Chapter 127

Stories of Pioneer Hardship and Court in Elizabethtown

THE STORY OF THE PIONEER Vertreeses in the wilderness land of Kentucky is in large measure the story of forebears of numerous other noted Pike county families; among them the families of Hobbs, Haycraft, Van Meter, Chenoweth, Hodgen, La Rue, Hart, Hardin, Swank, Brown and Churchill. Amid daily and imminent perils, the Kentucky ancestors of these families settled the wildly beautiful Severns Valley where now is Elizabethtown.

The wily Indian was the common foe of all. Captain John Vertrees, ancestor of all of that name in Pike county, was himself wounded by the Indians, receiving a wound that never healed. One of his sons, Dan Vertrees, was killed in an encounter with the Shawnees, and another son, Joseph, who married Margaret Hodgen, elder sister of pioneer Jacob Hodgen of early Pittsfield, was long a captive among the tribes.

In the pioneer Kentucky settlement from which came these adventuring families to Illinois, lived William Hardin, member of the Virginia family associated with the first Lewises and Barnetts at Pleasant Hill, the family name being borne by Samuel Hardin Lewis, kinsman of the Pike county Galloways. Hardin was the founder of Hardin's Station or Settlement, in Kentucky. A man of giant size, he was a terror to the Indians, among whom he was known as "Nig Bill." They were eager for his scalp.

Samuel Haycraft, Jr., brother of Nancy Haycraft Vertrees and Mary Haycraft Chenoweth of the Pike county settlement, tells this story of Hardin in his "History of Elizabethtown, Kentucky," a copy of which is possessed by Nancy Haycraft's great grandson, Herbert H. Vertrees of Pittsfield:

"Hardin, like every other man of that day, was a hunter. Early one morning he came out of his house and fired off his gun in order to wipe it out, preparatory to a hunt. A stout warrior stepped from behind the chimney with rifle poised, and making sure of his man could not resist the temptation to tantalize, and exclaimed: ‘Hooh, Big Bill!' That was a fatal pause for the Indian, when Hardin, quick with his gun, clubbed and knocked down the Indian's gun, and in a minute the Indian lay dead at his feet."

Another neighbor and kinsman of the Vertrees, Van Meter and Chenoweth families in the early Kentucky settlement was Miles Hart, whose name is still borne by Vertrees and Chenoweth descendants. Miles Hart settled in the Severns Valley soon after the first comers, coming to that part of Kentucky about the same time as the Hodgens. His mother was a Van Meter; his wife was Elizabeth Bell ( or Beall), of the early Pike county family of that name, intermarried with the Boones. They established their cabin home in the neighborhood of the Vertrees, Van Meter and Haycraft settlement in the Severns Valley.

Miles Hart Chenoweth, born in Kentucky in 1791, a son of Major William Chenoweth and Mary Van Meter, and a brother of Abraham, James Hackley and Jacob Van Meter Chenoweth of early Pike county, bore the name of this pioneer of the valley, which is still being handed down to succeeding generations of Van Meter, Vertrees and Chenoweth families.

Miles Hart it was who, in the early Kentucky settlement, died in bloody defense of his valley home when, besieged by Indians, he sprang from side to side in his open cabin door, loading and firing, thus keeping the savages at bay for some time, while his wife and two little ones crouched behind him in the cabin, she assisting in the loading of her husband's weapons. The husband fell at last, a bullet-riddled corpse in his doorway, and his wife, then heavy with her third child, was taken prisoner by the savages along with the two children.

The remarkable endurance of these pioneer women is well exemplified in the story of this widow of Miles Hart, as told by the historian, Haycraft:

"She (Mrs. Hart) was burdened with camp kettles and other Indian plunder; they crossed the Ohio river into the Northwestern territory. After journeying a few days, at nightfall, she was compelled to kindle the Indian fires, then made to go aside and kindle a fire for herself, raking up as best she could rubbish from under the snow, and there alone, unaided by the kind assistance known to civilized life, was delivered of a son.

