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Dear W. G. I have completed a color-scheme map showing the sales of the U. S. Lands of Bartholomew Co., and have sent it to your for your inspection and custody at the hands of Mr. Richard. You will observe that I have separated the sales into periods of decades. First, the opening period, 1820 and 1821; - 1822 to 1830; 1831-1840; 1841-1850, and 1851-1854. The first period was a boom one, when the rich lands of the county were opened on the market by the Federal Government, and shows 563 sales - which includes 363, of them up to Feb. 15, 1821, the date of the organization of the county. The 363 tracts are colored in yellow. To these should be added the 200 sales in 1821, after Feb. 15 of that year, which make 563 sales for the years 1820 and 1821. These included the first choice of the lands, and you will note their location, particularly along the streams of Driftwood, Flatrock, Hawcreek in Columbus township; and a few along Clifty and Nineveh Creek. The first choice also included the "Hawpatch", and the second bottoms of Columbus, Clay, Flatrock, German and Sandcreek. The judgment of those pioneers was wise in their selections, anywise there were but few wild guesses on the quality of lands selected. For the second period, 1828-1830, embraces the "Hard Times" of the history of the County when money was scarce, due to a panic in 1826, and during the 9 years there were only 202 sales of U. S. land in the county. Under the compact made at Corydon in 1816, with the Federal Government, there was to be no tax levied on lands sold by the Government for five years after the sale. In lieu of this tax the Federal Government agreed to pay to the state three per cent of the gross sales of lands, to be used in the opening and improvemont of public roads. This would make the lands sold in 1820, and 1821 open for local taxation in 1836, and thus on to 1825 sales due for taxation in 1830. I find but one sale of land, and that in what is now Union township, for delinquent taxes inthat period. The deed records of the county show that a number of non-resident speculators, who let go of their $1.25 lands at first cost and a few at even less than paid for the, in this period. Even Judge Johm Pence, who had entered 31 eighties" in 1820 and 1821, found himself land-poor, and was borrowing money, as shown in the few mortgages made in this period - only 70 mortgages covering $18,369? up to and including the year 1830. In 1831 he had closed out his holdings in Bartholomew County, and had removed from the state when his last deed was acknowledged in Warren County, Illinois. Prices of lands sold for 1825, 6 and 7 show an average per acre of $2.48 and $2.52 respectively. In 1848 it was $3.15. In May 1828 Judge Pence made a big deal with Graham and Rodgers, of Jefferson and Jennings Counties, of some 1200 acres for $4500. They paid him $500 and gave a mortgage on the land for $4000. The buyers, no doubt, got weak-kneed for the deed records show that they reconveyed the lands to the grantor within two months. However in September of that year he sold a greater portion of this same body of land to Zachariah Tannehill for $3000. His deed conveyed the mill and distillery property, a mile west of Taylorsville. While the records do not disclose the terms of the sale, it is known that the payment for the land was to be made in whiskey, and that Maj. Tannehill delivered 700 barrels of whiskey at one time to John M. Gwin, who was agent for Judge Pence, and who flatboated it down the Driftwood and sold it at New Orleans. Anywise, these large deals brought up the average price of lands for 1828 to $3.13. The follwing two years the average was lowered to $2.47 for 1829 and $2.58 for 1830. The average for the 10 years was $2.98. The decade, 1831-1840 (colored blue on the map), was a boom year and there 1877 tracts of land sold in the county - or 54 2/10 percent, over one half of the county. This period covered the initial years of the great Internal Improvement System of the state. In 1836 there were several large land speculators that visited the land offices at Jeffersonville and Indianapolis and bought several thousand acres of land that were open for entry. Lucien Barbour & Co. (Dutton and Lanier) of Madison) made large purchases in Union, Harrison, Columbus, Clay and Sandcreek townships, while Blanding and Douglass of South Carolina bought largely in Rockcreek. There were 393 sales made in that year. It will be noticeable that the blue lands are composed, mostly, of the better clay lands of the county, and the slashy lands of Flatrock township. The entries in this decade include the Moravian's settlement of Hawcreek and the early German's in Wayne and Jackson, and of the Ohian's in Ohio township. Harrison appears on the map and they named it for the hero of Tippecanoe. Union, too, made a start in 1836. The sales of government land in the next decade, 1841-1850, cleared nearly all that was left in the county, and were mostly in the hilly country of Harrison, Jackson, Nineveh, Ohio, Union, and the flats of Whitecreek, showing 626 entries. Under an act of Congress, Nov. 1850, the Federal Government donated to the State of Indiana a million and a quarter acres of swamp and overflowed lands. These were located in 72 counties of the State. About 1000 acres were "selected," as they called it in the Act, in Bartholomew County, and the General Assembly fixed the price at $1.25 per acre. The lands were mostly in the flats of Wayne, one or two in Ohio, and several in the slashes of Flatrock. The proceeds of the sales of these swamp lands, under a clause in the 1851 Constitution, accrued to the Common School Fund. These, together with the scattering tracts of U. S. land, made a total of 95 tracts which were all disposed of by 1854, thus taking, all told, 3464 tracts contained within the county. As a suggestion, I might add, the map will make a good showing before the State Tax Commissioners to show the several grades and quality of the lands of the County. The selcetions made by the settlers, or some of them, now more than 100 years, have not changed, and but few slightly in the last 70 years. I have nearly completed a Doomsday Book of the entire county, which includes all of the first owners of lands of the County, and the original town of the county seat, Columbus. This I will have ready, I trust, to present to the Bartholomew Co, Hist. Society by Christmas. Yours Truly, George Pence.
