Autobiography of Rev. Joseph Tarkington, one of the pioneer Methodist preachers of Indiana

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Autobiography of R{
Tarkington . . .

Joseph

MARIE SLAUSON TARKINGTON, 1886.

REV. JOSEPH TARKINGTON,

AUTOBIOGRAPHY

OF

Rev. Joseph Tarkington,

ONE OF THE PIONEER METHODIST
PREACHERS OF INDIANA.

WITH INTRODUCTION BY

REV. T. A. GOODWIN, D. D,

"Ibe served bts generation, tben fell on sleep.'

CINCINNATI :

PRESS OF CURTS & JENNINGS.

1899.

Allen

900 W'8bs

PO Box 2^;, -J

fon IrVryne, i,N 46801-2270

wunty p„b:!c LiDra^

1308657

INTRODUCTION.

SOME people read only the Preface or Intro-
duction, and then, glancing through the text,
lay the book down, supposing they have mastered
it all. But the reverse is likely to be the method
in this case; for the chief charm of the book is in
what Mr. Tarkington has to say of himself and his
times. But to properly appreciate that, the reader
must bear in mind that what he wrote was not for
the public, but that, at the urgent solicitation of his
children, these personal incidents were written
down for their special use, and that they appear in
this form at the suggestion of personal friends and
admirers, who insist that they, too, have a right to
them.

Not having been written for the public, the style
is simply narrative, such as he was accustomed to
use when talking in the family circle or among a
company of familiar friends. Those who often en-
joyed these conversations will not fail to see the
original Tarkington before them as they read, and
almost hear the sound of his voice, and catch the
peculiar twinkle of his eye and his modes of ex-
pression.

Because the style is so like him, and because
this family treasure is put into this form for the
3

4 Rev. Joseph Tarkington.

especial pleasure of those whose veneration for him
entitles them to family privileges, that style is pre-
served, and the booklet goes to them just as it came
to the more immediate members of the household,
marred only by this prosy introduction, in which
the writer has attempted to throw a sidelight upon
some incidents that will seem obscure to the
younger people who may happen to be drawn into
its perusal.

Some statements are incomplete as they stand
in the text, and many of them require a little ex-
planation from contemporaneous history to bring
out the supreme worth of the narrative, a photo-
graph of early times and old-fashioned Methodism
in Indiana.

How far this Introduction will aid in this, the
reader must judge for himself, if he turns back to
read it after having read Mr. Tarkington's story.

The story will be interesting to all who wish to
study the beginning of things. No general history
of the struggles of the early settlers of Indiana can
possibly give as accurate an idea of its hardships
and its incidental delights as this graphic account
of his own experiences. The fact that the experi-
ences of the Tarkington family were not excep-
tional, but were duplicated over and over again in
all the river counties by those who had sought a
home where the blight of slavery would not reach
them, and, with slight modifications later on, when
the "New Purchase" offered inducements to immi-

Introduction. 5

grants from a more northern latitude, will make the
story the more instructive. It narrates things as
seen and felt from within by one who saw it all, and
was himself a great part of it.

The senior Tarkington seems to have been a
roving character, seeking rest, but finding none for
many years; but rovers were common then as now.
He was evidently a man of pluck, however; and
when he got started in the right direction to escape
the curse of slavery, he never stopped until he was
confronted by the boundary between civilization
and the Indians, and so near the very "jumping-off
place" that Indians were for several years his im-
mediate neighbors from over the line. After all,
were not such rovers a sort of social and political
necessity? They could not always choose the final
resting-place at the first venture. It was probably
best they could not. Each successive move served
as an educator or preparation for the final.

The reader of Mr. Tarkington's brief story of
himself and his times will often wish for more de-
tail than he finds in it. If, in attempting to supple-
ment this lack of fullness by incidents coming under
this writer's observations, and in his personal ex-
perience, which further illustrates early customs and
old-fashioned Methodism, he seems to be tedious
and soitietimes irrelevant, the reader may skip the
surplusage, if indeed he turns back to read this
Introduction at all. The truth is, Mr. Tarkington
does not do himself justice, even to his children,

6 Rev. Joseph Tarkington.

for whose special information the meager story is
told; hence the necessity of supplementary remarks
for them as well as the public. His modesty would
hardly allow him to tell all he knew of the priva-
tions of his childhood and youth, and the hardships
of his early years in the ministry.

Studying the characteristics of life in early times
in Indiana, the reader will be struck with the simi-
larity, in every essential detail, between that of the
immigrants from the South who found their home
in Monroe County, and those from the East who,
a little later, settled in Switzerland County, to be-
come, later on, one in interest and fellowship. Mrs.
Tarkington 's recollections of her early life are
hardly less interesting than those of her revered
husband. In each is an inkling of what the fathers
and mothers of that period had to endiu'e. These
were representatives of that class of families that
succeeded, and they were nothing more nor less.

His conversion and preparation for the ministry
were characteristic of the times, except that a year
intervened between the conversion and his joining
the Church. Among the first impressions of his
new life was an abiding conviction that he was
called to preach : but in what Church was not at
first so plain to him. The cause of this perplexity
was the diversity of creeds and denominations
around him. In no quarter of the earth were ever
more "isms" to be found than were within a radius
of twenty-five miles of his home in Monroe County.

Introduction. 7

His parents had been Episcopalians or of Epis-
copalian stock; but as they had not given much
attention to religious matters since his childhood,
that settled nothing with him. The immigrants
coming from the South had, almost every one of
them, brought some different shades of belief.
There were two kinds of Baptists, three kinds of
Presbyterians, with New Lights, Christians, Dis-
ciples, and the like galore; each preaching some
modification of Calvinism, except the Old Side Bap-
tists, who took it straight, infant damnation and
all; and a cardinal virtue with each was to earnestly
"contend for the faith" — as he understood it. There
were Methodists; but as they preached on week-
days only, at private houses, he saw but little of
them until he went to the camp-meeting at which
he was converted.

That year of deliberation and study was profit-
able to him all his life. In it he thoroughly investi-
gated the various beliefs of the period, and armed
himself for the defense of the distinctive doctrines
of Methodism, against which, at that time, all
seemed to hurl missiles.

His account of passing through the several ap-
proaches to the ministry, reveals the usual steps
then taken — class-leader, exhorter, preacher. His
collegiate training was short. In his plan, it con-
templated much more than he received. Intent on
better qualifications than he had been able to ac-
quire on the farm, he entered the Indiana Seminary,

8 Rev. Joseph Tarkington.

now Indiana University; but the fates — let us call
it Providence — decreed that his stay should be
short. So, likewise, was his post-graduate course
short. It consisted in accompanying the presiding
elder northward along the western border of the
State, a hundred miles or more; then westward,
into Illinois, fifty miles or more; thence, south-
ward, to the Ohio River, one hundred and fifty
miles or more; taking lessons in preaching from the
presiding elder, in whom were blended the functions
of a whole Faculty of a modern theological school.
That which will be most wondered at by modern
observers of how preachers are now prepared for
the ministry, will be how this student and the travel-
ing Faculty managed to carry their wardrobe and
library with them all that long round. That was
nothing. The wardrobe consisted of an extra shirt
only. Undershirts and drawers were not then
known in pioneer society, and only one handker-
chief (a red or yellow silk bandanna, though often
it was cotton), and an extra pair of socks. This
gave ample room in the saddlebags for a Bible,
Hymn-book, and Discipline, and a copy of Fletch-
er's "Appeal" or Wesley's "Sermons" — hardly ever
both at once; leaving room, ordinarily, for an assort-
ment of books for sale. Shirts and socks were
changed once a week, and the soiled goods were
washed while the preacher waited at some hospi-
table farmhouse, or rather at the cabin of "the
settler."

Introduction. g

No short period covered by Mr. Tarkington's
paper suggests more incidents that are illustrative
of Methodism in Indiana sixty years ago than that
connected with his pastorate at Lawrenceburg in
1838-39. He had been on the superannuated list
the preceding Conference year. At the close of the
Conference year of 1836-37, he was too sick to
move, and to have remained a second year would
have been almost an unheard-of proceeding, and he
was therefore superannuated. Another case, illus-
trative of this custom, was that of James V. Wat-
son, a young man of rare gifts and promise. He
had traveled the Columbus Circuit, embracing the
most miasmatic region in Indiana, the year 1837-38;
and when Conference came, he had the real "shak-
ing ager," and could not even attend Conference.
Though in the usual course of the disease he might
easily be counted on for duty as soon as frost came,
he was superannuated, as Mr. Tarkington had been
the year before.

Mr. Tarkington was soon able for duty, and put
in the year farming with his father-in-law, and in
teaching school, preaching almost every Sunday
and attending funerals for many miles around with-
out any pecuniary compensation; but he received
from the Conference Fund for the year, $94.04.

That year, Lawrenceburg concluded to stem the
popular tide, and become a station again. It was
at that time one of the most important commercial
towns in the State. The wheat and other market-

lo Rev. Joseph Tarkingtori.

able farm products from Indianapolis and intermedi-
ate districts found their best market there, whether
for manufacture or shipment, and the merchants,
manufacturers, and bankers of the town were mostly
Methodists. They had tried the station experiment
four years before; but it was too un-Methodistic to
succeed, with even as good a preacher as John
Daniel. It is almost incredible that Methodism so
long and so persistently resisted a change from the
circuit system. Even that year, Cincinnati had two
circuits in the city, each with two preachers on it;
and as late as 1845, the Western Christian Advocate
editorially protested against the tendency to sta-
tions, contending that the Lord's sending out his
itinerants by twos was Divine authority for the two-
and-two system. No one of the peculiarities of
early Methodism gave way under more persistent
effort of the presiding elders and the bishops to re-
tain it, in opposition to the growing demands of
the laity.

He had only about forty miles to move, and a
two-horse farm-wagon was sufficient for the entire
stock of furniture. Of course, this afforded no great
display of household goods; but, nothing daunted,
he set up housekeeping with what he had. The
characteristic hospitality of the brethren made him
and his family quite comfortable until he was duly
installed in his own hired house.

After preaching on his first Sunday, he an-
nounced an official meeting at the parsonage for

Introduction. ii

Monday evening. No town in the State could have
mustered a better Board — men of affairs and busi-
ness abiHty. There were but three chairs in the
house. As the brethren filed in, one by one, the
affable pastor seated them on these as far as they
would go; then he brought out an empty box or
two; then gave them the edge of the bed and the
table, — all without any embarrassment or apology.

The official business was soon disposed of, and
none seemed inclined to remain for miscellaneous
conversation.

Once out of doors, after adjournment, the meet-
ing was reorganized on the sidewalk informally,
and the question of furnishing the parsonage was
briefly discussed, and a committee was appointed
to see that chairs and tables and carpets and dishes
were forthwith provided, and long before the next
Sunday every need was abundantly supplied.

In his sketch, he speaks of one of the most won-
derful revivals that prince of early evangelists, John
Newland Maffttt, ever had; but he fails to tell why
more of its fruits remained to bless the Church than
was usual then or is now. Being personally con-
versant with the conditions, I have no hesitancy in
ascribing it to the faithful pastoral work of Mr.
Tarkington. He visited and prayed with every one;
almost immediately and at once led them to Christ
and to useful endeavor in the work of the Church.

A most affecting scene occurred during this
series of meetings. The house was crowded, and

12 Rev. Joseph Tarkmgion.

Mr. Maffitt had finished the opening- prayer, when,
as the congregation sang the voluntary — all sang,
and all sang lustily — one of the hymns of the period,
with no organ accompanying, some one handed him
a letter. He saw from the postmark it was from his
home in Brooklyn, New York, nearly a week's
travel away. He nervously broke the seal, and read
it. Those who could see his face behind the high
pulpit readily perceived that the letter contained
bad news. He covered his face in his hands a mo-
ment, and the congregation sang another hymn.
At the close of that hymn, he arose, quoting Job
xix, 21 : "Have pity upon me, have pity upon me,
O ye my friends; for the hand of God hath
touched me." He then briefly stated the sad in-
telligence he had received — a lovely daughter had
died nearly a week before; and then he proceeded
to preach with even more than his usual power,
conducting all the services as if no bad tidings had
been received.

The Indiana Conference met at Lawrenceburg
in 1839, and it long lived in the memory of those
who were there, and it yet lives with the very few
who remain, as the most eventful Conference ever
held in the State. Bishop Roberts presided.
Bishop Morris was also present. Edward R. Ames
was secretary. The Conference included the whole
State and one district in Michigan. Except the few
that lived along the Ohio and lower Wabash Rivers,
all had come on horseback, many traveling more

Introduction. 13

than two hundred miles. They were, with very few
exceptions, dressed in home-made goods, and most
of them were seedy — even a new suit of jeans would
be the worse of the wear after a journey on horse-
back of two hundred miles. Many had come from
a month's tussle with the ague, and some kept up
the shake habit every other day during Conference.
To have given up so as to not be able to attend,
meant superannuation — the bugbear of the itiner-
ancy then, even more than now.

Something of my personal estimate of the rela-
tive importance of this Conference may be due to
the fact that it was the first I ever attended. It was
held in the dingy court-room of the old court-
house, while there was preaching in the little church
on Short Street at eleven and three o'clock and
night, except one night devoted to the missionary
anniversary. It was held with closed doors, not
even those to be admitted on trial or to be con-
tinued on trial being permitted to attend. When
the order was issued for all but members to retire,
James L. Thompson nudged me, and whispered,
"Don't go;" and I didn't. Several of the older
brethren looked reprovingly at me; but none of
those things moved me, and as no one cared to take
the responsibility of ordering me out, I remained,
and had my first view of the inside workings of an
Annual Conference. The truth is, the spirit of
Americanism had begun to modify many of the
British notions that had hampered American Meth-

14 Rev. Joseph Tarkiyigton.

odism from the beginning, and which continued to
liamper it much later. It was not until 1852 that
preachers on trial were lawfully permitted to wit-
ness the proceedings of an Annual Conference;
though the rule excluding them from the sessions
was more and more relaxed until it became a dead
letter, and its lifeless remains were buried in that
year, as the lifeless remains of several other dead
rules were buried; but not until they had been so
long dead that they emitted a bad odor.

At that Conference, one young man on trial,
John H. Hull, who was afterwards to make his mark
in the ministry, also defied the rule, and kept his
seat, when those not entitled to stay were invited
to leave. It was much later that inquisitive laymen
ventured to defy the rule of closed doors, and still
later when they were cordially invited to attend;
and it was not until 1864 that the Disciplinary rule,
not allowing laymen, not officially belonging to a
Quarterly Conference, to be present at its sessions,
was buried, after it, too, had been so long dead that
it was a malodorous relic of the British regime that
had long prevailed. The proceedings of the Con-
ference at that period differed, in many respects,
from the proceedings of an Annual Conference to-
day, particularly in what was known as "the exami-
nation of character." It seemed to be not only the
privilege, but the duty, of everybody who knew
little or much about a brother to have a say. The
man under examination retired, so that those who

Introduction. 15

had nothing good to say would not be embarrassed,
and so that the good things to be said might not
exalt him above measure. He was not required
to give any report of his work, and, except as to
those about to be admitted into full membership,
no committee had any report; and even that report
was quite a different affair from corresponding re-
ports to-day, and generally ran about thus: "Gram-
mar, good; geography, good; Wesley's Sermons,
good; Fletcher's Appeal, very good; Watson's In-
stitutes, only fair." Then came the representation
of his presiding elder, and then followed an expres-
sion of opinion as to general fitness for "the work"
by the Conference at large.

One case greatly interested me. William J.
Forbes had traveled that year on the Bloomfield
Circuit under John Miller, presiding elder. It was
the close of his second year, and he might be ad-
mitted if deserving. The report of the committee
on his studies was very complimentary. He was
good on everything, very good on several; but on
Watson's Institutes and Fletcher's Appeal, very ex-
cellent. Then came the presiding elder's repre-
sentation. It ran about thus: "This is a peculiar
case. Brother Forbes is a very good man and a
very good preacher, and the people love to hear
him. He reads a great deal, and understands what
he reads, and I am not surprised at the very favor-
able report of the committee ; but somehow or other
nobody is converted under his preaching — "

1 6 Rev. Joseph Tarkington.

"Let me ask Brother Miller a question," inter-
posed James Havens, jumping hurriedly to his feet.
"Does he make anybody mad?"

"O no! He is a sweet-spirited man; everybody
loves him; but somehow — "

"Then I am opposed to him," interrupted Mr.
Havens. "A man under whose preaching nobody
is converted and nobody made mad is not fit for a
Methodist preacher,"

How much farther this "examination of char-
acter" might have gone, if the case had been longer
open to general remarks, no one could tell; for, evi-
dently, Mr. Havens had sympathizers; but the
bishop cut it short by saying: "A young man that
reads a great deal, and understands what he, reads,
and preaches well, and that everybody loves, is a
safe case. All who will admit Brother Forbes, raise
your hands." And he was admitted. The incident
is, however, illustrative of one of the peculiarities
of the times, which often cropped out. Literary
attainments and habits of reading counted little, if
they were not a detriment, in the absence of
" 'rousements."

One of the incidents that illustrates the genius
of the Methodism of that period, was provoked by
John S. Bayless. He had married a well-to-do
young woman at Vincennes just before Conference,
and had brought her to Conference on a steamboat;
but as no provision had been made for entertaining
wives, she was entertained at Rising Sun. With no

In troductio7i . 1 7

fear of tradition before his eyes, he had had his
wedding-suit made by a tailor in the height of the
fashion. The fact that it was made of store-goods
was not of itself to be censured; for Edward R.
Ames, William H. Goode, and a dozen or more
others, wore store-goods; but the style of the
clothes gave offense. The pants were "tights," with
narrow falls; the coat was "pigeon-tailed;" and the
hat of the stovepipe variety, giving the wearer
a unique appearance in a body of Methodist preach-
ers in regulation uniform. This was too much of a
departure from traditional Methodism to go un-
rebuked; hence, Samuel C. Cooper offered a reso-
lution that every member of the Conference be re-
quired hereafter to wear to Conference straight-
breasted or shad-bellied coats, and breeches with
broad falls. It passed without a dissenting vote;
but more and more, from that on, preachers dressed
as they pleased, so that the cut of the coat or pants
is no longer a distinguishing badge of a Methodist
preacher.

The most notable event of the session was the
first appearance at the Indiana Conference of Dr.
Simpson, the young president of Asbury University.
Comparatively few of the preachers had ever met
him. His personal appearance was a perpetual dis-
appointment. He was too youthful to meet ex-
pectation, being less than thirty years old, and his
dress was of jeans, neat and well-fitting; but not
what most expected of so distinguished a man. His

1 8 Rev. Joseph Tarkingtoyi.

praise as a preacher was in all the land, and every
one desired to hear him.

The opportunity came in a sermon on the cente-
nary of Methodism. The house was crowded, of
course. His text was Ezekiel's vision of the waters
flowing from the sanctuary. To intensify the efifect
of such a sermon as that must inevitably be, a fact
almost forgotten had much to do. To an extent
now hard to realize there had been going on in
England and America that discussion of the millen-
nium which culminated in the Millerism craze in
the early forties. There was every conceivable
shade of opinion as to just what the millennium
implied; but the general thought was, that whatever
it meant was near at hand, and the young president
had unconsciously imbibed more or less of the
vague and indefinable general thought, and so had
the preachers. This sentiment was so universal that
the traditional sermon on Calvinism at camp-meet-
ings and other popular occasions had largely given
way to a sermon on the triumphs of the gospel.

Imagine, therefore, a congregation largely com-
posed of Methodist preachers, all of whom believed
that some great moral victory was near at hand,
and some faint conception may be had of the prob-
able effect of such a graphic description as he gave
of the widening, deepening, healing waters that
Ezekiel saw would produce. Many of the preachers
were so overcome by emotion as to almost drown
the voice of the speaker, whose heart was quite as

Introduction. 19

much on fire as theirs. At one of his climaxes, an
intelligent lady, not usually excitable, jumped to
her feet, waving her parasol, and looking upward,
exclaimed, "Sun, stand thou still, and let the moon
pass by," repeating the sentence until some one
started to sing, while her immediate friends took
her out of the congregation.

Dr. Simpson was at once voted the prince of
pulpit orators, an opinion never reversed in Indiana
to the day of his death. Yet only a few thought it
the proper thing to do to elect him to the General
Conference that year. In the first place, he was not
in the "regular work;" and, then, he was only a
recent transfer, and he never had had any experi-
ence as a circuit rider. Besides, as self-sacrificing
as the preachers of that period were in behalf of the
young Asbury University, they took so little stock
in education as a qualification for the ministry, that
that very General Conference (1840), by a large
majority, voted against authorizing theological
schools. Sixty years have wrought a change as to
theological schools, and an educated ministry, and
what constitutes "regular work;" but the recent
transfer is yet entitled to no recognition on his
merits, by the Conference whose honors are to be
bestowed.

I have spoken of James V. Watson as on the
superannuated roll the year previous to this Con-
ference. His temporary home had been near Au-
rora, and he had helped much during the Maffitt

20 Rev. Joseph Tarki7igton.

revival in Lawrencebiirg. He had traveled that
circuit a few years before, and had many personal
friends, who readily chose him as the proper suc-
cessor to Mr. Tarkington, and all arrangements
were made by preacher and people to this effect
that the embryo system of "calling" now so poten-
tial would allow. It seemed to be so completely
"set up" that little doubt was entertained by either
of the high contracting parties; but the bishop had
been brought up to a different view of polity, and
would have none of it, so that the opinion often
prevailed among the preachers that the way to get
a long move and a hard circuit was to accept a
"call" to a desirable place. But this case seemed so
fitting all around that no one entertained any
thought of its failure.

To fully appreciate the denouement in this case,
one must know from actual observation and experi-
ence on the spot the painful suspense of that solemn
hour devoted to reading out the appointments; for
it took nearly an hour. It was the first session of
that Conference that was open to the public. Many
of the preachers had bidden good-bye to their en-
tertainers, and their horses, after a week's rest, were
saddled and at the door ready to make a few miles
homeward that day. A presiding elder stood in
each aisle of the church, and the order was an-
nounced by the bishop that wheii the name of a
circuit was announced there would be a pause, and
the preacher for the preceding year should stand

Introductio7i. 2 1

up, and the presiding elder nearest to him would
go to him and receive from him the "plan of the
circuit." This occupied usually less than a minute,
but to the Conference it seemed an age. Not a
word was spoken until this part was complete. The
preacher stood up as directed, and the presiding
elder went to him; but not until the bishop saw that
the "plan" was handed over, would he break silence.
Then followed the name of the new preacher. It
was usually a disappointment. Naturally enough
he had hoped it would not be a long move, the
quality of the circuit being secondary; for there
was not as much difference in quality as might be
supposed, as none were easy.

Bishops especially seemed to be insensible to the
pain and inconvenience of long moves; and Bishop
Roberts, who had been elected in 1816, the first
married man ever elected bishop, because, as a
married man, he would be apt to have compassion
on married men, had grown to be as indifferent as
any of them to the expense and inconvenience of
long moves. But to none of the Conference was
the suspense as long and painful as to James V.
Watson. Madison District was soon passed, and
Lawrenceburg had another preacher. Watson was
then out at sea; but he fondly hoped that Indian-
apolis, or New Albany, or Lafayette, might need
him; but neither did. At last the Michigan District
was called, and then the bishop read deliberately,
"White Pigeon," and stopped for the former

2 2 Rev. Joseph Tarkington.

preacher to hand over his "plan." It seemed an
age, and then he read, "J^i^es V. Watson," when
the solemnity of the occasion was broken by Mr.
Watson nervously getting on the seat and exclaim-
ing at the top of his voice, "Will anybody tell me
where on earth White Pigeon is?"

"You will find it in Michigan, Brother Watson,"
coolly answered the bishop, and then went on to
finish the list as if nothing unusual had happened.

It was more than two hundred miles from Au-
rora to White Pigeon, and there was no way of
getting to the circuit but by wagon; but Watson
went. In the creation of the Michigan Conference
the next year he fell into it, and his talents found
proper recognition. After being stationed at De-
troit and other important cities, he became the first
editor of the Norfhzvesteni Christian Advocate, rank-
ing among the most distinguished and useful men
of his period. Who shall say that, after all, the
hand of the Lord was not in that cruel move? And
who shall say that in many another appointment,
whose outcome does not yet seem to us as pro-
pitious as in this case, there may yet be revealed
that a smiling Divine face is hidden behind the
frowning Providence that now causes our needless
fears?

