Samuel NOLAN

• Born:  c.1800

• Marriage:

• Died:

Marriage Information:

Written about Samuel Nolan:

No. 434“ A Great Grandfather Pioneer” November 22, 1940

This is to be a story of my own great-grandfather, who lived in Indiana, back in the early years of the last century. He was a country gentleman of that American period of home building, when country estates were institutions, in which the owners took great pride. Tradition has it, that his father (James Nolan) was kidnapped by pirates, from a sea-coast town of England. For several years the lad was held virtually as a slave on that pirate ship, but he escaped into Virginia and found refuge among the Indians, and white settlers.

My great grandfather joined a band of those sturdy, brave pioneers, who came west in their covered wagons, over on hundred years ago. He entered and purchased a great tract of government land, not far from the Wabash River. This tract of about one thousand seven hundred acres, stretched across into Illinois. It comprised virgin forests, fertile valleys, level uplands, rolling hills and winding creeks. In this new and unsettled country he built a worthy home for his large and interesting family.

I speak of my own great-grandfather, because this Thanksgiving season, reminds us of those early years in American history, when your ancestors, as mine, made much of Thanksgiving, even more appreciatively, I sometimes think, than we do now. In describing the homestead and life of this pioneer I shall be thinking of him, as typical of many others who helped to build up this Western civilization, typical in the homestead, in the work done, in the standards of living established, and in the philosophy of life held. In all these things, the early pioneers have left us a most worthy heritage. I think I can best picture this period and it's people through these references to my own great-grandfather.

One of the pleasant memories I cherish, is the mile walk I frequently made, as a small boy, through the woods, across the creek and over the hills to see the big white house of my great-grandfather. It was of colonial type, with a double-decked, large front porch and white columns. It stood on a hill overlooking a small valley through which ran a perennial spring branch. At the time of my memory of the homestead, it was uninhabited and sadly neglected, but enough of the buildings and grounds were in evidence, which together with what my parents told me, enabled me to have a pretty good picture of the estate. As one drove up a winding hill road, he came to the big gate, opening into a spacious yard, set with great trees, and planted with shrubs and flowers. Back of the house, stretched a large orchard with it's Russets, Winesaps, Rambos, Ben Davis, Early Junes, and many other varieties of apples as well as of other fruit. There was a family burying ground in one corner of that orchard. In this area, evergreens grew among the tombstones, and a tall iron fence enclosed these sacred grounds.

The homestead was a veritable village of structures. In addition to the big house, there were the barns, cribs, granaries, the work shop, the smokehouse, milk-house, the poultry house, the hog houses, and down below was the spring house, where even today, water as cold as a fountain, bubbles forth from the stones, where they cooled their milk and got their drinking water for home use. Many times I have walked a long distance just to get a drink from the West Spring.

These early pioneers chose to settle in such wooded hill country, rather than on the prairies, because they could have timber with which to build their houses, and water power with which to run their mills; and besides, the prairies were un-drained swamps, which they could not very well use for a homestead. I am told that my great-grandfather had a sawmill and a grist-mill, run by water power,.all upon his own estate. In almost all respects he was equipped to be self-sufficient, or what we now call, for subsistence farming on a large scale. As a country gentleman of that period, he was “well to do” and fairly well educated. He supplemented his farm income by doing surveying for the government and for his neighbors. There were no banking facilities, convenient for the settlers then, so my great-grandfather often buried his money about the homestead, or hit it in boxes or trunks in the house. Upon on occasion, two masked men came upon my great-grandfather and great-grandmother in the early evening time, when they were about their chores and forced them to give up a key and robbed them of $2000, hidden in the old family trunk under the bed.

We must not overlook the fact that these early pioneers had to deal with the Indians, and they were not always friendly. The Indians were great borrowers. They would often call at the home to borrow pots and kettles, which, when they were returned, would often be thrown over the fence into the yard, and that too without being washed. The Indians did not always borrow, they often stole. A story is handed down, that one snowy winter night, my great-grandfather lost several cured hams from the smoke-house. The next morning, a neighbor and he saw tracks in the snow leading into the woods. They equipped themselves with leather horse whips and followed the trail. Sure enough, the tracks lead to an Indian wigwam several miles away. They found two stalwart Indians, enjoying a feast of the stolen hams. The Indians were ordered to stand up, turn their backs and receive the lashing that was meted out to them by the two settlers. The stolen hams were recovered, primitive justice was admonished, and the Indians respected the courage of the white men.

My great-grandfather had a large family of sons and daughters. He was firm and strong in his discipline, yet they were loyal to the home and family. In fact none of them wandered very far from the home base. When a son got married, the father gave him a piece of land from the big estate, upon which he built a modest little home out of timbers he cleared away for farming. My own grandfather was one of these boys who built a substantial log cabin on a hillside overlooking a creek, beyond which was the big house of his father. I value very highly a photograph of this old home with it's big porch and built on rooms, --all set attractively in the midst of an orchard on a wooded slope to the rising sun.

All of the sons and daughters became farmers and farmer's wives. That was before the days of the Industrial Revolution, and there was little else to do, but farm. Cities were far away and the roads were but unimproved trails. The homes, except those of the children of the pioneer families, were far apart. In fact some of these early settlers felt uncomfortably crowded when they could see the smoke from their neighbor's chimneys.

These early pioneers who came westward from the sea-coast colonies, carried with the high faith in the established American institutions, the home, the church, the school, and the government. My great-grandfather joined in the establishment and support of a public school and a country church. On his shelves were the Bible, Shakespeare, and other good books. It seemed that none of his boys cared to further their education beyond the local opportunities. But, being a man of strength of character, and personality, and believing in higher education, he discovered that one grandson, my Uncle Henry, had unusual interest in books and education, so he sent him to an Academy in Paris, Illinois. He lived to see this grandson make good, and become an honor to the family name throughout a larger community.