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JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY , THE POET AS FLYING ISLANDS OF THE NIGHT HOME

JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY
THE POET AS FLYING ISLANDS OF THE NIGHT
by Thomas Earl Williams with primary illustrations by Katherine Kuonen and the great assistance of Robert Tinsley with Riley artifacts, Copyright, 1997, Thomas Earl Williams

Part 5

RILEY AS JUCKLET

HOW CAN RILEY SURVIVE IT ALL?
JUCKLET, A MINSTREL WHO
ANSWERS THE CALL WITH
MISCHIEF IN MIND

68 • THE POET AS FLYING ISLANDS OF THE NIGHT

HOW CAN RILEY SURVIVE IT ALL? -

JUCKLET, A MINSTREL WHO ANSWERS THE CALL
WITH MISCHIEF IN MIND

Among the play characters Riley sees himself playing in his autobio­graphical "The Flying Islands of the Night," is Jucklet, the mischievous "jongleur," dialect singer, story teller and Riley's survival self. It would be a grave mistake to consider this Riley "self' as some sort of happy idiot. Jucklet kept his eyes open and his genius was searching out American life.

Jucklet was probably the role that people enjoyed the most about Riley. Some of his clever shenanigans, such as his "blind painter" act when he was wanderin^g, around Indiana as an itinerant house and sign painter, are firmly lodged in American folklore.

THE BLIND PAINTER
PRANK

The "blind painter" prank occurred in August,

1872 with his traveling

- friends-           also       itinerant

craftsmen or vagrants call­ing themselves "The Graphics" - who knew of Riley's genius for mimicry. The group decided to have

some fun with the town An illustration of Riley's "blind painter^.' hoax at Peru. Indiana with folk folk of Peru, Indiana. The in the background wondering how Riley could paint the sign being blind.

Illustrator. RJ. Campbell.

young men hinted around

town that a "blind sign painter" was outside trying to paint a sign on a build­ing. Soon half the town came out to witness. How could a blind man paint a sign? Riley assumed the patient, weary look of a blind man, groping about and upsetting a can of paint, whereupon his associates jeered him and made terrible fun of him. Then another would say, "Look at that poor blind man. Isn't it a shame the way folks make fun of him!" In the meantime, Riley climbed the ladder, fumbled for a few minutes, and, at last, without laying out the letters, as a sign painter customarily did, he produced a beautifully done free-hand sign on the side of the building while his friends laughed and poked each other below. In the meantime, people chirped, "He isn't blind!

—IUCKLET • 69

How could he do that if he were blind!" while the Graphics solemnly insist­ed, "Oh, yes he is!" This Riley, the "blind sign painter," was classic Jucklet.

candles to look through a window into the dark cellar. They saw that the cel­lar door was locked with chains from the inside. When they went back into the dry goods store, the merchant scratched his head and rocked on his heels and said he didn't know how anyone could get down there in the first place. Then, from next door in the hardware store, they heard James Whitcomb Riley and John Hoover laughing hysterically and holding their sides. Upon further investigation they found Riley holding a hose the other end of which went through an iron grating and down into the cellar. The voice from the cellar door came from the lips of James Whitcomb Riley in the hardware store through the hose. Jucklet was just having some fun.

TAKE RADWAY'S READY RELIEF PRANK

I should add that Riley himself was not simply pranking playing Jucklet, he was also surviving in the character role. Sometimes the two mixed. There is a story of Jucklet, while a young man traveling through the countryside painting signs. On a new gate between Kennard and New Castle, Riley noticed a farmer had displayed on its top board: "What will you do to be saved?" With no one in sight, Riley painted underneath it, "Take Radway's

70 • THE POET AS FLYING ISLANDS OF THE NIGHT

Ready Relief!" This was a common laxative of the time. Some days later, he passed the same farm and on the bottom board the farmer had added, "And prepare to meet thy God!"

Jucklet was also a poet. His greatest writing is found in the "Poetical Gymnastics" series and "Respectably Declined Papers of the Buzz Club" series published originally in the Indianapolis Saturday HERALD. This body of Riley's work represents Riley in unburdened creativity and mis­chievous orientation. In these great series, Riley writes the poem "On Quitting California." No, this poem is not about moving away from the great Pacific coastal state. It is about giving up a "California" brand of cheap "red­eye" whiskey. Riley is quitting a crummy brand -not giving up alcohol entirely.

Cleverness and humor are marks of Jucklet. Jucklet is the usual story teller. There seems to be an easy, casual and honest relationship between Riley and Jucklet.

Occasionally one finds Jucklet lapsing into the "dots" and "disses" of his native Hoosier Deutsch culture. Here is one of Riley's stories from his "Buzz Club" writings.

UNAWANGAWAWA;

OR, THE EYELASH OF THE LIGHTNING (1878).

/t was the noble red man, from the land of the setting sun, in company with some half dozen members of his tribe, under management of "Captain lergby Knowles," who, as the big bills went on to state, had been "nine years a captive among the wild untutored wanderers of the western wilder­ness," and was now "a missionary, disseminat­ing knowledge, and the advantages of educa­tion, to his dusky brothers, as well as enlighten­ing the civilized world regarding the manners. and customs of the poor Indian."

They were billed to show `for one night only," at the one church in our little village, the Thursday evening prayer meeting having been postponed for their accommodation, and "the

clergy" complimented I shall never forget their visit to our school that afternoon, for I was then a lad of ten orthereabout^• so I leave you to infer

Unawangawawa

JUCKLET • 7 1

the aching sense of my own inferiority as they stalked stoically into the school room, in full bloom of war-paint, wampum, bead moccasins and .feathers, and headed by the redoubtable "Captain Rigby Knowles" himself, looking, for the world like an enlarged facsimile of the "Daniel Boone" in Monteith 's geography, only excepting the melancholy and the deceased deer at his feet.

