Nancy Hawkins is still living, and is now seventy-five years of age. She is in good health, active and lively. Unusual energy, unfaltering devotion to right principles, and lull-hearted hospitality are, as they always have been, her distinguishing characteristics. She is a passionate lover of home, and has impressed this trait of character upon all her children. She still lives upon the " Old Home Farm," where she and her husband first settled, and until within the last year in the log cabin built by him in 1829. She is never so contented as when enjoying the genial warmth of that great fire-place. Of this institution, so cherished in Jay County—the crowning charm of all log cabins—we heartily adopt the language of Mrs. Stowe, in her "House and Home Papers:"

" Best of all, there was in our parlor that household altar, the blazing wood-fire, whose wholesome, hearty crackle is the truest household inspiration. I quite agree with one celebrated American author, who holds that an open fireplace is an altar of patriotism. Would our Revolutionary fathers have gone bare-footed and bleeding over snows to defend air-tight stoves and cooking-ranges ? I trow not. It was the memory of the great, open kitchen fire, with its backlog and fore-stick of cord-wood—its roaring, hilarious voice of invitation — its dancing tongue of flame, that called to them through the snows of that dreadful winter to keep up their courage, that made their hearts warm and bright with a thousand reflected memories."

That cabin is the oldest one now standing, and the fourth one built in Jay County, and will never be torn down while the farm remains in the Hawkins family. Ambrotypes of it, with Nancy's several children and grandchildren, and the old rocking chair in front, have been taken, and are in possession of the family. The cut above represents the old lady standing at the door, though the likeness is not truthful except as to her size. The boy near her is a grandchild. Just beyond the cabia, at the foot of the hill, a spring, overhung with beautiful shade trees, issues from the banks, and the cool water finds its way to the Salimonie through that family favorite, a springhouse. She lately told the writer that if they would only fix the old house so it would not let in the rain, she would much prefer living in it than in the new one. A beautiful farm house, erected by JB. W. Hawkins, now stands beside it.
"When he was elected County Clerk, in 1859, he persuaded his mother to live with him one winter; but when the willows put forth their earliest leaves, the bright green grass was peeping from door-yards and fence-corners, and the first gleeful chirping of the spring-birds was heard, she went back to the farm, and the fairest temptations of town life cannot induce her to leave it again. The farm is a rich and beautiful one, lying just at the forks of the Little Salimonie, half a mile from the village of Antioch

One time the dogs caught a deer near the house, when Mrs. Hawkins and Mrs. Shaylor were the only occupants. They took the axe and went to assist the dogs, which held the animal down, but with his fore-feet and horns he would fight very briskly. Whenever there was an opportunity the ladies would give the deer a blow with the poll of the axe. But this style of warfare served only to exasperate. Changing the plan of attack, they took the edge and gave " hard blows and fast," to which the deer soon yielded, and after skinning and quartering, the lady hunters carried it home.

The Indians were the only neighbors of the Hawkins family for several years. The tribes who were in the habit of visiting this region were the Miamies, Wyandottes, Pottawatamies, Senacas and Shawnees. The two latter were very friendly. They came in the fall to hunt, and in the spring to trap. While passing through one time an Indian boy stole an axe. About three months afterwards they returned, and the boy's father brought the axe back, saying, "My boy stole him. No good boy!"

If they found Mr. Hawkins' ducks far from the house, they would drive them home, and sometimes they would find his cow mired in some swamp several miles distant, when they would come and inform him, pilot some one to the spot, and assist in releasing the animal. By such little acts of kindness,.they showed their friendly feeling toward the white family.

Once an Indian called on Peter Studabaker, at Fort Recovery, and told him that a very rich man had moved into the county, meaning John J. Hawkins. Studakaker inquired whether he had many horses and cattle. "No," said the Indian, " he got heap of children and thirteen dog !" It was the source of much laughter among the neighbors.

All early settlers are familiar with the name of the old Indian, Doctor Duck, who remained in the country a long time after his tribe had emigrated to Kansas. He showed much skill in the treatment of diseases, but could not cure Mr. Hawkins, with whom he lived for six months. He was very religious, and often appeared to be praying to the Great Spirit. One time he attended preaching near Deerfield, after which there was a church trial of an offending member. The old Indian listened attentively until there was some conflicting testimony, when he went to the door, turned round and said to the meeting, " Me go ; no much good here—too much lie."

