Chapter 7

The Pioneers of 1830

At the opening of the year 1830, from the low chimneys of but three humble cabins the blue smoke curled gracefully above the tall, vast forests surrounding them, to mark the beginning of civilized life in Jay County. As a few bright stars appear first at evening, and, as the night draws on, multitudes glitter in the sky, so these families - "stars of empire" - were the front lights of that thronging civilization that is following. They were Orman Perring, John Brooks and the Hawkins family. At that time, although Brooks had been a settler there for eight years, the others knew nothing of him, nor did he of them. Thus dimly did the light of civilization shine in that region at the opening of this decade.

In the spring of 1830, James Stone and William Cummings visited Ft. Recovery. They knew Peter Studabaker, for, three years prior, while on a visit to the St. Joseph country, they had enjoyed his hospitality. They selected land in Noble Township and went to work, planted corn, killed large numbers of deer and found many bee-trees. Greatly pleased with the country, when autumn began to tinge the forest with yellow, Mr. Stone brought his family from Gallia County, Ohio. This time he was accompanied by Henderson Graves, who had married his daughter the evening before starting. William B. Lips was living near there at that time, but how long he had been there is not known. Stone bought him out and he moved to Greenville.

The two families lived in a camp about six weeks, and then built a cabin. In October, John J. Hawkins came there, hunting some cattle, and they learned, for the first time, that they had a neighbor within six miles.

The country abounded in such luxuries as turkeys, venison and honey. The greatest difficulty was the want of a mill, there being none nearer than Greenville. But Peter Studabaker dressed a couple of "gray heads," and constructed a horse mill, which served the neighborhood for some years as a corn-grinder. This mill was turned by a cowhide. In dry or frozen weather the tug would contract and become too short, and in wet weather stretch and get too long. Corn was raised in abundance, with but little work. In 1831 James Stone sowed 1½ bushels of wheat on 1½ acres of ground. When harvest time was at hand, the blackbirds came by the thousands, and destroyed much of it; yet he got 37½ bushels. He was the first settler in what afterward became Noble Township, and entered the first piece of land ever entered in Jay County, November 9th, 1832. He had his honor, however, by but one day, as Thomas Scott entered forty acres the next day. He was an enterprising, industrious citizen, and died in the spring of 1848.

Thomas Scott came soon after Stone, remained a few years and moved to Texas, where he died.

Henderson Graves says that about this time, he and Conaway Stone cut a bee-tree, and, to their great surprise, found two swarms in it, from which they got ten gallons of strained honey. At another time when they were hunting, and at some distance apart, both shot the same deer, at the same instant, neither one hearing the report of the other's rifle, and each fatally wounded the animal. These settlers saw that sublime phenomenon of the shooting start, which occurred in 1833.

In October, 1830, a boy fifteen years old, and small for his age, started from his father's house in Darke County, Ohio, on horseback, to select a piece of land for their future home. He stopped for the night three miles north of Fort Recovery, with David Beardslee, who desired that they should settle near him. But the boy's father instructed him not to select land near another family, for near neighbors were apt to quarrel. Taking a bridle path that Orman Perring had made from Fort Recovery to the Wabash, he followed it till he came to the land, which was afterward the farm of the late Elder Ebenezer Drake. Dismounting, he hitched his horse, blazed a path to the Limberlost, and returned just before night. Hoppling his horse and putting a bell on him, he let him loose. Then, lighting a fire, he lay down by it, on some bark, and, without even a blanket, slept soundly. The next day he built a half-faced camp, (which he called "a three-ended cabin,") just high enough for the boy to stand up in, and in that he ate and slept for two weeks, as happy as a lark, seeing no one except Indians, and an occasional traveler on the Quaker trace. The Indians were very good-natured and familiar. He traded a pint of whiskey to one of them for a ham of venison. Asking what would he take it in, the Indian took a deer's bladder, still warm, from his breast, and received the drink in that. The wolves would come around the camp every night and howl terribly. The youth would sometimes get up and stir the fire in order to see them, but could not. That boy was Hamilton Gibson. He was building a cabin for his father's (William Gibson's,) family. William W. Dole, Peter Studabaker and three others from Fort Recovery helped raise the cabin, which was the third one in Wabash Township. The next month William Gibson and his family came, his daughter Jane, now the wife of Samuel Arbaugh, being the housekeeper, her mother having died in Ohio. After Hamilton was married and had fifteen acres cleared, a man attempted to enter the land, and so cheat him out of his improvements. This was a common and shameful method by which speculators defrauded the industrious early settlers out of their homes and the fruits of their labor. A friend loaned him $50, and without one cent to pay his expenses, he went on foot to Fort Wayne, and saved his home.

One winter Hamilton went with a team and sled into Ohio after provisions, to procure which was a source of great labor and inconvenience to all the pioneers. When he was crossing Still Water the ice broke and let him into the stream. Unhitching the horses, he tied them to a tree, and went to a neighbor's and staid all night. In the morning the stream and risen so that he could not get in sight of his horses, and they had to stand there nearly two days and nights before the water subsided!

In those early times Mr. Gibson was quite a hunter - has hunted four days without seeing a house. At night, in the winter, he would build two log heaps, set them on fire and sleep between them on bark. At one time, hunting a horse that had a bell on, he did not find the animal until it was too dark to go home. He mounted the animal and let her go, but after traveling two hours she came back to the place from which they started. Dismounting, he lay down at the roots of a tree, without a fire, snug awhile, and went to sleep, not waking until the morning sunlight was streaming through the forest. Reaching home, he found his wife had been fighting fire from the fences nearly all night, and was very anxious for his safety. This was the year to take the census, and Judge Jer. Smith, of Winchester, then quite a young man, was appointed Assistant Marshal of Randolph County and the territory attached thereto, extending northward to the line between Congressional Townships 25 and 26. This was the dividing line of the territory attached to the counties of Randolph and Allen, respectively, they being the only counties then organized between the north line of Wayne County and the north line of the State. Near the close of the summer Mr. Smith came to the Salimonie, census-taking. Had he desired to enumerate the rich bee-trees, the droves of beautiful deer, the families of bears and wolves, with which the forest were then populous, the result would have ranked the county amount the first in the State. But he found human beings and the products of labor scarce indeed. While following a trace, in search of some inhabitants, he met Samuel Hawkins, and took from him the census of that family, and learned that there were two other families in the region.

Thus resulted the census of Jay County for 1830. Could we peer into the dark unknown beyond us, and compare with these the census returns of 1930, when we, who now make the life of the county, shall all be gone, and our beloved forests and their delightful haunts for game have faded before a busier - perhaps not better - civilization, and when other men and women, other enterprises and interests, occupy the places we now hold - with what strange, intense interest would we look upon the exhibit!