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CHAPTER XXV.
SMITH TOWNSHIP-SCAFFOLD PRAIRIE-ITS BEAUTY IN EARLY YEARS-TOWNSHIP
FORMATION-ITS RE-DIVISION LATER-THE FIRST SETTLER, JESSE ELGIN-REMINISCENCES
OF THE DAYHOFFS-DEER AND BUFFALO LICKS-WAGONING TO LOUISVILLE—FIRST SCHOOL
TEACHERS DEER PETS-LONE TREE PRAIRIE-DEATH BY DAMPS-THE FIRST WEDDINGS
-CHURCHES.
THE township of Smith is one of the best for agricultural purposes in the
county. The soil contains much alluvium, without which the poorest crops
would be much poorer. In short, the soil is such that crops of all kinds,
especially the valuable cereals, are grown in great profusion, to the
material advantage of the residents. There is also enough silica in the soil
to furnish food for the stalks of wheat, oats, rye, barley, etc., and
without which all such grain falls on the ground before ripe, thus giving to
the husbandman for his labor scarcely any recompense, besides the heavier
burden of care which the loss places upon his shoulders, where families are
to be supported and debts paid.
SCAFFOLD PRAIRIE.
Originally, the township was almost or quite a beautiful prairie,
interspersed with numerous island- like groves that greatly heightened the
effect of beauty, and created an irresistible charm in the beholder. Running
around and extending over these hills of grove were numerous paths made and
traveled over by herds of buffaloes in former years. On any early summer
morning at the time of the first settlement of the county, herds of deer
could be seen cropping the rich verdure on the prairie expanse, or bounding
away over the green velvet at the sight of man. Crossing, the township here
and there are small streams, not so large as to cut the surface into
precipitous hills too abrupt for cultivation, but small enough to leave the
slopes in gentle curves, over which the plow can run with ease and profit.
Some portions of the township, notably the hills in the northern end, are
too clayey for profitable cultivation, and other portions pretty well south
in the township are too level, and require open or under drainage, but as a
whole the land is of the best in this portion of the State. The portion that
at present is too level is in reality the richest for agricultural purposes,
and is destined in the future to be the garden spot of the county.
FORMATION OF THE TOWNSHIP.
Greene County was organized by act of the Legislature in 1821, and at the
meeting of the first County Board at old Burlington, the first county seat,
early in that year the entire territory was laid off into four townships, as
will be found fully detailed elsewhere in this volume. The township of
Highland was one of the four, and comprised all of the present townships of
Highland, Jefferson, Smith and Wright. This was a large extent of country
for one township, but it was no larger proportionately than the settlers
were few. Besides this, office-seeking had not yet been reduced to a
science, as it has at the present day, and the dear people were not pestered
and importuned for months beforehand by political imposters to induce them
to go often and early to the polls on election day. People then had
something else to think of than the welfare of politicians, though they
usually managed to attend elections more from a sense of duty as citizens,
and from a desire to enjoy the visit with their neighbors, to gossip of
local affairs, and guess of the outcome of intrigues in national affairs
which they had just heard of, though occurring several months before, and
also to become acquainted with new settlers and learn of the more
interesting county affairs, than from any hope of gain at the elections. But
the large township answered the purpose for a number of years, or until the
settlement had become so aug- mented by arrivals as to warrant a division.
In the month of May, 1828, the County Board divided Highland Township, and
created all of the present townships of Jefferson, Smith and Wright into a
new township, to be known and designated by the name of Smith; but about a
week later, all of the county lying in the forks of White and Eel Rivers was
in turn separated from Smith, and named Eel River Township, to which a
separate organization was given. This left Smith Township with the present
territory of Wright, Smith and Jefferson, except the portion lately known as
Eel River Township. In 1828, when old Smith was first created, the elections
were ordered held at the residence of Frederick Dayhoff, where they
continued to be held for several years, &aiming thus the prominence the
elder Mr. Dayhoff had in the northern portion of the county.
THE RE-DIVISION.
In January, 1838, the County Board again divided Smith Township as follows:
Beginning at Township 8 north, Range 6 west, on the line dividing Sections 4
and 5 in said township, the said line dividing the counties of Greene and
Clay, running thence south to the south line of said Smith Township, said
line dividing the townships of Smith and Stockton. All of Smith Township
west of that line was created as Wright Township, and all east of that line
was still to be known as Smith. The latter then included the present Smith
and Jefferson Townships, except Eel River Township. Thus Smith remained
until Jefferson was created, at which time the western boundary was removed
two miles further west where it now is. At the division of 1838, above
mentioned, elections in Smith were ordered held at the house of John Fuller.
