Chapter 9

New Settlers and Their Experiences
The year 1833 added but few to the scanty number of pioneers. One was Mr. Obadiah Winters, from Miami County, who reached the Hawkins cabin with his family on the 1st of October, having visited the country the previous summer. He bought out James Morrison, and still lives on the same old farm. It was very common at that time for hunters from the older settlements to hunt in this county. Their camps were everywhere to be found. But the crack of no one's rifle was heard so frequently, or was so fatal to the game, as that of Jesse Gray. His favorite camping place was near the spring on the Salimonie, now owned by Samuel Reed. Once when Mr. Winters was hunting, he heard what he was sure was a turkey calling her mate. Soon he saw her, and taking the most deliberate aim, was just touching the trigger when Jesse Gray sprang out into open view. It so alarmed Winters that he could scarcely hold his gun the rest of the day, but not a nerve trembled of the veteran hunter, who so narrowly escaped.

When Mr. Winters' son John was about two and a half years old, he was one day at his grandfather's, Philip Ensminger's. In the morning the old man went hunting, and without his knowledge the little fellow followed and got lost. The waters were very high, and it rained hard during that night. Great excitement prevailed throughout the community, and a large number of persons went to hunt him, which they did the whole night in vain. A cat that was wont to play with the child followed them, and repeatedly during the night came to them, mewed, and then went away again. They paid no attention to this until morning, when J. C. Hawkins and Thomas Mays followed the cat, and she led them direct to the lost boy. He was insensible, and very cold, and nearly dead. When he revived so as to be able to talk he saw the cat and said, "Tom, you and me has been lost." He also said that the cat came to him several times through the night, and that he saw a big dog, which was doubtless a wolf.

Mr. Winters made the coffins in those days. There being no lumber of the purpose, Puncheons were split out of logs, hewed and planed until they looked as well as sawed lumber. In such a coffin a child of Philip Brown was buried on the north bank of the Little Salimonie, near the road. That was the first death in Wayne Township. In this year also the Highlander family came to the county, consisting of William Highlander, senior, then about eighty years old, and wife, and William, Tandy, James, and several others. They built a log house near Mr. Winters, and after having cleared several acres, a speculator entered the land, and they were again without a home. William and James now live in Portland.

In the autumn of 1833 Edward Buford and family settled near where Samuel K. Williams now lives, and was the first settler in Jackson Township. He had been a valuable scout in the War of 1812, and now he and his sons were famous hunters. They had as many as one hundred and fifty traps set at one time. The "pole trap," which was so often used by them and other hunters, should be described. A long pole was cut, then two stakes driven into the ground, one on each side of it, near one end. These were withed together at the top; then another pole was placed on the first one, the end between the stakes raised up, and triggers set under it. To these was attached a string, which ran back between the poles. Upon the whole was placed a heavy weight. Animals attempting to pass between the poles would touch the string, spring the triggers, and be caught in the "dead fall." B. W. Hawkins says Buford was the only man he ever knew who could catch a fox in a trap of this kind. In a few years Mr. Buford moved into Bear Creek Township, where he died in 1841.