About two weeks after Mr. Hawkins died this Indian went alone to the grave, and there spent nearly half a day, apparently preaching and performing wild ceremonies. During the year 1835 B. W. Hawkins was employed by a Greenville firm to buy furs, at forty dollars per month and expenses paid. He visited ten counties, and purchased of the Indians, in one lot, fifteen hundred dollars' worth. His employers had offered to their agents that the one buying the best lot of furs should be presented with a new suit of clothes. Mr. Hawkins got the suit, from boots to hat.


Several years after Peter Studabaker left his cabin on the Wabash at New Corydon, Orman Perring and family came there, making the third family of settlers in the county. The exact date of his arrival is not known. Mrs. Studabaker gives it as about 1826. The "first cabin," however, was already gone. It had been pulled down, a few logs at a time, and made into rafts on which travelers crossed the river. Mr. Perring lived there until about 1837, when he moved down the Wabash. He lived chiefly by hunting and keeping travelers who passed that way.

On the 8th day of March, 1829, two families moved into Jay County and settled on a beautiful bank at the forks of the Little Salimonie. The men, John J. Hawkins and Geokge Tucker, had been out the fall before looking for land, and concluding to settle on the Salimonie, had built three half-faced camps, and now brought their families to them.

It was the first warm, beautiful spring day, and all nature seemed waking from its winter slumber. It was an appropriate time for the settlement of a pioneer family. The foundations of rugged Winter were breaking up, and mild, charming Spring was delightfully resuming her sway. So these families had broken away from the busy, selfish, conventional society of an oldsettled country, to enjoy the freedom and warmheartedness of the wilderness. They came from Eaton, Preble County, Ohio, and though the distance was but fifty miles, it took them eight days. Their camps were built against the side of an immense log, covered with bark, the cracks stuffed with moss, and the front end open for a fireplace. The "Recollections, by J. C. Hawkins," speaking of this, says : " That fire-place was ' as big as all out doors,' and it was easy to suit our fires to the changes of weather. If it was warm, we could use a bundle of sticks that a boy could carry; if it was cold, we could put on several cords at a time, and have plenty of room for more." Their "back-logs'' and "fore-sticks" were drawn to the fireplace by the team.

Mr. Hawkins and his family were delighted with the country; but Mrs. Tucker was so much dissatisfied with it that she soon prevailed on her husband to move back to the old settlement, leaving their neighbors alone in the wilderness.

As the Hawkins family were so intimately connected with the early history of the country, a sketch of them will be in place here : The an,cestors of John J. Hawkins emigrated from England early in the 18th century, and settled on the Shenandoah Eiver, in the Colony of Virginia. They were slaveholders, and spent their time in horse-racing and fox-hunting with hounds. They were descendants of Sir John Hawkins, of whom Blake's "History of Slavery and the Slave Trade" says:

"Sir John Hawkins was the first Englishman who transported slaves from Africa to America. This was in 1562. His adventures are recorded by Hakluyt, a cotemporary historian. He sailed from England in October, 1562, for Sierra Leone, and in a short time obtained possession of 300 negroes, partly by the sword and partly by other means. He proceeded directly to Hispaniola, and exchanged his cargo for hides, ginger, sugar, &c., and arrived in England after an absence of eleven months. The voyage was very prosperous, and brought great profit to the adventurers."

From the family of one of the four brothers sprang Samuel Hawkins, who at the age of sixteen ran away from home and engaged in the Revolutionary War. At the close of the war he married Christian Worthington, joined a company of emigrants, and settled in Bourbon County, Kentucky, and was engaged in the Indian "Wars, and after General Wayne's treaty came to the Ohio Territory, was the first white man who moved across the Miami, and soon after settled where the town of Eaton, Ohio, now stands. When the war of 1812 broke out he became a colonel. A call was made for thirty-days' volunteers, to go to the relief of Fort Wayne, which was besieged by the Indians. He went, and when within about nine miles of the place he was, through a mistake, shot by one of his own men, which terminated his life in about one year afterward. His son, John J. Hawkins, was born in Bourbon County, Kentucky, on the 25th of September, 1789. He married Nancy Sellers, and at that time could neither read nor write; but his wife became his instructor, and he soon possessed sufficient business qualifications to be elected Sheriff of Preble County, in which capacity he served for two terms with popularity. In some speculations he lost his property, and sought a home in the wild lands of Indiana. In the war of 1812 he was a lieutenant, and had been a scout through the country bordering on the Mississinewa, and had visited it afterward on hunting excursions. His wife, ^Nancy

Hawkins, was the daughter of Nathan Sellers, of Irish descent, and was born in the celebrated county of Bourbon, Kentucky, on the 4th of June, 1789, to which place her father first moved from Pennsylvania.