The arithmetic class, in fractions; hurried to its seat, and the silence of death fell upon the room, while the blanched faces of the "scholars" con­trasted vividly with those of their tawny visitors as "the limed interpreter and guide," after a wheezy conversation with the teacher, in which the lat­ter only nodded his head submissively at ever^.), proposition - seized sudden­ly hold of a stalwart warrior, and with the bloodcurdling remark of "Pombee steel-ah da be-bee wah-wah!" or words to that effect, wheeled him before us with the following introduction:

"He iss a big chief. He come to make some talk wiss you. He iss a much, heap, smart man. He will make you big Injun speech dot you don't could understand and den we told you w'as he say. He no talk white talk. He on'y talk much very Injun. He talk Choctaw - he talk Mohawk - he talk Chippavay - he talk effry all style ofMinn talk, on 'y he no talk white talk. He iss awful smart! Me talk, like big? chief, effry all style of Injun-talk, on 'y me talk United States also. He iss - 0, he iss awful smart, big, very, posted Injun gentlemans. Now he iss go to .speak big Injun speech, unt den I say it explain, so dot you know wass he say." Then, turning to the big chief, he touched him off with the following fuse: "De ah-ghee-ghah bee-gah wah­way! " at which the chief at once opened fire in deep, lazy guttural, accom­panying the utterance with that facial contortion indicative of an acute attack of cholera morbus. This incoherent mastication had occupied but a brief interval of time when the interpreter jerked the tail of the warrior's shawl, and with a spasmodic "Chow," and a "Ching-clung," he stopped as abruptly as a German musk-box. The interpreter explained.•

"He say dot you must oxcuse him - dot he don't know he was go to speak. He say dot he ain't much fix on the de subjec', but dot he try to drop some small, leedle, few remarks dot come to hiss mind" Then, prodding the big chief between the shoulders with a rigid thumb, the noble red man lumbered (ffagain in a complexity of verbal chow-chow that put the listener's ears on edge, and thrilled the speculative fancy with a nameless dread as the ever-widening stream of conglomerated eloquence dashed into savage meaning, fiercely defined by gestures that swung invisible war-clubs, hurled toma‑

72 • THE POET As FLYING ISLANDS OF THE NIGHT

hawks, and manipulated the gory scalping-knife. And it was sometime before the fearless interpreter could check this impassioned burst. He had jerked at the tail of the warrior's shawl like a school-boy at the string of a limber-jack, and with pretty much the same result. The "scholars" were wild- eyed, and pale with fright. The teacher had one leg thrown careless­ly over the window .rill, and with an air of careless indifference was pruning his trembling nails with the big blade of his knife, while the girls in actual terror hid their pallid faces behind their desk-lids, and pencils and pen­holders rained from their places, some, piercing with their barbed points the floor, stood bolt upright and quivered with affright. It was a critical moment for us all,- but the daring interpreter, with a presence of mind worth a Van Amburg, threw open his blouse, disclosing a magic something lurking in an inner pocket which the savage reached for with a pacified "Ugh.ⁱ give some, me dry up!" while the small boys whispered they bet it was a pistol! They bet he'd killed lots o' Indians! They bet he wasn't afraid!, etc. etc. And so we listened with unusual interest as the interpreter explained.‑

"You mustn't don't get sceert.- he won't hurt noting. He wass on 'y yoost say dot he for /1/o-ell:sl^y sorry dot he don't gone to school when he wass been a leedle children like you. But he say when he was leedle like dot, he roll unt dumble in de grass, unt go mitout hiss clothes, unt kick hiss heels like a jaybird He say dot he not got some advantages ober he would gone to school now off he wass a leedle boy wonce. He was _.yoost told you how he wass a leedle poor Injun boy, unt don't gone to Sunday school. He say when he wass leedle, heap, awful naughty Injun boy he wass one time play mit hiss leedle brutters mit seesters in de big wassei, unt he want to coined out unt dey wont let urn, unt sling urn wiss mud, lint dot make um heap-much-brave, so dot lie kill urn unt scalp urn. Den when he Boned home his folks dey said.-"Where iss your leedle brutters unt seesters?" Unt he say.^• "Dey at de switn­min-hole." Unt when gone to found urn, dey all was scalped unt dead, unt dey hands cut off, unt dey nose cut off, unt dey ears unt eyes cut off. Den hiss folks say.- "Who wass done it?" Unt he say.- "I don't could lied about it,- I do it wins my leedle hatchet!" Unt den his folks dey say.^• "Dot's goot! Dot boy will been on de war-path ober lie been twell moons ofage!" Unt den he say dot make um feel like big warrior, so dot he can't wait, unt got impul­s unt kill also de rest of his fblks, unt gone on de war-path unt kill heap-much of/ad/es unt gentlemens. But he say dot he won't done it now - dot he iss sorry cos off he would a saved his leedle brutters unt seester he would took um to Sunday school wiss um. "Ugh gee bebah wah-wah!" This con‑

JUCKLET • 73

eluding sentence of the interpreter, abruptly addressed to the warrior, evi­dently conveyed to him instructions to simmer down, and close his perora­tion in some conciliatory and complimentary fashion, for the noble savage smiled like a genial hippopotamus, and thumped his breast like a bass drum.

