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Shelby County |
Home 1915 History Index |
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Shelby County |
Home 1915 History Index |
CHAPTER VIII - REMINISCENCES OF THE PIONEERS (CONT'D)
[Mr. Shorett was for more than thirty years one of the prominent residents of Shelby county. He was prominent in the work and councils of the Democratic party in Shelby county, and for some years was a member of the board of supervisors of the county. He also bought grain and stock at Earling for many years. –EDITOR.]
Replying to your letter of September 15, 1914, will say that I came to Washington township in 1872, and George Crandall, Will Crandall, Al Crandall and six other Crandall families, Harvey Smith, Joseph Thompson, John Holiday, Dave Collins, J. Wade, William Owens and Joseph Tarkington, were the only residents of Washington township. Our market and postoffice was at Dunlap, eighteen miles distant. Later on Harlan became the market and postoffice. The Harlan-Magnolia road ran about a half mile south of the south line of Washington township. I tried blue grass and it did well. George Crandall, Newt Roundy and myself were, I believe, the first to begin to raise good hogs and good cattle. In 1874 Washington township was visited by one of the worst hail storms known to the county, and it took the entire crop. The first settlers in Washington township were Joseph Tarkington, Harvey Smith, Albert Crandall and Ozonder Crandall. I lived on the land which I afterwards bought two years before buying the same. It was on the Mosquito bottom and was a very difficult proposition to get into crop, for the reason that grass would grow on this land as high as a man’s head. In those days Joe Thompson was the only man who had a good house. The rest of us had one-room houses. Land was very cheap, bringing six dollars to ten dollars per acre, and no one had any money to buy any great amount of it. Corn was fifteen to eighteen cents a bushel and we had to haul it eighteen miles. Our horses were small and we only had one team apiece. For a number of years there was only one school house in the township, called the Cradall school house. Everybody was acquainted with everybody else and exchanged work, although they had to go sometimes five miles to get help to do the threshing.
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