HISTORY OF CLAY COUNTY

                COUNTY SEAT, COURT HOUSE, RELOCATION, ETC.

    As directed by the act of organization, the commissioners appointed
to locate the county seat met at the house of David Thomas, on Eel
river, the second Monday in May, 1825, and proceeded to the discharge
of the duty assigned them. Pioneer settlers of that day differed in their
recollection and statements respecting the observations taken by the com-
missioners. One maintained that they viewed the uplands nearly as far
west as Birch creek; another, that their choice lay between the tableland
north of the old Adam Moon place and the site selected, while still another
said that they repaired at once to the spot selected and put down the stake.
This was then a beautiful and attractive spot, a green velvety lawn, high
and dry, timbered with almost perfect specimens of walnut, poplar and
sugar, and very nearly on a central line through the county from east to
west. The land on which the location was made had been previously
entered by two citizens of Spencer, Owen county, who had made but
partial payment to the government. They agreed to relinquish their
claims on condition that the payment made should be refunded them, and,
perhaps, the added condition that certain lots should be given them in
the survey of the town plat.
    Under the statute then existing, Daniel Chance, who lived on what
was later the Wilkinson place, west of Poland, was appointed county
agent, to procure and perfect the title (the citizens generally furnishing
the means necessary), lay out the town and make disposition of the lots,
which was done, in the main, by public sale, as was the usage. But this
sale, according to the recollection of the earliest citizens surviving at a
much later day, was not made for a year or more succeeding the location.
It is worthy of mention in this connection that the town plat was not put
to record until 1837, while the patent to the land on which he town stands
bears date of 1829, executed under the administration of Andrew Jack-
son. The survey of the plat was made by James Gallatley, surveyor
of Owen county. The public square having been located, Philip Hedges,
of Spencer, took the contract to clear off the ground, in which he was
assisted by the interested pioneers of the neighborhood. We are told, too,
that the contract for the building of the first courthouse and jail was let
to Hedges. It cannot be said with any assurance of accuracy just when
these improvements were first made. In the act of organization it was
provided that the board of justices for the new county should proceed
within one year from date of location to build them. A surviving pioneer,
who came to the county when but a small boy, his parents locating near
Bowling Green, says that when he first saw the town every building in
it was a round-log one. He gives it as his recollection that the original
court house and jail were built in 1827, and of hewn logs. The court
house was a two-story building, about 20 X 30 feet, which stood, not on
the public square, but on the oposite and north side of the street, east
of the old hotel building on the corner. The court room was on the
lower floor, the upper floor serving for the use of county officers and the
jury, though no special appointments by way of separate apartments were
made for the accommodation of public business.
    The first jail, which was a one-story house, was erected on the public
square, a little to the northeast of the present stand and platform of the
Old Settlers’ society. This house was about 20 x 20 feet, having a floor
of heavy hewn logs resting upon sills and extending to the outer edge of
the walls, which were double, with poles thrust upright between as a
precaution to the safe-keeping of prisoners. These rude wooden struc-
tures were occupied for the period of twelve years in the transaction of
judicial and official business and the confinement of prisoners.
In 1838 a contract was let to Dempsey Seybold, Sr., of Parke county, for
the erection of a two-story brick court house, about 40 X 50 feet, on the site
of the present one. About the same time Seybold contracted also, the
building of the county seminary. In the summer of 1838 the contractor
made the brick for these buildings on the vacant lot on the east side of the
town on which the frame district school house was located some years
afterward. The seminary was built the same year and the court house the
year following, 1839, and occupied in 1840, though not yet completed.
    Preparatory to the erection of the court house, the old jail building
was moved across the street to the east and put on the lot occupied by
the present one, adjoining the residence of Paul J. Geiger. This
removal and the required repairs were made by Thomas I. Cromwell. In
the, reconstruction of this building a stone foundation was put down,
another story added and the timbers driven full of spikes on the inside,
to make the delivery of prisoners the more difficult. In this new court
house, also, the court room was below, and the office rooms above, and
the partition walls of wood. On the lower floor the court room was on
the east side of the hall and the stairway on the west side. On the upper
floor the auditor’s and recorder’s offices were on the east side and the
clerk’s and treasurer’s offices on the west side of the hall. This house
stood twelve years—until the night of November 30, 1851, when it was
destroyed by fire, consuming all the public records but those of the
recorder’s office, which were kept at the time by Recorder Beam in his
tailor shop, on the west side of the square. In the northeast corner of the
building, on the upper floor, along side the recorder’s apartment, was a
narrow room used for storing rubbish, in which it was generally thought
the fire originated.
    The county commissioners at the time of the loss of the court house
were Daniel Dunlavy, of Dick Johnson township, for the first district,
William L. Cromwell, of Cass township, for the second district (who was
chairman), and William Edmonson, of Harrison township, for the third
district. They convened on Monday, the first day of December, and insti-
tuted an investigation as to the probable cause of the fire. Many of the res-
idents of Bowling Green and immediate surroundings were cited to appear
and give in evidence what they had observed and knew about the fire. But
nothing was developed on which to base any definite conclusion, the
board finding that the responsibility for the fire and the loss of property
could not be charged to any one. The board then took immediate steps
to rebuild upon the same ground, the announcement of their decision and
purpose meeting with vehement opposition and protests on the part of
citizens and tax-payers in different parts of the county, who filed petitions,
praying for delay until the county at large could be heard from on the
propriety of such procedure. However, the board of commissioners
proceeded to have plans and specifications prepared and to advertise for
bids in the Indianapolis and Terre Haute papers for the letting of a con-
tract, as there was then no paper printed and published in the county.