His remarks now seemed to he particularly addressed to the fairer por tion of his audience, and his gesticulation at was so palpably indicative of love and affection the big girls blushed and giggled, and the small boys whistled aloud Only once did he cause a tremor of trepidation to thrill the bosoms of his gentle auditors, when in a triumphant burst he tossed his arms aloft, an, with a glory of inspiration lighting up his dusky features, gave vent to the impassioned utterance, "Shoot-pop-hang!" and then, shortly after, he drew his shawl tightly about him, slapped his chest so vehemently it jarred a leather _.from his head-gear, and, with the pompous exclamation, "Me big chief, wah!" he jaded his arms, and stood stoical and silent.

The interpreter, quivering with an inward paroxysm, after prefacing the interpretation with the chuckling observation, "Bet you don't know whas he say!" went on in this wise"

"Well he say dot he would like to marry a few o ffyou girls. You notice he hold up hiss hand like dot? Well, dot mean five,^• he say he would like to marry five off you girls You notice he hold up de also both hands? Well, dot mean dot he would have ten wife - off de both kind -_five injun, untfive white squaw. He say he link dot make things lifely off his domestics unt hiss lee­dle quiet wigwam. He say dot offyou marry him he make you all a good husband, lint dot he took you to de land of de setting sun, where you to do nothing - only yoost work. He say he will done all de huntin' hisself, ma dot he will "shoot-pop-bang," like he say, de mussrat unt possum, unt cath um by the tail unt hr r4 um home,^• den all you had to done wars build de lire, unt peel um, unt cook yoost a leedle, unt he will eat um. Den he say he will give you all de rest. He say you will suit de climate - he say it iss so healdy dot you live more as a hundred years old offyou gone wiss him once, unt a tree don't fall on you. He say it iss so healdy out dere dot hiss grandpa iss

yet, unt he iss over 'bur tousand year old, unt ain't a gray hair in his head He say dey also no hair in his head He say he chaw tobacker all hiss life unt don't hurt um. He say he is healdy dot _you wouldn't know um off _YOU see UM He say dot you got in lb/fifteen cent, unt de leedle children 's .five cent tonight at de /nee/Yr?' house."

As Spraivoll's friends are ministers, primarily Myron Reed and Robert Burdette, or fellow kenotics such as Lew Wallace author of "Ben Hur," as

74 ¨ THE POET AS FLYING ISLANDS OF THE NIGHT

Crestillomeem's are fellow alcoholics such as James McClanahan, Clint Hamilton, and Luther Benson, as Krung's friends are establishment figures such as Dr. Wycliffe Smith, Booth Tarkington and Benjamin Harrison, Jucklet's friends are the mischievous and daring nonconformists and "fun­sters" such as John Skinner, Bill Nye and Mark Twain.

Here is an incident that reveals how Riley as Jucklet often mischievous­ly made his way through life before he became famous minstrelizing. The incident is one recalled by Minnie Belle Mitchell.

TRIP TO CHARLOTTESVILLE

"The struggle and disappointments endured by the Hoosier poet in his effort to arouse public interest in his poems would have discouraged fainter hearts. But each succeeding failure made him more determined to carry on. He had for some time been reading his poems at home and church enter­tainments and social gatherings (from his early twenties). Public offerings at first failed com­pletely.

Then another opportunity presented itself when the trustee of the Charlottesville one-room school came to Greenfield and Riley saw his chance to offer a public entertainment there. After Riley explained to the school trustee his plan, the trustee appeared interested. The fellow not only have his consent to the enterprise, but agree to have the schoolhouse warm and lighted and to see that a large audience would greet

him.                                                                  Minie Belle Mitchell (to the left), Thinking this would be fun, Riley and his Greenfield author and Riley biographer

shown in the backyard of her home, now

friend and roommate, John Skinner, prepared a the Riley Museum in Greenfield, Indiana.

variety show with a few guitar numbers and

reading of poetry by Riley.

Charlottesville was eight miles east of Greenfield and the two young men in their twenties, never doubting that a full house would mean a big income, ordered a horse and buggy from Greenfield's liveryman, a Mr. Morgan. The only problem was that the only road to Charlottesville was a toll road at the time. To get there a tollgate had to be passed and neither Riley nor Skinner had any money to get through. When the two reached the tollgate, they got the toll gate keeper to agree to await payment until they returned with their

JUCKLET • 75

receipts from the entertainment.

The two arrived at Charlottesville and went to the schoolhouse but found it dark. Everyone in Charlottesville was in bed. The two drove their team to the trustee's home and found him in bed too. He forgot his promise to broad­cast publicity about the entertainment. He did, however, get up and go open the schoolhouse. About a dozen people were rousted up. The collection to pay for the show at the end of the program amounted to only thirty-five cents. The trustee said he and his family should not have to pay.

The two boys were in a quandary since they had to pay the tollgate keep­er to get home and the liveryman.

When the two reached the tollgate, they found the tollhouse was dark -the tollgate keeper was in bed and the pole across the road was tied down. There was just one thing to do. John Skinner got out and cut the rope and up flew the pole from across the road. Then he got back in and the two flew down the road towards

Greenfield as if chased by ban­dits.

When the two got to the liv­ery stable, Riley found a boy in charge. Riley as Jucklet, ever resourceful, asked the boy if he could change a twenty dollar bill. The boy said "No," and told them young men they would have to pay for the hors­es in the morning when Mr. Morgan was there.