JESSE ELGIN, THE FIRST SETTLER.
The settlement of. the township began early, as the country was beautiful,
the soil promising and the location apparently healthful. It is highly
probable that the fret permanent settler was Jesse Elgin, who was a native
of Kentucky, and came to the township, if reports are reliable, in the year
1820. Among the others who came about the same time or earlier were
Frederick Dayhoff, Elias Dayhoff, Abraham Dayhoff, Cyrus W. Conant, Alfred
Buskirk, Charles Walker, John Stanley, Rev. Nathaniel Moss, Mr. Goodale,
Abraham Wood, Samuel Wilkes, Byrum Combs, Je:mes Frazier, George Shrikes,
and later Rev. Richard Wright, Kinsie Moore, Daniel Wood, Richard Lambert,
Mr. Whittemore and Bartholomew Ellinsworth. These were all early settlers,
and nearly all became prominent in the affairs of the county. Several
reached ripe old ages, and went down in honor to the grave full of years,
beloved and revered by all the country for miles around. It is pleasant for
the descendants of the early settlers to remember all that has been done to
make the wilderness the happy abode of educated and prosperous people. The
heart goes out in gratitude, and tears come to the eyes when the tottering
forms of the old settlers go limping by. When we remember the hours they
spent in toil and self-denial that we, their children, might be made
comfortable and happy, to deny them the only sought boon, to end their days
happily, would be the basest ingratitude.
RESIDENTS OF 1821.
By the time the county was organized, in 1821, there were several famlies
living in what is now Smith Township. Log cabins dotted the land and around
them were small fenced tracts for gardens and grain fields. Several of these
families were obliged to give up their new homes and go back whence they
came. The following, taken from Baber's history, is worthy of preservation
in this volume:
THE DAYHOFF REMINISCENCE.
" By request, I give, as one of the first settlers of Scaffold Prairie, a
sketch of its history from memory, as also of the township of Smith, as
originally organized, and of its subsequent division: This township derived
its name, originally, from old Thomas Smith, who kept the ferry across White
River, on the old Indian trace from Louisville to Fort Harrison, a short
distance below the mouth of Eel River, and embraced the present townships of
Smith and Jefferson, and extended above the mouth of Eel River a short
distance, embracing the old Craig Mill, at which elections were first held
in the township. In the year 1825, I attended the election at this mill for
the first time after I came to the State. As the township originally derived
its name from the old ferryman, the district that contained his residence
should have retained his name; but instead of that, it has had given to it
tha name of Jefferson, and a district west of that, embracing Scaffold
Prairie, has the name of Smith. On the old trace from Smith's Ferry to Fort
Harrison or Terre Haute, there was no one living from where Worthington now
stands to where a family by the name of Shumaker then lived, about where old
Mr. Myers now lives, until you came to Scaffold Prairie. My father entered
160 acres of land in Scaffold Prairie on the 9th of August, A. D. 1824,'and
in the fall, after the lapse of a month or two, moved to his land in the
prairie, and took me with him. " My father, Frederick Dayhoff, as also my
mother, were natives of Maryland, but were residents for a long time of
Kentucky, after which they settled in Scaffold Prairie, Greene County, in
1824. Being single, I came with them, and remained until the first crop of
grain was raised. I then returned to Kentucky, and remained six or nine
months, and married a young lady whose maiden name was Mary Thomas whose
character was such that it never was tarnished by the tongue of malice. She
died of consumption, and left me three children. My mother died in Scaffold
Prairie in July, 1833, of cholera, the only person's death by that disease
in the country around, aged fifty-seven years, nearly. My father died ten
years and two days after, by the infirmities of age, being over
seventy-seven years old. " When my father came to Scaffold Prairie, in 1824,
he found there two families who had been living there a year or two. The
head of one was Jesse Elgin, a native of Kentucky, and son of old Jesse
Elgin, of Washington County, in this State, and the other family was by the
name of Woodsworth, from Ohio. Among the subsequent early settlers of this
prairie was Charles Walker, a family from Kentucky, who settled where David
Fuller now lives, and George R. Taylor, now of Worthington, who bought out
Woodsworth and lived in the settlement many years. But, that I may not weary
the reader in speaking of additions and changes in the settlement, I decline
this course for the present. I conceive you may inquire of me what gave
Scaffold Prairie its name. I can very briefly and fully satisfy you on this
question.