Mr. Tarkington refers to an attack of cholera
he had at Hendrickson's, three miles west of Brook-
ville. The Hendrickson class was a migratory in-
stitution, as were most of the country classes of that

Introduction. 23

period, holding meetings a little while at one and
then at another private house, where there hap-
pened to be more than one house in the neighbor-
hood sufficiently capacious for the purpose. This
class had four such houses — Collett's, Hendrick-
son's, Sims's, and Carmichael's. All were stopping-
places for the tide of immigrants then seeking
homes in the "New Purchase;" all displaying the
"Private Entertainment" sign over the gateway,
except Carmichael's, which swung a regular tavern
sign; the difference between this and that being
that a tavern had a license to sell whisky "by the
small," and the others sold by the quart only. Be-
cause Mr. Carmichael kept his bar-room open to
accommodate travelers during preaching, Mr.
Tarkington moved the preaching to Hendrickson's,
where there was no disturbance of that kind; but
he could find no such relief at New Trenton, where
the tavern was kept by a local preacher, and the
only other place available was at a layman's, who
kept tavern also. Here the local preacher took his
seat in the congregation near the door that led from
the dining-room, the pro tern, chapel, into the bar-
room, from which he could easily go at a call, and
wait on customers, and then return to hear the bal-
ance of the sermon or tell his experience in class.
During Mr. Tarkington's pastorate, there oc-
curred in this class a semi-civil, semi-religious afifair
quite illustrative of the times and of the kind of ma-
terial early Methodists were made of. Five miles

24 Rev. Joseph Tarkington.

east of Brookville was another of these migratory
classes, now meeting at Gregg's, now at Warmsly's,
and now at James's. One of the first Sunday-
schools in that county was organized here, with
William Gregg superintendent. It was held in a
cabin that had been abandoned by its former owner,
who had gone to the "New Purchase." One morn-
ing a tramp, with a knapsack on his back, was seen
to come out of the cabin and start westward. This
led to an investigation, and it was discovered that
the library had been despoiled of a lot of New Testa-
ments, which were kept in a candle-box. Evidently
the tramp had stolen them, and he must be arrested
and the books recovered. It was nearly noon before
the superintendent could organize his posse and
start in pursuit; but when started they made good
speed, and overtook their man just as he was com-
ing out of Carmichael's tavern. There was no
trouble in proving his guilt; for the books told the
story; but some form of law had to be observed.
Brother Sims, living nearly opposite, was a justice
of the peace, and Brother Collett was a constable.
They were sent for, and how to get the man to jail
was discussed informally, when Brother Gregg
spoke out: "See here, men, it is nearly six months
to court-time, and if we take this man to jail, the
county will have to board him; then we will all have
to go before the grand jury, and again before the
court, and all this will take time and money; and
the most the court will do will be to send him to

Introduction. 25

jail six to twelve months for the county to board.
I propose that we administer to him, now and here,
forty lashes, save one, and that Brother Collett lay
them on, and that then we let him go. He can
make a crop somewhere before his year in jail would
be out, and he will never steal from a Sunday-school
again." The half-dozen or more that had gathered
in, looked at Squire Sims to hear what he had to
say. "Neighbors," he said, deliberately, "you know
I dare not say anything officially in such a case.
But it seems to me it would be a mercy to the man,
rather than to subject him to a year's imprison-
ment and the county to a year's board-bill, to say
nothing about the time and expense it will cost us
all, if Brother Collett tempers justice with mercy.
But I must not see it."

That settled the question. Brother Collett ad-
ministered the thirty-nine lashes; not severely, but
with an assurance that if gentle means like that did
not answer, he could have the balance whenever
called for.

Mr. Tarkington was not in any wise implicated
in this affair; but it is only true to the history of that
period to say that something like that was not an
infrequent occurrence in early times, the profes-
sional horse-thief faring as much worse as a rope
is worse than a cowhide.

On his first round on this circuit he had an ex-
perience that would have greatly embarrassed any
other man, but which never disturbed him. Of

26 Rev. Joseph Tarkington.

course, he never failed to lead the class after preach-
ing, but his method was not the stereotyped article.
He wanted, not only to know where they lived, but
how. At his first appointment at Clendenning's,
near Mt. Carmel, he found a brother, Ira Goodhue,
who, though late in the forties, was yet unmarried.
One of Mr. Tarkington's supplemental questions
always was, "Do you pray in your family?" When
he propounded this question to Brother Goodhue
there was quite an embarrassing titter through the
class, that Mr. Tarkington could not at first under-
stand; but the class-leader came to his relief by
saying, "Brother Goodhue is not married." "Well,
he looks old enough, and he is good enough look-
ing to have a wife, and I have no doubt there are
many good-looking girls of suitable age he could
have for the asking," was the characteristic reply.
There were two or more of that kind present; but
the miserable old bachelor could never make up
his mind to do the necessary asking, or put hirriself
in condition to be asked.

Nothing of that kind ever embarrassed Mr.
Tarkington. I was with him once at a "speaking
meeting" on the Centerville Circuit, when a well-
to-do farmer and distiller, a noisy Methodist, rose
to speak. He began: "I have been governed by
two sperits; one is the good sperit, that prompts me
to be good and to do good. The other is — " Here
Mr. Tarkington called out, "Whisky!" at the top
of his voice. "No," said the distiller, who was then

Introduction. 27

quite under the influence of his home-made goods,
as he often was, "No; nobody ever saw me drunk."
"Some people never get drunk — it always stands up
in them," replied Air. Tarkington, and the half-
drunken Methodist distiller took his seat. We all
expected a scene then and there; but that not oc-
curring, we expected an immediate loss of twenty-
five cents a quarter by his withdrawal from the
Church. But when he began to talk of the rudeness
of the preacher, those whom he most esteemed
frankly told him that he was often, and even then,
under the influence of liquor, and that he was mis-
taken when he supposed nobody knew he was
drunk. Within six months he abandoned his dis-
tillery, and became a total abstainer.

His brief account of his courtship and marriage,
even as supplemented by Mrs. Tarkington, is too
inadequate to the most valuable purpose of the
story, to leave without a few further words to cast
a side-light upon the customs of the period, so far,
at least, as relates to the courtship and marriage of
Methodist preachers; not that they were less sus-
ceptible of tender emotions than others, but their
conditions and environments were so different from
other people as to make their courtship and mar-
riage a different afifair entirely from that of others.

To begin with, there was the law of the Church,
as inexorable as death, that no man, no matter what
his age or circumstances, should marry until he had
traveled four years. That of itself at once put him

28 Rev. Joseph Tarkington.

in bonds not common to man, and made the ro-
mance of love next to impossible, unless it pro-
voked a spirit of insubordination, which led to
defiance and inevitably to location. But to this was
added that other law, which survived until its life-
less remains became so offensive that it was just
dropped out by the editor of the Discipline on his
own responsibility as a sort of sanitary measure.
Only think of a law of the Church that would not
allow a preacher to mention love and matrimony
without first consulting his brethren! The rule
did not say what brethren, but the presiding elder
and his colleague always assumed that they were
ex-ofhcio entitled to be consulted, whether others
were or not; but laymen and laywomen — for, until
her eligibility to General Conference was under
discussion, women had no standing in our Church
based on sex; everybody was included in "he" and
"him" — claimed to be included in the brethren who
were to be consulted, and they were not slow to
ofifer their services if the preacher seemed slow to
ask for them.

Thus the unmarried preacher found himself be-
tween two opposing forces — one declaring that he
must not marry until an arbitrary time had expired ;
and the other ofificiously, not only suggesting mar-
riage, but proffering help in the selection of a "suit-
able companion." To add to this perplexity was a
companion situation that was the fruitful source of
annovance. The circuits often embraced two or

Introduction. 29

more counties, and appointments were frequently
fifty miles or more apart, and each was a sort of
social center, distinct from all others, and each hav-
ing its own personalities, among whom was liable
to be a pious young sister, every way qualified to
become a first-class wife for a preacher; and,
strange as it may appear to this generation, most of
these were heroic enough to be willing to endure all
the hardships of the itinerancy if they might provi-
dentially be called to it.

To intensify this embarrassment, the young
preacher had no home on the circuit except where
his saddlebags might be for the time being, and he
was frequently compelled to make the homes of
these self-sacrificing young sisters his home when
in that part of the circuit, and sometimes these were
the only stopping-places for that appointment, and
he was brought face to face with her once every
tour weeks. Common politeness required him to
be courteous to all, and the instincts of a gentle-
man would lead him to be respectful to the grown
daughter, who never failed to be in her best attire
and on her best behavior during his stay, and often
at the expense to him of many an hour that he
ought to have spent with Watson's Institutes or
Wesley's Sermons, whether he preferred to or not.

Before the year was half out, the local gossips,
encouraged perhaps by the hopeful mother, had the
preacher engaged to this local belle, as they had
had to two or three of his predecessors. No pru-

30 Rev. Joseph Tarkington.

dence, short of boorishness and bad manners, could
prevent this; and it was probably duplicated, on
the same authority, over in the other county, or at
one or more of the appointments twenty to fifty
miles away. It is almost inconceivable at this time
how many men and women of that period became
meddlers in the matrimonial matters of unmarried
preachers, under the impression that the preachers
were bound to consult them.

If the young man left the circuit without marry-
ing any one, no prosecution for a breach of mar-
riage contract followed him to Conference; but each
disappointed girl lay in wait for the next young
preacher. But if he married any one of them, there
was likely to follow a charge against him to Confer-
ence by one or more of the disappointed, who had
hoped against hope until some one else had been
chosen.

It was noticed, about sixty years ago, that one
young lady had a grievance at two or three succes-
sive Conferences against as many different preach-
ers, who had shown her only common politeness
when guests at her father's house.

But unrequited love was not all on one side.
The rule requiring the young preacher to consult
his brethren before taking any step towards mar-
riage sometimes brought to the light other sufferers.
In that heroic age it often happened that some
large-hearted home was so generous in its hospi-
talities as to be a sort of Methodist tavern, to which

Introduction. 3 1

preachers from other circuits were welcome as they
traveled abroad. At one of these, in the early thir-
ties, was an amiable and accomplished daughter,
who so favorably impressed three young preachers
as they called occasionally, that each intended to
make love to her as soon as he could take the first
step — consult the presiding elder; and each sought
the first opportunity, which was to be at a camp-
meeting near the center of his large district.
Neither knew for what any other of them had come
so far. One obtained an early interview, presum-
ably to the others, to talk over the next year's
appointment; but he began by telling the presiding
elder that his term of four years of celibacy was
about to expire, and he had been making it a matter
of prayer, and the Lord had evidently made it clear
that he ought to marry.

■"That seems very probable, and I see no objec-
tion to it," said the fatherly ofificial, "but may I ask
who is the happy girl?"

''Cora ," was the reply.

"A splendid girl — will make any man a good
wife," was all the young man could wait to hear.

In less than an hour he was on his horse, making
haste to break the news to Cora, and begin the
work of courtship.

The second soon had an audience, and made
substantially the same speech, and received sub-
stantially the same indorsement of Cora; and he,
too, started to tell her the news, not knowing that

32 Rev. Joseph Tarkington.

No. I was on the same errand, or, if he was, hop-
ing to outride him.

Later in the same day, No. 3 had a hearing. He
made substantially the same speech, winding up, as
the others had, with Cora .

"Now, see here, my young brother," said the
presiding elder; "there must be a mistake some-
where. Cora is a splendid girl; l)ut you are

the third man who has to-day said the Lord had
indicated her for a wife. Somebody must have mis-
understood the Lord."'

Whether either of these ultimately won the prize
or not, history does not tell, nor was it true that
Cora had been playing the coquette with either of
them. She had only been lady-like to all of them,
and had favorably impressed each; and had they
been permitted by the law of the Church to begin
where other young men begin, she could have re-
lieved at least two of them from a humiliating ex-
perience.

A well-authenticated story of that period tells
how another young preacher managed that delicate
matter without first consulting the presiding elder
or his colleague, and without breaking the rule or
dangerously bending it. At a convenient time he
took his Bible, and pointing to i John iv, 7, he
asked: "What do you think of that?" She read it,
and handed -the book back without saying a word;
but she looked pleased, and he was satisfied, and no
law of the Church had been broken. Later on, he

Introduction. 33

consulted his presiding elder, but he was in a frame
of mind to care but Httle for his opinion, as he had
served the required probation. The verse reads:
"Beloved, let us love one another."

James Hill was the only young preacher that I
knew of who defied the law. Though the written
law had been repealed by the omission of the pro-
hibition from the Discipline, there yet remained the
unwritten law, that whoever married during his two
years of probation should not be admitted into full
membership. Having found a suitable wife, he
married before applying for membership, the first
case of receiving a married man on probation that
I had ever known. It worked well in his case, and
long ago the unwritten law went to keep company
with the written inhibition.

Mr. Tarkington served his four years and one
more without any entangling alliances. That more
than once fond mothers made it convenient for him
to be occasionally alone with grown-up daughters,
and that others recommended worthy young wo-
men to him, and more than once it was supposed
that a match had been made, is true. It could
hardly have been otherwise. But it remained for
Maria Slauson, on the large Vevay Circuit, to
weave a net about him that held him, and, as the
story goes, all without attempting anything of the
kind, or, at least, without seeming to.

Vevay Circuit in 183 1 was essentially the same
as other circuits of the period — large in territory,
3

34 Rev. Joseph Tarkington.

with no abiding home for the preacher, but with
several growing towns, in which were hospitable
homes, but more marked with well-to-do farm-
houses than any other kind of stopping-places.
From the beginning he was famed as a pastor.
When stopping in a town, he managed to sally
forth from his temporary quarters and visit as many
of the flock as possible, and he did the same at the
country appointments.

On this circuit, as on others, there were several
marriageable young women, whose mothers more
or less plied their arts on him, but without suc-
cess. There was, however, near the center of the
circuit, a hospitable home which, to a young
preacher, had unusual attractions. In addition to
almost every other desideratum, there was a fairly
good library, and, for the times, a good room for
studying.. It was not strange, therefore, that he
more frequently visited this home than any other,
and that he staid longer. It was the home also of
a grown-up daughter, near his own age, decidedly
handsome, and, as might be inferred from the ex-
ceptional library, much better up in literature than
most of the country girls of the period.

As the sequel showed, she early set her head and
heart on capturing the young preacher. To do this
the more effectually, she managed to appear in her
best apparel whenever he was there, and to enter-
tain him with literary and theological discussions,

Introduction. 35

, . ^ ^ , 1308657

leaving her mother to care for domestic matters,
the mother apparently consenting.

When in the Slauson neighborhood, he some-
times, but not always, stopped at the Slauson home-
stead, where he always received a most cordial hos-
pitality; but family affairs jogged along as if no
guest was present; the men folks went afield as
usual, and Maria's loom and spinning-wheel clat-
tered and buzzed away regardless of any incon-
venience it might be to the preacher in the prophet's
chamber, poring over Clarke's Commentary and
other books of that class, of which there was a fair
supply for a farmer's library. One day, as the story
goes, the noise of the loom strangely affected him,
as it came mixed with a treble voice singing,

" Give joy or grief, give ease or pain "—

then one of the most popular hymns in Methodism.
What Clarke said about the snake that talked to
Eve, or what Wesley believed as to the immortality
of animals, all at once lost its interest to him, and
either accidentally or on purpose, he turned to the
thirty-first chapter of Proverbs, and began to read:
"She seeketh wool and flax, and worketh willingly
with her hands." "That 's Maria!" he added. "She
layeth her hands on the spindle, and her hands hold
the distaff." "Maria again!" "She maketh fine
linen and selleth it, and delivereth girdles unto the
merchant." "More Maria!" And he found his

36 Rev. Joseph^Tarkington.

heart strangely warmed; but he told nobody about
it. Old as he was, he would have loved to see his
mother about that time.

There is no love at first sight in this story; but
there is a world of good sense in it, and a long life
demonstrated that the girl who was not afraid or
ashamed to keep on with her daily duties, though
an unmarried preacher might be a temporary guest,
would be equal to the demands upon a traveling
preacher's wife. He hastened to see his presiding
elder, and, without disclosing the secret, he bravely
said, "I am thinking of getting married before an-
other Conference." The elder replied coldly, asking
no questions, "I reckon you are old enough, if you
ever intend to," and the interview ended, and
neither talked to the other on the matter until at
the camp-meeting referred to in the text. But it
was such a surprise, when the name of the proposed
bride was mentioned, that the elder said: "Then I
must use the ceremony in full, as it is given in the
Discipline." "Very well," said Mr. Tarkington;
"if you can stand it, we can." The elder had been
misled by common gossip, and had supposed that
the good-looking girl who had entertained him
often by discussing books and literature in her Sun-
day fix-ups, while her mother attended to the milk-
ing and other domestic work that devolved upon
country women of that period, was to be the bride.
The elder read the form in full as it appears in the
Discipline, stopping to emphasize "You both," as

Introduction. 37

it appears in the charge, which asks them to "con-
fess" if they know of any "impediment why they
may not be lawfully married." Instead of the usual
silence, which is taken as evidence there is none,
Mr. Tarkington responded, in a distinct voice and
with as much emphasis as the elder had put on
"you both," "I know of none," and the bride an-
swered, "I know of none," and the ceremony pro-
ceeded to the end.

Not long after he had "consulted" the presiding
elder, the homeward ride referred to by Mrs. Tark-
ington occurred, and he was permitted to proceed
with his courting as other men do, but he was not
more conspicuous thereafter as a guest of the fam-
ily than at other stopping-places in the neighbor-
hood, yet his fidelity as a pastor afforded him
frequent opportunities to pay pastoral visits. But
the story goes that he often disregarded the law of
the Discipline, which forbids the holding of love-
feasts more than an hour and a half.

Only those who knew Mr. Tarkington well can
appreciate the quiet humor that lurks in that busi-
nesslike letter to Mr. Slauson, asking his consent to
the marriage. He never intended to let it hinge
upon the formal consent of anybody whose consent
was not already obtained; but he put it that way
in deference to the Discipline, which in its fraternal-
ism does not allow a preacher to marry a woman
without the consent of her parents, — a good enough
rule as to minors, but not applicable to women of

38 Rev. Joseph Tarkington.

the maturity of his affianced, when the applicant is
over thirty. But Mr. Slaiison read between the
hnes, and, with a feeble appeal for what he knew to
be impossible, the nnneeded consent was granted.

To characterize Mr. Tarkington as a preacher,
referring to his pulpit performance only, no one
word but unique would come near it. He had no
model, living or dead, and no one ever chose him
as a model; or if he tried to, he surely failed. His
style was always conversational, and under no pres-
sure of excitement did his voice ever become
boisterous. In his early ministry in particular, when
nearly every Methodist sermon had to attack some
of the prevailing dogmas of the period, he made
himself master of the subject, and well matured
what he was to say, so that the distinctive doc-
trines of Methodism had few abler defenders when
it needed defense. He was systematic in present-
ing his points and logical in using them, and his
unique and inimitable pulpit manners contributed
greatly to the effectiveness of the discussion. He
never failed to have at hand some quaint original
illustration, not found in the books, which fixed
attention and clinched the argument.

Later in life, when the demand for such preach-
ing had passed, because the isms against which they
were originally aimed had been relegated to the his-
toric shelf and no longer needed public rebuke, it
is but truth to say that, relying too much upon the
ammunition he had stored in war-times, his ser-

Introduction. 39

mons were less attractive, though he kept well read
up' in current literature and modern thought for
one whose early advantages had been so limited,
and whose early manhood had been so little favor-
able to study; but somehow he lacked either the dis-
position or the ability to so assimilate what he read
as to give out his new thoughts with the effective-
ness of his early sermons.

I have said his pulpit manners were unique. He
sought to instruct, not merely to charm his audi-
ence, and those who attended his preaching for
spiritual food never went away hungry unless, in-
cited by what they heard, they hungered for more
of the sincere milk of the Word; and they were
sure to come at his next round to get more of the
bread of life.

Four or five years after his first appointment on
the Vevay Circuit, he was returned to it. It still
extended to the Laughery, and included Rising
Sun. At Rising Sun were two mothers in Israel
who were models of Christian character; not sloth-
ful in business, but fervent in spirit, and exemplary
in life, yet never ostentatious or noisy in profes-
sion— Mrs. Craft and Mrs. De Coursey. It was the
habit of these elect women to meet early every Mon-
day, and discuss the sermon of the preceding day,
and to recall and fix in their minds its good points,
with the least possible criticisms.

After Mr. Tarkington left, in 183 1, there came
to the circuit a young man by the name of Arring-

40 Rev. Joseph Tarkington.

ton, the most coruscating g-enius that ever graced
or disgraced the pulpit in Indiana. No pen-descrip-
tion of his wonderful eloquence (?) can do it justice.
He not only startled the plain people in the coun-
try, but he charmed the more cultured in the towns,
who loved sound more than sense, and who prized
a sermon most that had the least of the Christ in
it. These women listened to him with wonder and
a sort of admiration, but to little spiritual profit.
He was in great demand at camp-meetings, and
for a year or two he was a star of the first magni-
tude, or rather a comet of unusual brilliancy; for he
went out in darkness soon after. He was followed
by a young man by the name of Daily, whose ideal
preacher was Arrington, and he strove hard to imi-
tate him; but fortunately for him, he failed.

These two, and others less conspicuous, had
somewhat accustomed even sensible people to more
or less rant and fustian; so when Mr. Tarkington
returned in 1836, with his gospel message, in his
unique style, not a few were disappointed. They
had unconsciously fallen more or less in love with
star-scraping eloquence.

These two Rising Sun saints were, of course, to
hear Mr. Tarkington on his first reappearance in
their pulpit. They remembered how they had loved
him six years before, and how they had enjoyed his
preaching, and they expected a rare treat now; but
the Monday interchange of views and feelings re-
vealed their sad disappointment. "It seems to me,"

Introduction. 41

said Mrs. De Coursey, in opening the discussion,
"Brother Tarkington has n't improved much since
he was here. I was greatly disappointed yester-
day." "It seems so to me, too," answered Mrs.
Craft, in a tone that indicated rekictance to fully
express her opinion, and the conversation contin-
ued along this line, except that here and there they
could find some word of comfort in parts of the
sermon.

Four weeks later he came again, and these faith-
ful souls were in their places to glean what they
might from the sermon. The preacher announced
his text: "For the word preached did not profit
them, not being mixed with faith in them that
heard it;" and then followed an exposition and ap-
plication such as only Mr. Tarkington could give,
showing that, after all, the profitableness of any
preaching depended on the spirit in which it is re-
ceived.

"Did n't he give it to us good yesterday," was
the opening sentence of the Monday's interview by
Mrs. De Coursey. "Well, he did, and I felt
ashamed of myself all the time. Somebody must
have told him," said Mrs. Craft. "But I '11 never
be caught again in that trap," and the conversation
took the turn of how important individual faith is
in individual profit under any sermon. This inci-
dent is more illustrative of his style of preaching
than pages of abstract description could possibly be.

I have spoken of his removal from Lawrence-

42 Rev. Joseph Tarkington.

burg at the end of his first year. This was so uni-
formly the usage at the time as to excite no special
attention. Yet it must be conceded that a desire to
have a more popular pulpit orator had much to do
with allowing so damaging a custom to prevail.
But as the developments of a half-century show, it
now seems to be another case, like that of Joseph,
in which there was a Divine purpose the immediate
actors did not know or care to know; for, as known
by its fruits, no two years of his long and useful
life were so beneficial to the Church as those two
years at Richmond. To appreciate the work of
these years, it must be known that, though Rich-
mond early became a center or settlement which
made it the nucleus of the beautiful city it has be-
come, Methodism had been doing a great work in
that new country seventeen years before it found
even a temporary footing there, coming no nearer
than Centerville on the west, and about the same
distance on the south and north. One reason was,
that a lot of blatant infidels of the Paine type had,
by some law of affinity, settled there, and they gave
no encouragement to the Methodist preachers to
enter, though they oflfered no open resistance; but
the chief obstacle was the Society of Friends, which
had assumed a pre-emption right which they were
determined to maintain by all means short of vio-
lence. It was as late as 1822 that Russel Bigelow,
then on the White Water Circuit, which extended
from New Trenton in Franklin County, on both

Introduction. 43

sides of the State line, as far north as were any
settlements, determined to preach and organize a
class. No private house was open to him, as had
been elsewhere, but he obtained permission to oc-
cupy a small schoolhouse on the southern outskirts
of the town. Here he formed a class of seven; but
in a short time the schoolhouse was closed against
them, and the class was disbanded. It was three
years later that James Havens, then on Conners-
ville Circuit, which included Wayne County, organ-
ized the class that was to become the nucleus of
Methodism in Richmond. It met in private houses
generally, the schoolhouse being grudgingly opened
occasionally for a two-days' meeting. Its growth
was slow, and chiefly among a class of no social
standing and little property. The opposition of the
infidels was chiefly negative, while that of the Quak-
ers was often very positive, and marked in every
way but violence. No Quaker would attend any
Methodist meeting, or allow his family to. At much
sacrifice they built a small frame church on Pearl
Street, and Richmond became a regular appoint-
ment on the Wayne Circuit, with preaching once in
two weeks by the circuit preacher, who preached
only in the morning, going to another appointment
in the afternoon. By 1838 it had grown to such
importance as to become the head of a circuit, em-
bracing several country appointments north and
south, which were to be supplied with preaching on
week-days once in two weeks; while Richmond was

44 Rev. Joseph Tarkhigton.

to have the entire Sunday services — a class of ap-
pointments known then in Methodist parlance as
half-stations, to which dignity Centerville did not
attain until 1842, four years later.

The numerical strength of Richmond at that time
may be inferred from the fact that at the end of this
year the entire Richmond Circuit numbered only
182, of whom only 65 were in Richmond.

This was probably twenty to thirty less than it
should have been, on account of Elijah Whitten's
original method of administering discipline the
year before. The Boston class had become shock-
ingly demoralized by internal feuds of various kinds,
involving occasion for innumerable Church trials,
if any attempt had been made to straighten things
out by Church law; for almost every member was
involved on one side or the other of one or another
of the numerous charges and counter-charges, in-
volving almost every degree of moral turpitude,
from picking the wrong geese to drunkenness, in-
cluding slandering, backbiting, and refusing to pay
honest debts; for there was no social difficulty that
the preacher was not expected to settle in those
days.

Mr. Whitten took in the situation at his first
appointment, on a week-day, at a private house.
After meeting was over, first one, then another
plucked him aside to tell his grievance and demand
a trial, alleging that Mr. Beswick, his predecessor,
had neglected his duty in this matter. After listen-

Introduction. 45

ing to each with little patience, he dismissed each
with a short "I '11 see about it," that gave no prom-
ise of immediate relief. Upon a little further in-
vestigation, Mr. Whitten concluded that if every-
one against whom charges had been made was ex-
pelled— and they all ought to be if the charges were
true — there would be nothing left worth caring for,
and he devised an original and certainly an effective
plan of disposing of the case. At his next appoint-
ment, before preaching, he asked the class-leader
for the class-book, the only record of membership
then kept, and then he proceeded to preach such a
sermon as no other living man could, on backbiting
and all its kindred offenses. As told to me a few
years later by one of the sufferers, it must have been
double-distilled gall and bitterness, each one, how-
ever, generously giving it to the other fellow.

