Paul Minor 

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

To the Editor:

I found scant news about early Clayville, later known as Clayton, in perusing newspapers across Indiana, other than the Terre Haute & Richmond Railroad made stops there beginning in 1852.

There were only 10 homes and 43 residents in 1836.

Z.S. and W.A. Ragan advertised their Clayton Nursery in the Wabash Express of Terre Haute in April 1859. Northeast of town, they cultivated and sold fruit and ornamental trees,vines, shrubbery and flowers. Their catalog included strawberries, gooseberries, currants, grapevines, raspberries, and more.Z.S. was on the Sheep Committee for the seventh Indiana State Fair in 1858. Hogs in great numbers were dying from cholera in Clayton’s vicinity in September

1859. Farmers around Clayton “got up a wood hauling frolic” of 53 loads in a single day in

Clayton, Danville and other towns contributed to the Indiana Sanitary Commission in April 1864. The commission raised funds and supplies for soldiers in the field. I can’t say precisely what Clayton and Danville gave, but the overall collection included a pair of pants, 246 pairs of drawers, 230 handkerchiefs, seven pounds of lint (for wound dressings), 1,416 pounds of dried apples, 90 gallons of pickles, eight pounds of soap, 12 combs and 644 bottles of whiskey.

The day after Lincoln was assassinated, Clayton and area citizens met to express their grief and outrage. Professor Smith of Danville spoke of now-President Andrew Johnson as “having erred and brought upon himself disgrace, but that he had solemnly sworn that he would never touch the vile stuff again.”

The professor must have been referring to Lincoln’s inauguration of March 4 when Johnson, recovering from typhoid fever, had imbibed some whiskey to counter the symptoms, and as a result slurred his words during his vice-presidential inauguration address.

Clayton’s Dr. Thomas Franklin Dryden served as a hospital steward in the 15th Indiana Infantry during the Civil War, acting as assistant surgeon, and surgeon, and “although a little bit radical, is a fine fellow,” the Indianapolis Daily Herald declared in late 1867. He arrived in Clayton in 1866 and practiced there until his death in 1896.

Clayton’s George Woodfill was waylaid in Indianapolis in late November 1869 by three highwaymen who relieved him of $4,700 in cattle money. He offered a $1,000 reward for the recovery of his money and the thieves’ arrest.

Indianapolis Mayor Daniel McCauley received a breathless letter in May 1870 from Clayton’s James Rynerson (Box 30) wherein he offered to heat the entire city and run all the manufacturing using “the fires within the earth.” Rynerson needed $150,000 for the machinery, and $500,000 “or thereabout” for labor. “You may think this is impossible; but nothing is impossible,” Rynerson wrote. “The fire is there!”

Masked men attacked 79-year-old Jesse Mason, a wealthy farmer six miles southwest of Clayton near Cherry Grove in mid-October 1888, but the bravery of his unmarried 35-year-old daughter and teenage son saved him.

A young Stilesville fellow known as an idler had seen Jesse receive cash from the sale of timber and he conspired with another to take it. That night during a downpour they knocked and asked for matches for a lantern and when Jesse turned they opened fire, miraculously missing him, before barging in.

Grabbing a chair, Jesse’s daughter attacked an assailant. He caught her hand and forced it into his mouth, biting down on her fingers. The son then ran in with a double-barrel shotgun, laid it on his sister’s shoulder and fired buckshot, the muzzle but three inches from the man’s face.

His lower jaw blown away, he fell dead. How the sister’s fingers remained intact mystifies me. The confederate, who later confessed, fled into the night. The three Masons, torn over what to do next, dragged the corpse outside before the son ran to alert neighbors. By midnight, horsemen were scouring the area for the other assailant.

Hundreds hurried over muddy roads to the scene and at noon the corpse still lay in the yard. An older man from Stilesville drove up and recognized his son.

Subsequently, a third man was identified as the one who put the other two up to the robbery and attempted murder, gave them whiskey, and was on the scene. He “skipped out for parts unknown.”

Paul Miner Lizton