HURST - Family

Source: Lebanon, Kansas Times Thursday 9 March 1911 p 6

(note there was a huge smudge in the paper – this is very odd as it looks like (large headline) the beginning of an article yet it begins with the word flyin’ – did decide to type it though as it has some great biographical information about various Hoosiers)

Some Observations in Travel by JA Wright – flyin’ and they would be better off without it. For miles the surface is so flat that it actually looks up hill in every direction. After a heavy rain it takes the water several days to get off, for apparently it has to run up hill or soak through. We might say just here in passing through Missouri, we also passed near Coal Camp the place where our recent fellow citizen, the well know auctioneer MA Cole has so recently located. The town of Coal Camp is a couple of miles or so south of the track and we must say is a very fine looking country, so far as the “lay” of the land is concerned. But Mr. M. A. Cole will long to see the beautiful green alfalfa fields of the old home back in Smith county – look wistfully … (am going to jump ahead as rest in Illinois to when the traveler gets to Indiana …. At 3 p.m. February 13^th, arriving at Greencastle Ind seat of the great Asbury (now De Bauw – sic – yes, our own DePauw) university one of the great educational institutions of the country. Founded in the early history of the city as Asbury University, it was, a few years later, by reason of some princely donations, changed to De Pauw. Five miles to the southeast of this the county seat of Putnam County Indiana near a little place called, “Cat” lies the home of birth, where lives relatives on both sides of the house, not by the dozen but by the township Hursts and Wrights by the score, that the younger generation here and elsewhere in the west know nothing of except as they hear it from the older ones -t he generation we might say, now 50 years of age or past.

On the night of the 13^th, we accepted the hospitality of Cousin James Hurst and wife, buggy and carriage dealer of Greencastle and after a brief survey of the old county seat town, the next morning in company of Squire Hurst, we hurry out to the latter’s fine home at “Cat,” known in the postage guide as Mt. Meridian. In the earlier days of 50 years ago, this name “Cat” was an abbreviation of Carthage, later changed to Mt. Meridian. In the hurried travels of a day with Cousin Squire Hurst and his old family driving horse, we observe first, that old Putnam is doing some splendid work on her public highways. Hills are leveled into the hollers and every road of any consequence is graveled and packed fit for the ties and rails of an interurban railway. And by the way, the inter-urban electric lines both in passenger and freight traffic are furnishing such competition to the “steam cars” in Putnam County and the grand old Hoosier state.

Yet we do not fail to observe that the automobile Is not nearly so much in general use among the farmers of Putnam County, Indiana as they are in Smith County, Kansas. Same could be said of Illinois. The Kansas farmer seems to be leading the procession in the motor car circuit. They appear to be just getting ready to start the auto boom among the Hoosier farmers.

In this Hoosier land we are now discussing, a settler of only 35 or 40 years would be called a new comer. The early settlers there date back to nearly a hundred years. So to find the most accurate data of the pioneers there, a visit to the cemetery is necessary. The old family cemetery called “Deer Creek” near which our grandparents settled in 1820 or a little before and there lived and died. “Deer Creek” may have been named for the numerous deer that once came to quench their thirst in its placid waters, but that’s been so long ago that no man now living ever got a shot at them.

However, with Cousin Squire as a guide we visited the old family cemetery where lies the grandparents who first settled that county and whose parents were soldiers in the Revolutionary War under General Washington. Pardon us for here repeating a few tombstone inscriptions giving dates of the life and times of those Indiana pioneers. First the grandparents: Samuel Wright, born Jan 10, 1794 died August 7, 1874. His wife, Jane born March 1797. Died Feb. 24^th, 1883.

Grandfather William Hurst settled in Putnam County about 1818 or 20, died Oct 8^th 1849 age only 53 years, killed by accident, fell over a little wagon in the yard after dark. Fanny his wife, born 1789 died April 20^th, 1873, age 84 years. Jefferson Hurst born March 28^th, 1824 died Sept. 19^th, 1888 age 64 years. His wife Elza Hurst born Febr 15^th, 1824 died Nov. 2, 1879. Levi Hurst born April 15, 1850 died May 7^th, 1900. “Temp” Wright born July 1832, died Nov 26^th, 1854 age 22 years.

Thus by viewing for the first time the early day cemetery of that now old country we are able to get dates of the life and times of our ancestors nowhere else to be found. They were pioneers of that heavily timbered country as we were of this only a little more so. There are some changes in that country besides the new generation now on earth since we left it – not many but few. The same old crooked roads prevail, though in a great measure the old rail “worm” fence has given away to the more modern style of wire. A straight piece of road there, for a mile or a half would be as great a curiosity as a crooked one would be here for a quarter. The blue grass does not seem to grow as big and rank there as it did 40 years ago and the way our Kansas alfalfa meal or hay would sell there would be a caution.

In the two days we lingered, we met very few of the relations. Met Ellis Wright who visited here 30 years ago in his sugar camp near Greencastle stirring off the real sugar tree “lasses” two gallons of which is somewhere on the road now trying to reach yours truly. To those who so kindly extended the courtesies of the day and hour we shall certainly extend the glad hand should opportunity ever offer. To every young man we would say, “Westward the Star to Enpire (?) takes its Way”. Join the big procession. - kbz