This article initially appeared in Owen County Journal Nov. 16, 1911 and reprinted Spencer "Evening World" newspaper Feb. 3, 2000. It has been submitted to me by Mike Dean. I felt it was such a great account of the early county days, it needed to be included in the historical section. "We publish below one of the most interesting documents we have ever read. It was written by William Payne, an aged resident of Montgomery Township, on the occasion of his Golden Wedding anniversary which occurred November 2, 1876. Mr. Payne and his wife, who was a Beem, having been married in Spencer on that day in 1826. The cabin in which the ceremony was performed stood on the knoll where the cannons are now located in Riverside Cemetery. Mr Payne says: Our father William Payne, was born in Shelby Co., Kentucky on the 6th day of March 1803. He received but a limited education in the common schools of that day, and was brought up to do farm work. He emigrated to Indiana in the autumn of 1822, being then nineteen years of age. His father, and Valentine Lyon, his brother-in-law, and Mary Lyon his wife came with him. They settled in what was then called the Steele neighborhood in this county, and what is now Montgomery township on the farm known as the home of the Anderson farm which was then an unbroken forest save a "deadening" of fifteen acres. On their arrival they struck camp. Our father Payne selected a site for his house and got his horses in a stock field belonging to John Hudson, while they, the three men, would build a house. A man by the name of George West, and his wife, invited them to come and stay with them while they were building the house, which invitation they accepted. The heart of Mr. West came well-nigh proving larger than his house, however, which was a round log cabin, twelve feet Square, and was situated just south of the road and near the creek east of where the Wesley Chapel now stands. You may imagine they were pretty thick at meal times and at night, as there were eight of them in all. They got everything ready to go to work on Monday, and felled the first tree. Valentine Lyon and father doing the chopping and grandfather the hewing. They scooped and hewed the logs to build a house eighteen by twenty feet; cut one ash tree to make slabs and puncheons and split them out, when grandfather hewed and jointed them for the floor, while Mr Lyon and father felled an oak tree to make boards with which to cover it. Having no saw with which to cut their board timber, they were compelled to chop it off. They then hauled the logs, which was a small job, as they lay close around, then the neighbors were invited to help raise the house. Grandfather then began laying the floor, while the two young men quarried stone and built the "back" and jams, made a wooden arch or mantel-piece, and run up the chimney with what they called "cat and clay", and covered the house and loft with clapboards. They got it all completed and moved into it on Saturday evening of the same week in which they commenced work. After moving into the new house and fixing up, father went to Mr. John Hudson's to look after the horses and stay all night. Mr. Ninian Steele and wife had come to pay Mr. Hudson a visit by staying all night. They sat up late at night talking. Father was rather wakeful during the night, and arousing up a little heard Steele ask Hudson what he thought of the newcomers, when Hudson said: "I don't know much about them, only that they are wonderful workers. I have never seen three men do so much work in so short a time. They are in their house already." Grandfather Payne stayed with them the next week, when he returned to Kentucky, taking all the horses with him except one. During the winter when the weather was favorable, Mr. Lyon and father would grub and pick brush in the "Deadening", and when they could not work at that they would make rails; Father would make two hundred a day. When sugar-making drew near they made troughs, big and little, having brought boilers with them when they moved. Before sugar-making was over log-rolling began, which lasted about twenty days on an average for the first ten years. It was the custom to divide the ground and the hands. They generally had about four companies. During the winter of 1822 and 1823 there were five hundred Indians camped all winter out on Eel river, one and a half miles above Mill Grove. They left in the Spring. Father has written the following: "I worked very hard during the winter and spring, and our fare was pretty rough, it being corn beat in a mortar, the finest of it sifted for meal, out of which we made our bread, while the coarser part we would boil for hominy, and sassafras tea without cream or sugar. We had very little meat except squirrel and turkey. No milk or butter. I became very weak for want of proper nourishment, still I worked on. "As warm weather came on, rattlesnakes and copperheads made their appearance pretty thickly. We killed more or less every day. About this time John Teal, living at the lower falls of