BRIDGES, Charles Boles - Putnam

Few men of a past generation in Putnam County so impressed their strong personalities upon the minds of those with whom they came in contact, did more for the general upbuilding of the locality and left behind them a worthier record than Charles Boles Bridges, who has long since joined the great "caravan that moves to the pale realms of shade," yet the luster of his singularly pure and worthy life is still shed along the pathways of those nearest and dearest to him. and for many reasons his biographical memoir is worthy of a conspicuous position in the history of the country where he "lived and moved" and had his "being." Mr. Bridges was born October 30, 1800. and he closed his eyes on earthly scenes March 2, 1879, thus nearly reaching the advanced milestone of four score years. He was one of the pioneers of Putnam County, having come here seventy years ago from Kentucky, where he was born. His paternal ancestors were English and, perhaps, Welsh. His mother was an orphan whose ancestry cannot be definitely traced, being quite young when she lost her parents. William Bridges was the third son of a family of five children, James, Charles, William, George and a daughter. William Bridges settled first near Salisbury, North Carolina, during the Revolutionary war period.

He was a blacksmith by trade and was pressed into the service to make shackels for the Tories. He was married to his first wife when he came to this country from England, but she did not long survive after coming to America. After this he settled in Kentucky, about the year 1790, in a vast wilderness, among the native redskins, bears, wolves and other kinds of wild animals, in what is now Madison County. Here he married Elizabeth Wright, mother of the immediate subject of this sketch, and soon afterward moved to what is now Montgomery County, Kentucky, about eight miles from Morgan Station, the scene of an Indian massacre. To this union five sons and three daughters were born, namely: William, James, George, Charles, Milton, Tamer, Abigail and Elizabeth. These children had three half-brothers and one halfsister. Their parents were both old-time Methodists and they delighted in attended the camp meetings held in the woods of those early days where people "shouted" and "went into trances."

Charles B. Bridges knew little else than hard manual labor from the time he was six years of age to the age of twenty-six. When about nine years old he was placed in school, traversing a foot-path through the woods to a primitive log house where only such text-books as the old Columbia speller, Guthrie's arithmetic and the Bible were used. His schooling did not amount to six months in all. He was nineteen years old when his father died. He practically took charge of the farm, managed it and handled stock successfully, selling some of his own property to satisfy his father's creditors. In dividing the farm of one hundred acres, forty of it fell to the subject. He began supporting the family by raising hogs for market, and making a good crop the first year. The following fall he accepted an offer of ten dollars per month, to go to Richmond, Virginia, and drive hogs. He made the trip thither on foot, a very trying journey. He made another crop the following year and in the fall hired to drive hogs to Sumpterville, South Carolina. He continued farming and trading in stock and in time he accumulated some property; however, he had many discouragements for fifteen years after he began life for himself. Borrowing nine hundred dollars, he bought a number of horses and drove them to Alabama where he sold them. Later he took a drove of horses and mules to Georgia, meeting with adverse luck, such as getting hold of a large amount of counterfeit money.

After making a number of trips to the South and trading extensively in stock at home, he had, by 1829, accumulated enough to establish a home of his own, and while cradling wheat he first saw Rachael Lockridge, a farmer's daughter who was carrying water to the reapers, and after a short courtship they were married on October 28, 1830. She was the daughter of Robert Lockridge. who then lived about six miles north of Mount Sterling, Kentucky. Mr. Bridges had purchased a seventy-five-acre farm near there, and the young couple went to live there in an "old log cabin." Their first child. Robert, was born October 17, 1831; William was born in September, 1833. Mr. Bridges sold his farm for thirty dollars per acre, a large price for that time, and upon surveying the place it was found that the boundaries contained about nine acres more than the original estimate. The following spring he and his brother. Willis, made a trip to Indiana, which was then practically a wilderness, but little of the land being under cultivation and the inhabitants poor. They went to Montgomery County and as far as Lafayette in Tippecanoe County, only a few houses then marking the site of the last named city. After refusing to buy land very cheaply where the city of Crawfordsville now stands, they purchased a tract near Parkersburg. They could have bought land at a very low figure now covered by a part of Indianapolis. They returned home and moved to the new country- the following fall and here started life again in true pioneer fashion, leaving Kentucky September 15, 1834, and notwithstanding the subsequent hardships and privations, they never regretted making the change.

The trip required twelve days to Montgomerty, Indiana, and they began clearing their wilderness land, keeping house in a one-room shack. He cleared aliout fifteen acres and planted corn, but the season was a wet one and nothing was raised. In the fall he went to Illinois, whither he had gone about a year previously, but owing to the prevalence of chills and fever did not care to locate there. He later went to Putnam County and bought land in the Foster settlement, selling out in Montgomery County. Here he found conditions much more favorable and soon had a good start, raising a splendid crop of corn. He liked the locality so well he purchased the old Secrist farm of one hundred and sixty acres, for which he paid six dollars per acre, and moved to the place. He improved the land, on which a house had already been built and some fences put up, and a few acres set in blue grass.