Then the two returned to their

lodgings at the Guyman Inn in Greenfield where they spent their "take" from the entertainment on cheese and crackers sinking behind the potbelly stove in the tavern office. While they were relaxing, there was a great knock­ing on the tavern door, and the irate tollgate keeper came in, fuming and swearing. He asked the night clerk if he had heard a rig pass by the tavern traveling at high speed. The clerk said he didn't remember any such thing and then listened as the tollgate keeper told his tale of somebody running the tollgate and probably driving on to Indianapolis. He said, "I think I know who they were. Two young men looking awful suspicious went through ear­lier and said they would pay on their way back through. They were wearing

The Guyman Inn, an inn on the National Road in Greenfield, Indiana, long since torn down. Riley took a room here after his return from his escapade with Doc McCrillus and his traveling miracle medicine show.

76 • THE POET AS FLYING ISLANDS OF THE NIGHT

white collared shirts and looked like city fellers."

As Riley and Skinner slumped deeper and deeper into their chairs on the other side of the stove, the clerk confirmed that young men like that were probably city "fellers" as the tollgate keeper left."

Getting started as a poet and platform artist was made much easier for Riley because, as Jucklet, he appreciated and enjoyed mischief and the occa­sional humor of the perverse.

There is something to be said that Riley's Jucklet character has the good humor and sense of fun of his Hoosier Deutsch ancestors. Central Indiana is sometimes referred to as the land of the "Hoosier Deutsch." Riley was pre­dominantly of Hoosier Deutsch cultural influence. Riley's father, Reuben, spoke Deutsch in his boyhood home and did not learn to speak English until after his childhood even though he came from Irish roots. Riley's ancestors kept alive many of the old folktales and stories of their lives. Few of these Deutsch tales survive. I myself preserved one in a book called THE WILD BULL OF BLUE RIVER.

The records are very, very scant about the hardy Deutsch settlers of Central Indiana. Their language was once spoken on the street corners of Greenfield. Cultural influences discouraged it. For example, in Riley's own Bradley Methodist Church of Greenfield, Indiana those who spoke German were consigned to the back of the church since it was deemed only the English speaking Methodists could derive benefit of the English sermons. Balconies were built in some such churches so that the Deutsch might see what was going on at the altar since they could not be expected to under­stand the service verbally. The Deutsch language was slowly lost in Indiana until the time of the First World War. In fact Deutsch was made illegal in Greenfield schools by an ordinance of the Greenfield City Council during World War One and was rarely spoken after that.

One of the Deutsch poems was preserved by Riley. It was called -Lullaby," and was published in Riley's famous column in the Indianapolis Saturday HERALD called "Poetical Gymnastics" in 1879. Its subtitle says "From the German." It has never been included in Riley's COMPLETE WORKS apparently because Riley translated it and it was not an original composition. Riley did write another "Lullaby" hut it was not his Hoosier Deutsch translation.

JUCKLET • 77

HOOSIER DEUTSCH LULLABY

Leedle dutch baby haff gome to town!

Jabber and jump al der day goes down,•

Jabber unt schpluter, unt blubber unt phizz

Vot a dutch baby dees lannsman is! I dink dose mow vas leedle too vide Obber you laugh fon dot also-side; Haff got blenty of deemple unt vrown? Hey, leedle dutchman gome to town.

Leedle dutch baby I dink me proud Obber your_, fader can schquall dot loud Ven he vos leedle dutch baby like you, Unt yoost don'd Bare like he always do: Guess ven dey vean id on beer _.you bet Dots der reason he don 'd vean 'd yet -Vot you said off he drink you down, Hey, leedle dutchman gome to town.

Leedle dutch baby, yoost sclzquall avay - Schquall fon breakfast till gisterday• Better you all-time gry unt shoud

Dan schtnile me vonce fon der coffin oud! Volt Bare offyou keek my nose Downside-up, mi t _.^you heels unt toes -Downside-up, or sideup-down

Hey! leedle dutchman game to town.

Riley enjoyed being a Hoosier Deutschman as we can tell from this rec­ollection of one of their poems. The Hoosier Deutsch were a playful, happy people who enjoyed life as well as industry. They were wanderers. Jucklet sprang from predominantly Deutsch culture although not entirely from Deutsch roots.

Andrew A. Riley, Irish grandfather of James Whitcomb Riley, was born in Bedford County, Pennsylvania in^, a Deutsch speaking community. Andrew's parents were Rebecca Harvey, born July 11, 1769 in England who died in Montgomery County, Ohio on Sept. 7, 1849, and James (or John

The kitchen at the Riley britliplace, Greenfield, Indiana, where Riley was born.

78       THE POET AS FLYING ISLANDS OF THE NIGHT

Scene al a Kee-wau-nay village of 1837. Sketch by George Winter. Indiana historians generally find Indian removals from Indiana occurred by tribes with the Delaware leaving in the 1820's as required by the Treaty of St. Mary's or "New Purchase Treaty of 1818," the Potawatomi in the 1830's on the "Trail of Death of 1838," and the Miami in the 1840's mostly from those left in the Ft. Wayne area around 1847.

"William") Riley born 1752 in Torsnagh, Cork, Ireland who died in Bedford, Pennsylvania before 1820. The source of this pedigree is listed in the acknowledgements. James Riley had married Rebecca Harvey about 1775 at Reading Berks, Pennsylvania.

Andrew was the second child. The firstborn was Samuel Riley, born 1790. After Andrew came James Anderson Riley, born 1796 who died in Nov.

1840; Isaac Riley, born about 1800; Henry Riley, born about 1803; George Washington Harvey Riley, born Dec. 19, 1807 who died May 22, 1868; Sarah Riley, born about 1810 in Pennsylvania who married George Roudebush; and Mary Ann Riley, born 1813 who died in 1887.