Eel river, one warm day saw rattlesnakes coming out of their den (a crevice in the rock) just below the falls, and said he killed enough that day to fill a wagon bed full, and not a very good day for snakes either. "Sometimes during the first part of April, 1823, (probably), my father came back from Kentucky with some horses and cows; then we had plenty of milk and butter, so we began to live better. When father arrived, Valentine and I had our fifteen-acre deadening far advanced in clearing and all the rails made to fence it. We hauled the rails and built the fence, finished the clearing and planted it in corn. When the crop was made my father and myself went back to Kentucky, returning again in the fall with all the family to our new farm in time to strip the blades from our corn stalks from the ear down and cut the tops off. We made plenty of corn and fodder to feed our stock and bread the family. While we boys were saving the fodder, my father went to Crawfordsville and entered the one hundred and fifty-five acres on which we now live. He entered it in my name, intending, however, to give fifty-five acres of it to brother Samuel. It was finally agreed between father and myself that if I would work one year after I became of age that I should have it all. I did so, and on the second day of November, 1824, I received a patent for it, signed by James Monroe, then President of the United States. "In the winter of 1824 my brother Samuel wanted five hundred rails made. I made them for him in two days. He paid me a six months old calf and $1.50 in cash. It was the first money I ever had. "In the winter of the same year I worked one week for Robert Hopkins. We cleared two acres of ground in the green timber, taking down every tree, big and little, made it all ready to roll and burnt the brush. I believe it was the hardest week's work I ever did. I worked the week for a pair of gears. "In the fall of 1824, Thomas Robertson split nine hundred rails in one day, the timber being cut for John Snoddy, for which he received twenty-five cents per hundred. It was considered a big days's work. " I concluded I would try and see what I could do in the way of rail making. So I selected my timber and made my wedges one afternoon. The next Morning just as the sun rose I went to work, and as the sun went down I counted four hundred and thirty-three rails as the result of my day's work. I thought I had done as much as Mr. Robertson. "In 1825, I began to think a good deal of the ladies, especially one that lived in a little brick house close to Spencer between the old grave yard and the river. It was not long until we had to see each other every two weeks, anyway. In visiting my beloved I would leave the road at the lower end of the narrows, just above Spencer, and go down the river to avoid being seen, it being nearly all woods then. " I worked this year for my father for the other fifty-five acres of the tract of land my father entered in my name, which would be $66.25 for the year's work. "In addition I hauled goods from Louisville for James M.H. Allison, as I had been doing the last two years, making from two to four trips during the year, which was worth about $100.00, besides the work I did. I bought a suit of broadcloth of Mr. Allison and took it to Bloomington to be made, there being no tailor then in Owen County. In the Spring of 1826 I agreed with my father to work through the summer for a part of the crops, and also that I should make as many trips to Louisville as I could. I was to have the profits of the last load, which was about $35.00. "In the fall of that year brother Kavanaugh and myself began to build a house on my land. We got out the logs and boards and raised and covered it (the same room in which we ate dinner today). "On the 2nd day of November, 1826, I was married to Amma Beem, who was born in Bourbon county, Kentucky, November 15, 1806, in the brick house before alluded to, by the Rev. Daniel Anderson, of the M.E. church. I gave my groomsman two dollars with which to pay the preacher. Mr Anderson thought it was too much and returned one-half of it. " The day we were married there were five hundred Indians passed through Spencer and by the house where we were. " The next week I went to see a man that was owing my wife, and got some plank with which to lay the floor and make a door-shutter to our house. " I laid the floor down loose and built a chimney to the arch when the time came for me to haul the last load of goods for Allison. I got back on Christmas Eve. "Two or three days afterward myself and wife went to Spencer to get some articles with which to keep house. We got a few cheap articles in the way of cutlery and dishes. Mr Allison generously offered to let us have all the goods we wanted, but seeing no way to pay for them, we declined the offer, thinking it better to do without them than to be in debt for them. "The next day we moved to our new house still unfinished. That evening it began to snow. On the next morning the snow was three feet deep and