Extract from Weik's History of Putnam County, Indiana by Jesse W. Weik.
Published by B. F. Bowen & Company, Indianapolis, 1910.

James E. M. O'Hair

From Jesse Weik's History of Putnam County, Indiana we learn more about
James E. M. O'Hair. Part of it is similar to that recorded in the O'Hair
Secretary Book but I will give it to you anyway.

".... The subject (James E. M. O'Hair) of this sketch was the fifth (should
read sixth) child by the second marriage and was born July 5, 1804. In the
year 1812 when he was eight years old, his father died. His mother survived
her husband many years, her death occurring October 1, 1839, and at the home
of her son in Putnam County, six miles from Greencastle. At the age of
fifteen the boy went to live with James Montgomery near Mt. Sterling,
Kentucky, and worked for his board and clothing for five years. During this
time he went to school about three months each winter for four winters,
obtaining thus all the school education he ever received. The schoolhouse
was built of hewed logs with a large fireplace in one end, hav-ing split
saplings with wooden legs for benches and greased paper for windowpanes.

At the age of twenty years, on March 5, 1825 the subject of this sketch was
married to Miss Margaret Montgomery. In a few days thereafter, having
loaded on a pack saddle all their household goods, consisting of two beds,
three plates, two teacups, two knives, two forks, a gourd, a stew kettle and
a skillet, the wife riding another horse and carrying with her all their
wearing apparel and leading the pack-horse, and the husband following on
foot, driving a cow and a colt which his father-in-law had given him, the
young couple started for their new home in the wilds of Estill County,
Kentucky, on the Kentucky river seventy-five miles away. They took two days
for the journey. Arriving at his destination, the young farmer traded one
horse for a claim of about twenty-five acres. This trade left him one mare,
a colt, one cow, a young wife and not a dollar in his pocket. He at once
determined to better his condition and own a large farm. The first year he
cleared five acres of ground. He raised five crops on this place. All the
iron he had for tending these crops was the point of his shovel plow and the
bit in his horse's mouth. After he had raised one crop, his brother-in-law
sold him eleven sows and pigs on credit for thirty dollars. He drove them
home eighteen miles and turned them out on mast in the mountains, feeding
them occasionally to keep them from running wild. That thirty dollars of
debt worried him day and night and he was determined to pay it. In order to
do this he hunted coons on winter nights for their hides, which he sold for
ten dollars, his wife spun yarn, wove cloth and made him an overcoat, which
he concluded to do without in order that he might sell it for twenty dollars
to pay his debt. He now had the thirty dollars he owed his brother-in-law
and walked eighteen miles to pay it. He felt chagrined when on reaching the
latter's house he refused to take the money, saying, "Now, James, I don't
need that money and you do. You take it and buy some calves to take home
with you." He did so, buying ten head, driving them home and turning them
into the canebrakes.

CATCHING A PENITENT THIEF
"The third year our subject lived in the mountains he met with a loss which
led him into an interesting and almost fatal adventure. A young man came to
him for work and he hired the applicant for the season. The second day
after doing so, while he was away in the mountains looking after his hogs,
the hired man stole the only suit of clothes he had, ten coon skins, seven
dollars in money and his canoe and put off down the river. On returning
home at night he learned from his wife what had happened and immediately
determined to catch the thief. He borrowed a canoe of his nearest neigh-bor
and started down the river for that purpose. Several miles below, a large
rock lay in the middle of the river with a swift current flowing on each
side of it. On this rock his canoe lodged in such a manner that he could
not get it off. He got out of his boat and managed to get a solid footing
but having carefully viewed the situation he gave up all hope of ever
getting away alive and commenced to pray. After praying for sometime, he
concluded the forced prayer could not avail much. So he quit praying and
plunging into the icy water, swam ashore. He went to the nearest house and
dried his clothing. At daylight he set out, this time on foot down the
riverbank in search of his man. Four or five miles below he found his canoe
tied to the bank bottom up and knew from that circumstance and from the
swift current in the river that the thief had also been capsized and lost
all the stolen goods. He went to the nearest house and found the man drying
his clothes. He took the refugee in charge and start-ed back on foot.
Thinking the matter over, be concluded to give his captive the choice of a
whipping or a trip to the penitentiary. The man chose the whipping. He
accordingly tied him to a tree, cut a good switch and began on him. He
whipped awhile, then talked, telling the culprit that the whipping was for
his good. He repeated the castigation till they were both worn out. Then
he turned the malefactor loose and gave him some good advice. As the hat of
the unfortunate evildoer had been lost in the river he gave him his own and
went home bareheaded. Twenty years later he met this man in an adjoining
state, with an interesting family around him, well to do and respected by
all his neighbors. The whipping was not referred to by either party; but it
is not at all improbable that the timely whipping with its accompanying
advice made a man of the unlucky thief.