Andrew's wife, Margaret Slick, was the daughter of John Slick born about 1769, the son of Philip Slick born about 1740 in Germany, and Elizabeth Wilson. Andrew A. Riley and Margaret Slick were married in Bedford, Pennsylvania, but the Family Bible gives no date. It must have been around 1820 since they started West soon after that date. They stopped first near Cincinnati, Ohio and then at Richmond and finally located on a farm a short distance southeast of Windsor in the western part of Randolph county on what was later known as the Joshua Swingley farm, with Andrew remaining there and running a tavern until the time of his death about November 29, 1840. He was also the local justice of peace for Stoney Creek Township until 1837 according to the bond records of the county. The farm was on a knoll along Stoney Creek. Coming to frontier Indiana was a daring family trip. During the 400 mile journey from Pennsylvania, Andrew sold all of his belongings for $30 except a horse, a "car^ry-all" and some clothing. He and his older sons walked while the mother and daughters rode in the wagon. Reuben Riley was one of those sons who walked. He was the fifth in a family of 14 children. During this westward trek, the family lived in the open, building campfires in the woods at night. In the Allegheny foothills, their fare was slight. When they reached Randolph County, Indiana, they were able to find a bounty of food from wild deer, black bear, squirrels, wild

JUCKLET • 7 9

turkey and wild vegetables growing along Stoney Creek.

Andrew and Margaret had the following children: Sarah Ann Riley, born about 1815 who married Tom D. Shepherd; Job Harvey Riley, born about 1816; John Sleek Riley (Dr.) born Dec. 12, 1817; Reuben (the poet's father) born June 2, 1819; Andrew Pinckney Riley, born 1820 who married Elizabeth Cline; James Anderson Riley born about 1821; George Washington Harvey Riley born about 1823 who married Emma C. Nex; Joseph Sleek Riley, born about 1824; Benjamin Frank Riley born about 1826 who married Elizabeth Patterson; and Martin Whitten Riley born about 1828 who married Elizabeth

Dodson.

Andrew's agricultural labor produced large crops and one winter it is said he helped save a tribe of starving Miami Indians by loading their ponies with corn. In another time of scarci­ty, a stockman offered him 75 cents a bushel for his corn, but

he chose to sell it to needy neighbors for 25 cents a bushel. Shortly before his death, Andrew said, "I have never intentionally wronged any man. I have not been vulgar or profane. I have tried to do right. I do not fear to die."

Not all Hoosiers could say the same.

Reuben Riley reached Hancock County, Indiana, within a few scant years of the departure of the last native Americans from Indiana. Many were wrenched away in a horrible episode in Indiana history. The last of the Potawatomi, those who had not accepted "white folks ways" or left before were rounded up and removed by the county militiamen of Indiana called up to state service for that purpose by the Governor in 1838.

These native Americans were forced to take the infamous "Trail of Death" out of Indiana during September of that year.

A militia officer, General Tipton, was placed in charge of the roundup of the Hoosier Indians. Many tried to escape into the woods but were arrest­ed and made prisoners. Indian children were left in the woods by parents in the hope that they, at least, might be able to stay in the native lands if they could survive. Many stories exist of such children being adopted by "white European" families when they were discovered.

No sad story stopped General Tipton. He was not cruel but he knew what

A field cleared for crops with the stumps still in.

80 • THE POET AS FLYING ISLANDS OF THE NIGHT

the Hoosier Governor's orders were and that was to round up the remaining Indians and get them out of the state. Here is an excerpt of one of his writ­ten accounts, "Many of the Indian men were assembled near the chapel when we arrived, and were not permitted to leave camp or separate until matters were amicably settled and they had agreed to give peaceable pos­session of the land sold by them." If Indians had weapons, these were taken away.

Squads of militia fanned out to collect the remnants of the tribes who had refused to move out of Indiana by that time.

By September, Tipton had gathered the last 859 which contained many old people and young. One of the Catholic missionaries, Father Petit, who had lived with the tribes describes his final Christian worship service since he was not permitted to go on the Trail of Death. "At the moment of my departure I assembled all my children to speak to them for the last time. I wept, and my auditors sobbed aloud. It was indeed a heartrending sight, and over our dying mission we prayed for the success of those on their way to the new hunting grounds. We then with one accord say, '0 Virgin, we place our confidence in thee.' It was often interrupted and but few could finish it. After the Indians were sequestered, the soldiers were under orders to burn and destroy the huts and cabins of the Indians to erase temptation to return to Indiana.

When the Indian march order was given on the early morning of September 4th. The weather was very hot and dry. The ordinary sources of water were dried up by then and malaria started infecting the Indians because water supplies were stagnant. The native Americans were marched single file on foot to cross Indiana, Illinois and the Mississippi. Few made it. Even by the time they reached the pioneer settlement at Logansport many died. Their camp there was described as "a scene of desolation; on all sides were the sick and dying." The militiamen too were getting sick and many were permitted to return to their homes. The few Indians with Indian ponies were compelled to give them up for these departing militiamen to return to their families.

On the way through the Wabash Valley, the suffering increased so much that General Tipton relented and allowed the Indians to call for Father Petit to come to them. Despite his own delicate health the good father went and says, "On Sunday, September 16, I came in sight of my poor Christians, marching in a line, and guarded on both sides by soldiers who hastened their steps. A burning sun poured its beams upon them, and they were enveloped

JUCKLET • 8 1

in a thick cloud of dust. After them came the baggage wagons into which were crowded the many sick, the women and chil­dren who were too feeble to walk... Almost all the babies,

exhausted by the heat, were

dead or dying. I baptized sever‑

al newly-born happy little ones,

whose first step was from the

land of exile to heaven." Soon

the militiamen tired of walking

and chose to ride in the baggage

wagons forcing the Indian

women and children out to walk and die all the quicker.