At an early date in the succeeding year (1852) the contract was awarded
to William K. Houston, Samuel Miles, Joseph R. Kennedy and Oliver
Cromwell, all of Bowling Green, for the building of another two-story
brick, about the size of the former one, substantially on the same founda-
tion, at a cost of $11,000. This house was not occupied until the latter
part of 1853, and is still standing. During the interval of two years,
court was held in an upper room of the three-story frame business house
on the north side of the square, until the completion of the Masonic build-
ing, when the sessions were held in the new hall above, and all the county
officers transacted their official business in the middle room below.
    The relocation and removal of the seat of justice from Bowling Green
to a more central point, west of Eel river, had been agitated as far back
in our history as 1838, when the public became elated over the prospects
of navigation by means of the side-cuts and feeders tributary to the old
Wabash and Erie canal. There were prominent citizens of Bowling
Green, of a speculative turn of mind, who favored the movement, among
them Samuel Howe Smydth and John Osborn. Smydth, a brilliant and
rising young lawyer, who had acquired real estate interests at the Feeder
Dam, took an active part in laying out a town on the west side of the
river at this point,, in 1838, which he named New Amsterdam. This
town was an intended prospective county seat. Smydth was an ambi-
tious and energetic young man and went to the legislature just at this time,
probably with the view of facilitating and furthering his county seat
project, but failing health compelled him to abandon its prosecution. In
July of the same year, Osborn platted a town on the Lower Bloomington
road, less than a mile east of the present town of Ashboro, on land then
owned by himself, but afterward known as the Tribble farm, which he
named Jonesboro, also a candidate for county seat honors, presumably
a practically central location. A public sale of lots was made here, as
Was the usage then, but, from some cause, the movement was soon
abandoned, notwithstanding Mr. Osborn’s election to the legislature the
following year. But the building of the first brick court house, in 1839-40,
had the effect to allay the agitation of this question for the period of
eleven years—until the burning of the court house, when, as has been
already said, the first formidable organized., effort was made by those
favorable to relocation. In February, 1852, A. H. L. Baker founded the
town of Bellaire, intended as a rival in some future county-seat removal
contest.
    Under the old constitution, relocations of county-seats were granted
and removals ordered by the general assembly of the state on petitions
direct from the people. Then, too, the general assembly met annually on
the first Monday of December. As a significant co-incidence, the session
of 1851-52 convened on the same day that the board of county commis-
sioners met to take action on the loss of the court house. At this junc-
ture, notwithstanding the decision and order of the board of commis-
sioners to proceed at once to rebuild on the same site, the relocationists
went to work vigorously and voluminous petitions were poured into the
general assembly, praying for a location at or near the center of the
county. Oliver Cromwell and George W. Donham, re-locationists, were
then the representatives from Clay in the lower house, with James M.
Hanna, an anti-relocationist, in the senate. A bill was passed by the
lower house favorable to the petitioners, but when sent to the senate,
where it met the opposition of Mr Hanna, it was defeated. A resolution
then adopted by the general assembly to restrain the board from further
proceedings in the premises until the people should determine the matter,
failed of its object.
    In 1852, Daniel Dunlavy was elected to the lower house and Michael
Combs to the senate, to represent the county in the first general assembly
under the new constitution, which met in session, January, 1853. At this
session, on the 14th day of March, a bill was passed to relocate the seat
of justice for Clay county, providing for the appointment of a committee
of five disinterested citizens of adjoining counties to select the site.
William K. Edwards, William Allen, Isaac W. Denman, Burr McGrew
and John Johnson constituted the commission. They met at the house
of George Moss, on Birch creek, the second Monday of April following,
and thence proceeded on their mission, putting down the stake on the
Hyland place, a short distance south of the Lower Bloomington road, a
mile and a half west of Birch creek, then belonging to William Kennedy,
but under contract to Joshua Modesitt. To meet this exigency and defeat
removal, the anti-re-locationists brought suit in the Clay Circuit Court, the
cause being entitled, “Shallum Thomas et al. versus Isaac W. Denman
et al.,” which was then appealed to the supreme court, where the act was
declared unconstitutional and void. In 1857, or early in 1858, C. W.
Moss laid out the town of Ashboro, although the record does not show it
to have existed prior to July, 1860, and platted a public square of ten
acres, donated to the county for the purpose of public buildings, on condi-
tion that it should be so appropriated within three years. In December,
1858, a public meeting was held at Ashboro to discuss re-location to this
site. But nothing formal seems to have grown out of this meeting. In
1860, public sentiment and necessity demanded a new jail, and, counter to
this movement, was then inaugurated the first formal effort in favor of
Ashboro. During the following winter, the county was canvassed with
petitions, and 1,635 signatures obtained. At a special session of the board
of commissioners, convened March 12, 1861, to advertise for bids for the
building of a new jail, the re-locationists presented the petitions, repre-
sented by George D. Teter, the opposition being represented by George W.
