One Township's Yesterdays Chapter XXV  

THE PIONEER CONQUERS

"Conquering, holding, daring, venturing as we go the unknown ways, Pioneers? O pioneers!" ... Walt Whitman.

THE PIONEER CAME TO UNION TOWNSHIP, saw that the land was good ... and conquered. It was the conquest no doubt that put him to the supreme test, that tried his courage and mettle. far greater than did the migration, notwithstanding the hardships and privations suffered on the way it. The journey was long, but not so long as the proving-up after the arrival. The destination of the overland trek was much more definite and sure than was the outcome of the struggle that followed and the rightful reward to be earned through labor in the wilderness.

As soon as the pioneer arrived, he took up the battle of life again, "and right manfully was it pressed to a glorious victory," says MC DONALD Immediately he set to work, built a shelter of the roughest kind, chopped down the trees of the forest. and began to clear the land, first the higher ground and, later on, the lower, which lie drained. Here he settled among the "wild men of the forest and the wolves and wild beasts of prey that infested the country." Here first he erected a wigwam of brush and poles and built a campfire; then was "the axe laid at the root of the tree." Alone he came, in advance of his family, "In the lonely woods, away from friends and family, the original pioneer labored, day in and day out, clearing a little 'patch' of ground and preparing a rude log cabin for the reception of his wife and little ones."

The pioneer stock of this township was all that could be desired. "No better class of people could be found any place," says MC DONALD. "They were the cream of the settlements they had left; resolute and determined; moral, honest, upright and generally of a religious turn or mind, and were social and neighborly" to an extent almost unknown in later years. "Many of them were fairly well educated and all were endowed with what is commonly known as 'good common sense.' Everything goes to show that. They laid the foundations of our present county government broad and deep, firm and solid. They began at once to build schoolhouses and provide places of worship." They provided for law and order, for civic progress, and for the relief of the helpless poor and. those in sorrow and distress.

They cleared the land; they plowed and sowed the ground. Soon they "erected saw mills and grist mills, and brick yards, blacksmith and wagon shops; cut out and bridged, and made the roads passable; established mail routes and stage lines; opened up facilities for trade and reciprocal intercourse with neighboring towns and villages; elected officers who set the legal machinery to work, all of which gave us the start that has brought us on and up to our present advanced stage of civilization."

As has been justly said, "Those were days that tested true friendship. The question was never asked: `Who is my neighbor'?' All were neighbors. All were friends."

It is difficult for us to picture today a country without roads or bridges, but such was Union Township in those long years ago. "He who did the milling for the neighborhood," MCDONALD relates, "blazed his way as he went, and if he succeeded in making the trip to Delphi or Logansport, the nearest grist mills, and return in a week or ten days he was applauded as having accomplished a great feat."

Stubborn perseverance at length triumphed. The pioneer conquered. The "howling wilderness" was subdued.

Who were these first comers to Union Township? Perhaps no complete list of them has ever been compiled. In 1890, ALEXANDER C. THOMPSON THOMPSON published the names of some of them. He listed the following as having been among the early settlers of this township, who came prior to the year 1840:

VINCENT BICKEL VINCENT BROWNLEE ANTOS BROWN JOSEPH CONKLIN ELIAS B. DICKSON PLATT B. DICKSON HUGH B. DICKSON BAYLESS L. DICKSON JOHN B. DICKSON GEORGE FRANCIS DANIEL C. HULTS JOSEPH L. HULTS URIAH S. HULTS JAMES HOUGHTON EMERY HALLETT GEORGE JESSUP

THEOPHILUS JONES NOAH S. LAWSON GEORGE C. LAWSON JOHN LINDSEY WILLIAM I. LEWIS JAMES LOGAN EPHRAIM MOORE LEVI MOORE ELIHU MORRIS SAMUEL MCDONALD THOMAS MCDONALD JAMES MOORE DAVID C. MORRIS WILLIAM MCMILLEN RANSOM H. NORRIS GEORGE M. OSBORNE

TIVIS PORTER ROBERT S. PIPER DANIEL ROMING JOHN A. SHIRLEY SAMUEL SHIRLEY REUBEN F. SHIRLEY GEORGE S. STONE ELEAZER THOMPSON WILLIAM THOMPSON WILLIAM E. THOMPSON LEWIS THOMPSON JOHN THOMPSON JOHN H. VOREIS ABRAHAM VOREIS DAVID R. VOREIS EZRA WILLARD GEORGE W. WILSON

Of these, all had passed away prior to 1890, except HUGH B. DICKSON, who then resided in Indianapolis; GEORGE C. LAWSON, who around that time was known to be living in Missouri; REUBEN F. SHIRLEY, near Sterling Illinois; WILLIAM E. THOMPSON, near Lincoln, Nebraska; and DAVID R. VOREIS, who alone out of all his old neighbors and acquaintances of those pioneer days was still living in Union Township. That was some forty-five years ago.

What changes have come to pass since then! And what sadness has been known in the departure from this world of the last of the pioneers!