HISTORY OF ORANGE COUNTY
CHAPTER 3

INDUSTRIES, INCIDENTS, ETC.

The country was, of course, very wild when the first families arrived, and they were obliged to cut roads to their lands, before their household goods could be hauled there. For a short time they were compelled to go to Harrison County for their flour, but in 1814 Jonathan Lindley built a small water-mill on Lick Creek, his buhrs coming, it is said, from the hills near the mill and being dressed and put in shape by one of the Hollowells, who was a blacksmith, probably the first in Orange County. This mill served the early families and was afterward improved, so that harassing trips to the older mills in Harrison and Washington Counties for larger grists were avoided, as the flour furnished was good for that day. This mill seems to have been succeeded by one owned and operated on Lick Creek by Ephraim Doan. It ran for many years. Several horse-mills were established quite early in different parts of the township. Several of the early families, coming as they did from the distant South, could not relinquish their old customs so readily, and accordingly raised small fields of cotton from seed which they had brought with them. This cotton was then taken in hand by the women, and put through all the various and tedious processes until a rude cloth was the result. All the early families raised flax, from the fiber of which they manufactured the greater portion of their garments. Wild animals were thick in the woods at the date of first settlement, and for several years later. Deer were comparatively numerous twenty years later, and were bought quite extensively by the merchants at Paoli. and the hams and hides shipped to Louisville by wagon, and to Southern markets by flat-boats. At an early day, (1826) the State Legislature passed an act declaring Lost River, as far up as Shirley’s Mill. and Lick Creek as far up as its rise, to be navigable streams. By another act passed January 18, 1830, $300 of the Three per-cent Fund was appropriated and ordered applied on the improvement of Lost River, as far up as Shirley’s Mill, and Lick Creek as far up as Dougherty’s Mill, and Samuel Cobb was appointed special Commissioner, to expend this appropriation as stated, which he accordingly did. Under his direction. trees were taken from the bed of Lick Creek, so that flat-boats could go up and down to Dougherty’s Mill, the head of navigation.

It is interesting to draw contrasts between the old time and the present. The farmer was not as well equipped with agricultural implements as now. Corn was planted and almost wholly cultivated with the hoe. A man who could raise eight or ten acres of corn had a large field. If he had three or four boys and as many women he could manage to cultivate successfully about that number of acres. Even the hoes were not as they are now. They were of wood or of heavy iron without polish. The birds and squirrels were so numerous and voracious that the farmer had to guard his corn crop constantly. Wheat was sown broadcast, and very often burrowed in by hand or by bushes pulled around by horses or oxen. All reaping was done with the historic old sickle. Think of it! Less than fifty years ago the old sickle that had been in use from time immemorial, had been in use in Egypt before the pyramids were built, had been in use in the fields of Boaz long before the Christian era, in fact, had been in use at such a remote period in the history of the world, long before authentic history began, that the myths and fables of barbarous man reveal its existence. For thousands of years it had been the only reaper. Labor had lost dignity in the mind of primitive man, if at that remote period it possessed any; and invention was not permitted to interfere with implements whose use was sanctioned by the Diety. Personal liberty, with wealth and independence in view, was limited to the domain of a serfdom constantly guarded by the blind and unscrupulous opulent. None but serfs were farmers. Children were compelled to conform to caste and follow the occupation of their fathers.

"Follow your father, my son,
And do as your fatber has done,"

was the Oriental proverb which dwarfed the intellect and blighted ambition. Personal fitness was undreamed of. For the poor to be ambitious, aspiring and intelligent was a disobedience of the organic law and a sacrilege beyond the reach of repentance. No wonder that agriculture made no advance, and that the sickle of barbarous man remained unimproved by intelligent invention. It is less than fifty years ago that the old cradle came into general use. (Reference is made to the cradle used in reaping grain, and not to that other kind with which we are all very familiar.) Farmers considered it a model of usefulness and a Godsend. It is a remarkable fact that as soon as the nobility of labor was generally conceded - only fifty or sixty years ago in the United States - the direction of invention was changed to that channel, and the stimulation to rapid and extensive agriculture revived every other pursuit, and led to thousands of contrivances to quicken the safety of the crop and transport it to the consumer. The application of steam to a moveable engine was due to the demand for quick transportation of farm products. Hence came that wonder, the railroad. As soon as labor became no longer ignoble, the rapidity of the invention of farm machinery became marvelous. Now the farmer can sit as independent as a king, and almost see his crops sown and harvested by machinery before his eyes. The farmer boy who has a good farm is foolish to leave it and rush off to the city to contract vices that will kill him and probably damn him. "Stick to the farm and it will stick to you."

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