Wiltse. The petitions were withdrawn on the ground that they did not
represent two-thirds of the qualified voters of the county. The filing of
the petitions at this time, which was, virtually, a protest against the further
appropriation and expenditure of county funds in making public improve-
ments at Bowling Green, did not have the effect to delay the action of
the board in the matter of a new jail building, as the contract was let on
the 22d day of April following, for the sum of $3,750, to Wingate &
Black, who erected the two-story brick jail house, which is still standing
and occupied as a dwelling. The board of commissioners at that time
were William Eaglesfield. of the first district, Absalom B. Wheeler, of the
second district, and Levi L. Osborne, of the third district. In February,
1871, the central re-locationists again organized a canvass of the county
in favor of Ashboro, and presented their petitions at the March term,
represented by R. W. Thompson, the remonstrators being represented by
D.  E. Williamson and others. After several days’ sparring before the
board, the petitioners again withdrew. During the summer following, a
movement was organized in the north part of the county in favor of
Brazil, and petitions were presented at the September term, when, on the
sixth day of the session and ninth day of the month, the prayer of the
petitioners was granted, and an order of the board made for the removal
of the seat of justice to Brazil. The board of commissioners at this time
were George W. Ringo, of the first district, Oliver B. Johnson, of the
second district, and William Rector, of the third district.
    On the 26th of October, 1871, the three commissioners appointed by
the governor, C. A. Allen, of Vigo; Marshall M. Moore, of Putnam, and
James M. Ray, of Marion, met at the court house, Bowling Green, and
appraised the county buildings at $5,300. Exceptions to the ruling of the
board were filed by the remonstrators, an appeal taken to the circuit court,
and afterward to the supreme court, but, uniformly, the action of the
board was sustained by the higher courts. On the 25th day of January,
1877, the new court house at Brazil having been completed, the records
were removed by wagons from the old court house at Bowling Green.
The building of the new court house was first contracted by Noah T.
Keasy, then transferred to John G. Ackelmire and John Andrew and con-
structed at a cost of $13,300. The new jail was built in 1878, by William
Dreusicke, at a cost of $7,900.
    No other question of public policy in its progress and history has
agitated the people of Clay county so protractedly and acrimoniously as
that of the re-location of the county-seat. The contest waged for prac-
tically more than a quarter of a century. Prior to the development in
the material resources of the north end of the county and the corre-
sponding increase in the population, the trend of the re-location sentiment
was to a central point, geographically, within the territory of Sugar Ridge
township. Owing, however, ,to rivalries in this locality, the numerical
strength of the central part of the county could not be unified and con-
centrated upon a common site. Sixty-five per cent of the voting popula-
tion, as then provided by the statute for removal, could not be procured
by any point in the county. But at the legislative session of 1869 the
law was so amended as to require but 55 per cent, the petitioners to stand
for only the appraised value of the old buildings instead of the cost of
new ones. Soon thereafter Brazil inaugurated the movement and canvass
(meanwhile procuring the grounds for the public buildings and raising
the amount of money to cover the appraised value of the old buildings),
which resulted in the order for re-location two years later.
    A petition numerously signed, praying the board of county commis-
sioners to proceed to the construction of a new and up-to-date court
house, filed within the year 1908, was referred by the board to the tax-
payers at the succeeding November election and was overwhelmingly
defeated.
PIONEER AND INFANT INDUSTRIES.

    The first industries of a newly settled area of country, for supplying
the immediate wants and demands of a primitive population, are neces-
sarily in their infancy and crudity. To classify them in the order of time
and development would be a difficult task, as the simple needs and require-
ments of frontier life, though but comparatively few, are equally immi-
nent. But as self-preservation is the first law of nature, food and clothing,
with protection from exposure and outside dangers, would be the prime
necessities to be relieved by industrial production. Corn was the first
grain produced and to reduce it for the making of bread was practically
the first process for which the mechanism, however crude and cumber-
some, must be provided. How this was primitively done is told by
S.  A. Edmonson in his contributed reminiscence on “Pioneer Times.”
The first mills for the grinding or cracking of grain were operated by
hand-power, consisting of the “upper and nether” stones, which were
usually boulders of the desired size and conformation confined within
a section of a hollow tree, cut to proper length, after the manner of the
“bee-gum,” or hive, and so adjusted as to revolve the upper upon the lower
one. There is not now intact any such mill in preservation anywhere
in the county, nor were they at any time numerous, as one was made to
do the work of a number of families, and the territory was but sparsely
populated at that day. In the evolution of the mill horse-power and ox-
power were also utilized. Mills of this description were operated in dif-
ferent parts of the county. There is said to have been one at Bowling
Green on ground adjoining the old Thompson hotel property, and another
at Leonard Killion’s, on the Killion hill, a mile west of the town. Another
was operated on the Thomas Vest place, afterward the Morgan Bryant
farm, in Posey township. In the south end of the county were two—one
at Middlebury, the other on the Joel Owen, later the Nathan Cook farm,
both of which began business about the year 1848 or 1849. That at
Middlebury was a tread-mill, operated by Elias Cooprider, which he pur-
chased at Cincinnati, on the wheel of which four horses were used, two
abreast, while that operated by Owen was a mill of home design and
make, run by lever power. Another, in the locality of the Daniel Harris
place, near Eel river, of a different make, known as a “Stump-Mill,” was
operated by Charlton Bateman. Customers of these mills were required
to provide the power, using the horses or oxen with which they hauled
or carried their grists. The proprietors paid close attention to the tolling
of the grists, taking an eighth, or more, in case they provided the power.
John Graves, who founded the town of Harmony at an earlier date than
the founding of Brazil, put up a horse-power mill of double capacity at
that place for the grinding of grain and the sawing of lumber, which;
from some defect in the adjustment of parts, or other cause, was never
operated. But the Cooprider mill at Middlebury was preceded by that
of Thomas Gillaspie, who then owned and occupied the Weaver place
on the east side of the town site, on which his primitive mill was located
and operated, near the present Weremeyer orchard.