"The squaws then showed a little kindness in the morning, by giving her a little water in which a turkey had been boiled. Then cutting a block from a tree, they wrapped a piece of blanket around the new-born infant, fastened it to the block, and laid the block upon her back with camp kettles, etc., and pursued their way, and, in the course of a day, waded a river waist deep, and yet, strange to tell, she experienced no serious inconvenience, but from hard usages and inhuman treatment the child died at six months.

"She lingered in captivity and wretched slavery for several years until a trading Frenchman at Detroit purchased her from the Indians and restored her to her relations. She afterwards married and raised a considerable family.

Still another story by Haycraft reveals not only the hardihood but also the thrift, even in time of awful peril, of a pioneer woman of the neighborhood by the name of Rosannah Swank, whose descendants later settled in Missouri and in Pike county, Illinois.

"John Swank lived in a fort of his own two miles northeast of Elizabethtown. He and his wife on a travel to Bardstown were waylaid and attacked by the Indians. Both of their horses were shot under them and Mrs. Swank was wounded in the arm. In attempting to make her escape, after running a short distance her horse fell dead under her; she had a new saddle which she stripped from the dead animal and hung it in a tree. Swank's horse, being yet able to go, he dismounted and put his wife on his saddle, and he fled on foot to a cave on the old Cofer farm two miles from his fort. His dog betrayed him by barking at the pursuing Indians, and he was pierced by 19 bullets and killed instantly.

"Mrs. Swank fled on her husband's wounded horse until he failed. She left the dying horse and escaped on foot, and being a fleshy woman and clad in a new heavy linsey dress, she pulled it off as she ran, and so strong was her carefulness that she saved every pin and stuck them in an even row in the bosom of her dress.

"She lived many years after, a skilled and popular midwife. Swank's fort occupied the ground where her son-in- law, William Edlin, afterward lived and died. She left a considerable family of Swanks, the most of whom became rich or comfortable and subsequently removed to Missouri."

Rosannah Swank, heroine of this adventure, had a son Adam who married a Michael (or Mikel) and they had a son, Socrates Swank (the given name appearing also in Pike county records as "Secratus" and Socratus"), who resided in Pike county and at Perry, Missouri, and who was three times married in Pike county. His first wife was Margaret Lewis, daughter of Joseph Lewis, whom he married January 17, 1847. They had a daughter, Rutha M. Swank, born October 9, 1852. On March 11, 1866, Swank married Elizabeth A. Chapman. His third wife, whom he married when he was 78, was Mrs. Hester Ann (Winner) Fairchilds, a daughter of Thomas Winner of early New Salem. They were married at Barry, August 18, 1901, by Justice Solomon P. Hornback. Swank was then a resident of Perry, Missouri. Mrs. Swank died at the home of her daughter, Mrs. J. E. Keller, at Pike Station January 24, 1930, and was buried at Black Oak. She was in her 93rd year.

Another instance illustrating the hardships of pioneer existence in the Severns Valley is related in reference to Benjamin Helm, son of Captain Thomas Helm, who lived and died where Helm's fort was erected near present Elizabethtown. Captain Thomas Helm later sat with Captain John Vertrees on the bench of the Hardin county court and these two gentlemen justices it was who in 1796 inflicted the first death penalty for crime in Hardin county, when they sentenced a Negro slave, Jacob, to death by hanging for the murder of his master, the story of which was related in the preceding chapter. The historian, Haycraft, speaks of the Honorable Judge Thomas Helm, this compatriot of John Vertrees, as "the progenitor of all the Helms in the country." He was from Virginia and a descendant of an old and honored Lancashire family in England. He was the grandfather of the Honorable John B. Helm, long prominent in the life of Hannibal, Missouri, and judge of the Court of Common Pleas in that city.

On Christmas Day, 1780, Captain Thomas Helm's son Benjamin, then a lad of fourteen, walked barefooted from the Severns Valley settlement to the falls of the Ohio (now Louisville), forty miles "as the crow flies," for meal and salt. This boy later became a prominent citizen of Hardin county, filling the offices of circuit and county clerks for a number of years. He built the Methodist church in Elizabethtown almost unaided, and died a member of it when past 90.