He concluded the services by the usual hymn
and prayer, and then said: "This class is hopelessly
involved in discord. If I am to believe half that
I hear from you about one another, you all ought
to be turned out of the Church, and every one of
you will go to hell unless you repent. Now it is no
use to hold Church trials in such a case. To make
short work of it, I '11 burn the class-book and turn
you all out at once." And, suiting the action to
the word, he threw the class-book into the open
fire, and it was in ashes in a minute, he standing in
silence until it was past recovery, and the congre-
gation stupefied with wonder. Then, resuming, he

46 Rev. Joseph Tarkington.

said: "Now, I will not lead the class; for there is
none to lead. But if any of you wish to join the
Methodist Episcopal Church, resolved to do no
harm, such as drunkenness, fighting, quarreling,
brawling, brother going to law with brother, re-
turning railing for railing, and the like, I will open
the doors of the Church at my next appointment
to take you in ; but if you do n't come on these
terms, I do n't want you."

Nobody joined at the next meeting, or the next,
or during that year, though most of them came to
hear him preach; for he was a wonderful preacher.
But they paid no quarterage. Why should they?
They were not members. Mr. Sullivan, who, as the
pastor on the Richmond Circuit, had charge of
Boston, reorganized the class; but it was several
years before any considerable number of those thus
summarily expelled returned to the Church, very
many of whom not until Mr. Tarkington, four years
later, was on the Centerville Circuit, to which Bos-
ton fell after Richmond was made a station.

Mr. Tarkington's work in Richmond is but
poorly indicated by the fact that the enrolled mem-
bership was increased from 65 to 260. It consisted
chiefly in his method of breaking down the oppo-
sition to Methodism which had existed for thirty
years or more. His method was peculiar to him-
self. The sweetness of his life was so perennial
that he soon became a welcome guest in many of
the most cultured Quaker famiHes, and his solici-

Introduction. 47

tude for their spiritual welfare often led him to urge
upon them a spiritual religion to which most of
them were strangers, though theoretically they pro-
fessed to be led by the Spirit. Few, if any, however,
of the adults ever attended his public services.
They could not think of listening to a paid min-
ister, or hear singing in worship; while, to them,
the mourners'-bench was unbearable.

A story was current about that time that he so
mortally offended a couple who had been induced
by his social work to break the rules enough to
attend one of his meetings, that they never went
again. It was the custom to "read the hymn" in
the opening services, and then "line" it. It hap-
pened on this particular occasion that the opening
hymn was:

" Children of the Heavenly King,
As we journey let us sing."

The visiting Friends had no special objection to
that; for they expected to hear singing, and had
made up their minds to endure it. They did not
have to sing themselves, and they had resolved not
to. But when the preacher read the second stanza,

" Let those refuse to sing
Who never knew our God,"

they took offense, because they supposed their re-
fusing to sing would be construed into a confession
they never knew the Lord. But times have

48 Rev. Joseph Tarkington.

changed, and so have Quakers. No choirs now
discourse better music than Quaker choirs, and the
mourners'-bench is one of their favorite institu-
tions. How much Mr. Tarkington's methods had
to do with all this, no one can tell. It is enough
to say that, in Richmond at least, from that day
forward, the fellowship between Friends and Meth-
odists has been most cordial.

He brings his autobiography down only to the
close of his agency for Asbury University, in 1854.
Perhaps the reason for this was that his children
were all old enough then to know from their per-
sonal observation what occurred to him, and the
further reason that the incidents of his labors from
that on were but of the character common to the
pastorate in later years. But he spent twelve years
more in very effective work, on the Milroy, Milford,
Bellevue, Westport, and St. Omar Circuits, and in
the Greensburg Station, in all of which his labors
were abundantly successful. But no two years of
his life were of more value to the Church than the
two years spent in Indianapolis as city missionary,
from the Conference of 1865 to the Conference of
1867; and yet there were few then living, or who
have since lived, that ever appreciated the labor of
those years or their diflficulties.

If the devil was at the bottom of David's taking
the census of Israel, he certainly had a hand in
dividing Indianapolis — first, into two Conferences,
then into four, as it was in 1865. There had been

Introduction. 49

little Church aggression because of jealousies and
rivalries, the arbitrary Conference lines being a per-
petual hindrance. There had grown up in the city
a semi-literary, semi-evangelical organization of
young Methodists, whose aim was personal im-
provement and missionary work in neglected dis-
tricts and suburbs, by maintaining Sunday-schools
and such preaching as they and local preachers
could furnish. The time came when it was evident
to all that some one man of experience should have
a pastoral charge of this work, and the Institute
asked for the appointment of Mr. Tarkington. He
was a member of the Southeast Indiana Conference,
and on the face of the records he was appointed as
a missionary from that Conference, which held a
claim upon only one small corner of the city.
When, therefore, his plans were developed, and in
them he recognized no Conference lines, he was
at first received coolly by all the other Conferences
until the situation became better known; but even
then it was deemed best, the second year, that he
should take a superannuated relation to his Con-
ference, and that thus the appearance of territorial
grabbing might disappear.

They were years of much hard work. Though
sixty-six years old, his strength had so little abated
that he was able to endure much physical labor, and
he gathered the members and organized the
Churches now known as Madison Avenue, Hall
Place, and Grace Churches, besides helping the In-
4

50 Rev. Joseph Tarkington.

stitute in Sunday-schools, and preparing the way
for other Churches, one of which ultimately re-
sulted in the present Blackford Street, and another
in Edwin Ray, and still another, after two removals,
in the Broadway. These labors so demonstrated
the damage of Conference boundaries within the
city, that a meeting of all the Churches of the city
unanimously demanded the putting of the whole
city in one Conference in 1868; but it resulted only
in putting it into two, and it was twenty-seven more
years before the prayer of the laity was granted, and
the city was restored to its maximum strength. No
other man could have done better work, and very
few as good.

In his account of his own work he takes occa-
sion to speak a kindly word of me, his one-time
colleague, and characteristically to express an
opinion not necessarily pertinent to his story. I
would not think of commenting upon the fact or
the opinion in this delicate connection, but that the
chief charm of his story, to all outside his family,
is the light his experience throws upon early con-
ditions and early Methodism in Indiana, which by
the way differed but little from conditions and cus-
toms everywhere in the West at that time, and only
such incidents as are further illustrative of these
have been woven into this long and prosy Intro-
duction.

I did locate early in life. Whether or not that
was a misfortune to me or to the Church, as he ex-

Introduction, 5 1

presses it, depends upon considerations that it is yet
too early to thoroughly weigh. That it led me to a
much more laborious and more turbulent life than I
could possibly have had in the pastorate outside a
foreign mission, all who knew, even imperfectly,
the details of that life will readily concede, and
those who know the material results will be equally
ready to judge that it was a misfortune; but these
constitute only a secondary consideration of the
end of living. What forces from within and with-
out led up to that location may be interesting to
this and coming generations ; for already they sound
like an incredible story.

He speaks of me as the first graduate of our
Asbury University, and so I was; but he fails to
mention what a disadvantage this was to me in my
work. I was also the first person to enter the In-
diana Conference with a college diploma. There
were several educated men in the Conference; but
they were from other States, and they had attained
an age and standing that shielded them from the
disabilities I labored under.

I had hoped the years I had spent in preparation
would be an advantage to me, and so they were in
many respects; but in other respects they were a
detriment. I expected no favors, and sought none
on their account, and went to such appointments
as were assigned me as cheerfully as any man,
and worked as faithfully as I knew how, bearing
the discomforts that were inevitable to the period

52 Rev. Joseph Tarkington.

as uncomplainingly as any one, counting them
a. part of a system that I most thoroughly be-
lieved in.

Towards the close of my first year I received
a letter from E. R. Ames, then residing in Indian-
apolis, though Missionary Secretary, informing me
that at his suggestion the Quarterly Conference of
Indianapolis had unanimously requested the pre-
siding elder to have me appointed as second
preacher, under William H. Goode, to the Indian-
apolis charge, and advising me to make all neces-
sary preparations for the work. I sold my horse,
and made some other arrangements, in full faith
that he knew what he was writing about; but when
my appointment was announced, I was sent else-
where. It was to a good circuit, and I went with-
out a murmur; for I knew that the machinery of
the itinerancy often worked that way. But six
months later I received an explanation from Mr.
Ames, telling me that when the case was men-
tioned in the cabinet, Thomas J. Brown, presiding
elder on the Crawfordsville District, objected. He
had met me at a camp-meeting on Alamo Mission
the summer before my graduation, and I was too
much of a fop to make a Methodist preacher, with-
out more experience in circuit work, and hard cir-
cuits at that; besides, to show such favoritism to
college graduates was a discrimination against
preachers who had not been to college. Only Au-
gustus Eddy, out of the twelve presiding elders,

Introduction. 53

earnestly objected to these views, and as Bishop
Roberts and the presiding elder of the Indianapolis
District, James Havens, heartily concurred in these
views, I was sent to take further post-graduate les-
sons on a large circuit. This was no personal and
local matter; it was in accord with common usage.
About that time, Randolph S. Foster was sent from
Ohio to the mountains of West Virginia, and
Thomas Bowman from Baltimore to the mountains
of Pennsylvania, to take their post-graduate les-
sons under like circumstances.

The year on Centerville Circuit with Mr. Tark-
ington was every way a pleasant one, notwithstand-
ing the income was only $183, and much of that
was in "truck and turnover" at about thirty-three
per cent above the market price. To illustrate one
of the methods of paying the preacher in that day
of old-fashioned Methodism, take this example: At
one of the wealthiest appointments on the circuit
were two classes of about forty members each, and
of about equal wealth. The quarterly-meeting was
coming on, and in order to raise the quarterage each
class-leader took a large two-horse sled, and drove
from house to house, collecting what each house-
holder "could spare for the preacher" — one sled
load to be delivered to Mr. Tarkington, the other
to me. This took a whole day. When the loads
were compared, it was discovered that Mr. Tark-
ington's sled had about one-third more produce
than mine. To even up, my class-leader raised his

54 Rev. Joseph Tarkington.

figures and added an average of about thirty per
cent to the price. That balanced accounts.

The "contribution" came during my absence.
When, a few days later, I got home, I found our
little kitchen stacked with sides and shoulders and
pickle-pork, butter, lard, dried-apples, apple-butter,
cheese, flour, meal, and other equally indispensable
"truck," much of it in quantities sufficient to last
a small family a year. We had no place to keep it,
and there was nothing to do but to borrow a wheel-
barrow and wheel it a half-mile to the store, and
take it out in goods we could not afford to buy. It
was vain to remonstrate against the injustice of
charging more than the goods were worth; for the
answer came back that I ought to be thankful for
even that, as there would be a deficiency anyway at
the end of the year; and so there was!

Centerville was to be made a station at the end
of the year, and it was well understood that Mr.
Tarkington was to be presiding elder. As I had
preached only one-third of a year in Centerville,
there being three preachers, and as I had no family
but a wife — which was a great item in those days
in the popularity of a preacher — there seemed to be
not a dissenting voice to my return, and I fully
expected it; but when the appointments were an-
nounced, I was assigned to Vevay, a hundred miles
away. With childlike faith in Providence, I ac-
cepted the appointment as coming from above, and
proceeded to sell my cooking-stove and other furni-

hitrodtiction.

55

ture to pay arrearages on house-rent and at the
stores for provisions alone; for we had not bought
five dollars' worth of dry-goods the whole year, and
then I borrowed ten dollars from a Methodist dis-
tiller, and moved what was left the hundred miles,
without being able to understand why all this un-
necessary expense.

I found Vevay Circuit one of the best of the
period, and went to work to make it better. My
heart was in the work, and the people received me
cordially. I had from the hour of my graduation
been solicited to take a school. Methodist teachers
were scarce then and much in demand; but I pre-
ferred the pastorate, and rejected all of them.

At my third quarterly-meeting, while a guest
with my presiding elder at the home of Mr. Slau-
son, where Mr. Tarkington had, twelve years be-
fore, found his wife, the presiding elder became
unusually communicative, and somehow branched
of¥ on to appointment-making in the cabinet. Of
course, I was interested in whatever would uncover
mysteries, and I encouraged him to divulge. "Do
you know why you were not sent to the Centerville
Station? Everybody there wanted you and ex-
pected you," he began. I pleaded ignorance, but
supposed that somehow it was because I was needed
at Vevay, or something of that kind. "Well," he
continued, "Presiding Elder Wiley proposed your
name, and stated the wishes of the Church in Cen-
terville; but Robert Burns, of the Winchester Dis-

56 Rev. Joseph Tarkmgto?i.

trict, objected at once, arguing- that it would not
do to promote our college-bred men over the others,
and Bemis Westlake, of the Fort Wayne District,
joined him. Wiley insisted, and so did one or two
others; but Bishop Andrew sided wnth Burns and
Westlake, and you were moved, for no other reason
than because you were a college graduate, and it
would be invidious to give you such a station so
early in your ministry."

That this revelation, made so accidentally, and
without any thought of its probable result, recalled
the revelation made two years before by Mr. Ames,
is not strange. I said nothing suggestive of my
thoughts, but that I should wonder if the years
spent in college and the habit of study I had kept
up since graduation were to be a perpetual bar to
my usefulness in such a community as the town of
Centerville was, would seem very natural.

I tried to dismiss the subject, which began to
haunt me day and night; but it would not be dis-
missed. As if to re-enforce the internal discussion
which this had started, there came the popularity as
circuit riders, but not as preachers, of several con-
temporaries. One who, when admitted on trial in
the same class with me, had never read the Bible
half through, nor looked into an English Grammar,
and w'ho was so unsophisticated as to ask one of
the mothers in Israel at whose house he happened
to be when first reading the Book of Exodus:
"What does opening the matrix mean in this verse;

Introduction. 57

'All that open the matrix is mine?' " and who,
preaching on the resurrection, quoted Job as saying
that though his skin-worms should destroy his
body, yet in his flesh he should see God, was much
more popular than I, chiefly because he could out-
shout me when he got too happy to contain him-
self. My colleague, one of the best souls in the
world, was unconsciously, and certainly uninten-
tionally, adding fuel to the flame that was consum-
ing me. He was three years on probation, because
he c6uld not pass even the superficial examination
then required, and then he was admitted only on
the promise to "bring up" Watson's Institutes, and
who had not read a single book entirely through
since he had been admitted, except Hester Ann
Rogers. He got all the socks, but he generously
divided with me; for he got more than twice as
many as he could possibly wear out. He would
put up for the night or for a week, as the demands
of the appointments would allow, and smoke his
pipe, and talk gossip, but read never, beyond the
Western Christian Advocate. I met his praise wher-
ever I went. He kissed all the babies, and had sev-
eral namesakes before the year was half out.

Is it any wonder that, putting the popularity of
these uneducated men and others like them to-
gether with the ostracism my college training
worked with the appointing powers, when, toward
the close of the Conference year, there came an
urgent request from the Protestant ministers of

58 Rev. Joseph Tarki7igton.

Madison that I should take charge of a female acad-
emy in Madison, which they wished to open, in
view of the inroads the school just started by the
Sisters of Charity were making upon Protestant
families, that I accepted? Made to feel that the
very things that fitted me for such a field were a
detriment to me in the pastoral work, how could I
choose otherwise? I accepted the call to the edu-
cational work.

I could easily enough have retained my member-
ship in the Conference and taken the school; but
I had convictions then, as I have now, upon the
honesty of engaging in the insurance or any other
business while retaining a membership in the trav-
eling connection with all its prerogatives and im-
munities, but with none of its burdens and respon-
sibilities. I located.

During the four years I was connected with that
school, I was kept in close sympathy with the pas-
torate, not merely because I preached nearly as
often as any pastor, but through some indefinable
cord which made us one, so that when, in 1848, I
determined to re-enter the pastorate, there was no
new atmosphere to breathe or new ties to form.

In the eight years that had passed since my grad-
uation, fifteen later graduates of the university had
entered the two Conferences, and more than twice
that number who had taken a partial course, and
all were in demand by the people; yet the policy of
the appointing power was unchanged. As a rule

hitroduction. 59

they were under ban, and were assigned to second-
class circuits, while men of their own age or
younger in the ministry were given stations or bet-
ter circuits, when to be a stationed preacher was a
mark of distinction quite as great as being a pre-
siding elder is now.

My appointment to Evansville might seem a let-
ting up, at least so far as I was concerned ; but the
Evansville of 1848 was not the Evansville of to-day.
The membership was less than two hundred, and
the preacher who had preceded me had received
less than two hundred dollars, including house-
rent, and they owed the sexton seventy-nine dollars.
It was not an appointment to be coveted; hence I
got it. The stewards had reserved the house my
predecessor had left — four rooms, in a dingy tene-
ment block. I refused to unpack my goods in it,
demanding something better. They had never
heard the like before. But I got the better house,
and they fixed my "allowance" at four hundred dol-
lars, including house-rent — the highest ever made —
and they paid it, the first time the allowance was
ever paid in full. Though there was no "sweeping
revival" — I did n't want one — the membership more
than doubled in the two years I was there; and
when I left, a copy of one of the Advocates was
going into every family of the Church except one,
and he, preferring the Zion's Herald, took that.

Near the close of my second year, Williamson
Terrell, then closing his second year at Centenary,

6o Rev. Joseph Tarkington.

New Albany, invited me to spend a Sunday with
him, looking to my succeeding him in that charge.
I went, and was pleased with everything, and the
official members seemed pleased with the prospect
of having me, and arrangements were made that I
should go to Centenary; but that part of the ma-
chinery of the Church was not in as good running
order then as now, and it seemed to be a fixed pur-
pose of every bishop to "nip it in the bud," and
Bishop Morris was especially famous for that. It
was he who, three years later, refused to appoint a
preacher to Union Chapel, Cincinnati, because fam-
ilies persisted in sitting together against the rule,
and they had introduced an organ against the tra-
dition of the Church. He intended to nip that in-
novation in the bud also.

It soon came to me, however, from a reliable
source, that the argument for my not going to New
Albany was the old purpose to keep college gradu-
ates from recognition; that having enjoyed so fat
a station as Evansville, I should alternate with cir-
cuit work occasionally.

At the ensuing Conference, 185 1, an unexpected
and unsought event again led me out of the pas-
toral work. Dr. Simpson, Dr. L. W. Berry (then
president of Asbury University), and Edward R,
Ames, asked me to take an agency for a special
work in behalf of the university, alleging that in
their opinion it was an important work, and that
my relation to the university gave me special fitness

Introduction. 6i

for it, personally guaranteeing a reasonable salary
if the trustees, who had declined at their annual
meeting to employ an agent, should refuse to recog-
nize me. It was to be for a year only, I took the
agency, did the special work required, and was
arranging to take pastoral work again, when the
trustees of Brookville College elected me president
of that embryo institution, and I accepted the office
rather than to take work under a system that made
my acknowledged qualifications for teaching a bar
to the best fields for usefulness in the pastorate.

No one who is less than fifty years of age can
to-day form even a remote idea of the social con-
ditions which came in to turn the channel of my life
at that time. The saloon was in the ascendant, and
the public conscience was asleep as to its enormity.
Somehow I had been drawn into the forefront of the
battle, then on, which resulted in the prohibitory
law of 1855; but there were less than a half-dozen
papers in the State that sought its overthrow. To
add to this burning question, the slaveholders had
just obtained that personification of political in-
famy, the Fugitive Slave Law, and both the Whig
and the Democratic party of 1852 had plighted
their vows to not only enforce it, but to maintain it
as a final settlement of the slavery question, and
they agreed to ostracize everybody who dared to
speak or write or vote to the contrary; and yet,
early in 1853, they began to plot for the dividing
of the Territory of Nebraska, so that its southern

62 Rev. Joseph Tarkington.

portion might become a Slave State, and there was
not a paper in the State, except a small one at In-
dianapolis, under the patronage of the impracticable
Abolition party, that ventured the slightest oppo-
sition. To me the call to enter upon that fight was
imperative, and I bought one of the oldest and best
papers in the State, and opened batteries upon the
twin iniquities — the saloon and slavery. How
wisely and efifectually I did my part is not for me to
say. It is enough to say that, in a short time, the
local paper came to be recognized as such a power
that its removal from Brookville to Indianapolis
was demanded, in order to better meet its mission,
and that it so far met the demands of the hour that
at least three-fourths of the Methodist preachers,
and many other preachers, became its ardent sup-
porters, so that in i860 it had the largest bona Me
circulation any paper had ever had in Indiana,
Somehow people liked its strike-out-from-the-
shoulder way of putting things, and Hon. Henry S.
Lane said of it in i860, that it had had more to do
in carrying Indiana for Air. Lincoln than any one
other agency.

The spirit of the paper, which gave it its great
popularity with one class of men and women, and
made it the most hated of all papers in the State
by saloonkeepers and slaveholders and their allies,
the cowardly conservatives of the period, may be
inferred from the fact that, while it denounced the
Republican platform of i860 because it recognized

Introduction. 63

slavery as having some rights that ought to be re-
spected, it yet supported Mr. Lincoln as a step in
the right direction in the purpose of the party to
restrict slavery to its then boundaries. It was too
hungry to reject a half loaf because a whole loaf
was not at its command.

When, after the election, the South had begun to
carry out their threats, Governor Morton proposed
to send representatives to what some timid ones
had proposed, a Convention to be held in Rich-
mond, Virginia, to propose some compromise, and
ask on what terms the South would consent to stay
and continue to dictate the Nation's policy, it de-
nounced the proposition as cowardly, adding: "Bet-
ter prepare for war, because war is not only inevi-
table, but desirable." This provoked a storm of
denunciation, even in the Republican ranks, which
added largely to the circulation of the paper; for
the common people were in sympathy with such
sentiments.

The saloon had no occasion to be better pleased;
so that, between the two, I was kept in a happy
frame of mind.

Mr. Tarkington thought my location was a' mis-
fortune. It is too soon to judge, if the theory so
often preached — not a word of which I believe,
however — be true, that even God himself must wait
until all the results for good or evil of a man's life
must have been wrought to a finish before a correct
judgment can be formed as to rewards and pun-

64 Rev. Joseph Tarkmgton.

ishments. The end is not yet. What were stream-
lets a half-century ago, are widening and deepening
rivers to-day. Whether I could have done more for
God and humanity in the pastorate, handicapped as
I was by the prejudice of that period against a
learned ministry, and the jealousies of those who
had not had early literary advantages, can be known
only to Him who knows all our ways. Only this is
sure: "A good man's steps are ordered of the
Lord;" and the faith that illumined many a dark
hour in the midst of complicated labyrinths still
abides in the serenity of a happy old age. "He
leadeth me."

There! I have been betrayed into the narration
of incidents almost personal to myself; but I will
let it stand. Mr. Tarkington and I were as nearly
a reproduction of David and Jonathan as is ever
found in persons whose ages differ by nearly a score
of years, and what I have said relating to myself is
intended wholly to illustrate customs and opinions
long since obsolete.

MARIE SLAUSON TARKINGTON, 1832.

REV. JOSEPH TARKINGTON,

Autobiography of Rev. Joseph Tarkington.

WRITTEN IN 1887.

ANCESTORS.

I WAS born at Nashville, Tennessee, on October
30, 1800. Jesse Tarkington, my father, was born
in Tyrrell County, North Carolina. His father was
Joshua Tarkington, Jr., who was the son of Joshua
Tarkington, one of two brothers who came when
boys from England to the Colony of Carolina; the
brother of Joshua, Sr., was stolen by the Indians
when the two were hunting strayed cows, and was
never heard of afterwards. Joshua, Jr., married,
and had six sons, named Joseph, John, Jesse, Rich-
ard, William, and Isaac, and one daughter, Eliza-
beth, called Milley for common.

Joshua (my grandfather) married Zelphia Alex-
ander, and his brother Zebulon married Mary Has-
sell, in Tyrrell County, North Carolina. They were
Episcopalians. Joshua (my grandfather) was bed-
ridden for months before he died; had his coffin
made of walnut, and put under his bed before his
death. After the death of his father (my grand-
father), Jesse, with his brother John, in company
5 65

66 Rev. Joseph Tarkmgton.

with their uncles Zebulon and William, moved to
Tennessee, and settled in the canebrake in David-
son County. My grandfather, Joshua Tarkington,
Jr., had two brothers (Zebulon and William), and
one sister, whose name is now unknown. Zebulon
and William moved to Tennessee with my father.
The two uncles bought farms in that county; but
Jesse went upon David Beatty's land near Nash-
ville, where he staid three or four years. The In-
dians stole all his horses, and David Beatty sold
him two. Having then but little means or money
left, he sold his lease of the land to Beatty, and
moved down about seventeen miles to near where
Franklin now is. There father bought land of two
men named Murray and Tatum, who had entered it
with Revolutionary War land warrants. When my
father moved this time, my mother carried me in
her arms, and she said I cried all the way. There
father cleared up a farm, built houses and a barn,
and soon had a very good orchard.

DEFECTIVE LAND TITLES.

But in twelve years there came an older over-
lapping claim to the land than that conveyed by
Murray and Tatum to my father, and, after a suit
at law, my father lost the land. Murray and Tatum
were insolvent, and there was no recourse left.
Then father leased land of a William Hadley, on
which he staid two years.

There was much trouble in those times from

Early Distilleries. 67

land claims. The land was surveyed by courses,
distances, and monuments, not laid off in sections,
townships, and ranges, and great uncertainty and
confusion resulted in that then almost new country,
A number of lawyers, such as Messrs. Haywood,
White, Cannon, and Andrew Jackson, afterwards
General Jackson, made fortunes by the land suits
growing out of these claims.

To make troubles double, about this time the
Creek Indians, the second time, stole all my father's
horses; but, it being the spring, he could not spare
the time to go after the thieves, so he bought a
three-year-old colt, and did his plowing.

EARLY DISTILLERIES.

On the place he bought of Murray and Tatum,
he had an orchard of the finest kind of peaches.
So abundant was the fruit that he and his neighbors
got a still, and made peach brandy, worth one dollar
a gallon. The purest spring water which bubbled
up from among the rocks was ruined in making it.
The success in making brandy in peach-time en-
couraged them to make whisky; so they went at it.
My father was engaged to run the still. My mother
protested strongly against the enterprise, but it was
of no avail. The neighbors brought meal for him
to distill. In that day no house or cabin could be
raised or logs rolled without whisky to boost it,
nor could a child be born in cabin or camp without
its coming being celebrated with a dram.

