Dunbar - Lewis M. - Montgomery InGenWeb Project

Darlington Nov 29 – Here is some more about Sugar Creek township.  The Bowers family came out here the year before father’s folks came in 1830.  Then followed the Wyant’s, Mitchell’s, Waugh’s, Kendall’s, Parishe’s, Boyd’s, Coyner’s, Smith’s, Harper’s, Hamilton’s, Horney’s, Price’s, Peterson’s, Henderson’s, Huffman’s and Cooley’s.  All of them had large families. There was something happened in 1837 that caused a great deal of talk and that was; that there was born in the township or near it, ten boy babies. They all grew to be men of fine reputation, and the strange part of it was they were all Republicans. No wonder Lincoln was elected in 1860, just twenty-three years after this event. All these boys were good men. Five went to the army, four never returned. Three were preachers, one a deacon, one a squire and one a politician. M.B. Waugh was probably the wealthiest of the ten.

Of the ten, I am the only one living to tell the story, so be sure and get it right before we lose the record. These boys all helped to make the township and I want to tell you before I am through just what we raised in old Sugar.  One time a man came here from White county and bought 800 head of two and three-year-old cattle. They were good ones, better stock than is now raised. There were no Jerseys in that bunch – mostly shorthorns.  I helped drive them through.  I think I got a dollar per day for myself and horse.

We also raised horses, hogs and sheep. We raised some wheat which we tromped out with horses on the barn floor. We raised buckwheat and frailed it out in a rail pen. We raised corn but sometimes it was not much of a crop.

Sometimes it took three of us boys to go to mill.  On horseback one would take buckwheat, one wheat and one corn. There were not many wagons and fewer roads. We had no cook stoves and mother cooked by the fire place.  I wonder how many present day mothers could cook by a fire place and raise sixteen children and make their clothes from the raw materials. We lived in a log house in those days, and it was in the forties before father bought a cook stove.  Yours, L.M. Dunbar

Note by the Editor: Mr. Dunbar is near his eightieth year. He probably never had 300 days schooling in all his life. Yet he writes a good hand, uses good grammar write his story of fifty or sixty years ago as if the evens were of yesterday.  While he is wondering as to the accomplishments of the present day housewife, the world may wonder as to the accomplishments of the present day young man. With ten times as many days in school as this veteran could tell the story of yesterday as he tells the story of sixty years ago.