Nathan Sellers served in the Kevolutionary War, and distinguished himself in the battles of Brandywine and Germantown. "While in Kentucky he became a magistrate, and finally Sheriff, which office he resigned because of the inhumanity of the laws he had to execute. A common mode of punishing negroes there was to nail their ears to posts, and then whip them! Although offered one thousand dollars per year for the deputyship, he refused to have anything to do with the execution of such laws. He was strongly opposed to slavery, and seeing no prospect of its abolition in Kentucky, he moved to Ohio in 1809, and in 1826 died as he lived, a consistent Christian. Several.of the ancestors of Nancy Hawkins served with Daniel Boone in the war with the Indians, and were victims to the tomahawk and scalping-knife.

There were six children in the Hawkins family when they reached Jay County, as follows: Samuel, the oldest, then aged eighteen, Nathan B., Benjamin W., Avaline (afterward the wife of James Simmons, of Randolph County), Joseph C., and Caroline (now the wife of B. W. Clark).As soon a they were settled in their camps, without waiting to build a cabin, Nancy Hawkins says, " every one old enough to pick a stick went to work to clear some land." They cleared and planted that spring about seven acres, and raised a fine crop of corn and garden vegetables. Though they had but three dollars in cash when they arrived, they managed to secure an abundance of the necessaries of life.

During the summer and next winter Mr. Hawkins spent much of his time in hunting. Killing game was one of the principal means of support for all the earliest settlers. It provided meat for their families, and the sale of skins and furs supplied them with money. In October Mr. Hawkins built a comfortable cabin, and moved into it, having lived in the camp for eight months. On the last day of the year he went hunting, and killed three deer near together. " After dressing them, he hung the two largest without difficulty ; the third being a small one, her did not t.e the necessary pains to fix a suitable place, an while endeavoring to slide it up the side of a tree with a fork which proved to be too limber, it fell and wrenched him severely in the chest. He was not alarmed at first, but hoping further success, he returned slowly homeward, and as he had become warm by his exertions, he took a violent cold, and his feelings were such as to convince him that his work was done."* From that time forward he declined. He went to Eaton, and remained several months, receiving the best medical attention, but it was of no avail. His physicians told him his case was hopeless. Finding that his days were numbered, he was very anxious to return home and die in his cabin with his family. After his return an Indian called Doctor Duck exhausted all his Indian arts to cure him, but in vain. He died on the 15th of March, 1832. Thomas Shaylor and Joseph Williamson, a young man who lived with him, dug the grave, assisted by the orphan boys. The next day he was buried. Those present from this county were Thomas Shaylor, William Brockus and Philip Brown, and their wives, and Joseph Williamson. A few persons from Randolph County were also present. That was the first death and burial among the early residents in Jay County.

The grave was just in front of the cabin, overlooking the Salimonie from a high bank, but not now alone. Other graves have since been dug there to receive the mortal remains of loved ones of the family. One son of the pioneer, Judge Nathan B. Hawkins, a daughter, Avaline Simmons, and several grandchildren are sleeping by his side. George Bickel, one of the earliest pioneers, and others, are also buried there. The marble shown in the centre of the cut above marks the tomb of Mr. Hawkins. The modest inscription is:

HERE LIES JOHN J. HAWKINS, who died March 15, 1832, aged 42 years.

The next stone to the right shows the grave of George Bickel.

The estate was settled up, and Nancy Hawkins had just one hundred dollars' worth of property left her; but this pittance, coupled with her own perseverance and fortitude, and the energy of her oldest son, Samuel, kept the family together, and they prospered. She entered the land by sending her son Samuel to Fort Wayne with a yoke of oxen of her own raising, which he sold and paid for the land. They passed through many hardships, however, until the country became pretty well settled. The boys cleared land, carried mail, hunted, and "showed land" to strangers. In these pursuits they obtained a comfortable livelihood. Some incidents which happened while the boys were carrying mail will illustrate their love of principle as well as one phase of life in Jay County in those early days.

History of Jay County, Indiana By M. W. Montgomery