THE OLD HOMESTEAD. 



19 



Jackson they had seen, they felt hke going back to 

 meet him again; for no mere passing salutation would 

 have sufficed to show their loyalty to the general. 



There is no doubt that hordes of Indians have 

 threaded the woods that once covered all the land on 

 which the old homestead now stands. It has been one 

 of the traditions hereabouts that an old Indian, of the 

 Miamis, and not so many years ago at that, used to 

 come back and visit certain families — especially those 

 of hunting proclivities — and stay again for a while 

 among the scenes and hills that he had loved so well. 



After the wedding, on January 15, 1822, grand- 

 father took his wife in front of him on horseback, and 

 they thus made their honeymoon together to the cabin ; 

 and there, and in the homestead, they lived together 

 for over fifty years. My father, when a lad but eight 

 or ten years old, until the country was opened up, fol- 

 lowed, in company with his sister, a blazed trail made 

 by grandfather through a woods three miles to school; 

 and it was a dark arid lonesome trip, with the experi- 

 ence, too, of occasionally getting lost, while the reports 

 of panthers traveling westward at the time made the 

 danger seem much greater. Mush and milk was a 

 common diet; and the boys' clothes in grandfather's 

 time used to be homespun, made of wool sheared from 

 his own sheep, which he drove down and washed in 

 the river, four miles away. The fleece was made into 

 rolls at the carding mill down by the river, and then 

 spun into thread by grandmother at the homestead, and 

 finally woven into patterned cloth for them at the 

 fuller's. Grandmother used to spin flax also, and 

 trousers and coats were made of the tow for the boys. 

 All the blankets on the farm were of home manufac- 