68 Rev. Joseph Tarkington.

The still-house was a great trouble to my mother.
The people would come ten miles to bring their
meal, and their peaches, in peach-time, in sacks on
horseback; wait for them to be turned into whisky,
which they would drink warm from the still; and
then they, becoming warm themselves, would often
get to quarreling. I remember seeing Williamson,
Willett, Turnage, and Page, all at the still at one
time, all friendly and agreed when they came, but
not so upon going. Once, Willett threw William-
son into the slop-trough, flat on his back. The slop
happened to be cool. When Williamson got out,
he was such a shocking sight to me, a lad, I ran
home and told my mother what had occurred, and
she said she wished the still and all were burned up.
Again and again she tried to have father quit the
business, but the neighbors kept coming. If
Church members had not had their liquor made
there, it would have been better; but they did, and
would have it at all gatherings. Even preachers
would patronize the thing. Neighbors would some-
times come to the house drunk, and mother would
have to take them in the house, or they would lie
out doors all night. Her wish came true. The still
burned up. How it was fired, or by whom, no one
knew.

FIRST RELIGIOUS MEETINGS.

Then it was mother said, "Let us invite the Rev.
John Pope to preach in our house," and father con-
sented; and the minister was invited, and came.

An Earthquake. 69

He was a heavy-set man, with a good voice; a very
good man, all said, a Methodist. He baptized six
of my father's children at one meeting, at John-
son's Grove, three miles west of Franklin. I was a
small boy, and stood on the ground looking on,
while the children stood before the preacher in a
row in the order of their ages, three older and two
younger than myself. My father and mother had
been baptized by the Episcopalian minister long
before that. At this meeting I heard the first shout
of "Glory to God," while John Pope was preach-
ing. It was given by a large fat woman. Not long
after this there was a change in the neighborhood,
from going to the still-house all week to drink and
quarrel, to going to hear preaching Sunday morn-
ing and night at the neighbors' houses.

AN EARTHQUAKE.

My father, having lost his farm through defect in
title, thought he would go where he could buy land
direct from the United States, and went to Alabama
prospecting. An earthquake came the night of the
day he returned. He had just built a frame house.
It was tall, and shook so much that father called
for the children to come down-stairs for fear it
would fall. So all came down in spasms of fear,
as were, almost, my father, mother, and the widow
Alexander, whose husband was a cousin of my
father, and lived near by — all were full of wonder

7© Rev. Joseph Tarkington.

as to what was the matter. Some said the house
was pushed, and went out to see what had
done it.

They saw nothing — no ropes to pull or poles to
push the house with — and came in, and continued
to discuss the strange condition of things. It was
agreed that nothing should be said about it, as no
one would believe what they would tell of the
strange commotion. But in the morning, people
came from all directions, telling the same story of
their houses being badly shaken. While discussing
the matter, father set out on the table some brandy
and water, and asked his frightened neighbors to
drink. An old colored woman came up to father
and asked, "Massa, did any you try to shake my
house down last night?" Another said, "1 thought
the horses were rubbing my cabin down." One
said it was something in the ground; for she felt
the ground shake in her yard. Father said every
bolt shook in its lock. Then it shook the water
and brandy on the table. No one tasted them.
Strange, when such fear came, brandy was not
thought to have any saving strength! While the
gathered neighbors stood by the door in the yard,
afraid to go in the house, a distant heavy murmur,
like low-down thunder, was heard. All eyes turned
to the southwest. The house began shaking. The
boughs of a tree in the garden shook, while the air
was still. Water in vessels ran over. Some said
the end of the world was nigh; others, that it was

Shoutijig and Drinking. 71

a sign of war with England. The meetings, di-
rectly after, were well attended. Some went who
never had gone before. By day and night men
sought God. As a reputed very bad man, Willett
was going on his way up a high hill one night to
meeting, some rowdy boys, knowing he was com-
ing, rolled rocks down toward him. He cried out
that the end was at hand, as the rocks and moun-
tains were about to cover him. This man, aroused
through fear to a knowledge of the power of God
and feebleness of man, learned to know the fear of
the Lord that passeth understanding, and stood
faithfully in that knowledge to the end of his life.

SHOUTING AND DRINKING.

There was much shouting at that day in private
and public. My Uncle Israel's mother, the wife of
Amos Adkins, a Revolutionary soldier, was a great
praying woman. She could pray, sing, and shout
at the flax-wheel, in garden, and in the church.
Her husband talked of Bunker Hill and Valley
Forge. I often sat at his feet while he told his
stories of the war, of his suffering for food and
clothing. He, like most of those old soldiers, drank
hard. Though I was a boy, I would never see
Adkins mistreated; but would go home with him
often when he could not find his way home at
night, and hear the good wife say: "Now, Amos,
you have been at that again. Why do you do so,

72 Rev. Joseph Tarkington.

Amos?" The first thing I ever heard her sing
was:

" If I met one by the way,

I always had somethiug to say

About that heaveuly union.

O, backslider, come away,

And learn to do, as well as say,

And then you will feel this heavenly union."

It was at her house where my mother had sent me
for warping spools to run thread on. Though that
was seventy-two years ago, I can not forget that
good woman and her song. She was of the old-
style Methodist; could tell where she was con-
verted, and how she had been sustained by the
grace of God through all the War of 1776. She
lived to see the second war with England, and said
she wished she had some boys to send into the
army.

It was wonderful how long the animosities of
the War of Independence lasted in the hearts of
good people.

THE JERKS.

In those times the exercise of religion was very
vigorous. I have seen the women shouting, and, in
bending backwards, their hair would stream down,
touching the floor. It seemed that they would
break their backs. Some would have the jerks.
No two men could hold them still. The holders
would be thrown down. The best way to treat
them was to get out of their way when they had the

More Earthquake. 73

jerks, and only see that they did not hurt them-
selves. There is something in the jerks unex-
plainable. I asked Mrs. John Givens, who at times
had them, to explain what they were. She said
that, when she felt like shouting praises to God, if
she did it willingly, she did not have them; but
when she resisted shouting, which she said she had
done until the blood ran out of her nose, then the
jerks came, and were very hard with her. She was
a pure, good woman, a Presbyterian, and a great
help to yormg Christians.

MORE EARTHQUAKE.

But more about the earthquake. In parts of
Tennessee the chimneys and houses fell. The
chimney in father's house, built of stone, two stories
high, was split eight or ten feet in the breast. At
one meeting, the Rev. Mr. McConica, a Baptist
preacher, large and fine-looking, was preaching,
when the cry was made that the house was sinking,
and, such was the chronic terror of the people, the
whole congregation was in confusion; some run-
ning away, shouting, "He is coming! He is com-
ing!" some screaming for mercy; some fell out of
the gallery of the meeting-house; others lay down
groaning and crying. One man tried to get out
through a large chink between the logs of the
house, but could not turn his foot to get it out,
and had to be pulled back.

The white folks were not so particular then in

74 Rev. Joseph Tarkingtoft.

keeping their darkies at a distance. Some of Mr.
Reese's slaves were often called in to pray for the
whites. One of them, who had power with God,
was a leader in many revivals of religion.

The shouting, in public and private, may appear
to have been extravagant in the eyes of this gener-
ation, when so many profess a conversion and have
nothing to say about it, and, in many cases, are
not clear, and have not confidence enough in their
experience to expre s it. Well may he who has un-
doubted consciousness of having passed from death
to life, praise God!

FASHIONS.

The fashions in that day were not in every re-
spect most favorable to religious exercises. Short
sleeves, and dresses low in the neck, were as fash-
ionable then as now. Rev. James Axley was
preaching one day in a private house, with a chair
before him for a pulpit, when two young ladies
came in and sat just in front of him. He had a
very large bandanna handkerchief on the back of
the chair, and very gracefully handed it to the
young ladies, with the request that they would
cover their bosoms.

Such a practical admonition would not pass
muster in this day. However, the dresses of the
ladies of that day were made on the saving plan.
The skirt, small at the bottom as at the waist. The
men wore sharp-toed shoes, the point looking up

Start for Indiana. 75

in the face of the wearer an inch and a half, Hke a
sled-runner. Some wore short clothes, so called
because they were not long. The stockings came
to the knees, where the trousers overlapped them,
and were buckled to them with a strap, to keep the
latter down and the former up. Some wore
buckles on their low shoes. Bishop William Mc-
Kendree, whom I first saw near Washington, Indi-
ana, on his way to the Missouri Conference, in 1822
or 1823, always wore short clothes. The vest was
generally long. The coat had a great high-rolling
collar, a long and very sharp tail, with large brass
buttons on it. It would take a tailor a day or two
to make the collar, which came as high as the wear-
er's hat-brim. The shirt-collar came to the ears,
with a suspicion that the wrong end was up. The
hat had a narrow brim, and was about ten inches
high. The fashions have greatly changed, the most
of them (always excepting high-heeled shoes) for
the better, as we think.

START FOR INDIANA.
Now the War of 1812 came on. One of my
brothers volunteered; and the other, with father's
team of fine horses, was pressed into the service
to haul provisions in Southern Alabama, where the
army was fighting the Indians. The troops in this
expedition suffered for provisions, reduced at times
to eat the hides which had been taken from the
cattle. When my brothers came back, father re-

76 Rev. Joseph Tarkington.

solved to strike for Indiana Territory. He had four
boys able to work; but soon the oldest married.
My uncles advised father to seek his fortunes in
the farther South, but he said he would go where
there were no slaves. They said the condition of
things could not be helped, that even the women
folks could not do without their slave help; but
father was determined to try a free country. So, in
October, 1815, the family all willing to try, we
started for the Territory of Indiana. A five-horse
wagon was tightly packed with our household
goods. My mother rode on horseback, carrying
the youngest child. The three children next older
rode in the front part of the wagon; the rest walked
and drove the cattle and hogs. The first night we
all slept in a barn; the next day we passed Nash-
ville, and forded the Cumberland below that place.
We intended to reach the Ohio River at Diamond
Island. By and by we came to White's Creek,
and on a high hill we stopped at a hotel styled
"Paradise." Before reaching the Ohio, I sold my
Indian pony — "Tackey," as he was called, which
I had got in exchange for a calf before starting —
because I did not want to pay his ferriage over the
river and winter him afterwards. I sold him to
some darkies, who came into our camp, for a skil-
let. It took the ferryboat all day to ferry us over
the Ohio, just above Diamond Island. Some of
the cattle and hogs jumped off the boat, the sides
of which were not over a foot high, with nothing

Build a Log House. 77

at the ends, and swam over. At dark we were all
over, and glad of it. We camped for the night a
mile or two from the landing. As soon as the meat
began to fry for supper, the wolves commenced
howling. From the sound, there seemed to be fifty
of them. Our dogs would not go twenty feet from
the camp. We could see the wolves by the fire-
light, and shot amongst them, but it did no good.
They howled around all night. This was down in
the neck between the Ohio and Wabash, in Posey
County.

We moved on until we came to Mr. Tweedle's,
at Patoka, Gibson County. Here we stopped, and
my brothers and I helped him gather his corn;
while father went further, looking for a place to
winter. He came back and said there was a place
in Bushroe or Bushrun. There we went, and
helped the people gather their corn, while father
went further into the Indian country. A Mr.
Hackett told him General Harrison's blockhouse
on the bank of White River, now Edwardsport,
five miles from Chambers's fort and blockhouse,
would be the place to winter in, and there we
moved; but, sad to say, hunters had carelessly left
fire in the blockhouse, and burned it up.

BUILD A LOG HOUSE.
We built a camp, and then a log house, at the
blockhouse, where Edwardsport now is. There
was plenty of deer, wild game, and wolves, and

78 Rev. Joseph Tarkington.

great sugar-camps on "Congress land." We
cleared twenty acres of land that winter of 1815
and the spring of 1816. William Polk had a sugar-
camp of eight hundred trees, and a Mr. Chambers
had a large one. They made thousands of pounds
of maple-sugar. It was a time of war, and we were
obliged to keep a good lookout, though the Dela-
ware and Miami Indians about there were friendly.

We had settled on a school section of land,
which was not yet in market. Across White River
no one lived within ten miles. We had to go ten
miles to mill — to Emerson's Mill — on a creek be-
tween where we lived and Vincennes, or to Shaker-
town, and had to stay two or three days before we
could return with our grist. We ate parched corn,
and rode horseback on our sacks through the bush
— a hard way to get one sack of cornmeal.

One morning I was sent to the bottoms of White
River for the cows. They had gone over Black
Creek. The leader had a bell on, which could be
heard from one to two miles on a clear morning.
I found them, and began driving them home, when
a howl of many wolves commenced all around. I
outyelled the wolves, and kept close to the bell
cow. The hogs lived on the abundance of acorns,
hickory-nuts, and walnuts during the winter, and
were fat in the spring. But the wolves ate the pigs.
Bee-trees were abundant. The Indians would
bring turkeys and venison hams to exchange for
meal. One time they camped in the bottom of

Build a Log House. 79

White River, and a blizzard came with deep snow,
and they were Hkely to freeze. The bucks came
and begged us to let their squaws and papooses
into our cabin to save their lives. All of one end
of the cabin was chimney, eighteen feet wide. We
could haul logs in with a horse, and pass him out
by an opposite door. Father let the Indians in,
gave them a corner, and hung blankets up for a
partition. They had brass kettles, in which they
cooked corn, venison, turkey, and bear-meat to-
gether; and, when cooked, they would all sit around
the kettle, with knife and spoon, and fish out and
eat until filled. We would go to their camp, and
find a fire in the middle of the bark tent, Indians
lying all about it, smoking. They would have
whisky if it was to be had; but would ofifer it only
to men, never to a woman or a boy. When they
intended to have a dance or frolic, they put away
their guns and knives, and one Indian was ap-
pointed to keep sober. When traveling, the women
rode astride, and all went in single file.

Once, when the Miamis came from Vincennes,
where they had received their pay from the Gov-
ernment, they wanted to cross White River at Ed-
wardsport. Father had a canoe, and helped them
across. The Indians swam their horses by the side
of the canoe, though some of the horses would not
swim, but floated on their sides, and were pulled
across. One Indian put his little colt in the canoe,
and it knocked him overboard, when we boys and

8o Rev. Joseph Tarkingion.

all the Indians, except one Indian with paint
streaked on his face, laughed. The Indians crossed
over and went to Owl Prairie, ten miles east of
Edwardsport, where was a wild country.

Families lived on Steele's Prairie, sixteen miles
south of Edwardsport, and in Liverpool, now
Washington, Daviess County, Indiana.

SICKNESS AND DEATH.

The country was very sickly. My brother Jesse,
who was two years older than I, died that summer
of 1816, and his grave is under the hotel at Ed-
wardsport. Five of the family sickened in one day,,
and the family wished to move again. The land
sale was at Vincennes in the fall of 18 16. Father,
with a Mr. Shields, went to look for land. Shields
wanted to find a salt spring, and they went to what
is now Monroe County. They got the numbers
of many quarter-sections. Father had but little
money, and he bought one quarter adjoining west
of what is now the town of Stanford, in Monroe
County, to which we moved that winter. Shields
did not get a salt spring. The land had to be paid
for in four installments. None sold under Congress
price, two dollars per acre, at which father bought
his. Some was bid up as high as four dollars per
acre.

The Blue Spring, thirteen feet deep, between
Bloomington and Stanford, was a great gathering-
place for Indians. Many bark tents were there.

Move to Monroe County, hidiana. 8i

The quarter-section the spring was on, though not
vakiable, sold higher than any in that township.

Hard times set in, and many could not pay for
their land; but Congress favored the people, and
let them take less than they bid ofif, so they could
pay for what they got. Gold, silver, and United
States Bank notes were taken at the land-office at
par; all other money was shaved from twenty-five
to seventy-five cents on the dollar.

We made rails at twenty-five cents a hundred.
Father had some hogs, and was not wholly de-
pendent on game.

MOVE TO MONROE COUNTY, IND.
When we came to live, in 1817, on the land
bought in Monroe County, we lived for six months
in a camp made with one end open. Sadler, our
nearest neighbor, lived in one twelve months or
more. We had to put in our time clearing ground
to raise corn, and go sixty-five to seventy-five miles
after it. Father and I commenced clearing ground
on March 10, 18 17, and worked early and late to
get ground ready to plow, and just as we were
ready, the Indians stole all his horses but two, and
these we had to keep to pack provisions. Father
got a three-year-old colt to plow, and as soon as
five acres were ready, I set to work with a plow,
all wooden but the share, checking ofif the ground
one way and then the other, going two or three
times in a place to make one furrow, while father
6

82 Rev. Joseph Tarkmgton.

and the little boys worked to clear five acres more,
and my brother Burton packed corn with the two
horses, and I plowed on with my colt. So we got
ten acres in corn that summer, five acres of good
corn and five of stock corn. The colt had nothing
to eat but grass, which we had to get after plowing
all day. He was hobbled at night and turned loose,
and he would wander two or three miles grazing,
and in the morning I would have to be up betimes
to hunt him up before the locusts, which were bad
that year, began to sing loud enough to drown the
sound of the bell on the colt so I could not hear it.
So, by hard work, we had five acres of good corn
and five of stock corn in that year.

We had no hand-mills in that part of the coun-
try, and often had to beat the corn in a mortar, and
have the fine part for bread, the coarse for hominy.
The advance was from the mortar to the hand-mill,
from that to the horse-mill. To the latter we had
to go ten miles, stay a day or two, lie on a bear-
skin, and eat parched corn at the mill while wait-
ing. Times were getting good then; still better
when we could get two and one-half bushels ground
at a water-mill by staying for it two or three days.

By and by we got a barrel of flour, but it was so
musty it made us all sick; but it was flour, and
when the nausea from eating passed off, we would
go at it again with tears in our eyes. They were
good times, indeed, when Colonel John Ketcham
built a water-mill on Clear Creek, between Bloom-

A Camp-Meeting Scene. 83

ington and Stanford, and Hamilton built an over-
shot one five miles from where Bloomington is
now. Campbell Berry (whose sister my brother
Burton married) and I sawed out the plank with
a whipsaw for the water-chute of the Hamilton
mill. In sawing with the whipsaw, the log is raised
on forks, and one stands on the log and the other
under. I stood on top, and the only profane word
I ever uttered was when Campbell Berry jerked
the saw into a knot, and threw my end of the saw
so it struck me on the forehead, whack! raising a
great welt. I have had nearly seventy years of
regret over it as it is. As Berry was a stubborn
sinner, and reproved me for it, it appeared to me
the more awful. The opportunity was fully em-
braced by Berry. Berry married Celina, a daughter
of William Burton, who was one of the first Meth-
odists in Monroe County.

A CAMP-MEETING SCENE.
The Burtons went to camp-meeting, and Berry
went on Sunday and staid all night. A good work
was going on, lasting until one o'clock. Berry
stood looking on in stubborn silence, when I spoke
to him, and called on his sister-in-law, Betsy Bur-
ton, to pray for him. Then they sang,

" O, that my load of sin were gone !"

Then his mother-in-law prayed. Then they sang,

" Of Him who did salvation bring."

84 Rev. Joseph Tarkhigton.

Then Berry's wife, who could pray like a saint, led
in prayer. She seemed inspired, and as she prayed,
Berry commenced crying. From a low murmur,
his voice grew louder and louder, higher and
higher, till he could be heard a mile. His grief
seemed unutterable, and he found no relief. He
seemed to lack faith in Christ to save. I know not
whether he ever obtained the evidence of eternal
life. He went to Texas, as also did his father, the
Rev. Joseph Berry, who was a New Light preacher,
and died there; his father dying on the way.

Berry's wife and her sisters belonged to the first
class I ever led, and though it is nearly threescore
and ten years ago, their voices in prayer and song
are as if heard yesterday.

To see now — in place of the unbroken forests,
log-cabins, no schoolhouses or churches — a school-
house almost on every other section, churches in
every neighborhood, colleges and even universities
here and there, built by the energy and sustained
by the faith of the people, is wonderful for one man
to see in his lifetime.

EARLY CHURCHES.

Before the camp-meeting spoken of, let me refer
to the state of things. The first Methodist preach-
ers in the country were Rev. Daniel Anderson and
his brother George. Daniel was six feet four inches
tall. He had a lion's voice, was a good preacher.

Early Churches. 85

and, better, he was a good man. He was sent to
the Bloomington Circuit by Rev. Samuel Hamil-
ton, presiding elder, in 1820. His circuit com-
menced at Old Palestine, the county-seat of Law-
rence County, on the south fork of White River,
taking in all the country then north to Eel River
(now in Putnam County), and west to the Vin-
cennes Circuit. Palestine was so sickly the county-
seat was afterwards moved to Bedford. He
preached without pay worth naming — what he got
was home-made leather socks, and jeans. The hides
of bear, deer, and cattle were tanned by the farmers
in troughs cut out "of trees. I had a suit of such
leather, made by myself. Buckskin will resist
briers. Rev. George Anderson was six feet tall.
He was stouter than Daniel, and had a louder voice.
They would ride forty or fifty miles, holding meet-
ings in cabins and in the woods. In warm weather
no cabin would hold the people, who would come
eight or ten miles, walking and on horseback, to
hear them. People often preferred to let their
horses rest on Sunday, and eat pea-vines in the
woods, and they would walk to meeting.

The best women in the country walked to meet-
ing barefooted, stopping when in sight of the meet-
ing-place, and then putting on their shoes and
stockings. Rev. Peter Cartwright's wife said she
heard James Sims, a local Methodist preacher,
standing barefooted, deliver as good a sermon
from Romans v, 3-5, as she ever heard. They who

86 Rev. Joseph Tarkmgton.

were called to preach and hear, obeyed in those
days, shoes or no shoes. Meat is sweet to the
hungry man. The early preachers in Indiana and
Illinois were of the highest type of moral purpose
and mental and physical energy, whether in broad-
cloth or buckskin. They were resolute, fearless
men, full of power and the Holy Ghost — such as
Sims, the Andersons, Strange, Armstrong, Samuel
Thompson, James Havens, Charles Holliday, who,
in this land, made the breach in the wall of Satan.
They saved this country from heathendom, rescued
it from the bad, that such men like Bob Ingersoll
and the like might live to speculate, to throw up
dust from the beaten road, and wonder where it
will fall.

The sure foundation of civilization was laid by
those men, by word and deed, in behalf of the souls
of men, lifting up the gates of this life and the life
to come, obeying the command, and relying upon
the promise, "Go ye into all the world; preach
the gospel to every creature; and I am with you."
Well do I remember when, under Peter Cartwright
for presiding elder. Rev. Jesse Walker, in his
leather breeches, and with his wolfskin saddlebags,
started on the Rock River and Fort Dearborn (now
Chicago) Circuit. He seemed to be going out of
human society — going to preach to the Indians —
where Chicago, the second city in the Union,

Changed Time. 87

CHANGED TIME.

How hard was the work, cutting the timber off
to raise corn in Indiana! Now we are urging the
replanting of trees, and offering rewards for the
best new-planted groves of timber. Now the plow-
boy rides on his plow through fields freed from
stumps by dynamite. In those early times the
hidden root and the threatening stump often made
his life, between the plow-handles, worse than the
grasshopper, a burden.

Then the religious life, too, had its hard begin-
nings. I had a hard time starting. None of my
family belonged to any Church. I wanted to go to
all the meetings, and in the new country we had
all kinds of Churches and preaching. The first
sermon I heard in the Territory was at the funeral
of my brother Jesse, who died at Edwardsport. It
was preached by Rev. Mr. McCoy, who was a mis-
sionary to the Indians. Jesse was eighteen months
older than I, and we were much attached to each
other. I was moved then to lead a better life; but
no one offered to lead me. The spring after that,
we moved to Indian Creek, near where Stanford is,
in Monroe County.

THE MOVING.
We paddled and poled our pirogue, with what
goods could be put in it, up White River, which
was high and swift, to the mouth of Richland

88 Rev. Joseph Tarkington.

Creek, and there made a deposit, as we found others
had done before us. It took us a week to go
up. Father and mother, and brothers Eh and
George, staid there, while brother Burton, a hired
hand, and myself went back in the pirogue, which
had been borrowed of Mr. Buckles, who lived three
miles below Edwardsport, on White River.
Brothers Harden, John, and Berry, and sister Mary,
staid at Edwardsport to take care of the stock,
while we went up the river, and came back, when
they, with us who came back, drove the wagon,
loaded with our household goods, and the cattle
and hogs across the river at Edwardsport.

The first day we came to the log-cabin of Zeb.
Hogue. The hogs were put in a pen, and the cattle
ran out with the bell-leader at night. With a cold
breakfast of bread and meat the next morning, we
were ofif before daylight on the Indian trail. We
had often to cut the way for the wagon through the
brush. We went through Owl Prairie, and got
over Richland Creek the second day. The smaller
children slept in the wagon, the rest of the family
on the ground. Those on the ground were blank-
eted with snow in the night. The next morning re-
peated the starting of the day before, and leaving
the trail we went up on the ridge. Father had
blazed the trees for three miles from the deposit
to the trail in the direction he thought we would
come. The snow was ten inches deep. There were
great flocks of wild turkeys and plenty of deer in

The Moving. 89

the woods. While we boys were gone down
the river, father had killed many. From the de-
posit we had thirty miles to go, and no road. Mr.
Joseph Berry and Mr. Eli Lill had made a corn
deposit at the mouth of Richland Creek before we
got there, and had gone on to Indian Creek to
put up their cabins. As they went they had blazed
the way — hacking the bushes, marking a "B" or an
"L" on the trees. The hogs and cattle did well
on the march through the great woods. Acorns
and nuts and grass plenty under the snow. On the
first day from the deposit, three miles out, we came
to a hill, where we had to unload the wagon, and
carry the goods upon our shoulders. At night
we piled brush on the snow, then on that our deer
and bear skins, and slept. The next morning I
saw more wild turkeys than I ever saw. A half-
mile square appeared covered with them. It was
a wet morning, and they were not inclined to fly,
but staid on the ground to eat acorns and beech-
nuts. We had to move along the ridge, where the
briers were thick and strong, tearing the horses'
legs and our own; so we wrapped the horses' legs
with deerskins. The boy with buckskin trousers
had to do the running in driving the stock. He
had to run or give up his trousers, and he chose
the former alternative all the time.