    Another of the home-made devices and appliances of the primitive
population was the hominy mortar and pestle. To provide this, fire was
built on the top surface of a large, solid stump, usually oak, in which
a hole was burned in the shape of a kettle, and when of sufficient capac-
ity, smoothed and cleaned out, when it was ready for use. Shelled corn
boiled sufficiently to loosen the skin or covering of the grain was put into
this receptacle and thoroughly pounded by use of the pestle, usually an
iron wedge, with wooden handle attachment for manipulating it forcibly
and effectually, by which process the skins were removed from the grains
and the pulp used for bread. To provide clothing, cotton and flax
were cultivated, and sheep husbandry introduced at an early day. As a
necessary step to the weaving and production of fabric, the fiber of cot-
ton, flax and wool must be twisted into thread, which was done by spin-
ning. A process intermediate, between that of spinning and weaving, was
the reeling. Thus, to convert the fiber into fabric, the spinning-wheel,
reel and loom were the essential implements, which were the product of
home industry. Shops for the manufacture of these utilities, especially
the spinning-wheel, though not plentiful, were accessible to the pioneer
population generally. In those days the distinction was drawn, popularly,
between the tradesman who made wheels for spinning and him who made
wheels for vehicles, the former known as “the wheel-wright” and the
latter as “the wagon-maker.” Then, too, when a pioneer mother or
daughter spoke of her wheel, she meant her spinning-wheel, and not her
bicycle. But preparatory to the spinning there were several processes
for making ready the fiber from the raw material, as the brake, the hackel,
the scutch, etc., which were also of home manufacture. For the prepa-
ration of wool there was a pair of cards, or wool-combs, having a great
many hooked or bent wire teeth, one of which was manipulated in each
hand in converting the wool into rolls. This tedious and tiresome process
was in time relieved by the infant woolen-mill, known as the carding
machine, designed and operated exclusively for the making of rolls, in
other words, for preparing the wool for the spinning wheel.
    The first pioneer carding machine, or infant woolen factory, in the
county is said to have been built by Henry Moss, in the town of Bowling
Green, which, after operating it a few years, he sold to Samuel Heaston,
who moved it onto what was afterward known as the Adam B. Moon
place, and a little later on took it to Iowa. Samuel Miles then estab-
lished an industry of the same kind at Bowling Green about 1848, which
was burned several years later.
    Manufacturers of spinning-wheels accessible to the people of the
south end of the county were John Neal, in Lewis township, John Fiscus
and Israel Correll, in the border of Owen county, with Ransom Renner,
of Harrison township, who supplied parts and made repairs. Within
reach of the spinsters of the northeast quarter of the county was John
Bard, of Jackson township.
Of the earliest industries were the tannery and the distillery. The
first tannery in the county was that established by Samuel Miles, at
Bowling Green, at which he engaged on his first coming to the county,
in 1832, and conducted continuously until 1855, when he transferred the
business to Jesse Miles, who operated it until about the year 1870, when
he sold to John Geckeler. This was not only the first, but the last plant
of its kind operated in the county. Mr. Geckeler did not finally abandon
the industry until the latter part of the eighties, something more than
a half century from the time of its founding.
    There were two tanneries at Williamstown, the first one established
in 1838, on the south side of the place, by James Townsend, who sold
it a few years later to Joseph Cook, who operated it for many years; the
other on the west side of the town, by Abram Melvin, who engaged in the
business about the year 1850.
    Samuel Stigler, grandfather of ex-Auditor Samuel Stigler, operated
both a tannery and a distillery on Tilghman creek, near the west border
of Cass township, from an early date in the history of the county up to
and including the time of the Civil war. During the years of the exis-
tence and operation of these industries, “Uncle Sammy Stigler’s” was a
point as popularly known as any in the county.
    The first and only tannery in the south end of the county was that
of John J. Schauwecker, on the old Bowling Green-Middlebury road, be-
tween the John L. Moyer and the John N. Freed places, two miles north-
east of Clay City. This industry was established in 1854 and contin-
uously operated by the founder until the year 1870.
    At some time within the period of the Civil war, a tannery was
located at Brazil, by a man named Reed, which was conducted but a few
years, then abandoned. The site of this industry was on the north side
of the National road, near what is now Kruzan street, east of Walnut, at
the point where now stands the residence of Mrs. Lewis 0. Shultz.
    The infant stills of the county were more numerous than the vats.
Arnold Cabbage, who, in pioneer times, was one of the best-known
farmer residents of the northwest part of the county, conducted this in-
dustry on his farm, in Dick Johnson township, for a period of years—
from some time in the ‘40s up to the time of the Civil war. Thomas
Smith, who then lived in the north part of Dick Johnson township, manu-
factured apple brandy of a superior quality, as said by those who con-
sumed his product. The sequel would tend to show clearly that there was
something about Smith’s plant or its output conducive to vigor and
longevity, as he is yet living, at the age of ninety-eight, down in the state
of Tennessee, able to walk a league of miles without fatigue. In 1840,
and for some years before and afterward, Walker Lankford operated, at
least at times, an infant distilling industry on his place, two miles west of
Middlehury, on ground now owned and occupied by William Harbaugh.