DEER AND BUFFALO LICKS.
" There are, in the central and lower parts of the prairie, licks which were
the resort of wild animals, such as deer, buffaloes, and, perhaps, elks,
from the commencement of wild animals on our continent until its occupation
by white men. At this lick large basins were eat out by wild animals,
craving salt or something of the kind, I suppose. From these licks diverge
in every direction what is generally called buffalo ditches, made by the
wear of animals and the wash of water along their paths. Now, around this
lick were scaffolds, constructed upon four posts set in the ground, and the
scaffolds upon them twelve or fifteen feet or more above the ground. Upon
these scaffolds the Indians would sit and watch for deer and other wild
animals coming in to the lick. And while these animals would come spying for
danger on the surface, never thinking of danger above, toward the smiling
heavens, the Indian would pop them through with his fatal ball. These
scaffolds were standing for years after the prairie was occupied by white
men, and from these scaffolds the prairie took its name. And is it not
remarkable that no effort has been made to discover what the animals sought
at this lick, especially as coal and timber are plentiful around this
prairie?
WAGONING FROM LOUISVILLE.
" The changes that have taken place in this part of the State in fifty or
fifty-five years are astonishing. In the fall season of the year, the
merchants in this county' and west had to have their goods hauled by team.
from Louisville, there being no railroads at that time, and the Wabash being
at that season of the year too low for steamboating. So, then, Mr. Elgin,
myself and brother, having heavy teams for breaking prairie sod, would haul
for the Wabash merchants in the fall of the year, and receive $1.50 per
hundred for hauling to Terre Haute; and with our big wagons and teams we
would haul froM twenty-five to thirty hundred. And one of the last loads
that I hauled was to Robroy, I think, forty miles beyond Terre Haute; and,
what is remarkable, made the trip from Louisville by Terre Haute to Robroy
and back home without having my wagon sheet wet. How unlike this season up
to the present ! But commerce now goes by the power and speed of steam; and
we would naturally conclude that under the improved state of mechanism and
arts of commerce, that we could get along in the world much easier now than
in the old time, but is this the case, I would ask? Now, let us consider.
Our taxes are double, and, in some cases thribble, according to amount and
value of property, what they were from thirty to fifty ytars ago. And, I
think, if you will look over your old tax receipts, you will be convinced of
the correctness of the assertion. Please examine your old receipts, while I
write you the exact copy of a tax receipt of my father's for payment on land
and property in Kentucky, for the year 1814, and consequently since the war
of 1812. Now comes the copy:
" ' MAY, 1814. —Received of Frederick Dayhoff, two dollars and six cents, in
full of his tax, for the year 1814, on 142 3/4 acres land, one tithe and
nine horses.
G. Smith, Deputy Sheriff for" O. CLARK, Sheriff Shelby County.'
" This was a good farm and well improved. But Hoosiers are to be pitied.
They can call up nothing like this. But this taxation is but one item in the
bill of expenses; and, further, I would state in reference to our taxes,
that I have a receipt for taxes, paid for a single year on my own property,
without including any former delinquencies, amounting to $126.77. Now I
would say, if this is not exorbitant oppression on a citizen in Smith
Township in moderate circumstances, depending upon the labor of his-hands
and economy to support himself and family, and defray the other expenses
incumbent upon a respectable member of society, then I may say the heavens
do not cover us. But, further, have not the claims of other public
functionaries increased much in the same ratio? Lawyers' fees, doctors'
bills, and all other public characters and agencies. Now, good citizens of
Smith Township, I leave these brief hints to your consideration; and it
is'for you, whether you be called Whig or Democrat, to say whether you will
continue to submit to this extortion. The late floods were beyond your
control, but the expenses alluded to may be within the compass of your
influence.
FIRST SCHOOL TEACHERS.
" The attention given to education in Smith Township, and especially in
Scaffold Prairie, from the early settlement there, has been commendable. My
sister, Litticia Buskirk, mother of Philander Buskirk, was the first school
teacher in Scaffold Prairie settlement, and I was the second. And I can say
with pleasure that I think the morals of this settlement have been above the
medium standard. Religion, which' is compared to the salt of the earth, has
always received attention and respect here; and I believe there has never
been a dram shop in the township, and trust the fire of Tophet will never
burn here. I fear, however, that the morals of this settlement now are not
as good as in its infancy.
" Smith Township contributed a liberal support to the Government dur-i ing
the war of the rebellion, and lost a number of her brave sons; but, with the
rest of our country, enjoys the confidence that our Republic is ' not to be
destroyed by internal diversions or external foes.
