselves of the Buck, and the young Miami had won glory for himself.

But glory, among the red men as among the white, is sometimes harder to maintain than it is to gain. In course of time another hostile band committed depredation upon the Weas, and again the Miami, who had succeeded so well before, led a party in pursuit. The trail they followed led across a little swampy place, and from the end of a log the fugitives had passed over the soft ground, each leaping in the tracks of the first one. When the leader of the Weas came to the end of the log he too leapt into the first foot-print made by their enemies, and he found himself out-witted by their cunning; for in this first track they had skilfully sunken an arrow with the barb pointing upward and concealed just beneath the surface. On this he came with all his weight and ran his foot through and through, so that his party had to carry him back home humiliated with failure.

EARLY DAYS AT DEPAUW

ONE of the sprightliest "recollectionists" in Indianapolis is the venerable John W. Ray, Hoosier octogenarian, who during his long life has been in the thick of things, and whose memory is good. Some sixty years ago Mr. Ray entered the walls of DePauw College, or, as it was then called, Asbury University, to equip himself for the battle of life, and what he has to say about it will perhaps be of interest to DePauw folks, and some others as well.

"In those days," says Mr. Ray, "the boy who had his way paid and his path made easy and pleasant was the exception. The large proportion of them were of the pioneer type—poor boys, many of them from the farm, who had to live at the minimum cost and work at a maximum pressure. Their clothes were generally home spun, and fashioned by the loving hands of self-sacrificing mothers. Under-clothes were regarded as effeminate, and were rarely worn, and such superfluities of toilet as are now worn for the sake of adornment were but little in evidence.

"When I went there, in the early '40s three of us rented a room for two dollars per month that was sumptuously furnished with a stove and two or three chairs, an old bedstead and a straw tick, which latter we were privileged to replenish at the straw-pile when we wished. Here we cooked, ate, studied and slept. Our board bills averaged about one dollar per week, and the fare gave us abundant strength to fight our way through Greek, Latin, mathematics and the applied sciences.

When James Harlan from Parke County came there with his worldly effects done up in a beggarly bundle no one seemed willing to trust him for his board, so he went to the president and offered to do janitor work in the college for the use of a vacant room in the building. The room was granted him and he managed to live there and board himself, and in the end was one of those who have honored old Asbury. When he graduated he had not even a coat to don, and in lieu thereof wore a calico dressing gown supplemented by a pair of old slippers on his feet. About that time the Iowa University was established, and soon after a committee from that State came to Asbury in search of a good man for their president. Harlan was recommended to them; he was sent for, and within thirty days after his graduation in the dressing-gown he was installed as the new president of the new college. He became a prominent citizen of his adopted State. In the winter of '45-'46 the Iowa legislature established a Department of Public Instruction, and Harlan, although he was a Whig and the legislature was Democratic, was chosen as superintendent. Subsequently he was honored with other offices, among them that of the U. S. senatorship. He was Secretary of the Interior in President Lincoln's cabinet, and also judge in the Court of Claims. James Harlan was a cousin of Judge Harlan, of the Supreme Court Bench. He was the best debater, the best logician and the best judge of men I ever knew. He never wrote his speeches, but filled himself full of his subject and out of that fulness spoke with eloquence and spontaneity.

"And by the way, do you know that Indiana has furnished more citizens and more Methodists to Iowa than to any other State in the west?

"One of the brightest students of old Asbury, and one who, I feel sure, would have made his mark had he been spared, bore the odd name of Greenberry Short. Short came as a homeless wanderer to the office of Judge Samuel Hough, of Lafayette, and solicited a job as office boy. Hough employed him, and before long noticed that the lad spent all his leisure time dipping into the law books. Becoming interested in him he encouraged him to enter Asbury, rendering him such assistance as lay in his power. While there he made his way by doing janitor service and such work as offered itself. He carried off the honors of his class, and after graduation returned to study law in Judge Hough's office. But the confinement proved fatal to him. He fell a victim to hasty consumption and was cut off in the flower of his promise. I remember that we celebrated, or attempted to celebrate, Greenberry's twenty-first birth day in a way all our own. His face was peculiarly soft and smooth, and taking our cue from that, we seized him and bore him in triumph to a private room where one of the boys was ready with a big basin and soap, a painter's brush and a huge pruning knife. His face and head was plentifully lathered preparatory to his maiden shave, but before the pruning knife could be applied the victim made a break for liberty and eescaped down street, lather and all.

"Daniel W. Voorhees was in the class just before mine. Voorhees was good in belle lettres, rhetoric and history, but in mathematics, logic, languages, or in fact anything that took hard work, he fell short. He was no such man as Harlan. Voorhees' acquirements were on the surface, Harlans' in the depths.

"I may add that in those days there was no football, no baseball and no college yells. Boys who were hungry enough for knowledge to work their way to it by hands as well as by brains had less need of those gentle diversions. We did, however, play townball and cricket somewhat. We were also sturdy ramblers, and as to our gymnasium it was, practically, all of Putnam County."

"UNCLE JOE" BROWN TALKS

ONE of the "walking encyclopedias" of information touching things historic is "Uncle Joe" Brown, who, although bent with the weight of many years and patiently expectant of the Summons, still holds his desk in the County Clerk's office, at Indianapolis, where he does diligent daily service in the rounding out of a busy life. A well-directed question suffices to start Uncle Joe, and he will reel you off a medley which turns this way or that as one theme suggests another.