About the year 1837 Mr. Bridges and two of his neighbors began the agitation of abolishing whisky at log-rollings and husking-bees, etc., Mr. Bridges having always been a temperate man. Within a short time they appointed a temperance meeting at Blakesburg, inviting several noted speakers from different places; this may be said to be the first temperance movement of this section of the state. He had a fine blue grass farm in a few years and bought stock and kept them on the place and by 1840 had a good start again.

However, those were trying times financially, following the national bank law of 1833, Mr. Bridges had purchased another piece of land, and the panic coming on he offered it for one thousand dollars less than he had paid for it, but could not sell it. In 1843 he purchased the old Myer tract of about one hundred and twenty acres, on which he moved his family and lived there three or four years, then built a new house and barn in 1845. His older boys had become large enough to attend to the place and Mr. Bridges now devoted most of his time to stock trading. In 1847 he purchased the first cookstove ever brought to this community. He dealt extensively in sheep, having as many as one thousand head on the place at one time. By 1851 he had sold all his land but about three hundred acres, and he decided to engage in the mercantile business; so, forming a partnership with Reub Moss, they opened a store at Fincastle, Putnam County, Mr. Bridges leaving his farm to the care of his boys. A year later he bought his partner's interest and after continuing it another year he sold out. He had done well in this line of endeavor, having over four hundred names and twenty thousand dollars on his account book when he closed out. But his patrons were very prompt in paying. A year later he built a store room at the cross roads one-half mile from his residence, afterwards called Cairo, and commenced the business again and sold goods for about two years, his son Milton, who was born in 1835, having acted as clerk. After trading in land until 1861 he bought the store back, taking his son, DeWitt, who was born in 1847, to clerk. The breaking out of the Civil War brought an increase in the price of manufactured goods and almost all commodities and he made money rapidly, continuing in business two and one-half years. He continued to look after his land and in the spring of 1868 purchased a small farm near Bainbridge. having disposed of his other possessions, built a good house and quietly spent the remaining years of his life there.

Nine children were born to Mr. and Mrs. Bridges. Those not mentioned above are, James, born in 1837: Elizabeth, born in 1840: Dulcenia, born in 1845: Amelia, born in 1852, and Rachael. born in 1855.

James Bridges, a worthy son of a worthy sire, lives on the old Stevenson homestead, where he is very successfully engaged in general farming and stock raising. He was educated in the common schools. On November 10, 1859, he married Mary Darnall, who died August 14, 1867, this union having resulted in the birth of the following children, all living: Douglas. Jesse and Thomas. On September 1, 1868. James Bridges married Mary Nelson Stevenson, daughter of Dr. Alexander Campbell and Mary-Jane (Gillespie) Stevenson, and the following children have been born to them: Sarah, Flora, Harriet. Alexandria was born in January, 1871, and died July 19, 1887.

Charles B. Bridges was scrupulously honest in all his dealings with his fellow men; he strictly avoided all coarse and vulgar language, and always had a soft answer with which to turn away wrath. His interest in temperance work continued unabated. He was one of the builders of the Universalist church in Putnam County and was always a liberal supporter of the church, and his children were reared in such a wholesome home atmosphere that they have all become members of the church and worthy of the name they bear.

Mr. Bridges' political affiliation was with the Democratic party, but he was neither bitter nor violent as a partisan. He was loyal to the Union cause.

Honored in life and regretted in death, his name will long remain a fragrant memory to those who knew him. He was fortunate in the selection of a life companion and was much devoted to his wife, it being a great comfort to him that she fully sympathized with him in his religious faith and philanthropic views. She was reared a Presbyterian, but became an avowed believer in Universalism. Rachael Ozier (Lockridge) Bridges was born about five miles northeast of Mount Sterling, Montgomery County, Kentucky, October 13. 1812. Her ancestors were of Scotch-Irish and English extraction, having emigrated to this country at a very early period. Her parents had a hard struggle in the early Kentucky days. Rachael was the second of a family of nine children, two sons and seven daughters. She was reared to work about the homestead, for her father owned a small farm and had to have assistance in making a living for his large family. One of her first duties was to keep watch over the newly sprouted corn, for in the wilderness days of the Blue Grass state farming was rendered doubly hard from the fact that innumerable birds, squirrels, etc., destroyed the crops. When about seven years of age she began attending school in one of those old historic puncheon-floored clapboard-roofed school houses of the pioneer days of the middle West. She learned very rapidly, but her school days were brought abruptly to a close, having attended school less than one year. Her father died when she was young and the family was left in none too favorable circumstances, but by manufacturing almost all their wearing apparel and by hard work they managed to live comfortably. When very young Rachael was put to weaving and doing other like work. She had little opportunity to attend social functions and up to the age of seventeen, when she met Mr. Bridges, she had been absent from home but little. She was a woman of great fortitude, courage, strong-minded, gentle and always deeply concerned regarding the welfare of her children. Her death was triumphant, that of a true Christian, "sustained and soothed by an unfaltering trust" when the final summons came on January 3, 1881.