Paul Minor

Delving Into Yester~Year

Local historian and writer Paul Miner uses items from The Republican’s Yester- Year column to develop an interesting, informative and often humorous article.

Hogs, Cattle, Horses & Fowl!

To the Editor: Mid-February 1896, The Republican reported Danville Town Board’s “opinion” that cement walks were to be extended into the residential area.

Walks were graveled then. Earlier, there were planks. Before that, townsfolk shared dirt streets with horses, cattle, hogs in from the woods, and assorted fowl.

Danville’s streets were “in worse condition than for many years” in August 1882. Street gravel was thick with “large boulders” that were “ruinous” to carriages and “troublesome” to loaded teams.

As Dear Editor knows, Danville also had longstanding cow problems. Although “justly renowned for the artistic taste and cleanly manner” of its private lawns (door-yards) and “beautifully shaded” streets, those bovines were more than a thorn.

“The depredations of marauding herds of cows” reported in November 1881 “were playing sad havoc” on young shade trees all over the county seat. A long-necked heifer with outstretched tongue can denude a young tree and snap the trunk in short order.

“Cows at large are a nuisance, and should be abated,” The Republican declared. “At large” denotes “a criminal or dangerous animal.”

Brownsburg’s scourge in Spring 1886 was roving cob rollers. “Oh the hog, the beautiful hog, curling his tail as he watches the dog,” the complaining correspondent rhymed, “defying the law for his bread and his meat, roaming at large through every street, hunting, grunting, nosing around, till the open front gate is soon to be found.”

The town board and marshal were derelict, I gather, in enforcing a porcine predator ordinance. Horses roamed freely as well.

Late one night in April 1883, a group of “’Wolverines,’ ‘Algerines,’ or some other specimen of the genus homo,” stormed Danville, disturbing the town’s peace and slumber. Witnesses said the bunch came from the county’s north, “probably from Pittsboro.”

Identities unknown, “their conduct was entirely unjustifiable and they should have been arrested and severely fined.

“Such ‘whoop-‘em-up-‘Liza-Jane’ carryings-on may suit the inhabitants of some places,” but Danville preferred more sedate behavior, secure in knowing “the omnipresent Town Marshal” was protecting them from “the wild yells of escaped Indians.” What role did Danville’s town marshal play? In 1888, the marshal kept the street lamps “bright and clean,” and watched for needed street improvements.

The Republican said the town depended on him to see that alleys were kept clear of garbage. In March 1885, town fathers told the marshal “to see that all ashes and filth at once be removed from the streets and alleys of our town.”

Three years earlier, certain areas “on almost every street” were considered “fever producers and pestilence breeders of the worst sort.”

The marshal was responsible to “strictly enforce the health ordinance (and) suppress the hoodlums.”

He was to watch for “midnight liaisons . . . hustle the female night-hawks . . . impound the nocturnal cow (and) keep a sharp lookout for something to do.” Did he patrol on foot, horseback or a town-provided horse and buggy? The marshal also was to show “the city dads” that the town government could not run without money. There was more to that “coveted prize” elected office. He worked “convicted malefactors so as to make the rascals pay for their keeping.”

The marshal was to provide “faithful service” to keep “solid” with the citizens, and “use every available means toward capturing the gang of thieves and burglars that infest the town.”

I read he was responsible for new sidewalks and street grading, clearing fallen trees and serving warrants, weed control, ensuring children threw no balls in the street or used slingshots, collaring shoplifters, arresting a variety of perpetrators, hauling off drunkards, quieting late-night serenaders, helping fight fires, cemetery maintenance, tree trimming and post office crowd control. I don’t know whether the marshal packed a firearm, but one carried a club. He was credited with “quelling the drunken and riotous element, which at one time held undisputed and undisturbed sway in the town.” He had “done much to tone up and quiet the drunken rowdies from the country,” protected families “from insult” and property from the “despoiling hands of lawless marauders” back when the Square was “a place of terror to women and children.”

The marshal was Danville’s crime fighter, public works boss, vice cop, fiscal advisor, morality police, trash czar, animal control department and detective.

Paul Miner Lizton