Judge Berry, who had gone before us, put his
buckskin leggings on his horses.

The second night after leaving the deposit, we

go Rev. Joseph Tarkington.

bedded ourselves as on the previous night, and
called the place where we stopped "Johnny-cake
Camp," from the fact that we cut a large chip out
of a hickory-tree, and baked our bread on it by the
log-heap fire. The third night was passed as the
former; but it turned warmer, and rained in the
night, so that mother and the smaller children got
in the wagon. Others of us got under the wagon,
or sat by the fire, with skins to cover us from the
rain, and so passed a dreary night. From the ridge
on which we traveled the waters ran south to In-
dian Creek and north to Richland Creek.

The fourth day we struck the blazed trees which
led to the Indian Springs. (The Indian or Blue
Springs in Monroe County were a resort for In-
dians going back and forth from Vincennes to Fort
Wayne.) When we came to a certain blazed tree,
we turned off the ridge and came to the Twin
Springs, which come out of a bank a few feet apart
and run into Indian Creek. We there followed up
the creek until we came to a branch of it, which
we followed to the land father had purchased, and
in the middle of this land we stopped, and built a
camp on the banks of the branch. The camp was
a clapboard tent, the clapboards put up endwise,
one end open to a large log-heap fire. We then
built a cabin on the north end of the land, near a
running-out spring; but having discovered the
"cave-spring," which was of pure water, welling up
among large rocks, the next fall we moved down

Preparing to Enter the Ministry. 91

near it, and built a good house, which became the
home of father and mother until their death.

PREPARING TO ENTER THE MINISTRY.

My conversion was at a camp-meeting five miles
west of Bloomington, August 27, 1820. I joined
the Methodist Church when David Chamberlain
was on the Bloomington Circuit, on June 10, 1821.
I read the Confession of Faith of the Presbyterian
Church, which I got of Samuel Dobbs, over on
Clear Creek; but Fletcher's "Checks on Calvinism,"
given me by David Rollins, convinced me that I
could not agree with that. I read, also, the Phila-
delphia Confession of the Baptist Church, which
I got of John Saddler, who lived over Indian
Creek; but I did not see my way clear yet. Daniel
Rollins gave me the Methodist Discipline, and the
doctrine of that suited me, as it has so many thou-
sands, to guide the way to Christ.

A short time after I joined the Church I was
called on to lead in prayer. Then I was appointed
class-leader by Rev. John Cord, a very holy man.
Rev. James Armstrong came on the Indiana Dis-
trict in 1824, and took me with him around the dis-
trict for five weeks, to put me on the Boonville
Circuit, which was called traveling the circuit under
the presiding elder by one who had not been ap-
pointed by the Conference. Bloomington Circuit
embraced Lawrence, Monroe, Owen, and Green
Counties, and parts of Morgan and Jackson, The

92 Rev. Joseph Tarkington.

preachers had Httle to Hve on. Rev. John Cord,
when he had a few spare days at the end of his
circuit-riding, split rails for fifty cents a hundred,
for Daniel Rollins. Once I took him some corn-
meal, flour, bacon, and hay in a wagon, and found
him near his house, coming out of the woods with
ax, maul, and wedge, and as he saw what I had
brought, he wept with grateful joy like a child.
I had gathered the provisions from my class, here
a little and there a little, what each could spare.
People yet owed on their lands, and had little or
no money. Some worked out for twenty-five cents
a day to get money to pay on their lands. A lady,
Mrs. Hall, who came out West with David Rollins,
said she had never seen ministers preach in linsey-
woolsey where she came from. It was hard work,
plain food, and no dyspepsia, for people and
preachers.

When Rev. James Armstrong came, after Rev.
John Cord, on the Bloomington Circuit, before he
was appointed presiding elder, he was very popular,
until he began preaching on the Divinity of Christ;
then the New Lights, as they were called, who were
Arians and followers of Rev. Barton W. Stone,
who had left the Presbyterian Church some twenty
years before, and had come from Kentucky and
preached in our country, did not like him so well.
The New Lights were a very religious people, great
shouters, and had the jerks. They held all kinds
of meetings and camp-meetings. They baptized

Preparing to Enter the Ministry. 93

by immersion, believed in the clear conversion of
the heart, and held experience-meetings. They
called for union all the time, which meant "You
come to us, and we '11 meet you." Alexander
Campbell absorbed all who cried "Union." They
were numerous about Bloomington. Judge David
McDonald was the smartest preacher they had
when he belonged to them in his young days. But
he said they lacked system. He ceased preaching,
practiced law, joined the Methodist Church, and
lived and died a very religious man. The Church
needs organization of the religious element of the
people, as well as does any work for humanity, if
it would progress. Rev. George Whitefield was a
powerful preacher of the Word. He preached, sow-
ing the good seed; but Rev. John Wesley sowed
and harvested.

My conversion took place at a camp-meeting
four miles west of Bloomington, on August 27,
1820, at eleven P. M., with a Methodist class-leader,
Daniel Rollins, on one side, and a Presbyterian
elder, Samuel Dodds, on the other. I praised God,
and commenced to look after my comrades. It
appeared to me that God at that time called me to
look for the lost. The next morning, Monday, the
meeting closed, and I went home. None of our
family made any profession of being religious. In
the afternoon of that day my mother proposed
going to my brother's, half a mile from our house.
As we walked we talked of the camp-meeting.

94 Rev. Joseph Tarkington.

Mother said, "We hear you were converted last
night." I answered, "Yes." She said, "Hold
fast to your profession." I saw the tears fall-
ing on her cheeks as she spoke. She said she
was converted at the time the earth shook in Ten-
nessee, in 1811; that she had backslidden from not
joining Church and making profession of it, and
so had put her light under a bushel. We encour-
aged each other as we walked. I had not then
joined any Church, but intended to do so after I
should study the doctrines of the Churches. I
joined the Methodist Episcopal Church on June
10, 1821, at a meeting held in Benjamin Freeland's
house by Rev. David Chamberlain, whom the folks
called the "Wild Yankee." My class-leader was
Daniel Rollins, who, soon after I joined, called on
me to "lead in prayer," which I did the best I
could, but thought I made a "poor out of it." The
next Sunday a prayer-meeting was held at the
class-leader's, and I was called on again, and, while
praying, a man named Orange Crocker was con-
verted, and there was some shouting. This was the
beginning of a revival in the neighborhood.

Soon, Class-leader Rollins moved to Blooming-
ton, and the Rev. John Cord appointed me class-
leader. It was a hard work for me, but I deter-
mined to do what the Church said I must. The
revival continued some time. The people built
a large meeting-house. I hewed every log, and
hauled them to the place.

Licensed to Preach, and Starts. 95

LICENSED TO PREACH, AND STARTS.

Rev. James Armstrong succeeded Rev. John
Cord on the Bloomington Circuit in the fall of 1824,
and took a recommendation to the District Con-
ference at Shiloh, in Lawrence County, Indiana, in
accordance with which I was licensed to preach.

The same fall, Rev. William Beauchamp, Rev.
Aaron Wood's father-in-law, having died. Rev.
James Armstrong was appointed presiding elder to
the Indiana District, which embraced country on
both sides of the Wabash as far north as white
population extended, and took in all of Indiana,
except a strip on the east side, which was in the
Ohio Conference, and of which Rev. John Strange
was presiding elder. Mr. Armstrong would be
gone on his district six or seven weeks. His family
lived in Bloomington. His son John died while he
was holding quarterly-meeting on the old Patoka
Circuit. When it was thought that John was dying,
William King went to Campbell's, in Pike County,
to inform his father, and they rode all day and night,
eighty miles, and got to Bloomington to find John
dead. When he came back from his next quarterly-
meeting on the Boonville Circuit, he said to me,
"You must go and help Rev. O. Fisher, on the
Boonville Circuit, who is in feeble health." I an-
swered: "I am not prepared; I have just begun to
go to school here (at Bloomington), and how can
I leave school?" "No, you must go." I said, "But

96 Rev. Joseph Tarkington.

I have no horse fit for such travel." Then he asked
young L. Wilson if he would exchange horses with
me, and Wilson said, "Yes." "But," said I, "I have
no great-coat." Said Armstrong to Rollins, "Will
you give your great-coat for Tarkington's cloth
cloak?" "Yes," said Rollins. "There," said Arm-
strong, "no more excuses. Meet me to-morrow at
Judge Sedgwick's, or God will curse you." This
fell heavily on me. I went home. The neighbors
came to hear my farewell at my father's house.
The house was filled. I then preached my third
sermon, and, at the close, asked if there was any
one who wished to join the Church, when my father
and mother came forward. Two other persons also
came. I felt encouraged to go. So the next morn-
ing I started to meet Mr. Armstrong.

STARTS FOR BOONVILLE CIRCUIT.

My mother fell on my neck and kissed me, and
the family, in tears, said good-bye. I was starting
on a life's journey. When I got to Judge Sedg-
wick's, I found Armstrong had gone on; but I over-
took him at the ferry over White River, and we
reached Mr. Paine's, in Owen County, that night,
and were kindly treated. The next night we came
to Mr. Hardesty's cabin, where Greencastle now
is. There were a few log-cabins there then. Some
trees had been cut down where the public square
is. We were very hungry, and cornbread never
tasted better. In the cabin, where we staid that

Starts for BoonviHe Circuit. 97

night, one could reach the joist over head with the
hand and stand on the floor. Thence we went to
Sugar Creek, without dinner by the way, and the
day after crossed the Wabash and went to Kelt's
Prairie, where the quarterly-meeting was held.
When we got there, Rev. John W. McReynolds
was preaching. Armstrong exhorted after him.
The meeting was at a private house. Rev. Hacke-
liah Vreedenburg was one of the preachers on that
circuit, a very good man and poorly paid. Rev.
Robert Delap was the other preacher. From there
we went to Mayo's. Mayo was the clerk of Edgar
County, Illinois, but lived on his farm; for the office
would not support him. There were but few cabins
then where Paris now is. We staid at Mayo's two
days and nights, and held a meeting each night.
I preached the first night from Amos iv, 12, "Pre-
pare to meet thy God." I was badly scared; but
the wife of Rev. J. W. McReynolds shouted and
helped me out; for I quit when she commenced.
The second night, Armstrong preached a good ser-
mon. People came six to eight miles to the meet-
ing. From there we went to Mr. Barnes's, ten
miles north of Terre Haute, Indiana, to the quar-
terly-meeting of the Honey Creek Circuit. Rev.
Samuel Hall was on this circuit, but he lived south
of Terre Haute. It was at this Mr. Barnes's house
that Rev. Edwin Ray — father of John W. Ray, of
Indianapolis, Indiana — died. When Rev. Edwin
Ray was in health he was the most useful preacher
7

98 Rev. Joseph Tarkington.

in the Conference, everywhere successful. He,
Rev. Aaron Wood, and Rev. Richard Hargrave,
were all men of brains. All ministers preached,
exhorted, and met class after meeting in that day.
If a preacher did not meet class after preaching, he
would hear about it.

From Mr. Barnes's we went to Rev. Samuel
Hull's, in Carlisle, and there Armstrong preached
from the text, "Is there no balm in Gilead?"
Thence to the Vincennes Circuit, to the Rev. J.
Posey's, near Bruceville. Rev. Edwin Ray had an
appointment there, but Armstrong preached.
Thence we went with Ray to his quarterly-meeting
at Mr. Hinckley's, on Black Creek. Armstrong
preached on Saturday at eleven A. M., and Ray at
night. On Sunday, Armstrong at eleven A. M.,
and at night I preached from Thessalonians v, 19.
From there, Armstrong and I went to Vincennes,
and stopped with David Bonner. We went to the
court-house, and heard Mr. Martin, a Presby-
terian missionary, preach from the text, "The king-
dom shall be taken away from thee." The next day
we went to Princeton, and from there southeast to
Mr. Nesbit's. Nesbit was the father of Rev. Alfred
Nesbit. Here, Armstrong preached for Rev.
George Randall, one of the preachers of the old Pa-
toka Circuit. The next day to Jonathan Jacques's,
in the neighborhood, and there I met Rev. John
Schrader, who had located there, and who preached
the sermon on the night I was converted, near

Reaches the Circuit. 99

Bloomington, Indiana. His text was, "The king-
dom is like unto a net," etc. Next we went to
Evansville, which at that time, 1824, was very
sickly. It appeared that half the houses were
empty. It had not a schoolhouse or meeting-
house. There were not a dozen Methodists in the
town. There was an old frame building in which
a school was taught, and sometimes preaching had.
The quarterly-meeting was held up-stairs in a di-
lapidated frame house. Armstrong preached on
Saturday at eleven A. M., and George Randall
preached at night. On Sunday, Rev. John
Schrader preached, and Armstrong followed; and
Rev. O. Fisher, of Boonville, preached at night.

Mr. Warner, who kept the only hotel, a small
frame house, said if Armstrong would preach Mon-
day night he could have the hotel dining-room, and
Armstrong preached there that night.

Things here looked discouraging; few members,
and no leader; the circuit preachers. Revs. W. H.
Smith and George Randall, with clothes well worn
out.

REACHES THE CIRCUIT.

From here, Armstrong, Fisher, and I went to
Boonville. We stopped with Mr. Black, the
father-in-law of John Graham, one of the trustees
of our university. I had to preach, but it was not
so bad, as Armstrong followed with an exhortation.
From Boonville we went to Rockport, Spencer
County, where Armstrong preached at eleven

loo Rev. Joseph Tarki7tgto7i.

A. M., on Saturday, in an old brick court-house,
not very clean. Rev. George Locke, father. of Pro-
fessor John W. Locke, preached at night, from
"Arise and shine, your light having come." Arm-
strong preached on Sunday at eleven A. M., and in
the afternoon the two preachers who had come over
from Kentucky, Revs. James L. Thompson and
Locke, with Armstrong, went to a meeting across
the river in Kentucky, and left Fisher and me alone,
to finish the quarterly-meeting. I preached in the
old court-house, and Fisher exhorted, and called
for seekers of religion to come to a certain bench.
Seven came, and were converted. On Monday
morning, Fisher and I started to an appointment
on Pigeon Creek, stopping at Mr. Barnett's for
breakfast, after which Fisher prayed with the fam-
ily, while I went to get our horses. Fisher and the
others got to singing and shouting, and I held the
horses at the gate for half an hour, waiting. They
had a happy time. After they had calmed down,
Fisher and I started; but on the way he got happy
and shouted, and in his ecstasy fell off his horse
Charley, who stood still, as if used to the occur-
rence, until his master got ready and mounted.
Fisher was an exceptional man for purity of mind
and life, and for zeal for the Master. He was the
most diligent man in pastoral work I ever met. If
he felt impressed to see a certain man or family on
the subject of religion, he would go, though he had
never spoken a word to them, and talk to them at

Reaches the Circuit. loi

once on finding them. Sometimes the family to
which his mission brought him would be alarmed
at his sudden appearance, the deliverance of his
message, and disappearance. He would always
pray with the family, and then, telling them that at
such a time and place there would be preaching,
and to come and see, would depart. At one time
he had a meeting at McCoy's, between Rockport
and Boonville. After preaching he went across
Pigeon Creek, and it rained so hard and the creek
rose so high he could not get back until the after-
noon of the next day. I was thus left in charge of
the meeting in progress, and was much embar-
rassed, not having been in such a situation before;
but a local elder, Joseph Arnold, came in and
helped me through. On Sunday, at three P. M.,
Fisher got back, and on being asked what he had
been doing, said he had visited ten families, and
prayed with them and preached to them. Several
of those families became religious, and joined the
Church.

There was a revival in all the circuit that year.
Dr. Henry S. Talbott was converted, joined the
Church, and afterwards became a traveling
preacher, station preacher, and presiding elder; and
his son is now (1887) station preacher at New
Albany, Indiana.

We held a camp-meeting between Boonville
and Evansville. Armstrong, as presiding elder, at-
tended it, and preached with much power. At the

I02 Rev. Joseph Tarkington.

close of the meeting, Armstrong took us with him
to Paoli Camp-meeting, on Blue River Circuit.
Here we met "old Billy Cravens," as he was famil-
iarly called, and Rev. Richard Hargrave. Mr.
Cravens had charge of the circuit. From there we
went to Bloomington Circuit Camp-meeting, four
miles west of Bloomington, Indiana; and thence to
the Illinois Conference, which met in August that
year, 1825, at Charleston, Indiana. The Conference
was held in an upper room of James Sharpe's.

Bishop McKendree and Bishop Roberts pre-
sided. Here, for the first time, I saw Rev. John
Strange, Thomas Hitt, Aaron Wood, Allen Wiley,
James Scott, James Havens, a knightly list, who
came to the Illinois Conference with the Territory
of Indiana, cut ofT from the Ohio Conference and
attached to the Illinois Conference by the General
Conference in 1824.

The Illinois Conference then included all of In-
diana and Illinois and part of Michigan. It was
divided into four districts, one of which, Madi-
son, had John Strange for presiding elder; Charles-
ton, James Armstrong; Wabash, Charles Holliday;
Illinois, Samuel Thompson. Rev. Peter Cartwright
was a leading member of the Conference. He was
thought to be the best debater in it. After the
Conference he took sick, and his wife came all the
way from Springfield, Illinois, in a two-horse
wagon, with Levi Springer and wife (father of Hon.
William C. Springer, congressman — when I left

Goes to Patoka Circuit. 103

Illinois, in 1828, Levi Springer had no son), to take
him home. It was no railroad journey, but through
the woods, brush, and mire, with hardly a trail to
follow. Cartwright was circuit preacher on the
Sangamon Circuit, Illinois, and Rev. Samuel
Thompson was his presiding elder.

GOES TO PATOKA CIRCUIT.

At this Conference I was appointed to the Pa-
toka Circuit, in the Wabash District, with James
Garner as preacher in charge. He had a wife and
five children, whom he left at Charleston, Indiana,
with his wife's father. They could not be supported
on the circuit; for he only got twenty-eight dollars,
in all, for the year, and part of that was in leather,
linsey-woolsey, and flax. Talk of a traveling
preacher in that day going for the sake of money!
If he so went, he would come back wofully disap-
pointed. Garner went home to see his wife and
children but twice that Conference year. I got as
pay for that year nine dollars and a pair of trousers.
I had to draw on my father for other clothing.
Rev. Charles Holliday, presiding elder of Wabash
District, received, the first quarter, thirty-seven and
a half cents. He lived in Illinois.

We labored hard that year, and closed with an
increase of membership. The circuit included New
Harmony, where Mr. Robert Dale Owen had
bought out Mr. Rapp, and tried to establish his sys-
tem of living in common harmony, which proved

I04 Rev. Joseph Tarkmgton.

a failure. He erected a chapel and hall, to which
all denominations of Christians and all free-think-
ers and infidels were alike welcome. I preached in
the chapel while a ball was going on in the hall,
connected with the chapel by a door. When the
door opened to persons going from one room to
the other, the fiddling and preaching mingled in
both rooms. Mr. Jennings, one of Mr. Owens's
followers, used to rise in the religious assembly and
catechise and contradict the preachers. This he
did to Mr. Beck, of Illinois; also to Rev. James
Armstrong, who got even with him. He asked
Armstrong, "Mr. Armstrong, how do you know
you have a soul?" Armstrong answered, "I feel it."
"Did you ever smell, taste, see, or hear your soul?"
"No." ."Then there are four senses against you."
Then asked Armstrong, "Mr. Jennings, did you
ever have the toothache?" "Yes." "Did you ever
see, hear, taste, or smell the toothache?" "No."
"Then you have four senses against you." The
doctrines of Mr. Owen were "of man, and came to
naught." Now, where his chapel of reason stood,
is a Methodist station preacher, preaching "Jesus
and the resurrection."

The Patoka Circuit included five counties. The
first place I came to on it was Archibald Camp-
bell's, a mile from Petersburg. It was night, and
I called and asked to stay. Mrs. Campbell came
to the door, and said, "No, we are all sick, with no
one to put up your horse." I told her I could put

Goes to Patoka Circuit. 105

up my horse, and she said, "Well, if you can wait
on yourself and do without supper, you can stay."
And so I did. Mr. Campbell had a very high fever
at the time, and turned to me, when I came in and
set down my saddlebags, and said, "You are trav-
eling, sir?" I answered, "Yes." "Where are you
from?" "From Charlestown, Indiana." "That 's
the place of our Conference. Do you know any-
thing about who our preachers are?" I said, "I
do." "Well, then, tell us who they are." I told
him the presiding elder was Rev. Charles Holliday,
from Kentucky, and the preacher in charge was
Rev. James Garner. "Well," said Campbell, "who
is the other one? We had two last year." I an-
swered, "Bishop McKendree sent me." "Why,
what can you do?" "Not much," I answered.
"Well," said Campbell, "v/ife, give him some corn-
bread and cabbage to start on." I started on it,
after a fifty mile ride that day. The next day I
went on, giving out appointments for Mr. Garner,
and that night got to O'Neal's, near the place of
Major Robert O'Neal, who had sold out and was
going to Sangamon County, Illinois. I preached
there, and after the sermon, Major O'Neal said: "I
will be gone before Mr. Garner comes. Who of
you will open your house for preaching?" All was
silent for some time, and then Major Robb arose
and said: "Rather than have no preaching in the
neighborhood, I will open my house. I have a
large bar-room, and there are several sinners at my

io6 Rev. Joseph Tarkington.

house. If you will accept of what I have, you are
welcome." So an appointment was given out for
preaching at Major Robb's, in two weeks. The
major treated the preachers well all the year, and,
though he never made any profession of any re-
ligion, yet all of the female members of his family
became religious. One of his daughters became
the wife of Judge Embree, of Princeton, and an-
other married a minister of the gospel. The major
fought and suffered under General William H.
Harrison in the War of 1812; and he told Judge
Embree, shortly before his death, that if he had
tried as hard to believe in Christ as he had to dis-
believe, he would have been a Christian long ago.
The camp-meeting at Shiloh, conducted by the
presiding elder that year, was a success.

GOES TO SANGAMON CIRCUIT.

The Illinois Conference, in the fall of 1826, was
at Bloomington, Bishops Roberts and Soule pre-
siding. I was appointed to Sangamon Circuit, Illi-
nois, Rev. Richard Hargrave preacher in charge,
and Rev. Peter Cartwright presiding elder. About
ten preachers stopped at my father's for the night
on their way to their apointments after the Confer-
ence closed. Some lay on pallets on the floor. The
next morning all started, and I went with them;
but before reaching White River I was left alone.
That night I staid with a colored man, twenty miles
from Terre Haute, and the next morning rode

Goes to Sangarnon Circuit. 107

twelve miles for breakfast at John Dickson's (Dix-
on's) on Honey Creek. Dickson had forted with
General Zachary Taylor in Fort Harrison, in the
War of 1812. That day I reached Mr. Mayo's, in
Edgar County, Illinois, and preached that night.
The next day Cartwright and Hargrave came on,
and we rode fifteen miles on our way, and staid all
night with a friendly man, who gave us venison and
roasting-ears to eat. The succeeding day we trav-
eled forty-five miles, and reached a cabin on the
Okaw River, which is a swampy stream, very bad
to cross on account of the muddy sides and bottom.
The owner of the cabin, a Mr. Sedoris, kept two
yoke of very large oxen to haul wagons through
the stream or swamp.

Cartwright had called for quarters for himself,
Hargrave, and me but a few minutes before three
others rode up to stay all night. The landlord told
them he would have to put them on the floor, and
they were willing to take the floor; for they said
there was not a house to stay at within forty-five
miles. When bedtime came, the landlord said the
first three who came should lie on and the last three
under the bed. And so it was; the three under the
bed slept with their feet out. The man and his
family occupied the rest of the floor, the table hav-
ing to be moved out of the house for room. I slept
between Cartwright and Hargrave on the bed, and
was well flattened out by morning. The next
morning the family got up first, and made room for

io8 Rev. Joseph Tarkington.

the three under the bed to get out, and after them
the preachers got up. We had for supper good
cornbread and venison, the same for breakfast, and
the bill for each was fifty cents. Horseback riding
was hard, but cheap. My traveling expenses from
Bloomington, Indiana, to Springfield, Illinois, pay-
ing every bill, was $2.75.

The day we left the Okaw, Cartwright and I
caught a wolf. We rode after him, and Cartwright,
taking his big stirrup by the leathers, swinging it,
fetched the wolf a blow on the head, killing him.
Hargrave, riding up, said, "What are you doing?"
I answered, "Taking the wolf out of your way, so
he won't trouble your sheep!" But Hargrave said,
"If you felt as I do about my horse's back being
skinned by the saddle, you would not be after
wolves." Hargrave was in one of the blue moods,
which fell to his lot often. But he could not help it;
for he was dyspeptic. We rode forty-five miles that
day, and put up at Mrs. Stevens's, some thirty miles
east of Springfield, Illinois.

The next day I stopped at Mr. Larkin's, on the
Sangamon Circuit, and Cartwright and Hargrave
went on to Cartwright's, on Richland Creek. Har-
grave and I arranged appointments so that we
should meet each round in the middle of the circuit,
at Mr. Clark's, near Sangamontown, and there re-
port and consult about the work.

After a round or two of the circuit, we visited a
man in the jail at Springfield, who was to be hanged

Goes Back to Sangamon. 109

for the murder of his wife in a drunken spree. The
jail was of logs a foot square, and was covered with
logs, and on them a stack of prairie-grass, and on
this grass, the day the man was hanged, in No-
vember, 1826, Hargrave stood and delivered the
greatest exhortation I ever heard, to the thousands
of people then assembled. Hargrave got along well
until the following April, 1827, when his dyspepsia
compelled him to desist traveling, and he went
home to his father's in Pike County, Indiana. I
was thus left in charge of the circuit, and Cart-
wright sent Rev. James Johnson, a young man, to
help me.