    John Emerick operated a still-house on the old Tapy place, adjoining
the Dalgarn farm, on the Bowling Green-Poland road, for several years
in the fifties. Philip Rader had a distillery on the old Casper Rader place,
just west of Carpenter’s mill, built in 1858, which was destroyed by fire
on the first day of January, 1861. For the brief period of one or two
years, “Cy” Hynote manufactured the product of the still on the Elias
Syester place, just at the time of the opening of the Civil war. Another
primitive plant was located and operated on the Horace Crafton place,
by Milan Zenor, for the period of ten years, from about 1845 up to 1855,
as nearly as remembered. In Van Buren township there was a “still”
on the Mosteller place, about two miles south of the site of the town of
Lena. Some years after the war, in the time of the early seventies, a plant
of limited capacity was operated by Latham & Yow in the wilds of Eel
river and Birch creek, said to have been located at different points of sup-
posed security from detection and exposure, as its operations at that
time were in violation of the laws of the general government. At the time
of the confiscation of the plant, in 1871, when the revenue officers came
out from Terre Haute, loaded it up and hauled it away, it was located
near the site of the later Knickerbocker mine, a little distance southeast
of the town plant of Saline City. This is thought to have been the last
"worm of the still” in Clay county. That all of the pioneer liquid man-
ufactories in the history of the county have been here enumerated is
hardly to be supposed. The writer has been told by early settlers that
when Joe Crise was running his corn-cracker on Birch creek, near the
Kintzley crossing, now the Vandalia station on the Brazil branch rail-
road, customers would put an empty gallon jug into a sack of corn and
take it back with them, filled with home-made whiskey, the exchange hav-
ing been made at the mill. However, this report is discredited by others
who were his neighbors at the time.
    The first brewery, it is said by early residents, was located and
operated on the north side of the town of Bowling Green, on the site on
which was afterward erected the first steam flouring-mill. At a later
day, the Stucki brewery was established on the river bank, on the west
side, just below the bridge, which was in operation during the Civil
war and for a period of many years thereafter. At some time in the
sixties, Joe Lenhart bought the tract of land on Birch creek on which
the Gibbons mill had been located and operated at a much earlier day,
and started a brewery on the same ground, which he continued to run
for several years after the war. This rural plant afforded the farmers of
the Birch creek agricultural community and its borders the opportunity
to lay in a supply of lubricant for energizing the operations of the harvest
field, of which some of them, at least, took advantage. There was also
a brewery on the National road, west of Williamstown, operated by John
Bauer, who moved it to Harmony, about the year 1870, where it was
planted and operated for several years on the south side of the town.
    A prime necessity with the first and early settlers was the bell for
tracing and finding their cattle in the forest pastures. Not only their
cows were belled, but their oxen, horses, sheep and hogs. This was the
only practical and available precaution against the loss of their stock. To
supply this demand the making of bells was a very necessary industry.
But very few of the pioneer workers in metal ever mastered the bell-
making art, which was a specialty. The only bell-makers in the south
end of the county were John and Peter Cooprider, father and grandfather
of Rev. Elias Cooprider, who were the first blacksmiths within the ter-
ritory of Harrison township. They manufactured to order the bells for a
large area of the country round about. Every owner of stock knew the
sound of his own bell as far as it could be heard. As no two voices are
the counterparts of each other, neither are the jingles of any two bells.
In fact, no two bells were ever made to emit indistinguishable sounds.
Whatever may be the philosophy underlying this phenomenon in acoustics,
practically, it proved a source of good fortune to the primitive inhabi-
tants of the wilderness.
As an infant industry of the pioneer period the manufacture of chairs
is not to be overlooked. A part of the standard household furniture
previous to the making of chairs was the stool, made of a hewn block,
with three holes bored into it in which were placed as many legs. On start-
ing at house-keeping in the primitive cabins of the wilderness, the newly
married couple’s seating capacity usually numbered two of these stools.
In the absence of sawed lumber, out of necessity (the mother of inven-
tion) the white-oak splint bottom was resorted to, which has not yet gone
out of use. The pioneer manufacturer of the splint-bottom chair produced
a substantial piece of furniture, specimens and relics of which are still
to be seen in many households of the county. In the family of A. H.
Wright, in Jackson township, are chairs of this kind still in daily use,
made by the Scammahorn brothers, on Birch creek, in the year 1836.
    James T. Leachman maintained a shop on his homestead in Sugar
Ridge township, two miles southeast of Center Point, where he conducted
this industry for a period of years, beginning at some time prior to the
Civil war. In the year 1860, some one, whose name is not now recalled,
made this kind of chairs at Brazil, in an unpretentious, primitive box-like
building, near the Vandalia Railroad, in the vicinity of the Torbert clay
plant. The chair makers for the territory now comprised within Harrison
township were Ransom Renner and Ambrose Phipps. Renner then
owned and lived on what is now the Christian Willen place, and Phipps,
on the Uri Cooprider place, west of Clay City. The standard exchange
price of their products was two bushels of corn for one chair or twelve
bushels for the full set of six chairs. Fluctuations in the market price of
corn had no effect on its exchange value in the local chair market. Rich-
ard Baker also engaged temporarily in the chair industry at his home in
the south part of the township.
    In the year 1866 or 1867 Ezra 0. Duncan located and put in opera-
tion the first circular saw-mill for the heavy timber area, of the extreme
south end of the county, at a point but a few rods east of the present
Duncan schoolhouse, where James Poe, soon thereafter, engaged in the
manufacture of splint-bottom chairs, spinning-wheels, reels, and other
household utilities of that day, at which, however, he did not continue
more than a year or two.
