In the latter decades of the 1800s, A. W. Kingsley contributed articles to the Vevay newspaper on a very irregular basis. In the issue of Nov. 15, 1888, he gave one about rafting by pioneers to reach the west. But it also became a story of the history of his family's decision to come to Indiana and terrible conditions they faced in the early years.
“RAFTING” IN PIONEER TIMES.
The Journal noted, with perhaps a little surprise that William Smith recommended rafting down the Ohio River to his brother Silas, should he determine to come to Indiana. Well, Silas did come; and, later, two of his grandsons became distinguished journalists, publishing the Vevay Reveille for years, while one of them F. J. Waldo is now publishing the Rising Son Recorder, and the other Silas is a successful merchant in Vevay. A history of a real rafting experience, two years later than the date of that letter, may strike all who read it, even at this late date, with a feeling of deep sorrow for the sufferers by that experience. And, that the reader may judge whether, with that sorrow, a feeling of censure should not accompany it— censure for them, that they should leave comfortable homes, with all their attendants, for such far away, great uncertainties—the previous history, in a few words, of the participants in that ratting may not be improper be for a proceeding to the details of those terrible scenes.
My father, Silas Sabin Kingsley, was born in Rutland county, Vermont, on Oct 29, 1786, and raised by a Mrs. Jones until of age. In his early teens he developed the strength of an ordinary man and about doubling that at manhood; while during all that growing not a drop of sweat was ever seen on his person, until one of the hottest days ever known in New England, when, in the evening, Mrs. Jones, in reply to a neighbor, who spoke of the great best of the clay, said: “Yes, I know it has been a very hot day because I saw a wet streak on Sabin’s back as long as my finger”
After a few years in laying up some money, he found himself in Erie county, New York. He bought of the Holland Purchase Company, 100 acres of land, located on Eighteen Mile creek twenty wiles from Buffalo. An impediment in his speech kept him out of the army of 1812, yet, when a rumor came that the British were preparing to cross over to Black Rock, he volunteered to aid in the defense of that place, and, while there, saw the magazine explode which killed General Brook.
His land joined Samuel Abbott’s, whose daughter, Betsy he married soon after the war. Grandfather Abbott was in the army that was cut to pieces and scattered at the burning of Buffalo, and was wounded in the breast, the bullet lodging within a half inch of his heart. In attempting to make his way through the woods to the road that led out to his home, and to escape the British Indians, he met three friendly ones, who upon learning his condition, carried him, by turns, two miles, to the road, when he was fortunate in being over taken by a neighbor, who helped him home. By his superior strength end energy, father soon had a large improvement on his land, and comfortable cabin, all before his marriage. My elder sister and I were born in that cabin, while our parents had come to realize the blessedness of that home; nor until the faded summer of 1815 did they think of aught else but its being their future and constant home. But neighbors who had sought the “Eldorado” of their hopes in the far off “Injiany” wrote back such glowing accounts of that “promised land” that grandfather and father determined to leave their new and pleasant home for the ‘Hoosier land,” but against mother’s tearful protest father, mother, brothers, sister, all bound to go to the then “far West,” yet mother cleaved to her home, and begged father to stay. But, no; and in consequence of that “no,” there followed floods of tears, terrible sufferings, death after death, and year of poverty, with untellable sorrows.
Father sold his farm to his brother, who was to pay him $800 and the balance of the purchase money, but uncle soon died, and the land went back to the company, while father never received one cent. In October they, or “we,” perhaps, all wended our way to "Olean Point,” on the Allegheny river, where they built a family boat. But delayed by low waters, Pittsburg was not reached until the middle of November. Then the ice was running in such quantities that it was deemed unsafe unless the boat was lashed to a raft—and finally to save it from certain destruction, it was taken to pieces, and rebuilt on the raft.
And there soon began a scene that no pen can picture — no mind conceive — the anguish of the women of that company, while the silent sufferings of the men, whose superhuman efforts were required all those weeks to save their all from being crushed to death by the ice, or sunk beneath it, was only known to themselves. For six weeks that struggle went on, while the ice, piling itself cake upon cake climbed upon the raft in such quantities as to require all the energies of the men, day and night, to keep it from burying the raft beneath its weight. That struggle barely let up ere they landed at Cincinnati, on the first day of January, 1819. Many times they were in speaking distance of settlers, who expressed great solicitude for them, and proffered assistance, were it possible, while it was certain death to attempt to approach or leave the raft. They did succeed in touching shore at Limestone. Sickness had already come upon them, and there grandfather and father attempted to lead Noah Knapp, mother’s brother-in-law, on a plank walk to shore to see a doctor, but the ice surged so as to throw them all-into the water—the sick man up to his neck. They were rescued, the sick man returned to his bed and the doctor came.
Those terrible scenes and sufferings were indelibly fixed in mother’s mind in all the after years, and while relating them—always trembling and in tears—would declare that during those fall weeks of a seeming death struggle of the men with the ice in the middle of the river, away from all possible human aid. She had come to believe that they were doomed to an inevitable destruction and when she retired it was only to spend a s1eepless night, expecting every moment to hear that the men were overpowered and the raft was going down under the ice. After arriving at Cincinnati, the ice let up–so the emigrants left the raft and proceeded on their way to Vevay, where they arrived on the 6th of January.
Then, after those terrible mental agonies in all that six weeks of ice-bound travel there began their counterpart, in physical suffering on land —the land of promise so graphically pictured to them, a few months before, while in their comfortable homes in Holland Purchase. Only three months had passed since all was health and comfort there; but in those months, more than a life time of mental suffering usually allotted to man, had they endured, yet so soon was physical suffering also to follow In a few days one of their number was laid in his grave, to be followed in four years by five others, including grandfather and grandmother, within three weeks of each other, while in all that general suffering, in the extremes of destitution, hungry and sickness, not one escaped the effects of them malaria that then prevailed in this country.
I have a vivid recollection, when, less than five years old, I saw father and mother on a very poor bed, unable to help themselves, a baby brother in his coffin, while sister and I were only able to be around between “shakes,’ with not one mouthful of anything to eat in the house, excepting what kind neighbors brought when they came to care for us. (Of those neighbors father and mother ever after spoke in a spirit of deepest gratitude, and impressed on our minds a reverential love for them.) As years passed, and father was enabled to enjoy a comfortable competence he then showed that he had not forgotten the days of want, but I responded to the wants of others with the like open hand that was extended to him; and by precept, as well as example, he grafted the same spirit into the hearts of his children.
Now, right here, is it not proper to inquire whether it is not in keeping with the attributes of God to punish, with the afflictions our family endured in the wilds of Indiana, for a spirit of ingratitude to Him who enabled them to acquire those comfortable homes in New York, and then forsaking them for such uncertainties —for only a vain hope of greater gains in Indiana. That home was ever on our dear mother’s mind, and, while calling to memory and talking about it to us children, she left the impression on our minds that in all those afflictions there was the frowning face of Providence for leaving those comfortable homes. Mrs. Ruth Northern, of Lawrenceburg; Edward Abbott, of this city, and the writer are the only living ones of that rafting experience,
Rafting was a common mode of locomotion to all parts of the country bordering on the Ohio river in these pioneer times. A teacher of a school of those primitive times, being struck by the peculiar dialect of a little girl inquired: “Where were you brought up?“ when came, “I weren’t brought up at all. I was fetched down on a raft.”
A. S. KINGSLEY.