There were two good camp-meetings during this
year on the circuit — one at Richland, and one three
miles east of Springfield.

At the Conference of 1827, held at Mt. Carmel,
Illinois, John Strange inmiortalized himself in a
sermon, on Sunday morning, to the preachers, from
the text, "Be ye wise as serpents and harmless as
doves." Bishop Roberts had prepared to preach to
Conference, and he (Strange) was embarrassed.

GOES BACK TO SANGAMON.
I was sent back to the Sangamon Circuit, with
Rev. Isaac House as my colleague. He was a very
pleasant young man. We 'had two camp-meetings
that year — one at Hussey's, in the east part of the
circuit; and the other at Hendersho.t's, a few miles
from Jacksonville. Cartwright and Rev. John Dew

no Rev. Joseph Tarkington.

attended them. Rev. John Dew was on his way
to Rock River Mission, which included Chicago,
Illinois. He was superintendent of the mission.
I remember his story of a marriage he solemnized
when he was stationed at St. Louis, Missouri. He
hired a horse and buggy for five dollars, drove out
eight miles on a bitter cold day to the wedding, and
after the ceremony, when the groom asked him
what his fee was, and he answered that there was
no regular fixed fee, the groom gave him — his
thanks. Dew advised us to fix our charge. I asked
him how he felt with his cold ride, five dollars out
of pocket, and a thank 'ee in; and he said he felt
"righteously mad."

Conference in the fall of 1828 was held at Madi-
son, Indiana. Rev. Edwin Ray was the station
preacher there, and was very sick during Confer-
ence.

GOES TO WHITE LICK.

I was sent to White Lick Circuit, the west end
of the Indianapolis Circuit. On my way my horse
died within twelve miles of Indianapolis, and I took
my saddlebags on my shoulder and walked to In-
dianapolis, leaving my saddle, bridle, and great-
coat to be brought in the United States mail mud-
wagon. I stopped at Colonel Paxton's, northwest
corner of Washington and Pennsylvania Streets,
and was introduced to the colonel as a Methodist
preacher on foot, and hunting his circuit in the
wilds of White Lick and north of that as far as

Goes to White Lick. iii

White Lick waters run. The colonel made me wel-
come. On Sunday morning, Nehemiah Griffith
was to deliver his valedictory, and start Monday
for Fort Wayne Mission; but Armstrong, who had
been appointed Griffith's successor, came in, hav-
ing ridden fifteen miles that morning.

This station had four or five appointments at-
tached to it. What do the boys in this day say to
such a "station?" Griffith would not preach, and
Armstrong had to, and he did. He seemed full of
fire. This was pleasing to the Indianapolis people;
for they had had the chills very badly that fall.
After his sermon, Armstrong asked if there was
any one from White Lick there, and a large man,
Elijah Kise, arose and said, "I am from that part
of the world, and hunting a preacher." Armstrong
asked him to come forward, and then introduced
him to me. Brother Kise was taking me with him,
when Armstrong said, "Stop! your preacher is
without a horse." In those days a horse was as
necessary to a preacher as now an engine is to a
train. Said Kise to Armstrong, "He is not as old
as we have been in the habit of having." "Never
mind that," said Armstrong, "he will naturally
grow older." Mr. Kise had ridden with his son,
and put me on his son's horse and took his son on
behind him, and so I went home with my member,
and preached that night on my new circuit at Rob-
ert Wilson's. Mr. Kise lived in the neighborhood
of what is Shiloh Church, in Hendricks County.

112 Rev. Joseph Tarkingion. '

That year they built a log meeting-house, and called
it Shiloh. William Gladden, the Wilsons, David
Faucet and his boys, were of that Church. Peter
Monacle was local preacher.

This was a successful year for Indianapolis Sta-
tion. That year, John Wilkens, Alfred Harrison,
Colonel Paxton, Calvin Fletcher, Henry Porter,
Dr. Scudder, and many more of the good, substan-
tial men of Indianapolis, joined the Church. Arm-
strong was well beloved by the people of that place,
and went from there in 1832 to the Laporte Dis-
trict, and, it may be truthfully said, died a martyr
to the cause of the Master. He fell at his post, at
the age of forty-two. He was a success wherever
he went. I lost in him a true friend. By him I was
licensed to exhort and preach. He took me into
the itinerancy. I visited his grave in Door Prairie
Cemetery in 1856. I saw it, and fell upon it and
wept.

I had a good year on White Lick Circuit; some
two hundred and fifty joined the Church. James
Walker loaned me a horse. Rev. John Strange,
who was my presiding elder, said to me, in the
woods at the first quarterly-meeting, when I was
lamenting the loss of my horse: "Never mind,
Joseph; ride their horses until they get you one."
So I did. They got me a good young horse, and
I paid towards his price forty dollars out of my
salary of sixty-five dollars.

The last quarterly-meeting was held out of doors

Goes to White Lick. 113

at Mr. Gregory's, south of Mooresville. Rev. John
Strange attended. He looked worn out; his dis-
trict reaching from Charleston south, beyond Craw-
fords ville north.

Though the people could pay their preachers
little in those times, how cordially they received
and hospitably entertained them! The people, in
that day, would not have listened to a resolution
of a Conference that its members should board
themselves while attending Conference. The
preachers and the people struggled together, each
knew the other's trials, and, truly, each, in their
way, ministered to the other.

David Bonner, at Vincennes Conference, Sep-
tember 30, 1830, entertained some ten preachers,
among them Cartwright, Thompson, James Ha-
vens, Allen Wiley, John Strange, and Ruter. He
had four beds on the floor, and said he wished he
had eight or ten more.

When the preachers no longer deserve to be wel-
comed by the members of the Church, or are so
full of purse as not to desire the relation of host
and guest, then let them "put up" at a hotel.

At the close of the year 1828 the preachers of
Indiana and Illinois met in Conference at Edwards-
ville, Illinois. We all went on horseback, except
Revs. Calvin Ruter and Thomas Hitt, who went
in a two-horse wagon, with wooden springs. Com-
ing back, Bishop Soule, riding along with the
young preachers on old "Hero" — a large brown
8

114 Rev. Joseph Tarkingto7i.

horse, which had carried him around the United
States three times — ^joyously exclaimed, as the rain
fell on them, "Who would not be a Methodist
preacher?" He wore an oil cloak, which covered
him and his saddlebags, and, to some extent, his
horse. He had trained old Hero to walk as fast
as a common horse would trot. The first night
out from Edwardsville we got quarters at a farm-
house. All were more or less wet. Some of us
slept on the floor. All were up in the morning early
to breakfast; but Edwin Ray and I could not get
on our boots on account of their being wet. So
the rest left us pulling at our boots, and it was nine
o'clock A. M. before we caught up with our com-
pany. Sleeping on a good dry floor, with one's
horse-blanket for a mattress and saddlebags for a
pillow, was all right; but to pull on wet boots for
an hour or two while the others were breakfasting
and breaking jokes at us, was hard on Ray and me.
If Bishop Bowman, as reported, slept on the floor
at the Conference at Noblesville in 1883, I hope his
boots were dry in the morning.

That day we got to Vincennes, Indiana; the next
to Westfall's, in Daviess County. By that time the
company had been scattered ofif to the different
circuits, so that there were but three of us together,
and I went from Westfall's house to my father's.

GOES TO RUSHVILLE CIRCUIT.
There I rested a day, and then started for Rush-
ville Circuit, my appointment, by the way of In-

Goes to Rushville Circuit. 115

dianapolis. My circuit this year had thirty-four
preaching-places. It embraced all of Rush County
but John Grigg's; all of Decatur but Perry's
(Peri's); all of Shelby but a small part ofif the west
side; the most of Hancock, and the south part of
Henry. It was a hard circuit, large and muddy.
I had two horses through the winter and spring.

Mr. Brooks, of Little Blue River, let me have a
horse for four weeks until he could cure my horse's
legs. So, when I came around again, I left Brooks
his Dick, and took my own beautiful Tom after his
rest. In this way I worked it to have two horses.

That winter and spring one could often track
his predecessor by the blood from the horse's legs
on the broken mud and ice. Rev. James Havens
had preceded me the year before, and, with others
who came after me, knew what traveling here was.
I counted, one day, six wagons stuck in the mud
between Rushville and Little Blue River. Some
had left their wagons and taken their goods out
on horseback. This hard traveling, in those times,
was endured only by good constitutions, and that
without much roast-beef and plum-puddings.
There was not much indigestion in it. We thought
out our sermons as we rode from place to place,
eight to fifteen miles each day to the preaching-
place. After preaching and leading class, we often
rode several miles to dine. At night there was
hardly ever good light — firelight, or a little tin
lamp, fastened to the side of the room in a log, sup-
plied with lard or bear's-grease. I used to carry

ii6 ' Rev. Joseph Tarkington.

candles, cut in two, in a tin-box, and so would read
until bedtime by candle-light, and get up often at
four o'clock in the morning and read until the fam-
ily arose. He who did not arise early, got little
knowledge without seeking the opportunity. The
life in the air, the motion of riding, the movement
of your horse, the variety of the way, keeps you
alive, awake, and there is apt to be life in a sermon
that you ride with.

A young man came out of the East to preach in
Rev. James Havens's circuit. He read his sermon.
Havens was called on to conclude, and prayed,
"Lord, bless what we have heard read to us to-
day!" The sermon had been written before he
came on Havens's circuit.

The examination at Conference of candidates
for admission was very strict in the early days.
They were called before five to seven of the clearest
heads of the Conference. Well do I remember my
time, when Dr. Allen Wiley, Revs. Calvin Ruter,
Thomas Hitt, Samuel H. Thompson, George
Locke, and James Scott put us "through the flint-
mill." I was asked for the proof of the depravity
of the heart, and gave, "Ye must be born again, or
not enter into the kingdom of heaven." Revs.
Locke and Scott locked horns in argument upon
sufficiency of the answer. I listened to them for
half an hour, and, with the enthusiasm of youth,
thought the examiners should be examined. The
young men then did not preach whole sermons

Goes to Rushville Circuit. 117

without a text of Scripture for authority. A ser-
mon, like a lawyer's brief, should state clearly the
point, the reasons in support of it, and the authority
justifying it. Dr. Aaron Wood once objected to
a young man's admission, on the ground that he
omitted to prove his doctrine by the Bible; he had
not one quotation from it, merely a text hitched on
to the statement. We were not sent to preach
men's doctrine, but the Word. "Go preach the
gospel to every creature." Let the Church take no
substitute for the gospel of Christ.

But let me return to my circuit. In it now are
five cities; not in the mud, but built up, and well
paved; the country, farm adjoining farm, with
comfortable homes, and barns full of fatness; a
church and schoolhouse in every neighborhood;
railroad, telegraph, and telephone lines through
every county. God has blessed the last half-cen-
tury. It is a Christian civilization, pushed to prog-
ress in the pinch of the start by the religious fervor
and energy of the itinerant preachers and other
Christ-loving men and women of the then wilder-
ness. The people now can not pay their obligations
to those old soldiers of the cross; but they can do
much in advancing the standard, and raise the
world to everything that is glorious. There is yet
need of leaders.

There was a good camp-meeting that year at
Sharpe's Camp-ground, near Spring Hill, in Rush
County, commencing on Friday and closing the

ii8 Rev. Joseph Tarkington.

next Monday. Revs. Allen Wiley, James Havens,
and James Conwell attended it, and preached with
much power. There were some thirty-five conver-
sions. I received that year for support sixty-three
dollars, and my colleague, Rev. William Evans,
who was married, sixty-three dollars. The preacher
who married within four years after joining the
Conference received no additional allowance. This
was the rule adopted to keep the young preachers
single, because few circuits could support a family.
Bishop McKendree, at Charlestown, Indiana, in
1825, exhorted Rev. Edwin Ray not to marry, for
the reason that the unmarried preacher could go
anywhere, and go further, easier, and cheaper. The
exhortation had effect for only two years. This
year closed with a sacramental-meeting in a grove
two miles west of Rushville, conducted by Rev.
James Havens, who preached on Sunday. Judge
Charles Test said Rev. James Havens preached the
most powerful sermon he ever heard.

We closed up our work, and went to Conference
at Vincennes in the fall of 1830. I went by the way
of Bloomington and home. Rev. Addison S.
Grimes and, I think, Andrew Locke started with
me. In Greene County we were overtaken by a
storm, and had to turn into a little cabin. The rain
fell in torrents. We staid all night, sleeping on the
floor. The man of the house built a good fire to
dry our clothes. He and his wife slept in a bed
raised in one corner on forks driven in the ground,

Goes to Vevay Circuit. 119

which they hospitably offered us; but we dedined.
The next morning we rode ten miles to breakfast,
and that night got to Vincennes. Conference
opened next morning at nine A. M.; but no Bishop
Roberts. He was sick at St. Louis, Missouri. On
motion of Rev. Peter Cartwright, Rev. Samuel H.
Thompson was made presiding ofBcer, and per-
formed the duties of his position with much care
and satisfaction.

GOES TO VEVAY CIRCUIT.

I was appointed to the Vevay Circuit, with Rev.
George Randell for colleague, and Rev. Allen
Wiley presiding elder.

In the spring of 183 1, Randell quit, with the con-
sent of the presiding elder, and Elijah Whitten, who
only had license as an exhorter, was substituted to
help me. At the Quarterly Conference in May,
183 1, Whitten was authorized to preach, though he
did as well with exhorter's license as when made a
preacher. He was called "a stormer," In a private
house he would start his meetings standing behind
a chair; but before he closed, he would be up in the
chair, and if it was splint-bottomed, stamp a hole
in it. This year I first saw Rev. Samuel T. Gillett
and his wife, formerly Miss Goode. He was in the
navy, and studying navigation with Professor Elli-
ott at Rising Sun. His wife would kneel down in
church during prayer, and he would sit up straight
as a midshipman. There was a very good revival

I20 Rev. Joseph Tarkington.

on the circuit, and many joined Church that year.
The extent of the circuit was from Crooked Creek,
near Madison, east to near Lawrenceburg, and
north to within four miles of Versailles, Ripley
County. The Ohio River was the south line. We
had two camp-meetings — one at the Barkworks in
Switzerland County, eight miles from Rising Sun,
and the other close to Madison. The Barkworks
meeting was a very good one; though a young man,

D K , disturbed the meeting Saturday

night, and also Sunday morning while Whitten was
preaching at nine A. M. He came into the con-
gregation while Whitten was preaching, loudly
talking and swearing. Whitten stopped. I had
procured a w^arrant from Justice of the Peace
Walker, on account of the disturbance the night
before, and given it to Constable Mackey, who, on

this second interruption, was to arrest K , who,

as the constable approached, walked backwards,
keeping his eye on Mackey, until passing the line of
tents, he fell backwards over a wagon-tongue,
when Lewis Clark, who was with Mackey, jumped
on him and tied him with a rope, which I hap-
pened to have in readiness, and the officer, hold-
ing one end of the rope, drove him — for he would
now and then kick like a horse — to Justice God-
dard's, and he was bound over to keep the peace.
He came back to the meeting and behaved like a
gentleman, as he very well knew how. A religious
friend of his afterwards asked him why he did not

His Bridal Tour. 121

behave so before, and he laughingly answered that
he was not bound to. As he afterwards repre-
sented Switzerland County in the Legislature, I
presume a good many Methodists forgave him. At
the other camp-meeting, on Crooked Creek, four
miles from Madison, there were one hundred and
forty conversions. Tuesday morning the presiding
elder addressed the young converts. Then some
of them spoke with trembling joy of the new life
and the blessing received. Then the parents, wives,
and husbands of the converted got started; whole
families joined in praise and prayer, and so the
work broke out afresh and spread, and there was
no closing the meeting as intended. So we said to
let it go on until it closed itself, and the people sent
to Madison for provisions, and we staid three days
longer. From this meeting Rev. Benjamin Ste-
yenson^ at Madison, had some thirty accessions to
his Church, and we, on the Vevay Circuit, over a
hundred. At the close of that meeting I spoke to
Rev. Allen Wiley to solemnize my marriage to
Miss Maria Slauson, which he did on September
21, 183 1, at her father's, nine miles north of Vevay.

HIS BRIDAL TOUR.
Two days thereafter, my wife and I started for
my father's, a bridal-trip on horseback. Rev.
James Scott, when on the Madison Circuit, had
given her a colt, which she had raised, and which,
now five years old, she rode. She had a bridle.

122 Rev. Joseph Tarkington.

saddle, and saddlebags, paid for by her own weav-
ing of linen on a common loom. The first night
we reached a hotel on the old Madison and Indian-
apolis road, twelve miles from Columbus, Indiana.
The house was of hickory logs, with the bark
stripped ofif. The next morning I left it to her
to breakfast where we were or go on to Columbus,
and she decided to go on to Columbus. From
Columbus we started through what is now Brown
County. Soon as we passed White River, it began
to rain, and it continued until night. As my horse
was a very fine traveler, we changed horses. We
had some thirty miles to go to get to the first cabin.
Just at dark we got to Jackson's Lick, on Salt
Creek. I asked for quarters of the man at the Lick,
and he referred* us to some cabins ahead. We went
to the first, and the woman there told us her hus-
band had gone to the settlements for breadstuff,
and there was no place for our horses; to go to the
next. We went to the next, and there they were all
sick, with no place for the horses. So we went to
the third, and there they were in the same con-
dition with the last. We went back to the first of
the three, and the woman said we could come in
ourselves, and go to the Lick with our horses. So
the bride alighted, and I went back to the Lick,
where the man said horses were being stolen about
there when left out. So we built a pen around the
horses, got some green corn, and fed them. The
man offered to share his buffalo-skin and a blanket

His Bridal Tour. 123

with me; but I went back to the cabin. I asked
the woman of the cabin if she ever got to Church,
and she said she had not heard praying or preach-
ing since she left Kentucky. After prayers we went
to bed, without anything to eat since leaving Co-
lumbus. The bed was made by driving forks into
the ground, between the puncheons forming the
floor, and laying poles in the forks, and across the
poles boards. I asked my bride if she was hungry.
She said: "What if I am, there is nothing to eat
here; but I have one little biscuit in my pocket I
brought from home." Upon her insisting, we di-
vided it. Next morning by daybreak I was up,
looking after the horses at the Lick, and found
them safe, and soon we were started. At three
o'clock P. M. we got to my father's, and we soon
had dinner, and it was sweet. A bride these days
who would go through such as mine did for her
bridal tour, would be thought worthy to be trusted
in any mission where the gospel should be
preached.

Leaving my wife at father's, I started to Con-
ference at Indianapolis, with my brother Hardin
and Rev. Enoch G. Wood, and at night reached
Robert Brinton's, three or four miles from Indian-
apolis. Mr. Brinton was one of the first class-
leaders in Indianapolis. Rev. James Scott, when
on the Indianapolis Mission, married his daughter;
Rev. Samuel Brinton was his son.

At Conference, Bishop R. R. Roberts presided.

124 Rev. Joseph Tarkhigton,

and preached on Sunday at eleven o'clock A. M.
At three P. M., Rev. John Strange preached the
funeral sermon of Rev. Edwin Ray, who had died
during the year. It was a wonderfully eloquent ser-
mon.

GOES TO WAYNE CIRCUIT.

I was appointed to the Wayne Circuit, and re-
turned to my father's, and thence, with my wife, on
our horses, started for "Old Wayne." The first
night on our journey we stopped at Talbot's, in
Martinsville; the second at John Wilken's, in In-
dianapolis; the third at Knightstown; and the
fourth at Israel Abrams's, in Centerville. Abrams
was one of the leading stewards of the circuit. We
boarded with him four weeks, and then rented a
house of two small rooms of Mrs. Pugh, a sister of
Mary Dunham, who shortly afterwards married the
then attorney and civil engineer, afterwards Rev.
Giles C. Smith. When they got married, we gave
up our house to them, and got a part of E. Hart's
house. Hart was a brother-in-law of Governor
Oliver P. Morton. My colleague was Rev. James
Robe. He was a very mild young man, and it
seemed to the presiding elder. Rev. Allen Wiley,
better for variety, to transfer Robe to Connersville,
to Rev. A. Beck, and bring Rev. Elijah Whitten to
me. "For," said Rev. Thomas Hitt, "what a mis-
take it was to put two men like Whitten and Beck
on one circuit! Either would blaze on ice in a
minute."

White Water Circuit. 125

Whitten was successful with me. One held the
reins, and the other cracked his whip from the
word "Go!"

In 1832 the cholera prevailed more or less in the
country, and in the cities to a great extent.

On June 24, 1832, on Sunday morning, while I
was preaching, I saw the doctor called out of the
meeting, and when I went home at the close, I
found something new, and we called him John Ste-
venson Tarkington. He is now a lawyer at Indian-
apolis. The year closed with good success. I was
paid that year $144. That fall the Conference was
held at New Albany, Indiana.

WHITE WATER CIRCUIT.

At General Conference, in the spring of that
year, the Illinois Conference was divided into the
Indiana and Illinois Conferences. Bishop Soule
presided at the New Albany Conference, and I was
sent to White Water Circuit, and made a short
move from Centerville to Brownsville, Union
County. My colleague was Rev. Hiram Griggs.
Rev. James Havens was presiding elder. We held
two camp-meetings — one six miles above Brook-
ville, the other at Mt. Zion, four miles from Con-
nersville; each was profitable.

In August, 1833, while holding a sacramental-
meeting at Carmichael's, three miles west of Brook-
ville, I took the cholera at William Hendrickson's.
Dr. Haymond, of Brookville, attended me. Rev.

126 Rev. Joseph Tarkington.

Greenbury Beeks was with me at the time, and led
my horse home on Monday. Mrs. David Price, of
Brookville, went to Brownsville, and brought my
wife and little boy to Brookville; and that old friend
of the preachers, Samuel Goodwin, brought them
out to me at Hendrickson's. Their coming was my
medicine. Mrs. Hendrickson said she thought
when my wife and child came she would have them
to wait on; but she found my wife took all care of
me off her hands. We always felt very grateful to
the Brookville folks and the whole Hendrickson
family for their great kindness to us at that time.

GREENSBURG CIRCUIT.

That fall of 1833 Conference was held at Madi-
son, and I was sent to the Greensburg Circuit.
When we came to Greensburg things appeared dis-
couraging. The town had been visited by typhoid-
fever, and many had died — Dr. Teal, George Robin-
son, and Mrs. Silas Stewart, and others. There had
been no religious services for some time. There
was no Methodist churth. I preached in private
houses, and in David Gageby's cabinetshop, where
the Rogers House is now, on the northwest corner
of the public square. I went to work visiting the
sick and praying for them. It was a long time be-
fore Silas Stewart got restored from his sickness to
health of body and mind. Until he got to walking
about, he thought he owned the town.

The Church members were collected together,

Greensburg Circuit. 127

and had prayer-meetings in private houses, such as
Freeman's, Roszel's, Stewart's, and sometimes in
the old court-house. Preaching was had in the old
court-house, but it was a hard house to preach in.
In the spring I got fifteen dollars from James Free-
man, five dollars from Silas Stewart, five dollars
from Jacob Stewart, and five dollars from James
Robinson, and bought the lot that Mr. F. Dowden
owned on Franklin Street, and, though the Church
was feeble, it built the house that is now on
that lot.

The Greensburg Circuit was cut out of the Rush-
ville Circuit in 1828. In 1833 it had appointments
at Greensburg, Robbins's, Burke's, W. Braden's,
Cox's, George Miller's, J. Truesdale's, Joseph Hen-
derson's, J. Lower's, Biggot's, Gray's, Sharpe's, T.
Perry's, and also Burney's, south of where Milford
now is.

The camp-meeting this year was a good success.
Revs. Allen Wiley, presiding elder, James Havens,
and Augustus Eddy attended it.

We lived in a little frame house which stood
where Mr. S. Bryant built on Franklin Street.

There the Methodists, Presbyterians, and Bap-
tists had one place of worship. David Gageby was
chorister for all alike.

The Presbyterian preacher was Rev. Lowrey;
the Baptist, Rev. Daniel Stogsdell; and we would
all meet together. One would preach, another ex-
hort, and the third pray. There was no complaint

128 Rev. Joseph Tarkmgtojt.

of large meetings, though some persons would
come from eight to ten miles to attend.

Conference was held at Centerville in 1834. My
home was with John Newman. Bishop Roberts
preached the funeral sermons of three ministers,
Armstrong, Locke, and Grififith.

CHARLESTOWN CIRCUIT.

I paid sixteen dollars for a wagon to move our
goods to Charlestown. We rode in a Dearborn
wagon, and drove our cow; for I found it good to
keep a cow where there were children to raise.
A daughter, Mary M., now the wife of Dr. John H.
Alexander, of Milford, Indiana, was born to us at
Greensburg on the 24th day of February, 1834.

When we got to the Charlestown Circuit we
stopped with Mr. H. Robertson, whose family was
very kind to us.

In the neighborhood of Charlestown one of the
first churches in the Territory was built. (See Dr.
Holliday's "Early Methodism in Indiana.")

There were four brothers of the Robertson fam-
ily, who did much for the cause of Christ. Mrs.
Hawk was a very dear friend of ours, a most ami-
able woman, and intellectual and helpful in the
Church. Elvira Hawk died September 15, 1879,
at New Albany.

The plan of this circuit was left by my prede-
cessor. Rev. John Miller, for two preachers to travel
it. Rev. Rezin Hammond started as my assistant;

Greenville Circuit. 129

but he said I could travel it in three weeks, and the
presiding elder, Rev. William Shank, excused him.

The year was successful. I sold five hundred
dollars' worth of religious books in the circuit.
Getting books among the people stirred them up
wonderfully. They could read at all times. One
can judge of the religious standing of a family by
the books they read. Going the first round on the
circuit, I would look to see what books were read.