This letter from the Bartholomew County Historical Society. George Pence was a civil engineer in Columbus and was noted for his interest in and writings about Indiana history. He is not related to the other early Pences in Bartholomew County (the brothers John, Isaac and Benjamin, who went to Bartholomew County about 1820). Instead his descent was from Jacob Pence of Augusta County, Virginia (now Rockingham County) through his son, George, a militia captain during the American Revolution. Capt. George Pence migrated to Sullivan County, Tennessee, and his son Jacob and wife Margaret (Roller) Pence went from there to Bartholomew County by 1830. George, the Columbus engineer, was the son of David Pence, in turn a son of Jacob. Other sons of David were also noted in their own right, with Lafayette, who moved to Colorado and was elected to the U.S. Congress as a "Silver Democrat" in 1892, William David, an engineer, author and professor and Edward Hart Pence, a noted clergyman in the Detroit, Michigan, area.
Clipping from the Columbus Republican, Bartholomew County, Indiana, April 10, 1886 I promised some time ago that I would give a short sketch of the settlement of German township and of the old settlers, but I cannot do it justice after so many years, having forgotten much that would be strange and interesting to the present generation. German is bounded on the east by Flatrock, on the west by Driftwood, had many excellent wells and springs and is therefore abundantly supplied with good water. It is one of the best townships of land in the county and produces abundantly everything that grows in this altitude. It was originally covered with a heavy growth of fine timber consisting principally of oak, poplar, walnut, ash, wild cherry, sugar maple, beech and much of this timber remains yet. The township has three good church buildings and six large brick school houses besides the graded school at Taylorsvile, and many fine and tasty private residences that would be a credit to any community and the whole township has an air of thrift and solid prosperity hard to excel. The township derives its name from the fact that it was settled principally by Germans and those of German descent. The younger generation who enjoy all these blessings now can scarely form a picture of the way their forefathers lived fifty or sixty years ago, but I will try to give them an idea of it. Each family had only one small field of corn and we had to watch them every day after the corn and we had to watch them every day after the corn got into the roasting ears to keep the gray squirrels form eating it up, and sometimes they were so bad that we had to gather it in September and dry it to keep it from spoiling. If it were cut and put in the shock coons and squirrels would eat it all. I have known men to hire hands to stand around the fields with a gun and shoot squirrels day after day. They would just shoot them and leave them where they fell. A man could just load and shoot all day and the squirrels would never seem to be any scarcer at night than in the morning. In that early day the land was covered by underbrush as well as large timber. There was also what we called peavine that grew luxuriantly everywhere. It was very useful and stock lived on it principally. Very little grain was to be had, and, after working the horses or oxen all day, they would be turned out at night to graze. Many oxen were used for hauling, which was done chiefly on sleds, and for breaking ground with the wooden plows. Harrow teeth were made of wood, poles with pins in them being used instead of log chains. Wagons were scarce, and if a man had ridden up in a buggy the people would have thought it was Elijah in his chariot. The people lived in log cabins, with a hole cut out for a door, but seldom any window. Their tables were made by splitting a broad slab out of a log, having the upper side as smooth as possible, and putting legs in it. Table cloths were unknown. Part of the family usually had to wait because there was not room enough nor enough dishes, knives, forks, spoons for all at the same time. Bedsteads were made by boring holes in one side of the cabin and driving forked sticks down further out in the floor and sticks laid across these, throwing over them some clothes and covering them with leaves or straw, and this was the bed. Some would hollow out a place in the corner of the floorless cabin, fill the place with leaves and use it for a bed. Meal waas made in this way: A block of wood about three feet long was cut from a tree, one end hollowed out by boring and burning until it was smooth and would hold from a peck to a half bushel. This was the mortar block. A pestle wa made by taking a stick of wood and fastening an iron wedge, (such as is used in splitting timber) in the end of it. The corn was poured in the mortar and pounded as fine as possible. It was sifted and the finer portion used for meal and the coarser for hominy. The meal was made into dough spread on a clean board and put up before the fire to bake. This was called "johnny cake." Sometimes the dough was rolled up into a ball or "dodger," placed in the embers and baked when it became "hoecake." The hominy was cooked and seasoned well with coon grease, when it was, "eat and be merry for tomorrow you must beat more meal and hominy." There was abundance of game at that time such as deer, bears, panthers, wolves, catamounts, wild cats, coons, opossums and wild turkeys. It was a good thing