    Michaelree & Clark operated the only splint-bottom chair factory of
any considerable proportions and capacity, with improved machinery, at
Brazil, which was established about 1870, perhaps a year earlier. In
1871, when they were turning out five hundred chairs a week, they could
not supply the demand for their product. A standard industry in
pioneer times was that of cooperage—the manufacture of barrels, tubs,
buckets, etc.—when all families had their meat-barrels, flour-barrels and
wash-tubs made to order. Then, too, substantially all the products of the
merchant fiouring-mills and the slaughter houses were packed in barrels
for shipment. Fifty years ago, at some point not distant from a village
or rural flouring-mill, was a cooper-shop, which supplied the mill with
barrels. Then, when a less quantity than a barrel of flour was wanted,
the purchaser had to supply the bag or vessel in which to put it. Then,
too, not a pound of flour could be bought anywhere at the stores, only at
the mills or from private individuals who had a surplus. Then the paper-
bag industry, the packing of flour in less quantities than the barrel, and
its being handled by dealers in common with other commodities were not
yet in vogue, not even dreamed of by a pioneer or rural population. To
supply the demand for pork and flour-barrels at the centers of population
and commerce, rural coopers found a ready sale for their product. Many
wagon loads of barrels made in Clay county were hauled to the Terre
Haute market, for which service a special, spacious rack was made and
used, and as many as fifty or sixty flour barrels, or twenty-five pork bar-
rels, hauled at a load, of which the standard market price was twenty-five
cents a piece for flour barrels in quantities, and one dollar a piece for
pork barrels.
    Industrially, the cooper was then as much in demand as were other
tradesmen and shops comparatively numerous. The principal and only
industry of this kind at Brazil was conducted by John Behan, an expert,
industrious workman, whose shop was near Jackson street, on the
south end of the lot now occupied by the city buildings. Behan is
remembered as a native of the Emerald Isle, a close and critical reader
of current news, an uncompromising Democrat, who could discuss the
political issues pending and involved in the prosecution of the Civil War
with all ease without a moment’s relinquishment of work in the building
of a barrel. He it was, who, in the spring of 1861, made the prediction
that the population and territory of the United States would become so
completely alienated and disrupted by the war that from diversity of
industrial and commercial interests there would result as many as five
or six separate republics within the same territory before the close of
the century.
    William Debruler manufactured barrels at Center Point for the
flouring-mill there, first in a cabin which stood on the border of the
Moss lands adjoining the town site on the southwest, then in a small
shop by the roadside, a little west of the mill, and still later, at his place
of residence, near the old United Brethren church.
    William Albright maintained a shop for some years in the south
part of Jackson township, two miles northwest of Center Point, where
he made barrels for the Kennedy mill, which he delivered by wagon-loads.
Later he changed his residence, locating in Perry township, near Art
postoffice, where he continued the industry, still marketing his product
at the Center Point mill. Solomon Market also plied the cooper’s art,
on the farm south of Hoosierville, now owned and occupied by Lewis
McNutt, and known poetically as “Idylwilde.”
    In Perry township, John Foulke carried on this industry between
the years 1850 and 1860, on the farm now occupied by Silas D. Foulke.
Charles Lynd also manufactured barrels at Cory for Moorhart & Ferrell,
proprietors of the Elkhorn flouring-mill, from 1879 to 1881.
    Philip Boor, a well known citizen of Posey township, conducted this
industry for a number of years at Staunton, and there was also a cooper
shop on the Upper Bloomington road, in Posey township, between the
point at which stands the Old School Baptist church and the Vigo county
line, carried on by Ebenezer Roberts & Sons.
    Fifty years ago Abraham Friedley was actively engaged in this
industry in the then almost unbroken forest of Eel river bottom, west
of Middlebury, on what has ever since ‘been known as “The Friedley
Knoll,” so named from his having settled it. Here he was immediately
surrounded by the timber supply for carrying on his work, which could
be had for the cutting, and plied himself daily, working early and late,
in producing barrels for the Terre Haute market, much of his prodnct
having been wagoned by Silas G. Cooprider, about the time of his becom-
ing of age. Louis Steuernagel was also a cooper, and maintained a
shop on his homestead in the northeast part of Harrison township, near
the Owen county line. James Bowman also conducted a coopery at
Middlebury, after the time of the Civil War, as did Robert Jordan, near
the Danville, or Shidler, crossing, who subsequently moved to Howesville
and opened a shop there. At the time that the stave factory was being
operated at Saline City, the seventies, John W. Baggett maintained a
shop at that place, producing and shipping a great many barrels.
    Another industry of the same period was the cutting and marketing
of hoop-poles, which were wagoned to Terre Haute, and in the days of
flat-boating, shipped to southern markets. In the purchase of the native
timber lands of that time, the extent of the acreage yielding hoop-poles
was not the last nor least inducement by way of prospective returns on
the investment, in the Terre Haute market poles were worth $1 a
hundred, at New Orleans $1.20, and at New Brunswick 75 cents, delivered
at the Eel river landings. In some instances a boat’s load consisted
wholly of hoop-poles at other times, of poles and staves. Thousands
of staves were rived and shipped in the rough to New Orleans. Timber
for the production of staves could he found in abundance at
point in the county, but the hickory hoop-pole producing area was con-
fined, in the main, to the sandy knolls and elevations on the higher
bottom lands.
    In 1856, Etna Lawrence emigrated from Ohio to Clay county,
Indiana, locating in Posey township, where he engaged in the manu-
facture of hand-made measures, mostly half-bushels, some of lesser
capacity. As population increased and the country improved, there was
a corresponding demand for his products, which were distributed over
the country and sold to dealers and consumers. From this source he
realized, largely, the means which enabled him to buy a farm of ninety
acres m 1878.
    In the year 1859 or 1860, Warren H. Ashley located a work-shop on
the H. L. Ashley place, then a mile east of the town of Brazil, now the
Ross S. Hill homestead, and engaged in the manufacture of fanning-
mills, which were wagoned out over the country for sale. In 1863 he
moved this industry to Crawfordsville and operated it there, where he
still resides.