the wind blowing from the northwest,** and as cold as I ever saw it. I had my horse tied to a sapling ( I had no stable yet) and I really thought he would shake himself to death. "There we were, in a snow storm with the chimney built only to the arch and a door cut out with no shutter. My wife got breakfast, which consisted of cornbread, fat pork and coffee. " Just as breakfast was ready, Valentine Lyon came in and shared our repast, which was placed upon a rough puncheon table less than a common stand table. " That day I made a bedstead with an auger and axe, all the tools I had to work with. When I got it done I covered it with clapboards, upon which my wife made her bed. (I had none). The snow that fell that night lay on the ground all winter, till the last week in February. "I finished our house the best I could and cut logs and built a stable, made rails and chopped all I could. " We lived that winter on corn bread, fat meat and "love", (we had a good supply of the latter article, but not much of the former ones) with a cup of coffee for Sunday morning. About the first of March we began to make sugar and molasses. " In the Spring, my wife's brother, Neeley Beem, kindly offered me all the flax I wanted. I dressed enough to make me summer clothes. My wife spun and wove it into linen. She had to go three miles to the house of a Mrs. Morris to weave it. She would ride three miles, weave five yards and get back in time for supper while I would chop and make rails. I always calculated to make two hundred and fifty rails per day. " In the Spring we had milk and butter. Sometimes I would have to beat our corn in a mortar with a pestle attached to sweep much like the common well-sweep. We could not always get meal when we wanted it. Then we could have hominy and johnny cake, butter and milk. Our spirits were elevated to think we could live so high. " In the Spring of 1827 I rented ten acres of land for corn and cleared three acres at home. I raised plenty of corn to do us. In the fall I sowed it in wheat and raised a fair crop. I deadened and cleared some more land every year, thus adding to my farm. " In those days I cut my wheat with a reap hook or sickle, threshing it by tramping with horses. The cleaning was done by one hand "riddling" it down, while two hands would take a sheet, roll it at either end, and "fan" the chaff out. The first few years I sowed very little wheat; there was no market for it. We could sell a few bushels occasionally to a newcomer at a market we had. "In a few years wind-mills and threshing machines came into use, which we thought a very great improvement. " There is one item I forgot to mention in the proper place. My wife owned eighty acres of land where Daniel Beem now lives, which we sold for $3.50 per acre, which helped us very much in our poverty. " We have raised a family of eight children, one son and seven daughters, and all lived to be grown. Two daughters are dead. "Now in conclusion, I wish to say a few words upon another subject. My wife was a member of the M.E. church at the time of our marriage. I obtained a hope in Christ and united with the church five years afterwards. We both joined the church at Ebenezer, in what is now Taylor township, which was by some accident burned down. In a year or so another house was built about a half-mile distant, which was and is yet called Salem, where our names have been ever since. This fact, together with the one that we still occupy the Same bed room that I built before we were married, would prove that we did not change our minds every time the moon fulled or changed. "With all my privations and hard work, I have always enjoyed good health. I have never kept my bed a whole day in my life, and never called a doctor but one time in my life. I have been regular and steady in my habits, going to bed early and rising early, never running about until twelve or two o'clock at night, as young people do now-a-days; always eating three meals a day regularly. It has ever been my custom to warm my feet well before going to bed. No wonder young men can't stand much now-a-days. "MY first vote for President was in 1824. I voted for John Quincy Adams. I knew but little of political principles, but looked around and saw that the majority of the roughs and drinking men were for Jackson and the Democracy, while a majority of the sober and moral men of the country were Whigs and I wished to be identified with that class. I think the rule will hold good yet. I have never missed a vote. " It occurs to me that there is more corruption in the political parties than there used to be. I mean among the leaders. They must have high salaries to live high, have gold watches and chains, and resort to all manner of corruption and meanness in order to get money with which to get them. I think there are a great many corrupt men in both the Republican and Democratic parties; I believe a great many more in the latter than in the former. If I live until the 7th day of November, 1876, I expect to vote for Hayes and Wheeler.