Conference was held at Lafayette in 1835, Bishop
Roberts presiding.

GREENVILLE CIRCUIT.

Unexpectedly, I was sent that fall of 1835 to
Greenville Circuit, which had been made upon the
division of the old Corydon Circuit. On that cir-
cuit, at John Hancock's, who lived in Harrison
County, Indiana, was a double log-cabin, and in
one part Mr. Hancock lived, and into the other —
two small rooms — we moved. This John Hancock
was six feet four inches tall. He had five sons and
two daughters. The sons were all married. They
were a good family of plain Methodist folk. Rev.
Calvin Ruter, presiding elder of the district, went
to the General Conference at Cincinnati that spring
of 1836. The Methodist Book Concern in New
York City was burned February 17, 1836, the date
when my daughter Martha A., now wife of Daniel
Stewart, of Indianapolis, was born.

We had a pleasant year. My wife made more to
9

130 Rev. Joseph Tarkington.

support our family than was given by the circuit.
She made and bleached bonnets for the women and
stocks for the men.

Conference was at Indianapolis in 1836, Bishop
Soule presiding.

VEVAY CIRCUIT.

That fall I was sent to Vevay Circuit, and Rev.
Lewis Hurlbut with me. When we left Brother
Hancock's, the old man got in the wagon and went
some distance with us. The children were very
fond of him, and when he got out to leave us, the
children cried, and my boy said: "Grandpa Han-
cock had to cry, too. Poor grandpa! I am sorry
for him; he has no little children to play with now."
The first night on our way we staid with Mr. Kett-
ley, and the next with Rev. Edward R. Ames —
afterwards bishop — in Jefifersonville. As he helped
the children out, he said, "What would I give if my
children were as healthy as these!" I advised him
to keep a cow. Mrs. Ames was delicate of health,
but noble-spirited. She was anxious to be of use
and comfort to her family. She had never learned
to cook, and wanted my wife to teach her. How
many ladies regret, when the charge of a house-
hold comes upon them, that they never learned the
art and mystery of cooking! Children should be
brought up to be independent in their line of life,
to practice unto knowledge all the things which
may be proper, as well as necessary, to their after-

Vevay Circuit. 131

enjoyment of the gifts of man and God, and in this
to consider work honorable in all persons in all
grades of society. Knowing how themselves, they
may teach others what they are not compelled to
do with their own hands. All women should know
how to "keep house."

The next day, after leaving Brother Ames's, we
got to Rev. William H. Goode's, four miles from
Madison. He had not entered the itinerancy then,
but did enter soon afterwards. He was a high-
minded. Christian, Methodist preacher. The next
night we reached my wife's father's, nine miles
north of Vevay, within my circuit.

The Conference that year was at Indianapolis,
and the question came up as to the establishment
and location of a university. Three places were in
nomination — Rockville, Indianapolis, and Green-
castle. General Tilghman A. Howard represented
Rockville. He had the largest subscription, and
was a large subscriber himself, and he made a very
able speech in favor of the location at his place.
Dr. Tarvin Cowgill represented Greencastle, and
finding General Howard had the largest subscrip-
tion, had some friends to raise theirs -higher. Mr.
Calvin Fletcher spoke for Indianapolis, but did not
labor hard for it, saying it was not good for boys to
be away from home, and in as large a place as In-
dianapolis would be some day. When General
Howard admitted there were some chills and fever
at Rockville, Mr. Fletcher admitted some even died

132 Rev. Joseph Tarkington.

at Indianapolis; but Dr. Cowgill said, "People
never die at Greencastle; although, for conven-
ience, they have a cemetery there." The dear doctor
is in it. General Howard died untimely in Texas,
and Calvin Fletcher, after accumulating much
wealth and raising a large and very worthy family,
lies in Crown Hill Cemetery, Indianapolis. But
the university, to which they all contributed liber-
ally, is yet growing at Greencastle. Miles C.
Fletcher, a son of Calvin, was professor there, and
became Superintendent of Public Instruction of
the State. He was killed by a misplaced car on a
side-track while on a passenger train with Governor
O. P. Morton during the war, on his way from
Terre Haute to Evansville.

In 1836, though the State Bank was in operation,
there was but little money in circulation; but the
members of the Conference felt the need of an in-
stitution of learning to which Methodists could send
their children and know that they would be cared
for by the Faculty. They found that those sent to
Dr. Cyrus Nutt, then teaching in the county semi-
nary at Greencastle, had good attention paid to
their needs. It was but a short time until Dr. Mat-
thew Simpson was elected president of the college,
and then, soon afterwards. Professor William C.
Larrabee was elected professor, and the university
started on its progress. The "hard times" were on
us, and the beginnings of the university were with
great struggling. The trustees appointed agents to

Vevay Circuit. 133

solicit contributions and subscriptions for scholar-
ships. From time to time they were, commencing
with Rev. Samuel C. Cooper: Revs. John C. Smith,
William M. Daily, John A. Brouse, Aaron Wood,
Israel Owen, George W. Ames, Thomas A. Good-
win, myself, and Daniel De Motte. They all
worked hard, but Samuel C. Cooper and Isaac
Owen did the most, and continued in the agency
longest. The scheme of selling one-hundred-dol-
lar scholarships was adopted. The purchaser paid
twenty dollars cash, and the remainder in four an-
nual installments with interest. I took one, and the
payment was one-third of my salary.

We all hoped for better days, and they came.
By and by scholarships for one hundred dollars
were issued, to be perpetual, and for these Rev.
Isaac Owens got thousands of subscriptions. Dr.
Simpson and Professor Larrabee would often go
with the agent in aid of the work.

The people often took Cooper to be the presi-
dent of the university, and Simpson the agent or
a circuit-rider. Cooper was large and of imposing
presence; Simpson, in those days, angular, stooped
somewhat in the shoulders, and utterly unpreten-
tious. But when they spoke from the pulpit, who
was who was manifest. When on the Vincennes
District, I was told of an incident in their work.
Both went to a place where they were strangers.
The landlord came out to the gate to meet them,
and first saluted Brother Cooper, and then asked

134 Rev. Joseph Tarkington.

him, "What circuit-rider is this you have with
you?" Cooper said, "You mistake; this is Dr.
Simpson." "Ah!" said he, "I see the wisdom of
Dr. Watts's saying, 'The mind 's the measure of
the man.' "

In the year 1837 my health failed me, and that
fall I superannuated, and helped clear up and then
cultivate a small field of corn at my father-in-law's,
and taught school.

LAWRENCEBURG STATION.
Regaining my health, in the fall of 1838, at the
Conference at Rockville, I was made effective,
and was sent to Lawrenceburg Station. I was
the first "station preacher" appointed for Lawrence-
burg Station. It had no parsonage. We first
moved into the old banking-house on High Street,
which had but one door, and that in front. So
soon as we could find another place, we moved
across the street into a very large and uncomfort-
able house. From it we moved to a little frame
house, belonging to and adjoining on the west the
residence of Mrs. Hunter, who afterwards married
Isaac Dunn, and survived him. Mr. L. B. Lewis
had recently moved out of it to High Street. I paid
seventy-five dollars rent out of my six hundred dol-
lars salary. We had then four children, our son
Joseph Asbury (now practicing medicine at Wash-
ington City, D. C.) having been born on the 25th
day of November, 1837, at Father Slauson's. I

Rich^nond Station. 135

worked hard, and had a prosperous year. The offi-
cial brethren of the station were Isaac Dunn, Jacob
Dunn, George Tousey, James Thompson, James
Jones, L. B. Lewis, WilUam S. Durbin, John Calla-
han, Enoch D. John, George Shelden, L. Drain,
William and Ellis Brown, and Rev. I. Fuller. It
was a good, strong working board. Some two
hundred joined the Church. Rev. John N. Maffitt
held a series of meetings. He baptized ninety-eight
in the house, and I twenty-eight in the Ohio River.
The best class of men and women in the city joined
the Church, and the most of them lived well and
have died well. In this year, 1839, the first move
was made towards a German Church in Lawrence-
burg. I saw Rev. Adam Miller in Cincinnati. He
was that year on the North Bend Circuit, Ohio
Conference. Learning he could preach in German,
I invited him to come and preach. I went among
the Germans, and invited them to come and hear
him, and they came, and he preached Sunday after-
noon. He made another appointment, came, and,
with Rev. John Kissling, organized a German
Church in a little house on High Street belonging
to Muhlfinger, a little west of the Methodist church-
building.

RICHMOND STATION.

At the Conference in the fall of 1839, which met
at Lawrenceburg, I was appointed to Richmond
Station. Our goods were sent by canal to Brook-
ville, thence by wagon to Richmond. There we

136 Rev. Joseph Tarkington.

first lived in a house belonging to Mrs. Batterbee.
From that we moved into a house on the street east
of that, and then into the house of Jere Mansur, on
Pearl Street.

I was on this station two years, until the fall of
1841. There were accessions to the Church at each
quarterly-meeting. We sent the three oldest chil-
dren to school to James Poe, who taught in the
basement of the church on Pearl Street. He
charged but little for tuition. He was a good
teacher — if he did instill learning a little violently
by a free use of apple-tree sprouts. The church-
building did not cost four hundred dollars, and it
was enlarged, and seats with backs to them were
put in it. I well remember the labors of John
Boggs, James Poe, Daniel Crawford, John Ilifif, and
John Thomas in behalf of the Church.

The Friend Quakers were not so friendly
towards us then as now. Though opposing us,
their children would come to the Methodist Church
Sunday nights, and not a few joined us. I could
see the little smooth white caps close by the door,
and sometimes they got to the altar of prayer. God
has done a great work for the Church in Richmond.
But very few remain of those who worked at the
foundations.

I paid seventy-five dollars a year rent out of my
four hundred dollars salary. My wife was sick nigh
unto death at one time in the first year, but God
stood by her, and saved her to raise her family.

Liberty Circuit. 137

The second year I was taken sick, at a camp-
meeting north of Centerville, with sinking chills. I
was taken home to Richmond, but it was thought I
could not live. Dr. Vail, Dr. Salter, and Dr.
Palmer did what they could, standing by me night
and day. And Mark E. Reeves was very kind and
attentive, being with me during the critical nights
of my sickness, and soon as I was able to step out,
took me riding in his carriage every day for weeks.

LIBERTY CIRCUIT.

In the fall of 1841, at the Conference held at
Terre Haute, I was appointed to Liberty Circuit.
Not being able to ride on horseback, Daniel Bur-
gess took us all in a carriage.

In five days after we got into the parsonage we
were burned out, by the girl putting away ashes in
a wooden vessel in the smokehouse attached to the
house, my wife not being able to attend to every-
thing. In four days after that, my wife gave birth
to our son William Simeon Reeves. We had the
sympathy of the people in our trials. That year
there was a gracious revival. It continued all the
year, and many were converted. Rev. Augustus
Eddy was presiding elder. My colleague was
George Havens, "a son of thunder" in those days.
The three Havens — father, James, and his two sons,
George and Landy — could start as much excite-
ment as any other three men I know of. There
were three brothers — James to preach, Joel to ex-

138 Rev. Joseph Tar king ton.

hort, and John to lead class. If nothing moved, no
one else need try for that time. John, Joel, and
James Havens were brothers. George and Landy
were sons of James.

This was the year the Millerites predicted the
world would come to an end, and much was said
and done by them to that end.

CENTERVILLE CIRCUIT.

In the fall the Conference was at Centerville.
They had just completed a new church-building
there, and it was a fine one for that day.

Bishop T. A. Morris presided; Rev. Edmund
W. Sehon, James B. Finley, and E. S. Janes, then
Bible Society agent (afterwards Bishop Janes) at-
tended. Mr. Janes made a very good speech. At
the start he appeared embarrassed, and said: "A
French general during a great battle said to an-
other, *I 'm scared, and if you were as much scared
as I am, you would run.' " Rev. James B. Finley,
of Ohio, preached a good sermon, in which he re-
ferred to the time he saw Rev. James Havens con-
verted and join the Church in the mountains of
Kentucky, and said, "We caught a whale that
time." To which Rev. A. Eddy responded, "What!
in the mountains?" Mr. Sehon preached a telling
sermon from Romans i, 16. "It had 'rousement in
it," as Bishop Morris said. I expected to go back
to Liberty Circuit, and Rev. W. W. Hibben to go
to Centerville; but things changed.

Centerville Circuit. 139

As Rev. George M. Beswick and I were going
into the church to hear the appointments read, he
said to me, "Do you know that this is the Church
you are to serve in this year?" I exclaimed, "It is?"
I had seen an application for my return to the Lib-
erty Circuit in the hands of my presiding elder.
Rev. A. Eddy. Brother Hibben was sour, but Lib-
erty was a very good circuit to go to. Centerville
Circuit was very heavy; preaching every Sunday in
Centerville. Rev. Thomas A. Goodwin was my
colleague. He was the first graduate of Asbury
University, a good preacher and earnest. I have
always regretted that he located. It was a mis-
fortune to him and the Church. The appointments
on this circuit were: Salsbury, James Burgess's,
Boston, x\bington, Doddridge's, Beeks's, Beelers's,
Martindale's Creek on the National Road, Ed-
wards's, Mt. Zion, Nettlecreek, Pollard's, Sanders's,
Economy, Newport, Concord (in Ohio), Washing-
ton, Baldwin's on Walnut Level, Hagerstown, and
Centerville. Centerville was then the county-seat
of Wayne County, the largest county for popula-
tion in the State. The presiding elder sent Rev.
John Robbins on the circuit to help us. John was
more easily depressed than his brother, Harlan
Robbins. He had a large cornfield in the White
Water bottom, which the river overflowed when
his corn was three feet high. He looked at it, told
his wife he was ruined, and got in bed and staid
there until the next day, when his father-in-law told

140 Rev. Joseph Tarkington.

me of it, and I went to see him. I asked him,
"What is the matter, Robbins?" and he said, "O, I
am ruined!" "Where are you ruined?" I asked.
"Look at my corn!" I said: "How can that ruin
you? It will rise again, and the overflow will make
the ground richer." So I took him by the hand,
and brought him out of his bed. He afterwards
told me he had more corn that year than he ever
had.

We had on the circuit a local elder, Jonathan
Shaw, a good man, and well posted in theology by
reading Wesley, Fletcher, and Watson; for he read
much. He was steadily opposed to slavery. He
was ahead of the times. The people called him an
Abolitionist, and said he was crazy. He was at our
meeting in Boston, Wayne County, Indiana, and
preached, in one of those high box pulpits, on
"Wine is a mocker." His manner was, in excite-
ment of speech, to stretch up high on tiptoe, with
arms extended, and then suddenly double up, or
rather down, stoop down, and spring from one end
of the pulpit to the other. In one of his springs,
he flirted clean out of that pulpit, and down to the
floor on his hands and knees into the congregation.
"Well! well!" Robbins told him, "that's what you
get for running around so much." But Shaw had
the nerve to finish his sermon. And he lived to
hear people say he was right in his views all the
time.

That year Rev. Allen Wiley was presiding elder.

Centerville Circuit. 141

He was at one of the Quarterly Conferences, at a
camp-meeting four miles north of Centerville.
Rev. T. A. Goodwin had charge of the meeting
during the session of the Quarterly Conference, and
said we were to have a woman preach to us in the
morning. "Why so?" asked Wiley. Goodwin an-
swered, "I have published it." Wiley replied, "I
will not be present; for if I do, it will be published
that I have women preaching at my appointments."
"O," said I, "Brother Wiley, it will not militate
against your going to the General Conference. I
will be present, and see that the ark shall be safe."
Said he, "You may, but I will not." So the hour
came, the bell rang, and the woman took the stand.
I called the congregation to order, and all was still
and quiet. She stepped forward, gave out the
hymn, prayed feelingly, and then announced her
text: "Mary hath chosen that good part." Some
justified W^iley, others accused him, and yet others
stood still to "see the salvation of the Lord!" And
I think it is coming. You can see women engaged
in the work of the Church in trying to save souls.
They are eloquent in the pulpit, busy as doctors
and lawyers, and go on great missions to the end
of the world. May the time come "when all God's
people will be prophets!" Now there are calls from
all over the country for such women as Mrs. L. O.
Robinson and Mrs. Governor David Wallace, those
eloquent pleaders in the cause of temperance and
religion. St. Paul was certainly orthodox, and

142 Rev. Joseph Tarkington.

whatever he said for the times and the people to
whom he spoke, he had women to help him, and
for whose labors he was graciously thankful.

This year the cholera was bad in Cincinnati.
Rev. Augustus Joselyn came to Centerville, lectur-
ing on hygiene, medicines, treatment, etc., saying
cholera could be prevented by them. But he was
disappointed; for he died with seven of his pills in
him. He was from New York State, and my
father-in-law said he was a great preacher there in
the days of his youth.

In the fall of 1843 I went to Crawfordsville to
Conference. Bishop Andrews presided. Professor
William C. Larrabee, of Asbury, delivered an in-
teresting and effective speech on behalf of the uni-
versity. Dr. Charles Elliott (as he said) exhorted
after him, and, laying his hand on Dr. Matthew
Simpson's head, called him his boy Mattie, whom
he had brought out into the ministry in Pennsyl-
vania, recommended for the presidency of Asbury
University, and now prophesied he would honor
the position. The prophecy was fulfilled.

CENTERVILLE DISTRICT.

I was appointed to Centerville District as pre-
siding elder. The district extended into Randolph
and Jay Counties, and there that winter the roads
were horrible to travel. One time it was rain all
day and freeze at night — mud and ice. I had to
go through or turn back. I went forwards, my

Centerville District. 143

horse breaking through the ice every step. As I
returned from this mud-and-ice trip, I saw a wagon
standing in water and mud, with a woman seated
with a child in her arms on top of the load of hoop-
poles. She said they had stalled, and her husband
had gone for help to pull the wagon out. They
were taking the hoop-poles to Cincinnati to ex-
change for goods. It would take a whole week
for the trip. Now, some people would smoke out
in tobacco the worth of that load on the trip. But
these folks made the trip with no cover on the
wagon. The energy of those times has been re-
warded with the now fine farms in Randolph, Jay,
Adams, and Wells Counties. In those times law-
yers made the round of those counties, riding the
circuit, and if their appointments were not more
remunerative than the preachers', they got but little;
but the preachers had the advantage — the people
boarded them with what was to be had; yet no
preachers located on account of gout.

When Bloomington, Indiana, had not the square
cleared ofif, court was held there. Hugh Ross came
to court as a lawyer, and James Matlock got him
to preach in his log-cabin — the first house built in
the town. His text was, "The Lord is my law-
giver." I thought he did very well. It is my
recollection he did all his work at the bar and in
the pulpit without fee or reward. At the General
Conference of 1844, Indiana was divided into two
Conferences.

144 Rev. Joseph Tarkingion.

In the fall of the year 1844 the North Confer-
ence was held at Fort Wayne. Bishop Waugh
presided, and Bishop Hamline, with his wife, was
also there. Bishop Hamline came in a two-horse
wagon from Detroit, and went from the Conference
in the same to Cincinnati. I was returned to the
Centerville District, with no change in it. During
the ensuing year, all things moved on in the
Church as usual, in great peace and with increase
in membership. My daughter Ellen M. was born
at Centerville on the i8th day of December, 1843.

The Conference in the fall of 1845 "let at La-
fayette, Indiana. Bishop Hamline presided. Dr.
Charles Elliott, editor of the Western Christian Ad-
vocate, was again visiting us. He, with Bishop
Hamline, went in a carriage, in company with Rev.
Samuel T. Gillett and myself in another. The first
day from Centerville, we got to Ross's; roads very
bad. The next day to C.'s. Soon as we got into
a house, Bishop Hamline would have prayers, and
he would keep on until we were called to dinner
or supper, as the case might be, calling on each
preacher in turn to pray, omitting himself, until
Dr. Elliott turned on him, and called upon him to
"lead in prayer." It was amusing and interesting
to be with these two good and wise men.

When on the hillside overlooking Lafayette, the
Doctor said paradise could not have looked more
beautiful than the scene before us. I never had a
more pleasant traveling companion than Dr. El-

Vincennes District.

145

liott. The second day after we got to Conference,
I received news of the death of my brother-in-law,
Delanson Slauson, who had Hved four miles north
of Indianapolis. I had taken my family at the
close of the year to my father-in-law's for a visit,
while I should be at the Conference.

BROOKVILLE CIRCUIT.

This year I was transferred to the Indiana Con-
ference. The Indiana Conference was held at
Madison, Bishop Morris presiding, and I was sent
to Brookville Circuit, Greenly H. McLaughlin as
my colleague; Allen Wiley, presiding elder. The
year passed ofif well.

The Conference in the fall of 1845 ^i^et at Con-
nersville, Bishop Hamline presiding. I was sent
back to Brookville, with Thomas C. Crawford col-
league, and Lucian W. Berry presiding elder. We
had a prosperous year on the circuit, with, as dur-
ing the former year, an increase in membership.

VINCENNES DISTRICT.
In the fall of 1847 the Conference was at Evans-
ville. I went by boat from New Albany. The
river was very low. Only small boats were run-
ning. About twenty-five preachers were on the
boat with me, and we had to lie on the floor. We
were two days and a night on the way. I was ap-
pointed to preach on the boat going down the
river, and Rev. F. C. Holliday coming back.

146 Rev. Joseph Tarkington.

At Evansville, I boarded with Dr. Elliott.
Bishop Waugh, who was presiding bishop, dined
with us one day, and said he wished for some
one for the Vincennes District. I told him I was
in the other end of the State, and had six children,
and there was no way to move but by wagon.
Rev. Allen Wiley said he would go if he could
move his wife, who was helpless, and had not
walked a step for years. The bishop said I could
go with a healthy wife and six children better
than Wiley with his wife as she was. So I had to
move from Brookville to the West. I determined to
move to Greencastle, just beyond the north end
of the district, so our children could go to school
there. (John afterwards graduated at Asbury, and
Mary and Martha at Mrs. Larrabee's).

I gave a man forty dollars to wagon our house-
hold goods from Brookville to Greencastle. The
Vincennes District reached from the corporation
line of Greencastle to the neck between White
River and the Wabash, in sight of Mt. Carmel,
Illinois. This neck was in White River Mission.
Every time I made the round of the district, I was
away from home five weeks. Taking my clothes
and books in my saddle-bags, I attended five quar-
terly-meetings, including Vincennes as the last.
At Vincennes I stopped with Brother David Bon-
ner, and on Monday morning before day he had
my horse fed, and I rode eight miles before sun-
rise, and fifty miles that day. At night I called for

Vincennes District. 147

quarters at the Rev. Thomas Manwarren's, in
whose house I preached in 1833, at New Trenton,
Franklin County, Indiana. I did not know he had
moved. He did not seem wilhng to let me stay.
It was dark. He wanted to know who I was, trav-
eling so late in the night. I told him I was Joseph
Tarkington, and had traveled fifty miles that day.
"O," he said, "I know you; come in!" So we met
unexpectedly, and talked over the "old times." In
the morning, by day, I was on my road home.
When I came to the National Road, I stopped at
a hotel for dinner, and found the landlady to be
Rebecca Sedgwick, who belonged to my class when
I was a class-leader. She first married Thomas
Freeland, and at the wedding I was my friend Free-
land's best man. He died, and she had married a
Mr. Mason, who then kept the hotel where I was
stopping. So it was encouraging to meet old friends
in this strange field of labor. I enjoyed my dinner,
which was soon ready, and, my horse fed, I was
soon on my way, and stopped at night fifteen miles
from home at a hotel, and the next noon found me
home, not having heard from them during my ab-
sence. I found all well, and staid at home a day
and a half, and was ofif again to Spencer quarterly-
meeting. At Spencer, I met my old friend. Rev.
Henry S. Talbott, preacher in charge, with Rev. N.
Shumate for junior; both strong men. I well re-
member when the town of Spencer was laid off.
John Freeland was elected clerk, first of Owen

148 Rev. Joseph Tarkington.

County. He was the son of Joseph Freeland, who
was educated in Maryland to be an Episcopal min-
ister, but when converted joined the Methodist
Episcopal Church, freed his slaves, and moved to
Indiana. He was a holy man, and his wife was
devoted to God's work. They lived not far from
Bloomington. When a boy, I attended quarterly-
meeting conducted by Rev. David Anderson in a
cabin. In that day they did not admit all kinds of
folk to love-feast, and I stood at the window, and
Mrs. Joseph Freeland spoke in love-feast. She
spoke eloquently and with power; told of her con-
viction and conversion, and how then she felt and
saw more clearly the sin of slavery, and had said
to Mr. Freeland, "These slaves must go," and so
they were freed. She said she would rather live in
the wilds of Indiana, do her own work and be re-
ligious, than stay in Maryland, have all their slaves,
with the blood of slaves on her soul. I trembled
like a leaf in the wind, standing there by the win-
dow. After this, Mr. Freeland bought land on
White River, and got my father to send me with
his team to take him to it. I moved him from In-
dian Creek, Monroe County, to his little log-cabin
in the woods near that little town in Owen County,
Indiana, called "Freedom." In going we had to
cut our road, all but five or six miles. Mr. Free-
land had the township, range, and section, and went
on blazing the trees, his son and cousin clearing the
way, and I drove the four-horse wagon. Some-

Vincennes District. 149

times we ran over logs, jolting the good woman
who rode in the wagon. We made five or six miles
a day. Every night and morning, Mr. Freeland
would sing and pray where we camped. We had
one Sunday on the way, and Mr. Freeland would
not let the wagon go that day. He said the day
was as good in the woods as in the city. I obeyed
orders; for I was working by the day. They were
all in good spirits on the way. Finally we reached
the little cabin in the woods, and snow was coming
down fast. The wagon was unloaded, and, with
one night's rest, by daylight next morning, and with
Mr. Freeland's benediction, I drove off towards
home. The snow had covered my wagon tracks,
but I went by the blazes. I got back in two days
and one night, sleeping that night in the wagon
in a buffalo robe. This family did much good by
their example of self-denial for conscience' sake
and their pure-heartedness. Some of their freed
slaves followed them to Indiana, and were cared for.
Had the Methodist Ghurch kept abreast of the
Friend Quakers, the two Churches would have kept
up the principle of anti-slavery to a higher level.
But there was a letting down in the General Con-
ference of 1836, when the North was held back by
the South. When Rev. Orange Scott lectured in
Cincinnati at that Conference, he was treated very
coldly. But God let the cause go on until the Kan-
sas trouble. Then Sumter fell, but Major Ander-
son did not fall; for he held the flag there in 1865.

