James C. Bowen

As printed in 1914

JAMES C. BOWEN, 1814.

Son of the fourth settler, who came on his forty-fifth birthday, October 22, 1814, when James was only a half-grown boy.

"Hunting was splendid, and game plenty in the woods. Deer, turkeys, bears (and wolves) were abundant.

We used to go to mill to Newport, to George Sugart's mill, but oftener to White Water, to Jere Cox's mill. Sugart had a little 'corn-cracker,' run by water-power. The buhr went around no oftener than the wheel did. Sugart would throw in a bushel of corn, and go out and single flax, etc., for an hour or two, and then go in and attend to his grist again. Awful slow! One day a found came in and began licking up the meal as it came in sports from the spout. It did not come fast enough for him and he would look up with a pitiful howl, and then lick for more meal! We boys would go four-- teen miles to mill on horseback. Sometimes we would go with a wagon and take a load, and then it would take two days. Often the settlers had to go over to the Big Miami for provisions. Sometimes two men would join teams and go with four horses, and bring a big load. Once I went with Clark Willcutts' son (we were boys) on horseback to a mill four miles east of Richmond, to get a grist of corn. We each got a sack of corn, took it to Cox's mill, got it ground, and took the meal home. It was twenty miles and took us two days.

Pork was $1.50 a hundred net, and sometimes $1, or even less than that. As late as 1835, when I was justice, I rendered judgment on a debt, and the defendant said he had wheat at Jeremiah Cox's mill, and he could not get I2i/ cents a bushel, in money, to pay the debt. At Newport, Jonathan Unthank sued David Bowles for $5, balance on a store debt. Bowles was angry and declared he would never trade with Unthank any more. To think,' he said, 'that I have traded there so 'much, and he must go and sue me for $5!' Benjamin Thomas (Wayne county) said he had as good wheat as ever grew, and he could not get 12½ cents a bushel, in money, to pay his taxes !

In making 'Quaker Trace,' in 181 7, twenty-five or thirty men started with three wagon-loads of provisions. I went about twenty-five miles (beyond the Mississinewa river) until one wagonload was gone, and then returned with that team."

[Mr. Bowen thinks that Sample's mill, on White river, was the first mill of any importance in the country. He says, also, that Cox's mill had at first a hand bolt, and that four had to be bolted by hand, which was a slow and tedious process.]

[Ephraim Bowen came from Ohio in a big Shaker wagon, with a load of "plunder," and then went back after his family. The patent for his quarter-section was signed by James Madison. E. B. was an intelligent, devoted Methodist, and did much to help plant the foundations of religion in this western wilderness. His dwelling was the "preacher's home," and a preaching station for more than thirty years. The first meeting was held at his house, and the first sermon was preached there also. All the Methodists in the region were there, and others, perhaps thirty persons. The descendants' of E. B. are numerous and widespread. There were at his death seventy grandchildren and many great-grandchildren. E. B. and his family are a fine specimen of the hardy pioneers who subdued these western wilds. Courageous, honest, industrious, devout, intelligent, energetic, upright, enterprising, successful; their labors and achievements have helped the howling wilderness to become the "garden of the Lord," and to cause the "desert to loud and blossom as the rose."]

As printed in Past and present of Randolph County, Indiana : with biographical sketches of representative citizens and genealogical records of many of the old families (1914). See the original pages. Wording is the original; obvious scanning errors have been corrected, and a few may remain.