    Of the various phases of the timber industry for converting forest
trees into marketable products that of cutting shingles was probably the
most widely diffused over the territory of the county accessible to the
railroad. The primitive shingle factory of fifty or more years ago, though
but a miniature manufacturing, plant, comparatively, was popular in its
time, hailed as just the thing needed to conserve the wants of both the
producer and the consumer. These factories, or machines, which were
operated by hand-power, sprang up at many crossroads and other places
convenient for carrying on the business. Only soft timber was used,
and as there was then a superabundance of fine poplar no one was at any
loss in being supplied with the raw material to work upon. The timber
was sawed into blocks of shingle length, which were divided into sec-
tions, the bark taken off, then cast into a water-tight vat under which
was a furnace and softened by the process of steaming, when they were
ready for the knife as soon as cooled enough to be handled. Two men
were required to operate the plant—one to supply the power by handling
the lever, to which the knife was attached, the other to feed the blocks
and relieve the machine of the shingles, cut one at a time. The shingles
were then baled, four bales to the thousand, when they were ready for
the market. Millions of feet of poplar timber were consumed in this
way in Clay county. Many landholders, either individually or by co-op-
eration, by planting such a factory and industry on their own premises
and using their own timber, with the proceeds realized, paid their taxes
and liquidated interest-bearing deferred payments on their land purchases.
    In the north-end third of the territory of the county there are known
to have been operated as many as fifteen or twenty such plants, some
of which may he enumerated from personal recollection: Beverly
Baldwin’s, Squire Compton’s, Andrew Hasting’s, Samuel M. Stewart’s,
William Nicoson’s, Jacob Wagle’s, Frump & Nicoson’s, William White’s,
Daniel Easter’s, Jefferson Nicoson’s, George Easter’s, Greenberry
Triplett’s, John Yocums, Henry Bemis’s, John Triplett’s, William and
Jesse Nicoson’s, John M. Browns, Richard Brown’s, Poffs’ and Pilant's.
In the more central part of the county were A. B. Wheeler’s, David
Moore’s, A. H. Wright’s, which were in Jackson township, and Huber’s
and White’s, which were in Washington township. In the southeast part
of the county were Jackson Cooprider’s, west of Middlebury, on the
Kossuth road, Isaac Frees, on the Schmaltz place, and Aaron Gilbert’s,
on the Solomon Moyer place. After operating his mill for a time by
hand power, Cooprider made the necessary changes for applying horse
power.
    The period of greatest activity in the manufacture of poplar shingles
was from 1860 to 1870, including the years of the Civil War, and the
area of greatest production, the north end of the county, because of
railroad facilities and the abundance of poplar timber. This industry was
not planted in Perry and Lewis townships, because of the absence of
poplar timber.
    Poplar shingles were always marketable, of which the standard price
was from $1.25 to $1.50 per thousand. Millions were shipped throughout
the country. The daily capacity of one of these hand power machines
was from six to nine thousand shingles.
    For the period of twelve or fourteen years, from the time that the
Terre Haute & Indianapolis railroad began operations up to the time
that the management adopted block coal instead of wood for fuel for
motor purposes, the chopping and hauling of wood was an important
industry within the zone comprising several miles on either side of the
railroad track. At that time it was a very common thing to see adver-
tising sheets, written or printed, posted at public places announcing the
want of wood-choppers by the cord. This industry was confined, in the
main, to the winter season, as there were more men then otherwise unem-
ployed than during the summer. This wood was hauled to the railroad
track and “corded up” on the “right of way” on either side. Not only
hundreds but thousands of cords, making a continuous stretch of miles
in the aggregate, were piled up along the road in this county. It was
then taken up by the work trains as wanted and hauled to the wood
stations, where it was cut into lengths for use by a horse-power treadmill
saw. At the Brazil station this saw was operated for a number of years
by John McDougal, who is remembered as having built and occupied
the first house on what is now North Washington street, then the
Shattuck place, the only dwelling-house then back of the National road,
north side, east of Meridian street.
At some time in the forties a quarry was opened on the Cornwell
place, on the bluffs of Otter Creek, two miles north of Brazil, from the
product of which grind-stones of good quality were manufactured for
the home market and wagoned over the country for sale, the only industry
of its kind in the county. The man who cut, dressed and prepared these
stones for use was Thomas Wallace, then well up in years, and known
as “Uncle Tommy.” Though these stones gave satisfaction, this industry
was not maintained any considerable length of time. After his retirement
from the quarry “Uncle Tommy” was better known as the “Dick Johnson
Township Librarian,” located in a cabin, on the bank of Otter Creek,
near the old schoolhouse known as “The Dunlavy.” In his personality
he is remembered from his white flowing locks, ruddy countenance, and
talkativeness.
    Of the pioneer infant industries of Brazil, recalled at this day by
but very few, was the manufacture of pump-stocks, conducted by John
C. McClaren, in one of the original small frame buildings on the north
side of Main street, between Franklin and Walnut, near the present inter-
urban station. The boring machinery for tubing the sections was operated
wholly by hand power, requiring two men of more than average muscle
and endurance to run it. The proprietor himself, an exceptionally able-
bodied man in this capacity, supplied the force at one end of the lathe,
the man at the other end wanting to work and rest on alternate days.
The product of this infant plant was shipped to a pump manufacturer
at Greencastle.
    The making of grain cradles was another pioneer industry necessarily
maintained until the time of the coming of the horse-power harvesting
machinery. In this line there were but few experts, whose handiwork
gave general satisfaction. Cradle-makers were not numerous in the rural
grain-producing districts. There came from Eastern Ohio to Marion
township, Owen county, more than a half century ago, a man named
Jacob Groner, who had won the reputation of being practically master of
this art, who made cradles for Clay as well as Owen county people.