150 Rev. Joseph Tarkmgtoii.

The prophet thought he stood alone, but God told
him there were seven thousand who had not bowed
the knee to Baal. God's cause stands not alone.

In 1848, Rev. Matthew Simpson resigned the
presidency of Asbury University, and on Com-
mencement-day of that year baptized my son, Mat-
thew Simpson Tarkington, who was born at Green-
castle, on July 16, 1848.

GREENSBURG DISTRICT.

I remained on the Vincennes District until the
fall of 185 1, when Bishop Waugh sent me to the
Greensburg District, and then we moved to the
farm on the Michigan road, a mile west of Greens-
burg, leaving John S. at college to graduate the
next year. The little boys, Joseph and William,
drove the cows. The first night we stopped at
Stilesville, at Brother Kelly's. The next day we
dined at Mooresville, and that night we were kindly
entertained by Mr. Christian and family. It was
dark when we got to his house, and the boys had
some trouble driving the cows. William said,
"Others may have tribulation, but nothing like Joe
and I had driving cows after dark." The next day
we reached Rev. James Ray's, and some of us
stopped with him, and others went on into Shelby-
ville to Dr. Robbins's. The people were very kind
to us, seeing we had to move so far. The next day
at sundown we got to a little cabin on the farm
which my brother Eli had built and had lived in for
seven years. He had bought land near Kokomo

Gree7isburg District. 151

and moved on it. The cabin was empty. We lived
in it until we built adjoining it the next year the
house we now live in. John Trimble built the
house, out and out, for $1,200. Good weather-
boarding was obtained at fifty cents per hundred.
My wife and the two boys, Joseph and William,
managed the little farm, Mary and Martha taught
school, and I traveled the district, which extended
west to within ten miles of Indianapolis.

In the fall of 1853 I was made agent of Asbury
University for the territory now comprising Indi-
ana and Southeastern Indiana Conferences; that is,
virtually, that part of the State south of the Na-
tional Road. I was agent two years. I had the
collection of many notes taken by Isaac Owens, of
precious memory.

Methodists should discontinue theater-going,
dancing, and card-playing. What dying sinner calls
for dancers, card-players, or theater-goers to pray
for him! The Church has a hard time to keep her
young folks from amusements, which, if not sinful
in themselves, are the open doors to sin. The ques-
tion is, How can a member of the Church indulge
in these amusements, and then go to Church and
lead class-meeting?

The world knows what is the duty of the Church,
and when it falls short, the answer to all appeals is,
"Physician, heal thyself." We can not ignore
the Bible doctrines and precepts, and stand acquit
before the world, much less before God. To please
the world at the expense of these is impossible.

APPENDIX I.

MRS. TARKINGTONS ACCOUNT OF HER EARLY LIFE.

THE Slausons were English. My father, Sim-
eon Slaiison, Sr., was from Stamford, Con-
necticut. He was the son of, I think, Jonathan
Slauson, who is said to have died August 31, 1820.
The names of Jonathan's children were Jonathan,
Elihu, Simeon, Daniel, Jonas, Sarah, Lydia, Rhoda,
and Polly.

My father's surname, correctly spelled, was Slau-
son. After we moved from New York to Indiana,
and he had entered his land, the United States pat-
ents for his land came from the Government spell-
ing his surname, as the grantee, Slawson, instead
of Slauson, and the neighbors generally in writing
spelled it that way. So father got into the habit of
writing a zv instead of a u in his name.

Uncle Elihu Slauson was the father of John
Budd Slauson, late of No. 16 46th Street, New
York City, and "before the war," of New Orleans,
Louisiana. Uncle Elihu's wife's name was Esther.
Aunt Polly married Dan, and lived in Brooklyn,
New York, with Jier daughter, Adaline Hunt. She
was ninety years of age when I last saw her, in 1876.
I do not remember my grandmother's maiden
name. I remember knowing only Uncles Elihu,
152

Mrs. Tarkbigton's Early Life. 153

Jonathan, and Daniel, and Aunt Polly; although I
remember an Aunt Rhoda; she was father's sister.

My mother was born near Ballston Springs, New
York. She was at her Aunt Sally Brown's, in
Orange County, New York, when my father saw
and courted her; although I have heard that they
first met at a sleighing party on North River. My
mother had brothers, Lewis Wood and Halsey
Wood, and, it seems to me, a David Wood, a sister
Mary Wood, and Hannah Wood, who married a
Mr. Minor Mills.

Father was younger than Uncle Elihu. They
bought and lived on a farm in Orange County, New
York, three miles from Aliddleton, where we used
to go to the Presbyterian Church, and hear Mr.
Jackson preach. Father, however, used to say he
did not like to hear him, because he preached with
gloves on, and prayed with his eyes open.

Uncle Elihu and we lived on the farm within a
dozen rods of each other, having one large yard in
common.

Aunt Polly (Dan) was the youngest of father's
family. She was married, and lived near us a year
or two. She came to our house to take care of the
rest of the children, while father and mother and I
visited mother's folks at Ballston, before we came
West. I was twelve years old, and went with father
and mother as the oldest of the children. We went
to mother's father's — three miles from Ballston,
New York — and Aunt Mary Wood, the youngest

154 Rev. Joseph Tarkiiigton.

of her sisters, staid with me while mother and
father went to see Aunt Hannah Mills. My Uncle
Daniel had a son Daniel, who was called "Little
Daniel," and it was funny to me then to hear him
so called, because he was quite a tall young man
when they were both once at our house in Orange
County, New York.

My father was a cooper, and made wooden can-
teens for the soldiers in the War of 1812, I remem-
ber holding a light at night for him to see to make
them; he worked one Sunday also. He did not
work much on the farm; but attended to his coop-
ering, making mostly butter firkins, meat and
whisky barrels, well-buckets, etc. Uncle Elihu at-
tended to the farm. The farm was in Orange
County. New York, twenty-five miles from New-
berg, nine miles from Goshen, and three miles from
Middleton.

Orange County was a great butter country then.
Churning was done by horse-power, with a churn
large as a barrel.

Ezra Slauson used to be about our place. He
claimed to be a second cousin of father's in some
way. I remember the little children used to plague
him, play pranks on him, to get him to run after
them. He did not seem to be able to do much for
himself; but would work making baskets, and play
with children, whom he appeared to love to be with.
Ezra came West before we did, and wrote back
bragging up the country. He had some land near

Mrs. Tarkmgtofi's Early Life. 155

Hartford, back of Rising Sun, Indiana. He mar-
ried, but I think his wife would not live with him.

Father sold out his share of the farm to Uncle
Elihu, and had about $3,500 when we came West.
We moved in the fall of 18 18. We brought no fur-
niture, and came to Pittsburg in a two-horse and a
one-horse wagon. We brought featherbeds with
us, and on our way to Pittsburg, at night, took
our bedding into a room in a hotel or other house
which was rented for the night. We never saw
any one camping out until we came West. We did
not know we could do so. At Pittsburg, father
bought, for forty-five dollars, a "family boat," in
which we loaded our goods, wagons, and horses,
to carry us down the river to Rising Sun. The
horses, when put on the boat, behaved so badly
father sent them by a Mr. Robbins, who was going
overland, to Ohio, about one hundred and fifty
miles from Rising Sun. Mother herself had made
and moved with us thirty pairs of linen sheets,
never used, and fifteen pairs for common use. She
intended five pairs for each of her girls. We could
have done well enough in New York, but father
wanted land for his children.

We could have gone from Pittsburg to Rising
Sun in three weeks with our horses and wagons;
by the boat we were seven weeks, the water was
so low in the river.

Arrived at Rising Sun, father rented a house, in
which we spent the winter. The Crafts (Rev.

156 Rev. Joseph Tarkmgto7i.

Thomas A. Goodwin's wife's folks) lived there then;
also the three brothers James; also the Peppers
and the Browns, from "York State."

In the spring of 18 19, father walked through
the snow the one hundred and fifty miles up into
Ohio, and brought the horses, and we moved over
to what was afterwards our home-place, nine miles
north of Vevay, Switzerland County, Indiana, about
a mile south of what is now Bennington.

Father had bought one hundred and sixty acres
on the east side of the road, intending to move
there; but a Mr. Ingersoll owned one hundred and
sixty acres opposite, west of the road, and had
cleared about three acres and put up a cabin, which
he let us move into while he went back to Butler
County, Ohio, to bring his family; but his family
being averse to coming further West, he sold his
land to father. We staid in the cabin three years.
It was at the west side of what became the "old
orchard," and was on the edge of the woods. The
wolves used to howl around the cabin in all manner
of voices; each one appeared to have a dozen.

I used to carry the water in summer, after the
day's work was done, from Ilildebrand's, a mile
south of us. I would take four wooden buckets,
fill all four, then take two half-way home, go back
and bring the other two up to them, take two home,
and go back for the other two. We ground corn in
a hand-mill, bought of Butcher, who moved up into
Decatur County. The stones were about twenty-

Mrs. Tarkington^ s Early Life. 157

four inches in diameter, set in a hollow gum about
three feet high. The under stone was stationary,
and grooved on the upper side from the center to
the edge, and in its center was an iron pivot, on
which rested and turned the upper stone, which
was the size of the lower. The upper stone was
turned by a pole, one end of which was fixed in a
hole near the outer edge of the upper stone, and
the other end in a hole made in a crosspiece nailed
to a tree over the center of the stone. So, run-
ning the pole round and round with one hand, with
the other we dropped the corn into a hole near the
center of the upper stone, and the corn running
through to the lower stone was taken and "ground
between the upper and the nether millstone," and
came out at the edge through a hole in the "gum."
This was our mill — and better than many in the
neighborhood had — until a mill was built by, I
think, Clark Mitchell, a mile east of our house.

I was thirteen years old, the oldest of six chil-
dren, when we moved to the cabin; was strong and
healthy, and helped father clear ground, piling and
burning brush and logs, besides helping mother
all I could about the house. Work was plenty and
help scarce.

Father at first cleared ground by cutting the
trees close to the ground, and burning and cutting
the logs and clearing all off the ground, and in-
sisted that was the only way; but he found that a
slow way to raise corn in such a heavily-wooded

158 Rev. Joseph Tarkington.

country, and adopted the custom of the country
by deadening the trees, and putting in his corn in
the deadening, and then, after the corn was gath-
ered, in the fall, winter, and spring, cutting down
the deadened trees and burning them as much as
he could.

The first or second year we lived in the cabin
we heard one of neighbor Rogers's hogs squeal in
the edge of the woods a few rods from the cabin,
and father ran out and found a bear dragging the
hog off. He chased the bear off, and then, with
dogs, he and others pursued him until he backed up
to a tree and boxed with the dogs, knocking them
here and there, until one of the pursuers got a
chance and shot him.

After living for three years in the cabin, we
moved into a house father had meantime built on
the land he first bought on the east side of the road.
It was a hewed-log house, of one large room, about
twenty feet square, and a shed room on the first
floor, and a room up-stairs over the large one. We
had two large beds, with a trundlebed across one
end of the large room, and in that room we cooked
at a large fireplace; the shed and the room up-stairs
were bedrooms. There, from December 27, 1830,
and March 17, 1831, Daniel, Josephus, Malissa, and
Mahala died of winter, now called typhoid, fever.
Sisters Matilda and Maluda were born there; also
Daniel and John.

Benjamin Hildebrand (father of Uriah Hilde-

Mrs. Tarkingtoii^s Early Life. 159

brand, who went with brother Delanson in 1838,
or 1839, when he moved on the one hundred and
sixty acres of land four miles north of Indianapolis,
Indiana, which father gave brother) was our near-
est neighbor on the south ; then came Runa Welch,
with his wife Milley, who made cheese, and who,
when my son Joseph was born at my father's, vainly
offered John a whole one for the baby. And the
Davises lived at Davis's Hill, three and a half miles
down the Vevay road. Old Mr. Shaddy lived a
little southwest of us, and his son afterwards lived
next us on the south. Zenas Sisson came and
joined us on the north.

I was converted at a prayer-meeting in a little
log-house up the branch of "Indian Kentuck," at
the house of Mr. Marlow, three or four years before
I was married. No preacher was there; but the
neighbors had simply gathered for prayer. Zenas
Sisson led the meeting. Daniel Sisson, Mr. Gard-
ner and his wife, the Chittendens, some of the
Mitchells, Jonathan Andrews, and Mr. Jacques
were there. Revs. Allen Wiley and Aaron Wood
were the circuit preachers at the time, and John
Strange presiding elder.

I afterwards joined the Methodist Episcopal
Church at a meeting in the schoolhouse about a
half mile north of Zenas Sisson's sawmill. Rev.
Allen Wiley minister. None of my family had
joined then. Rev. Allen Wiley and family lived
about three miles east of our house, on a farm.

i6o Rev. Joseph Tarkington.

Rev. John Strange baptized me at a camp-
meeting held on father's farm after I joined
Church.

In 1830 father burned brick for a new house,
and Mr. Greenleaf made the window and door
frames and sills; but when the four children died,
mother did not feel like she wanted a new house.
The brick house was, however, built in a year or
two — a large two-story, "with an L," where father
and mother, and after them my brother Simeon,
lived and died, and where my brother's widow now
(1887) lives.

My husband, Rev. Joseph Tarkington, came as a
Methodist preacher on the circuit where we lived
in 1830. One Sunday in the spring of 183 1, as I
was on horseback, riding home from John Cotton
and xA.manda Clark's wedding, he rode up by my
side, and asked me if I had any objections to his
company, and I said I did not know as I had. He
had been stopping at father's on his rounds of the
circuit. It was one of his homes. Mr. Tarkington
sometime after this, about a month before we were
married, as he was starting away on his circuit,
handed a letter to my father, which is as follows:

"August 50, iSji.

"Dear Brother and Sister, — You, by this
time, expect me to say something to you concern-
ing what is going on between your daughter and
myself. You will, I hope, pardon me for not say-

Mrs. Tar king ton's Early Life. i6i

ing something to you before I ever named anything
to her, though she is of age,

"Notwithstanding all this, I never intended to
have any girl whose parents are opposed. There-
fore, if you have any objections,, I wish you to enter
them shortly. I know it will be hard for you to
give up your daughter to go with me; for I am
bound to travel as long as I can, and, of course,
any person going with me must not think to stay
with father and mother.

"Yours very respectfully,

"J. Tarkington.
Mr. Simeon Slawson,
Slawson p. O.,

Switzerland Co.,
Indiana.

Father thought there would be so many dangers,
with suffering and poverty, in being a preacher's
wife, that it was a very serious matter, and, though
he was a man of very few words, he told me as
much, while he appeared to be very gravely affected.
But he wrote a note, and gave it to him when he
came around next time, which is as follows :

''September 4, 1831.

"Reverend Sir, — You express a wish to know
if I have any objections to you forming an affinity
with my daughter Maria, to which I would reply:
If you and my daughter are fully reconciled to the
above proposition, which I have no reason to doubt,

1 62 Rev. Joseph Tarkingtofi.

I do hereby assent to the same; nevertheless, if such
a union should take place, it would be very desir-
able, if you should settle yourself down here, that
you would not be too remote from us.
"Yours most respectfully,

"S. AND M. Sl.AUSON.
Addressed
Rev. Joseph Tarkington,

Pleasant Township,

Switzerland Co.,
Indiana.

We were married on September 21, 1831, as will
be seen, without a long engagement, and the life
of an itinerant Methodist preacher's wife may be
imagined from the narrative of my husband.

APPENDIX II.

COPY FROM THE FAMILY BIBLE OF SIMEON SLAW-
SON, LATE OF SWITZERLAND COUNTY, IN-
DIANA, DECEASED.

BIRTHS.

SIMEON SLAWSON, born January 19, 1777,
Stamford, Connecticut.

Martha Wood, born February 5, 1786, Orange
County, New York.

Maria Slawson, born January 22, 1806, Orange
County, New York.

Malissa Slawson, born July i, 1807, Orange
County, New York.

Delanson Slawson, born January 8, 1810, Orange
County, New York.

Josephus Slawson, born July 21, 18 12, Orange
County, New York.

Halsey Wood Slawson, born July 25, 1814, Or-
ange County, New York.

Mahala Slawson, born September 18, 181 5, Or-
ange County, New York.

Simeon Slawson, born May 2^, 1818, Orange
County, New York.

Matilda Slawson, born June 8, 1820, Switzerland
County, Indiana.

163

164 Rev. Joseph Tarkington.

Maluda Slawson, born May 19, 1822, Switzerland
County, Indiana.

Daniel W. Slawson, born May 15, 1825, Switzer-
land County, Indiana.

John Wright Slawson, born May 17, 1827,
Switzerland County, Indiana.

MARRIAGES.

Simeon Slawson and Martha Wood, April 6,
1805.

Joseph Tarkington and Maria Slawson, Septem-
ber 21, 1831.

Delanson Slawson and Malinda Clark, May 10,
1832.

Matilda Slawson and Augustus Welch, Novem-
ber 21, 1841.

Maluda Slawson and John S. Winchester, De-
cember 14, 1844.

Simeon Slawson, Jr., and Angeline Mansur, May
14, 1846.

DEATHS.

Halsey W. Slawson, September 8, 1814.
Daniel W. Slawson, December 27, 1830.
Josephus Slawson, February 17, 183 1.
Malissa Slawson, March 13, 1831.
Mahala Slawson, March 17, 1831.
John Wright Slawson, January 30, 1832.
Delanson Slawson, September 22, 1845.
Simeon Slawson, January 22, 1858.

Fro7n Family Bible of Simeon Slazvson. 165

Simeon Slawson, Jr., May 23, 1858.

Martha Wood Slawson, July 7, 1866.

Maria (Slawson) Tarkington, December 16,
1889.

Maluda (Slawson) Winchester, September 7,
1895.

John S. Winchester, February 12, 1898.

APPENDIX III.

JOSEPH TARKINGTOXS FAMILY RECORD.

BIRTHS.

JOSEPH TARKINGTON was born in Tyrrell
County, North Carolina, October 30, 1800.

Maria Slauson was born in Orange County, New
York, January 22, 1806.

John Stevenson Tarkington was born in Center-
ville, Indiana, June 24, 1832.

Mary Melissa Tarkington was born at Greens-
burg, Indiana, February 26, 1834.

Martha Ann Tarkington was born in Harrison
County, Indiana, February 17, 1836.

Joseph Asbury Tarkington was born in Switzer-
land County, Indiana, November 25, 1837.

William Simeon Reeves Tarkington was born in
Liberty, Indiana, November 5, 1841.

Ellen Maria Tarkington was born in Centerville,
Indiana, December 18, 1843.

Matthew Simpson Tarkington was born in
Greencastle, Indiana, July 16, 1848.

MARRIAGES.

Joseph Tarkington and Maria Slauson were mar-
ried September 21, 1831, by Rev. Allen Wiley, at
the home of Simeon Slauson, her father, nine miles
north of Vevay, Indiana.

166

Joseph Tarkingto7i' s Family Record. 167

John S. Tarkington was married to Elizabeth
Booth, daughter of Bebee and Hannah Booth, No-
vember 19, 1857, at Terre Haute, Indiana.

Mary M. Tarkington was married to Dr. John H.
Alexander at the farm near Greensburg, Indiana.

Martha A. Tarkington was married to Daniel
Stewart, May 18, 1858, at the farm near Greensburg,
Indiana.

Joseph A. Tarkington was married to Elva
Meredith Yeatman, at Washington, D. C, June 14,
1885.

William S. R. Tarkington was married to Helene
S. Tarkington, daughter of William C. and Eliza
Tarkington, at Bloomington, Indiana, June 2, 1870.

Matthew Simpson Tarkington was married to
Clara Williams Baker, daughter of Marsh Baker,
of Greensburg, Indiana, March 25. 1878.

DEATHS.

Joseph Tarkington died at Greensburg, Indiana,
September 22, 1891.

Maria Slauson Tarkington died, December 16,
1889, at Greensburg, Indiana.

Ellen M. Tarkington died at the home, near
Greensburg, Indiana, May 2, 1861.

Elva M. Tarkington, wife of Joseph A. Tarking-
ton, died at Washington, D. C., January 8, 1891,
leaving two children, Joseph Arthur and Elvin
Yeatman Tarkington.

Daniel Stewart, husband of Martha A. Tarking-
ton, died in Indianapolis, February 25, 1892.

APPENDIX IV.

MR. TARKIXGTOXS RECOLLECTION OF HIS
ANCESTORS.

MY great-grandfather was one of two boys, who,
by tradition in the family, came with their
father from England about A. D. 1700, and settled
on or near Albemarle Sound, in Tyrrell County,
North Carolina.

One of the two boys, while hunting strayed cows,
w^as stolen by the Indians, and never heard of after-
wards.

The remaining boy, my great-grandfather, mar-
ried, and had three sons, William, Joshua, and Zeb-
ulon, born about A. D. 1730, in said county.

My grandfather on my father's side, said Joshua,
had six sons, Richard, Joseph, Isaac, John, William,
and Jesse (my father), and one daughter, Elizabeth.

My grandfather on my mother's side, said Zebu-
Ion, had two sons, Joseph and Joshua, and seven
daughters, Priscilla, Keziah, Mary (my mother),
Nancy, Esther, Deborah, and Elizabeth, called
Milley.

My Uncle John married his cousin, my Aunt
Priscilla; and my father married his cousin, said
Mary.

In A. D. 1798, my father and his brother. Uncle
•John, with their families, also my mother's mother
168

Mr. Tarkingtoji's Ancestors. 169

and her children, moved from North Carolina to
West Tennessee, near father's. Uncle Joshua,
mother's brother, married in Tennessee, and among
his children were Hugh, William L., and George
Tarkington, of Kentucky; Joseph Tarkington, of
Louisiana; and Martha, wife of William Yost Dur-
ham, of Waveland, Montgomery County, Indiana.
Hugh and George are dead, and William L. lives
near Danville, Kentucky. [He died at Danville,
Kentucky, January 9, 1898.] My Uncle Joshua
was a famous fiddler, and his younger sisters loved
to dance to his music.

Mother's sisters were all handsome, sprightly,
and graceful, and made a merry family. When a
lad, many a time have I seen Aunts Esther and
Debby, who were slender, lithe, and gay, dance be-
fore the large glass by the half hour. Grandma,
with the three children, Debby, Millie, and Esther,
lived in a house in the same yard with us.

I remember when Millie married Peter Swanson.
Millie and Debby used to play tricks on the Swan-
son brothers (Dick and Peter), when they saw them
coming, by hiding or running to a neighbor's; but
the boys finally caught the deer.

We heard that old Mrs. Swanson — who was a
great, heavy woman — did not want her boys to
marry those gay Tarkington girls, for fear they
would be danced out of everything .

General Zollicofifer, killed at Mill Springs, mar-
ried a daughter of Debby and Dick Swanson.

lyo Rev. Joseph Tarkington.

Millie and Esther married before the shaking of the
earth, Debby after.

After Rev. John Pope began to preach at our
house, father would not allow any more balls, as
they used to have there; and the girls were quite
displeased at his determination.

My mother's brother Joseph, running, stepped
on a cane stub, and died of lockjaw.

My mother's sisters married: Priscilla (as I have
said) to my Uncle John; Keziah to Balaam Ezell
(who turned out a Baptist preacher, I saw him bap-
tized); Nancy to George Oliver; Esther to Thomas
Brown (of Natchez, Miss.); Deborah to Richard
Swanson; and Millie to Peter Swanson (both of
Williamson County, Tenn).

The following is the family record of Jesse and
Mary Tarkington:

Jesse Tarkington was born in Tyrrell County,
North Carolina, February 21, 1767; married August
28, 1792; and died October 20, 1854, aged 87 years,
7 months, and 29 days, at the old homestead near
Stanford, Monroe County, Indiana.

Mary Tarkington was born in Tyrrell County,
North Carolina, December 21, 1773. and died at
the old homestead, near Stanford, Indiana, April 2,
1859, aged 85 years, 3 months, and 11 days.

CHILDREN OF JESSE AND MARY TARKINGTON.
Sylvanus H. Tarkington, born in North Caro-
lina, September 26, 1793; died April 16, 1870,

Children of Jesse and Mary Tarkington. 171

Burton Tarkington, born in North Carolina,
November 6, 1795 ; died February — , 1861, at Tark-
ington Prairie, Texas.

Jesse Tarkington, born in Davidson County,
Tennessee, March 15, 1797; died October 17, 1816,
at Edwardsport, Indiana.

Joseph Tarkington, born October 30, 1800, in
Davidson County, Tennessee; died at his home near
Greensburg, Indiana, September 22, 1891,

Hardin A. Tarkington, born November 30, 1802;
died in Iowa, September — , 1886.

John Tarkington, born October 28, 1804; died
, 189—.

Ellsberry W. Tarkington, born June 30, 1807;
died November 3, 1852, in Monroe County, Indi-
ana.

Mary Reese Tarkington, born October 20, 1809;

married John D. Wbaley, , 1835; died

at Southport, Indiana, June 19, 1896.

Eli P. Tarkington, born November 13, 1811;
died April 6, 1876, in Howard County, Indiana.

George O. Tarkington, born July 11, 1813; died
January — , 18 17, in Monroe County, Indiana.

William C. Tarkington, born June 27, 1816, at
Edwardsport, Indiana; married Eliza Kay Foster,
daughter of Dr. William C. Foster; died at Indian-
apolis, Indiana, July 19, 1895.

Harrison Tarkington, born February — , 1818,
in Monroe County, Indiana; died July — , 18 18.