Many stories remain. There is one of a hundred year old Indian woman, the mother of a Chieftain, who pleaded with her tribe to put her to death in Indiana. She knew she had no hopes of surviving a long trek and wished to be buried in the land of her ancestry. The tribe refused the old woman's wish to kill her. She was buried along the trail four days later. Not a single baby made the trip.

The Hoosier people live with the memories of their history. These mem­ories mix with those of the settlers like Andrew Riley who came to Hoosier forests.

There are no records of Andrew's death in the Family Bible and his date of death in 1840 is derived from the records in the Randolph County probate court records of that date. A Dr. Dynes was the attending physician during Andrew Riley's last illness. Dr. Dynes made daily calls for some days prior to November 20, 1840. His itemized claim filed against the estate shows a charge each day up to and including November 19th for a call and medicine left. On the 20th day a charge is made for just the call - no medicine. This was the doctor's last call so Andrew probably didn't need the doctor any­more. Andrew Riley was buried on the farm where he lived.

In the probate court order book of Randolph County, vol. 2, page 139 is this entry:

"Be it remembered that on the fifteenth day of December in the year of our Lord, one thousand eight hundred and forty; letters of administration of all and singular the goods and chattels, rights, credits, monies and effects

Bishop Brute preaching to the Hoosier Potawatomi Indians on September 9. 1838 just prior to their dispatch from Indiana on the "Trail of Death.^- Sketch by George Winter.

82 • THE POET AS FLYING ISLANDS OF THE NIGHT

which were of Andrew Riley late of Randolph County in the State of Indiana, deceased, was granted by George W. Monks, clerk of the probate court in and for said county to Reuben A. Riley,he, the said Reuben A. Riley, having first filed bond in the sum of fifteen hundred dollars with Lewis Remmel and Smoot securities and he was duly affirmed as such administrator."

Reuben Riley's authority to handle his father's estate was later revoked by this entry:

"In the matter of Reuben A, Riley, administrator of the estate of Andrew Riley, deceased. It appearing to the satisfaction of the court, from the affi­davit of Margaret Way, late Margaret Riley, widow and relict of said Andrew Riley, that the said Reuben A. Riley has emigrated to and is now a citizen of Iowa Territory. It is ordered and adjudged by the court that the letters of administration heretofore granted by the clerk of this court to the said Reuben A. Riley, on the estate of said deceased, be and the same are hereby revoked and nulled and made void. Whereon on application of the said Margaret, it is further ordered by the court that administration de bonis non of said estate is hereby committed to Thomas W. Reece, and thereupon said Thomas W. Reece appears in open court and accepts said appointment and files bond in the sum of twelve hundred dollars, with William Dickson and George W. Smithson as his securities."

What became of Margaret?

Margaret (Slick) Riley remained Andrew's widow for only about a year and a half and then in March 1842 she married Thomas Way. Little is known about this arrangement. Eventually Margaret moved from the Windsor neighborhood to Greenfield, Indiana, as a single woman, and lived near her son Reuben Riley until 1868. She died October 3, 1884 at the home of her son Dr. A.J. Riley in Muncie. The funeral notices were sent out under the name of Margaret Riley. The notice read: "Mrs. Margaret Riley was born in Bedford County, Pa. October 23rd, 1793, died at

the home of her son, Dr. A.J. Riley in Muncie, Riley's grandmother. Margaret Riley Indiana, Monday evening, Oct.^, 3rd, 1884, aged (Way). "rouser" of frontier Hoosier

Methodists. (Neg.C7178, IMCPL‑

87 years, 11 months, and 10 days. Her funeral Riley Collection. Indiana Historical Will take place tomorrow, Wednesday, October Society.)

JUCKLET • 83

5th at the grave yard near Windsor, Randolph County, at 2 o'clock P.M. The funeral cortege leaving Muncie at 8 o'clock A.M. The funeral services will be conducted by Rev. F.D. Simpson. The friends of the family are invited." The dates have to be wrong because if correct she died at 90.

The burial places of Andrew and Margaret Riley are in the Clevenger Cemetery about a mile south of Windsor. The exact spots are no longer locatable. The lettering of the stones is mostly erased in this cemetery, veg­etation has overgrown it and most tombstones are broken or at least half-buried. Windsor might well have become the birth home of James Whitcomb Riley. Reuben Riley owned a lot there and was licensed to prac­tice law there in 1842 but Riley's stay was short and he sold his lot in Windsor to Andrew West on August 18, 1842.

After his father's death, Reuben had gone to a prairie village in Iowa, been admitted to the bar there, but

had only achieved a very limited practice. He subsequently returned to Randolph County. He was tall, black eyed and considered to be an eloquent debater.

Reuben Riley became re­acquainted with Elizabeth Marine at a Fourth of July gathering in Neeley's Woods, near Windsor, in 1843 after his return from Iowa. The occasion was a grand barbe­cue of pigs, an ox and five lambs. Reuben danced with Elizabeth and

the two were said to have decided to get married instantly.

