Printer's Devil

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How Wild Was It?
Although it is, perhaps, easy to imagine a romantic version of what Henry County might have been like to those who first settled here, it is probably more fitting to take a more realistic stance: the winters here are harsh and it was remote; much like today, summer is not only hot, but humid. The county was lush - rolling prairies skirted by woodlands, which along the banks of the Grand River a person could find and gather wild honey. But travelers had to be weary of wolves – especially at night. Most kept a high fire burning when they stopped their travel out in the open; at the whim of the Grand River’s waters, travel could be delayed for days if they rose out of the banks. Despite such things, in the Spring of 1830 the first log cabin was built in Windsor by Thomas Arbuckle, although there were a few settlers in the area as early as 1826.
Native Americans, mainly the Osage and Shawnee were the original inhabitants, but no friction between them and the settlers has been recorded. In 1833, Bison herds were not more than a few days ride westward. Yet what the county offered in bounty, it also offered in challenges in those early years. “The conveniences in those days were few and far between,” says the History of Henry County (88). Most of the early settlers relied on their skill as a hunter to eat, but also for another purpose: currency. Beeswax, wild game, honey, and skins of all manner were frequently traded because silver was hard to come by. Deer, elk and even bear could be found in these parts. And panthers. Which brings us to this story…
In December of 1833 in Honey Creek Township (in between Clinton and Urich), Ezekiel Blevins had a son who was the first child born in the county to a settler: Robert P. Blevins. Ezekiel would die in 1864 in Johnson County in the Civil War, but Robert would live his entire life in Henry County, marry a woman named Nancy Crockett and die in 1889; Nancy would die in 1898. One of their children, born in 1855, was Jonathan Blevins. But young R.P. Blevins might not have lived much past 1833 such were the conditions of pioneering life.
Most areas of the county were still untamed in many respects in the 1830s. Although some fields had been plowed, modest log homes erected, and homestead plots developed, in the early years of Henry County the biggest urban development that had come to pass was that the square in Clinton had been laid out and a modest brick courthouse built – but that was miles from any of the other centers of human habitation and did not come to pass until 1837. As mentioned above, it is easy to be romantic about the conditions present in the county, but for the most part life remained hard and a day-to-day challenge for the folks living here. They were constantly reminded of their small place in the scheme of things by Mother Nature. In fact, one of the first recorded deaths in the county occurred north of Windsor and was from a lightning strike.
Notwithstanding weather phenomenon, the creatures that inhabited the timbered woodlands and valleys along the creeks, streams, and Grand River were often not friendly to settler incursions, either. As also mentioned above, wolves were a significant worry, but so were the big cats that the settlers found themselves in the presence of.
When Robert was a baby, his mother was working a patch of garden – the cabin was not quite finished (partially roofed) and little R.P. was asleep on a pallet on the floor. Almost unnoticed, a panther had crept up to the cabin and climbed up to the roof with designs on preying on the sleeping baby. The mother hastened back to the cabin and having only a hoe in hand, rushed at the panther – which was trying to reach through the gaps in the logs and scurry away with its find: as the panther was extending its paw again, she swung the hoe at it and severed the claws. Ezekiel and his neighbors later tracked the animal until they found it and killed it. That is what real pioneering life was like – dangerous.
So, how wild was it in Henry County in the early days? Very wild, indeed.