These stories of danger and hardship endured by the forebears of some of Pike county's most interesting families have been taken from "Haycraft's History of Elizabethtown, Kentucky," owned by former Mayor Herbert H. Vertrees of Pittsfield. Samuel Haycraft, author of the history, was a brother of Mr. Vertrees' great grandmother, Nancy (Haycraft) Vertrees.

The pioneer Kentucky courts over which the Honorable Judge John Vertrees presided were quite different from the courts that were set up after the year 1800. Jurors were then summoned from among bystanders and were run down and haled into court, where they got no pay. When Judge Vertrees or one of his associates on the bench ordered the sheriff to summon a jury, the court house was generally cleared in a jiffy and, says Haycraft, "men might be seen running, as if for life, and the tails of their coats and hunting shirts sailing behind as they broke to the brush and tall grass, where they sometimes fell into yellow jackets' nests."

Follow this description of an early court: "In a round log cabin for a court house, with a pole across dividing his honor from the masses of the people, the judge asked the sheriff if he had a jury ready. The sheriff replied that he had eleven tied up in the loft and that the deputy was running down the twelfth."

Court, prior to the building of the first rude court house, was held at the house of Captain Vertrees or Colonel Hynes. These houses were round log cabins, typical of the day. Witnesses in these courts were allowed two shillings and sixpence per day (about 60 cents) and were not very apt to attend punctually, and many were summoned and fined for non-attendance.

The first lawyer to set foot in the Severns Valley and the first to practice before Judge John Vertrees and Robert Hodgen was James Dohertie, Esquire, who arrived in the valley a little in advance of the law and the court.

This man Dohertie, arriving in the valley on foot, without money and a perfect stranger, was taken in by the elder Samuel Haycraft and Margaret Van Meter and was given board and lodging in return for doing the chores and odd jobs. He came to Haycraft's, then in the wilderness, in January, 1793. In the sugar-making season, which opened in February, he aided Mrs. Haycraft and the children in making "home-made sugar." There was a "sugar camp" on the Haycraft place, amid some tall, beautiful sugar trees that stood thick on the ground. The undergrowth was chiefly pawpaw and spicewood.

N one ever dreamed that Dohertie was a lawyer. But when the 26th of February rolled around and the first court that ever sat in the valley was called to order, James Dohertie walked out of the "sugar camp," washed his face and hands, got a paper out of his knapsack, marched into court and to the astonishment of judges and bystanders presented his law license and was immediately sworn to practice. He became known as a prodigy in law and a peerless debater. Where he came from or what eventually became of him is unknown.

Judge Vertrees' court at quarter session opened with the following proclamation, given in a sing-song recital by the clerk: "O-yes, O-yes, O-yes, silence is now commanded under the pain of fine and imprisonment while the justice of the Hardin Quarter Session Court is now in sitting. All who have suits to prosecute please enter or motions to make come forward and you will be heard. God save the Commonwealth."

At the September court term, 1796, Judge Vertrees directed Robert Hodgen (father of Jacob of early Pittsfield and grandfather of the famous surgeon, John Thomson Hodgen) to issue a summons against one Robert Jackson, presented by the grand jury as coming under the vagrant law. The law directed such gentry upon conviction to be sold for twelve months to the highest bidder. Squire Hodgen did as directed and Jackson was cried off at public sale.

Fights were of frequent occurrence in the valley and numerous offenses resulting from these personal encounters came before Judge John Vertrees and Robert Hodgen. One such fight of which there is record occurred between Isaac Bush and Elijah Hardin. Bush was a brother of Sally Bush, who became Abraham Lincoln's stepmother. Hardin was a son of William Hardin, heretofore mentioned.

"Where's the money?" inquired Bill. "Oh, said Jack, "he didn't pay for it." "Who was it?" asked Bill. "I don't know," replied Jack; "but," he added, "I can prove it by a man who stood at the window with a white hat on his head." "Well, who was he?" inquired Bill. "I don't know," said Jack.