Reuben Alexander Riley and Elizabeth (Marine) Riley, parents of the poet, were married March 15, 1844 at Union Port, Randolph county, by Rev. Thomas Leonard, minister of the Methodist church. Elizabeth's brother Jonathan and Emily Hunt stood up for the two. Elizabeth wore a pale pink silk wedding dress with a long white veil and white kid gloves and shoes. Her "in-fair" dress was of gray poplin, and she wore a leghorn bonnet when she rode away with Reuben the next day. They went immediately to Greenfield and occupied a log cabin. The marriage license of Reuben A. Riley and Elizabeth Marine was issued by the Clerk of the Randolph Circuit Court on the 18th of Feb. but they were not married until about a month

An 1865 plat of Windsor, Indiana. Reuben Riley owned Lot 5 in Block 1 of Windsor (corner of Main and Mulberry) until he sold it for $40 on August 18, 1842 to go to Iowa. Reuben Riley's parents lived on a farm in the vicinity of Windsor and are buried near this Hoosier town.

84 • THE POET AS FLYING ISLANDS OF THE NIGHT

later, March 15, 1844.

Elizabeth Marine Riley's father was John Marine. In the Riley family Bible she spells his last name M-E-R-I-N-E. John Marine's father was Jonathan Marine and his mother was Mary Charles who lived in the Carolinas. Mary Charles Marine died in Wayne County, Indiana, and was buried in Randolph County. Jonathan Marine was buried in the New Garden churchyard about nine miles from Richmond. Mary Charles Marine lived to be ninety-six years old.

Elizabeth was the tenth in a family of 11 children and a descendent of persecuted French Huguenots and English Quakers. She claimed birth in Rockingham, North Carolina in 1823.

Probably Reuben's first work was on his father's farm and in his tavern. Reuben Riley became the school teacher in the little one-room schoolhouse at the east end of Union Port on the south side of the road. Soon after mar­riage the Rileys went to Greenfield to Hancock county to make their future home.

Greenfield was at that time a little village of a few scattered log houses with puncheon floors and oil paper windows. Reuben Riley was said to have built the log cabin and equipped it with furniture which he had made. The main advantage of the site was that it was located on the National Road that stretched from Cumberland,               Maryland

across country to the trails to the Pacific Coast.

It was here in their original log cabin that their six children were born. The Riley children were John Andrew Riley, born Dec. 11, 1844 who mar­ried Julia Wilson and died Dec. 11, 1911; Martha Celestia Riley, born Feb. 21, 1847; James Whitcomb Riley, horn Oct. 7, 1849 and died July 22, 1916 in Indianapolis, Indiana, Elva May Riley born Jan. 1856 and died in 1909 in Indianapolis, Indiana; Humboldt Alexander Riley born Oct. 15, 1858 and died Nov., 1887; and Mary Elizabeth Riley born Oct. 27, 1864 who married and divorced Frank C. Payne and died in 1936.

A pioneer wagon on the National Road.

JUCKLET • 85

There is speculation that James Whitcomb Riley's genius came from John Marine, the probable father of Elizabeth and an outstanding character in the early history of Randolph and Delaware counties. John Marine loved poet­ry and, like his famous grandson, was said to have written his autobiogra­phy in rhyme. He also was said to write and write. He wrote a book, now lost, on religion urging all Christians to unite. He also wrote sermons in verse and delivered them to Methodist camp meetings. None of these works survive. John had lost his modest fortune speculating in weaver-sleighs two years after Elizabeth's birth and came to Indiana.

James Whitcomb Riley was one of those many great men who have been unusually fond of their mothers. There was the artist Whistler whose most famous work was a portrait of his mother. Then there was George Washington. No matter how far his surveying took him from Virginia, he kept in touch with Mary Washington. To this list, we must add James Whitcomb Riley whose primary love was Elizabeth Marine Riley, his love­ly mother. His first poem was a valentine written to his mother.

As a child, she had come in a one-horse buggy with her parents the 700 miles from North Carolina to Indiana. They came over the Cumberland Gap, the usual route through the Allegheny Mountains. Then on through the endless forests where all sorts of wild animals lurked. There were about 400 in their party which finally found its way to Randolph County Indiana. The party found only wilderness without any inhabitants or built up places or village.

After brief stops at New Garden and one or two points in Wayne County, he settled with his family in Randolph County and built a cabin on a high hank of the Mississinewa River a few miles below Ridgeville and a mill nearby.

James Whitcomb Riley thought that his mother had led an ideal life as a young person. The Marine cabin was on the banks of a beautiful stream, called by an Indian name, the Mississiniwa River. She had grown to become a beautiful young woman. One of Elizabeth's interests was discovering new things.

The Marines were flat boat builders, millers and poets. John laid out the defunct town of Rockingham on the Mississinewa and advertised lots in verse. It

Srlii

"Rockingham," Indiana. A plat of a town drawn out by Elizabeth Riley's father. It was never inhabited except for the brief tenure of a store set on the high bluff on the south side of the Mississiniway (sic) River. The plat was recorded by J. Merine (sic) as Agent on March 31, 1836 in Randolph County, Indiana.

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did no good. The town failed to attract settlers.

John also was a preacher and teacher. He advo­cated the union of all churches, a dangerous thing to do in those days. He and the poet's grandmother, Margaret Riley, were leaders in the camp meetings of Randolph and Delaware Counties.

William A. Thornburg, an elderly neighbor who remembered the Marines living nearby, told Marcus Dickey, an early Riley biographer, that "Elizabeth Marine was remarkably pure- minded. I never saw anyone so beautiful in a calico dress. She loved to wander along streams and wander in the green

woods. She was always seeing things among the leaves." Elizabeth met Johnny Appleseed who planted apple cores among the settlements and liked to listen to his accounts of his wanderings and his views on Christianity one of which was that folk do not die but "go right on living."