too, as game and corn bread was the chief diet. Some few had beds and other articles of convenience they had brought with them; but this was the exception. The nearest place to get any meal or four was Connersville or Brooklyn, in Wayne county. Old Mr. Barlow put up the first horse mill to grind corn. Each man had to take his own team to run the mill and grind his "grist" and then it was slow work. A couple of years later one Cox put a temporary mill on Flatrock, near what is now called "High Field ford." He felled a tree across the creek where it was swift for a dam, fixed a paddle wheel on it and ground some corn, but it had to be watched closely or the coons would eat it as fast as ground. In 1823 or 1824 John Pence built a mill on Driftwood where the old Tannehill mill now stands and after that there was no trouble in getting grinding done, providing you had anything to grind. The first ground that was ever cleared in the township was what has always been known as "The Big Field." John Pence in 1817 or 1818 sent some hands from Champaign county, Ohio, who thinned out the timber and built a brush fence around about twenty acres and this was the "Big Field." The first main road that was opened through this county extended from Connersville to Brownstown and ran on the south side of this field. Afterward, there was a small field cleared on the south of this and the road between the two formed the first lane in the county. It was called the "Big Field Lane" and for many years was used as a race track. The people would come from far and near to enjoy the sport of horse racing and many a merry gathering of that kind was held at this place. Jos. Steenbarger and Ab Kyle own this land. It will bring from 20 to 25 bushels of wheat or from 45 to 65 bushels of corn per acre, which shows that the land does not readily wear out. There are many other old fields in the township just as good. Our mothers and sisters manufactured all the clothes we wore and if the boys and girls of today had to work as we did and wear such clothes it would break their hearts if not their constitutions. They would spin and weave flax and tow for pants and shirts, card the wool by hand, spin and weave wool for their own wear. Made their own buttons for all the clothes, out of wood or thread. I was a large boy before I saw any other kind of button. There were few coats then and men wore "hunting shirts." They were made like other shirts, only open in front, and had from one to three capes on them, from the collar down over the shoulders. They were of all colors and most every material. I shall never forget my first hunting shirt. It was bright red, and when I got it on I felt as big as General Jackson. About 1824 or 1825 there were two log school houses built in the townships. The floors were made of huge puncheons and the lofts of clapboards five feet long. A log was cut out of one side of the house and greased paper pasted over the opening, this served as a window. For a writing desk we had a large puncheon placed on pins driven in the wall. We had writing paper but little better than ordinary wrapping paper now, ink was made from maple bark and pens from goose quills, such a thing as a lead pencil was unknown. For seats a log would be split open, the flat side turned up, and legs put in it. A large wooden fire-place and chimneys were built at one end and plastered with mud, the mud being mixed with straw or hog's hair to make it stick. The fire place would be filled with logs six feet long, which would burn nearly all day. The pupils would burn their shins and freeze their backs at the same time. There were only two or three months of school in the year and not many attended who were old enough to work. We did not have free schools then, as now, nor any money to hire a teacher. If a man could be found who would teach and take his pay in "truck," sheep, a piece of linen a few bushels of corn, etc., they would hire him and when he had taught the amount would quit. Webster's spelling book was about the only book we had to study. The young folks would meet at each other's houses and have spelling schools and learn a good deal and have much fun. How would our young folks now like this plan of getting an education? The following is a list of those who settled in this township between 1819 and 1825:
The above are all dead now except Jas. H. Van Meter, over 90, now living, in Iowa; Gideon Steenbarger, also in Iowa about 80 years old; S. H. Steenbarger, now of Kansas, 70 years old; J. M. Steenbarger, Eli Pence, and Struder Bozzell, who live here, each 70 years old. The following is a list of those who are living, and have been in the county fifty years or over:
Note by Richard A. Pence: The preceding is unsigned, but it may have been the same person as the one who wrote the following article, William P. Records. The John Pence mentioned above was my third great grandfather. He moved from Champaign County, Oh., to German Township in the fall of 1820, having bought 42 80-acre parcels from the U.S. Land Office at Brookville, Ind., in October of that year. It was said in Bartholomew County that he could "walk from the Flatrock to the Driftwood without stepping off his land" and a map of his holdings shows this to be true. When the county was organized in 1821 he was elected one of two associate judges and he held the office for three terms. He carried the title of "Judge" the rest of his life.
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