Jacob White, known as a progressive, wealthy farmer of Harrison town-
ship, when yet a young man, went to Groner’s and had a cradle made
to order, staying by his side until the work was done, when he took it
home. Meanwhile, he had learned the trade, and from that time on not
only made his own cradles, but manufactured them for his neighbors and
the farming population all about him.
    In the springtime of the year 1879 two cheese factories were estab-
lished in Clay county—one in the north part of Dick Johnson township,
on the Carter place, the other at the town of Center Point, both going
into operation about the middle of the month of May. The promoters
and proprietors of the first named were William T. Anderson, Lucius
Carter and Benjamin V. Rector, who erected a two-story building 50 x 24
feet, to provide the accommodations necessary for conducting the busi-
ness, employed and placed in charge of the industry a young man named
Charles Monroe. The patrons of this plant delivered daily about six hun-
dred pounds of milk.
    The promoters of the Center Point factory formed an organization,
of which George Grimes was president, William Butt, treasurer, and
Rufus L. Kennedy, secretary. Responsible farmers gave assurance of
the necessary and agreed amount of milk, and citizens of the town pro-
vided the accommodations for the home of the plant, utilizing the
abandoned United Brethren church, 30x40, with addition and improve-
ments. This company placed in charge of their industry a supposed
experienced and competent man. The capacity of this factory was rated
at a thousand pounds of cheese per day, the product, however, having
been less than half this much during the time that it was operated.
Neither of these industries came up, practically, to the anticipations of
their promoters and founders. From mismanagement or other causes,
neither plant was operated any considerable length of time. It was
claimed by the proprietors of the plant in the north end of the county
that home dealers discriminated against them, buying cheese of inferior
quality from manufacturers elsewhere at prices with which they could
not compete. This plant, as represented by the proprietors, had conclu-
sively demonstrated that nine cents worth of milk is necessary to produce
a pound of cheese of first quality.
    At the time of the building of the grade of the Indianapolis Division
of the Southern Indiana Railroad, Perry A. Morgan, a substantial, pro-
gressive farmer of Perry township, through whose farm this grade
passed, projected a creamery in anticipation of the early completion of
the road, which he proceeded to build immediately alongside the grade,
then equipped and operated it for the season of 1906. The indefinite
suspension of work on the railroad proved disastrous to the operation
and success of this industry, as all the butter produced for the market
had to be hauled to Cory for shipment over the E. & I. Railroad. Having
contracts for the season with patrons of the plant, on abandonment of
the production of butter, he resorted to the shipping of the cream to
Terre Haute, which proved to be more inconvenient, hazardous and
unprofitable than the handling of the butter, when the industry was sus-
pended. Later, the plant was converted into a feed-mill and operated for
a time as such.
    A pioneer infant industry of significance in the later development
of the growth and wealth of the county was the production of earthen-
ware, or pottery, of which the primitive manufacturing plants were
known as potteries, or potter-shops. The founding of this industry dates
back to a very early day in our local history. Its importance to the strug-
gling early settlers may be measured from three considerations—affording
remunerative employment to a limited number in production and dis-
tribution, providing necessary household utilities, and as a marketable
product and source of cash. Comparatively speaking, potter-shops were
numerous, and much of their output was wagoned over the country and
sold to the retail dealers. There are yet survivors of the times just
preceding the Civil war who may be heard to relate their experiences in
the distribution, sale and exchange of “crockery” by drives made through
Greene, Sullivan and other adjacent counties. In the later fifties and
early sixties, Cyrus Rinehart produced large quantities of this ware in
the neighborhood of what is now Cardonia, for whom John Triplett was
distributor and salesman. Though the first developments in this industry
were in the north end of the county, as early as 1844 Truman Smith went
from Cloverland down to Middlebury and established a shop in that local-
ity, which he conducted for twenty years or more, very nearly on the same
ground now occupied by the plant owned and operated by Beryl Griffith,
on the south side of Clay City. Immediately in the same locality was
another shop, operated for a time during the life of the original one, by
Peter Harp, which stood near the site of the later Correll, now the Henry
Null place. In connection with his clay plant Smith also kept a country
store. In 1865 he sold the premises to John Everhart, who continued to
operate the shop in the production of ware, Finley Knisely and S. V.
White doing the moulding and burning.
    The first shop of this kind in the northeast part of the county, as
remembered by early settlers, was that of Neal Vestal, near the point
then known as the “Big Lick,” a mile or more northeast of Morgan’s
Crossing. Not distant from this point, later on, were the Cordrey, Sapp,
Brackney, Perry and Casteel shops. A few miles westward, in Dick
Johnson township, were the Torbert, Brackney, Billeter & Zeigler, Ball
and Husher shops. Henry Ball’s shop was on the Dunlavy place, near
the old school-house, where Brazil’s voting population used to go on
every recurring election day to cast their ballots. On one occasion, to
close out his stock on hand, Ball sent three wagon-loads of ware, on the
same day, to Martinsville, hauled by Sanmel McMilian, John Triplett
and Abe Rardan. Primarily, the output of these industries consisted of
crocks and jugs, then, later, of jars and cans, in part. On the 5th day
of June, 1859, William R. Torbert put in operation the first clay industry
on the site of the town of Brazil, which be operated until the year 1903,
a period of forty-four years. Were it possible to approximate by any
means of computation the number of gallons of ware produced from
Clay county clay, the figures of the enumeration would astound and
bewilder even the most conservative and credulous mind.


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