We were nosing among the old records of the Marion County Commissioners' office, and finding sundry allusions to the office of "fence viewer" we went to Mr. Brown to learn what a fence-viewer might be. He told us all about it. In early days, it seems, when there were large unclaimed tracts and much stock had the range of the country, there was considerable trouble with animals breaking into growing crops, what with breachy "critters" and poor fences. This caused no end of wrangling—so much so, indeed, that a law was passed defining a "legal fence," or one that in law should be considered a sufficient guard. Along with this went a functionary whose business it was to judge whether a man's fence was up to the legal standard when his neighbor's hungry hordes visited his succulent corn. This was the "fence-viewer." As the country came to have less waste land and the liberties of the omnivorous cow and elm-peeler were restricted the services of the viewer fell into desuetude and he passed into forgotten history. In importance and dignity the office ranked along with that of road supervisor.

Something in this reminded Uncle Joe of a story of ex-President Tyler. After John Tyler retired from the presidential office his neighbors of the other party, as a sort of a practical joke, and also, perhaps, to show their opinion of his capacity, got together and elected him road-master; but they wote not they were casting a boomerang. John accepted the office. The Virginia law gave this functionary almost unlimited power in calling out citizens for road service, and the distinguished road-master made the most of his privileges. For about three months that year, in season and out of season, he worked his constituency on the public highways till they wished they hadn't done it. Tyler stood the "joke" better than they did, and the traveling public got the benefit.

"Did you know," queried Mr. Brown, "that Jefferson, Madison and Monroe were all justices of the peace after serving as President of the United States?. They were, and they thought the humbler office worthy of them—which shows a more democratic spirit than we find to-day. Besides, Jefferson and Monroe left the presidential chair poor, and the justice's fees were not to be sneezed at in those simple days. I don't know about Madison's circumstances—probably Dolly looked after them with her characteristic vim.

"I remember Dolly Madison. When I was a clerk in the United States Senate she used frequently to visit that body and sit as a guest of honor beside the Vice-president. They were wont to show her every mark of respect. Whenever she appeared business would be suspended for the moment and she would be gallantly escorted to her seat, usually by the venerable John Quincy Adams. She was a fat old woman of seventy then, and he eighty-eight, and as they marched up the aisle with stately gravity they were a pair to be remembered.

John Quincy Adams—ah, there was a Nestor for you! He has been frequently spoken of as ‘the Old Man Eloquent,’ but that does not fitly characterize him. He had a squeaky voice, was not prepossessing as a speaker, and his power lay not so much in oratory as in learning. He seemed to have read everything, ancient and modern, and to have remembered everything. No one ever asked him about anything but he could make it the theme for an off-hand dissertation full of erudition. Withal, he knew how to use his learning with trip-hammer effect. On one occasion Henry A. Wise, of Virginia, eloquently and scathingly arraigned the abolitionists for the mischief they were somenting. Wise was a genuine orator, and when he was done the abolitionists and their cause looked a sorry spectacle. Then Adams arose to reply, and he took an hour at the task. At the end of that hour Wise was simply annihilated, and his argument, from first to last, torn to tatters. Mere oratory and super-heated feeling stood no show at all against countless facts and sound logic. Wise himself, in response, said, with as much grace as possible, that Mr. Adams might advocate any proposition whatsoever and he, for one, would not again venture to enter the lists against him. I remember one little thing that illustrated Adams' Yankee caution. It was the custom of the Senate pages to secure autographs of the notables, which, no doubt, they disposed of to their own profit. I noticed repeatedly that Mr. Adams, when he honored these requests, had a habit of signing his name at the top of the sheet or slip, leaving very little margin above. Curious to know why he did this I once asked him about it, and in reply he squeaked: ‘I do that so no one can write a note over my name.’ I was sitting near Mr. Adams and was one of those who carried him out of the Senate chamber when he was stricken down. He collapsed in his seat as if shot, but rallied enough to gasp: ‘And this is the last of earth!’ And so passed a great man.

"What other famous men have I known? More than I could talk about or think of in one sitting, young man; and witnessed more changes than most men of the present generation. I suppose I am the only one now living who was present when the first public trial was made of the magnetic telegraph. A dispatch was to be sent from Washington to Baltimore, and the members of Congress and others were invited to witness the test. Professor Morse had been the guest of Henry L. Ellsworth, Commissioner of Patents, and in courtesy he had invited Mr. Ellsworth's daughter, Anna, to write the first message. She arrived a little late, and stepping at once to an old desk that stood in a corner wrote this, from the twenty-first chapter of Numbers: ‘What God hath wrought.’ Morse transmitted this over the wire, and in about five minutes the answer came back, and thus a new factor was introduced into civilization."

We had heard it stated that Mr. Brown had written the first review of a Hoosier book ever written by a Hoosier, and we asked him about it. "That," he said, "was the Indian poem, ‘Elskatawa,’ by George W. Cutter, better known to fame by his ‘Song of Steam.’ I don't remember much about the review now, but one incident in connection with Cutter I have reason for remembering very vividly. Cutter fell in love with a Mrs. Drake, an actress, here in Indianapolis, and, as became a poet, his falling was as deep as it was sudden. He wanted her to marry, but the lady said nay. She seems to have been persuaded at the last minute, however, and just as she was on the eve of a nocturnal flight to make connection with another engagement. At any rate it was a midnight marriage, fully up to the standard of the romancist. At that time I happened to be the clerk of whom people who wanted to amalgamate had to get their license, and at an hour of the night so late that the very clocks had stopped running and gone to rest I was knocked out of bed and haled across town through the grewsome darkness to the court house to issue the required document. That is why I have a particularly lively recollection of George W. Cutter.

"Well, well, I must get to work! Yes, young man, the fence-viewer is an institution of the good old times—you will never see his like again." And Uncle Joe turned once more to his unfinished page of scribing.