Every boy has an early determination - a first one - to follow some excit­ing profession, once he grows up to man's estate, such as being a policemen or a performer on the high trapeze. Riley was not interested in these nor in being the "People's Laureate," but the Greenfield baker, had his fairy god­mother granted his "boy-wish.-

Here is how Riley remembered his "wish" in his later life.

"AN IMPETUOUS RESOLVE" (1890)

When little Dickk Swope 's a man.

He's going to be a sailor;
And little Harney Tincher, he 's

A'going to be a Tailor;

Bud Mitchell, he ^ts a'going to be

A stylish Carriage-Maker• And when I grow a great big man

l'm going to be a Baker.

And Dick will big his sailor-suit OfMame; and Name will take it And buy as fine a double rig

As ever Bud can make it;

And then all three'll drive round for me,

Marcus Dickey, the secretary of James Whitcomb Riley and his earliest biographer.

JUCKLET • 87

And we'll drive off together Slinging pie-crust along the road Forever andfbrever.

To Riley, running a bakery "seemed the acme of delight," using again his own expression. Happiness was "to manufacture those snowy loaves of bread, those delicious tarts, those toothsome bon-bons. And then to own them all, to keep them in store, to watch over and guardedly exhibit. The thought of getting money for them was to me a sacrilege. Sell them? No indeed. Eat 'em - eat 'em, by tray loads and dray loads! It was a great wonder to me why the pale-faced baker in our town did not eat all his good things. This I determined to do when I became owner of such a grand establishment. Yes, sir. I would have a glorious feast. Maybe I'd have Torn and Harry and perhaps little Kate and Florry in to help us once in a while. The thought of these play­mates as 'grown up folks' didn't appeal to me. I was but a child, with wide-open eyes, a healthy appetite

and a wondering mind. That was all. But I have the same sweet tooth to­day, and every time I pass a confectioner's shop, I think of the big baker of our town, and Tom and Harry and the youngsters all."

As a child, Riley often went with his father to the courthouse where the lawyers and clerks playfully called him "Judge Wick, Jr." Here as a privileged character he met and mingled with the country folk who came to sue and be sued, and thus early was exposed to the dialect, the native speech, the quaint expressions of his "own people." How frontier folk spoke took firm root in the fresh soil of his young memory.

Why was he called "Judge Wick, Jr.?"

William Wick was Circuit Judge of Hancock County from 1850 to 1853. It was during his tenure, James Whitcomb Riley

Elmer Swope. One of Riley's "gang" as a boy.

The Hancock County courthouse at the time of the Civil War. (From the Barton Rees Pogue glass positive collection.)

88 • THE POET AS FLYING ISLANDS OF THE NIGHT

came to have the nickname, "Judge Wick, Jr." The nickname came about when Reuben Riley made James Whitcomb Riley, about four years old, a suit of clothes identical in style and cloth to that worn by the Judge. The boy was given to wear a long swallowtail coat and matching trousers. When Riley first wore that outfit going with his father to court, he earned the name "Judge Wick, Jr." The judge gave him this name. It stayed with Riley through early adolescence

when he hated it so much no one dared call him it anymore. While his father was in court, the poet listened and played in the back or in the window sills where he could see what was going on while cases were being tried.

At about this time, he made his first poetic attempt in a valentine which he gave to his

mother. Not only did he write the verse, but he drew a sketch to accompany it, greatly to his mother's delight, who, according to the best

authority, gave the young poet "three big cookies and didn't spank me for two weeks. This was my earliest literary encourage­ment."

1856 was a critical year for the Riley fam­ily. It was the year Reuben Riley joined his friend Oliver P. Morton in forming a new political party in Indiana. Then, as the 1860 presidential election loomed, Reuben was an Indiana delegate at the Chicago convention that nominated Lincoln for the Presidency. After this convention, Reuben arrived home in the middle of the night to announce what had happened at the Chicago convention. Abraham Lincoln, the "Emancipator," had been nominated in part through Reuben's efforts in the Indiana delegation. Hancock County did not share Reuben's enthusiasm

The "rafter room" of the James Whitcomb Riley birthplace in Greenfield, Indiana where the poet slept as a child.

Oliver P. Morton, Indiana's Civil War Governor. Starting out as a hatter's appren­tice, he went on to become a lawyer in Wayne County. Indiana before becoming Indiana's most important governor. During the Civil War, when the Hoosier legislature refused to appropriate funds. Morton bor­rowed millions of dollars on his own signa­ture and without security to keep Indiana's government operating and on the side of the Union.

JUCKLET • 89

for Lincoln. Lincoln failed to carry Hancock County in the crucial 1860 election. Nevertheless, much of the rest of Indiana was solidly in the major­ity for Lincoln as was the tier of Northern states sufficient to elect Abraham Lincoln to the presidency. Reuben Riley was named a Lincoln "elector" to vote Indiana's selection of Lincoln for electoral college purposes.

Before throwing in his lot with Oliver Morton and Abraham Lincoln, Reuben Riley had been Hancock County Prosecutor in 1844, Representative in the Indiana Legislature in 1845 (Reuben was the youngest member of the state legislature at the time) and 1848, published a newspaper, The INVES­TIGATOR in Greenfield for six months in 1847, was prominent in the coun­ty Democratic conventions since 1845, and in 1852 became Greenfield's first mayor. This in effect made him a judge and enforcer of the city's ordi­nances, mainly against things such as assaults and batteries.