GANDER-PULLING
"After raising five crops, James Montgomery O'Hair concluded that the
mountains had no further attraction for him and in the fall of 1829 he
rounded up his hogs which he had increased to one hundred seven head, and
his calves, which had grown to be good sized steers, and sold the entire
lot, together with twenty acres of standing corn in the field, for five
hundred dollars. His father-in-law, James Montgomery had decided to
emigrate to Indiana and he had selected Illinois for his future home. He
hired a man to move him and he himself walked behind the wagon, driving
three cows. He arrived in Illinois about the 10th of October 1829. He had
sent his wife and two children with her father to Indiana. He entered one
hundred fifty-six acres of land six miles south of Paris, sowed four acres
of wheat and commenced to build a cabin. When Sunday came he found there
was not a church or school house nearer than six miles. He began to look
about and see what class of people he was to make his home and rear his
children with and found them congregated on Sunday at shooting matches,
horse races and gander-pullings. They would take an old gander, tie his
feet to the limb of a tree, soap his head and neck, then go back fifty yards
and ride as fast as their horses could run under the gander and catch him by
the head; whoever pulled the head off received the gander as a prize. Men
were pulled off of their horses oftener than heads were pulled off of the
ganders. As the young farmer from Kentucky had been taught to respect the
Sabbath and was a member of the Methodist church, he could not think of
rearing his children in such a community. So he concluded to find a better
neighborhood.

"About the last of October he came over to Indiana after his wife and
children. The first Sunday following his arrival he attended church in a
log schoolhouse.... After consulting his wife and comparing these men and
the land about with the people and land in Illinois, where he had a claim he
concluded to sell out and locate in Indiana. Mr. _______ his
brother-in-law, proposed to sell him eighty acres of his land for two
hundred dollars and then give him an additional eighty-acre tract adjoining
it, he accepted the proposition. These one hundred and sixty acres form a
part of his present home farm six miles from Greencastle. Immediately after
the purchase he left for Illinois and moved all his household goods on a
packsaddle, arriving at his new Indiana farm the latter part of October
1829.

CLEARING LAND
"The first thing was to build him a log house in about the thickest woods he
had ever seen. By spring he was ready to move into the cabin. He at once
went to work deadening timber, rolling logs and burning brush by night. The
first spring he succeeded in clearing three acres, among the stumps of
which, planting in June, he raised a good crop of corn. The second year he
cleared ten acres. After cutting all the timber down and trimming it ready
for rolling he called in his neighbors and thirty of them came to help him.
The next day he and his thirty assistants went to another neighbor and
helped him, and so on from clearing to clearing. And so from year to year
the sturdy early settlers toiled until they finally succeeded in clearing
and fencing their farms. James Montgomery O'Hair says that off of the farm
on which he settled when he came to Putnam County be has sold twelve
thousand dollars worth of walnut and poplar timber and he is satisfied that
he destroyed and made into rails an amount that if it were standing today
(1910) would be valued at not less than twenty-thousand dollars.

"The early settlers were all poor and dependent upon selling what little
they had to spare to newcomers into the county. At one time at a Fourth of
July celebration they were very much discouraged by the Judge declaring that
the country would soon be filled up with inhabitants and they would have no
one to whom they could sell their surplus; but as the country became settled
their markets opened and the Judge's problem was solved.

"The first church in the neighborhood was built of logs. The prominent
contributors to the erection of this building were the subject of this
sketch, his father-in-law and others in the neighborhood. Not having any
money to donate, the first mentioned on the above list subscribed a cow
which was sold for eight dollars, the money thus obtained being used in the
construction of the church. The inhabitants attended church by families in
wagons drawn by oxen some of the men walking and leading the oxen.

"In due course of time James Montgomery O'Hair began to accumulate some
money and ere long had bought forty acres of land adjoining his home farm
for one hundred dollars. His next purchase was eighty acres for five
hundred dollars. And as he could spare the money he kept adding to his farm
until he had increased it to five hundred and fifty acres; this was in the
year 1847. He had always made it a rule never to buy land until he could
make a partial payment and see his way to pay the balance, giving his note
for deferred payments; and he never failed to meet the notes when due. He
was never asked to give an endorser or make a mortgage.

"..... Mr. O'Hair has assisted his eight Sons in buying more than three
thousand acres of land, though all the money for this purpose or for any
other purpose advanced to them has, with the exception of eight hundred
dollars each, been returned to him. He preferred to let them pay for their
own homes that they might better appreciate them. He attributes his
financial success largely to keeping out of debt and avoiding speculation
and has tried to impress the same rule of life upon his sons."