Baber's Early History of Greene County Indiana Chapter XIX Smith Township Township

The first old pioneer settlers on Scaffold prairie were old GRANDFATHER FREDERICK DAYHOFF, ELIAS DAYHOFF, ABRAHAM DAYHOFF and JESSE ELGIN. Afterwards came CYRUS W. CONANT, ALFRED BUSKIRK, CHARLES WALKER, JOHN STANLEY, REV. NATHANIEL MOSS, Mr. Goodale and ABRAHAM WOOD. Up in the north end of the township, on the old Sand Hill, were the families of SAMUEL WILKS, BRYAM COMBS, JAMES FRAZIER, GEO. SHRAYKES, and a few others. Afterwards came Rev. RICHARD WRIGHT, KINSIE MOORE, DANIEL WOOD, RICHARD LAMBERT, Mr. WHITTMORE and Father BARTHOLOMEW ELLINSWORTH.

The first weddings in this locality, were CYRUS W. CONANT and NANCY DAYHOFF, WILLIAM Y. DAYHOFF AND LUCY GOODALE, SAMUEL WILKS and CELIA WRITE. Among the first school teachers in this neighborhood WERE LETITIA BUSKIRK, LUCY GOODALE and ELIJAH GODFREY, with several little bright-eyed girls and boys at school; and among them we have the names of PHILANDER BUSKIRK, ELIJAH and WILLIAM ELGIN, MARY J. WALKER, SUSAN WALKER, ELIZA, MILLEY and JULIA ANN ELGIN, ENOS and WILLIAM GADBERRY, RICE ELGIN and BAT. ELLINSWORTH; together with the DAYHOFF and FUFFER [end of pg. 56] children. The DAYHOFF family came from Spencer County, Kentucky.- Rev. C. W. CONANT came from Plymouth, in Massachusetts, as a duly authorized agent for the American Tract Society; and he is a descendant of that old patriarch family, so closely connected with the history of the Mayflower. Shortly after Mr. CONANT came to Greene County, he was married to Miss NANCY DAYHOFF, a sister of Elias and WILLIAM Y. DAYHOFF. Mr. CONANT and wife have had eight children, three boys and five girls; and the family have always been busy workers in the good cause of education, in Clay, Owen and Greene Counties.

ELIAS DAYHOFF has lived on the same farm for over fifty years, and set out the old apple orchard on the old buffalo trail, where the old Indian trace passed along by the little oak grove, just south of where he afterwards built his present brick dwelling house. Mr. DAYHOFF has been a good citizen and a steady advocate of moral and religious principles for so long a time that his name and family history will occupy a page in our pamphlet.

DANIEL WOODSWORTH built a house and set out the old apple trees at the crossroads, just east of the Methodist Chapel.

Old Uncle ABE WOOD and wife died in that neighborhood, and were buried just west of where HENRY R. STRONG now lives, in that old evergreen (pine and cedar) cluster of bushes. Several other persons that died there in an early day were buried in the old field just south of the Methodist Chapel, and those old graves are now being plowed over every summer by the work hands employed to work ISAAC DAYHOFF'S farm.

Old Grandfather DAYHOFFf built the first house and set out the old apple orchard on the Branch, just above the Indian scaffold at the big salt lick, where the buffaloes and deer ate the dirt out of the little creek near the edge of the woods.

JOHN STANLEY first settled on the place where Mr. Landes now lives, at the south edge of the prairie.

Mr. CHARLES WALKER made the farm, built a house and set out the old apple orchard at the pine trees where DAVID FULLER now lives, on the Terre Haute road.

WILLIAM Y. DAYHOFF has lived on his excellent farm, and been a number one farmer for nearly half a century; and a few years afterwards, GOODALE settled on the farm where B. F. DAYHOFF now lives.

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. 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.

Reverend RICHARD WRIGHT settled on the farm and built a blacksmith shop where the widow Dean now lives. Afterwards Mr. Wright sold that farm to RICHARD LAMBERT, and Mr. LAMBERT buried more than half the number of his family in less than five months time, together with 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.

Old Grandfather JESSE ELGIN was born in Maryland, and came to Washington County, Indiana, in the year 1818, where he remained two years. The Elgin family came to Greene [end of pg. 57] county in the year 1820, and settled on the southern edge of Scaffold Prairie. Mr. ELGIN and wife had eleven children. Mr. LEVI ELGIN is the eleventh child of that family.

Mr. RICE ELGIN is a good, common farmer, fifty-seven years of age, and has lived in Greene county about Fifty years.

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 General 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 rive 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 townships wa never noted much for its bad conduct, but in an early day, two festive young men - own cousins - SAMUEL WILKS and BYREAM 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 fisti-cuff fight, and after a few rounds and hardlicks in the short ribs, Mr. COMBS hollowed out, "Enough! Enough! Boys, take SAM WILKS away! I'm not whipped but by jinks, I just can't stand it."

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We are in receipt of the following letter from the pen of Mr. ELIAS DAYHOFF, one of our very early settlers, which we take the liberty to publish in our pamphlet:

"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's mill, at which elections were first held in the township. In the year 1825, I attended the election at the mill for the first time after I came to the State. As this township originally derived its name from the old ferry man, the district that contained his residence should have retained his name; but, instead of that, it has had given to it the 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 same SHUMAKER then lived, about where old mister MYERS now lives, until you come to Scaffold prairie. My father entered one hundred and sixty 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, FREDRICK DAYHOFF, as also my mother, were natives of Maryland, but were residences 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 [end of pg. 58] prairie, in July, 1833, of cholera, the only person's death by disease in the country around, aged fifty- seven years, nearly. My father died ten years and two days after, by the infirmatives of age, being over seventy-seven years old.

When my father came to Scaffold Prairie, in 1824, he found there two families who had living there a year or two. The head of one was JESSE ELGIN, a native of Kentucky, and one 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 GEO. R. TAYLOR, now of Washington, 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 full satisfy you on this question.

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, 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, towards 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.

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 steam boating. 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 one dollar and fifty cents 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 instances, thribble, according to amount and value of property, what they were from thirty to fifty years ago. And, I think, if you look over your old tax receipts, you will be convinced of the correctness of this assertion. Please [end of pg. 59] 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 ¾ acres of land, one tithe and nine horses.

G. SMITH, Deputy Sheriff for
O. Clark, Sheriff SHEBB 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 a 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 me within the compass of your influence.

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 during 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.

At the first settlement of Smith township by white men, wild game of various descriptions were 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 fifty cents a head 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 this gentleman. 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.

Now, that I may not make my sketch tedious to its readers, I beg leave to close - but with the request that if it suggests anything for their improvement, they will thus use it.