PET DEER.
" It the first settlement of Smith Township by white men, wild game of
various descriptions was very plentiful, especially deer and turkeys—the
former attracted, I suppose, by the lick in Scaffold Prairie. The hunters
could have all the venison they wanted. I, besides my venison, according to
the recollection of my family, had at one time nine pet deer, which I
procured by offering 50 cents ahead for fawns until I got nine. We raised
them, and they were very pleasant pets. They would on sight distinguish a
stranger from one of our family; and, on a particular occasion, a gentleman
from Terre Haute put up with us, and in going from the house to the barn, a
young buck spied something red on the gentle. man. Having a horror of blood
or anything red, young Mr. Buck made battle with the stranger. But
ordinarily they were very pleasant and gentle- in the family; and if I could
have some of them for pets at the present time, they would afford a
luxurious pastime for amusement.
LONE TREE PRAIRIE.
" The Lone Tree-Creek and Lone Tree Prairie were named for the old oak tree
which stood alone in the prairie for a great number of years. That noted old
red-oak stood on the north side of the old Gen. Harrison trace, made by the
soldiers in 1814. Many persons can yet point out the place where the Lone
Tree stood, about one mile northeast of William W. Baber's. The big lake, on
the county line, two miles east of Howesville, has evidently at one time
been the old river bed, and a .great many stories could be told for the
truth about the many exploits and adventures of the old pioneer hunters and
trappers on the river from Worthington up to the old reservoir." Smith
Township was 'never noted much for its bad conduct, but in an early day two
festive young men—own cousins--Samuel Wilks and Byram Combs, met at a
corn-shucking at Richard Wright's, and by some little difference of opinion
about a girl in the neighborhood, engaged in a fisticuff fight, and after a
few rounds and hard licks in the short ribs, Mr. Combs hallooed out, "
Enough! enough! Boys, take Sam Wilks away! I'm not whipped, but by jinks, I
just can't stand it!"" Our old neighbor and sociable friend, George R.
Taylor, established the first store, sold dry goods, and made the farm, set
out the apple trees and built a good substantial brick dwelling house on the
place where, Rice Elgin now lives, on the old Terre Haute State road. Mr.
Taylor's brick house was destroyed by fire, and afterward he came to
Worthington and is now enjoying good health." Old Uncle Sammy Wilks and his
brother-in-law, Mr. Byram Combs, settled near the old lake on the Sand
Hill, made the farm and set out the old apple orchards near where Mrs.
Elizabeth Cole now lives, north of the prairie." Rev. Richard Wright settled
on the farm and built a blacksmith shop where the Widow Dean now lives.
Afterward, Mr. Wright sold that farm to Richard Lambert, and Mr. Lambert
buried more than half the number of his large family in less than five
months' time, together with a man by the name of James Frazier, who was
smothered to death by the damps while he was engaged in the work of cleaning
out a well for Mr. Lambert the same summer, and on the same place that there
were so many persons died."The first weddings were Cyrus W. Conant to Nancy
Dayhoff; W. Y. Dayhoff to Lucy Goodale; Samuel Wilks to Celia Wright. The
first school was in the Dayhoff neighborhood. Among the early teachers were
Letitia Buskirk, Lucy Goodale, Elijah Godfrey, and some of the earliest
scholars were Philander Buskirk, Elijah and William Elgin, Mary and Susan
Walker, Eliza, Milly and Julia Elgin, Enos and William Goldsberry, Rice
Elgin and Bart Ellinsworth, besides the Dayhoff and Fuller children, some
six or seven in number.
This information is the research of many people across the United States and may contain errors. It is presented as the best information to date. Like all of those whose work I have incorporated herein, my research is a work in progress and subject to change without notice. A special thanks to Marlene Ricci of CA, Dwayne Meyer of CA, Jacqueline Bean of TX, Debbie Dick of IN, Milus Miller of IL, Carol Hendricks Miller of IN, Clarence Miller of IN, and Harold Glen Miller of IN. There are numerous others too; many of which are unknown, but their findings and stories are still much appreciated. Much of this would not have been possible with out their information. Also this website includes historical facts gathered from Washington County History, Indiana History, Rowan County and Salisbury North Carolina Historical sources and other US Historical sources.
James A. Miller- Great -Great -Great -Great Grandson of Adam Miller and Hannah Sheets.
©2007 The Millers of Washington County
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Last Updated 07/04/07 08:29:10 AM -0700