Handbook N-P - Fulton County Public Library

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team started, when the straw would be scattered behind in bunches and the wheat and chaff fall
into a box to be emptied when full.
In the story written by Jonathan Dawson, I find the names of Joseph and Josiah Terrel,
ministers in the United Brethren in Christ. I well remember both of them. The last time I saw
Josiah was in 1856, when he made a political speech in the Foglesong neighborhood, Cass county.
It was the fall that the Pathfinder, John C. Fremont, the first Republican candidate, ran for
president. Terrel said, among other things: “Once there was a fellow who wished to learn to
skate, so took his skates and went to the river and putting on his skates, went under the limb of a
tree, which he grasped with both hands and by this means skated back and forth. Presently a large
buck deer, with spreading antlers, came out of the woods and, seeing the skater, ran between his
legs. At this the skater let go of the limb of the tree and grasped the horns of the buck, and away
they went, the onlookers shouting, ‘Hold on to the velvet.’ As the buck jumped a fence, the skater
surged back on the horns and broke the back of the buck. So you see, as we are on the back of Mr.
Buchanan, and have him on the run, all we have to do is hold on to the velvet, and when the
proper time comes we will give him a jerk that will break his back.” Batchelor Buck had a very
strong back, as the ballots showed in November, 1856. Josiah Terrel became blind and died in
Kansas.
Joseph Terrel was the first preacher I have any recollection of. That was in 1846, when
he came to Liberty township and preached in log cabins. That year he organized a class of United
Brethren, the first in the township, if not in the county. The charter members were Mrs. and Mrs.
Edwin Barker, Mr. and Mrs. Isaac Pownall, Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Pownall, Mr. and Mrs. John
VanBlaricom, Mr. and Mrs. Henry VanBlaricom. To complete the organization it was necessary
to elect a class leader, so Rev. Terrel took a chair and seated himself in the middle of the room,
and each member whispered the name of their choice in the ear of the preacher. Samuel
VanBlaricom was elected leader of the charter members. All save one have long since gone to
“the mansions not made with hands,” Aunt Sarah Pownall, who is eighty-five years of age and still
enjoying good health.
Comrade Myers, in his story, writes of some of the doings and sayings of the northern
“copperheads,” while we were facing and fighting the enemy at the front. I have now in my
possession the original letter written by one of these men to a soldier in the 29th Indiana Infantry,
and it is a fair specimen of the discouragements offered to our boys in the fall of 1862 and spring
of 1863. [not included by Marguerite Miller -- “that it might be construed to be personal, on
account of names, etc., and thereby engender ill feeling and regret - - - “]
I served in Co. E, 29th Indiana Infantry, from September 6, 1861, to December 2, 1865,
participating in the following battles: Shiloh, April, 1861; Siege of Corrinth, Miss, May and June,
1862; Lavergne, November 27, 1862; Triune, December 27, 1862; Stone River, December, 31,
1862, to January 3, 1863; Liberty Gap, June 24 and 25, 1863; Chickamauga, September 19 and 20,
1863; was besieged at Chattanooga by General Bragg.
I know what it is to endure hardships and short rations. Was slightly wounded at Stone
River, being struck with two bullets, and at the battle of Chicamauga was wounded once in the
right side and once in the left leg, but lived through it all and reached home December 10, 1865.
On the 7th day of April, 1867, was united in marriage with Susannah A., daughter of
John Hower, of Cass county, Indiana. To this union were born eight children, five boys and three
girls, one boy passing away in infancy. One son, at this writing, is at Devil’s Lake, N.D.; one in
Marion, Ind.; one daughter at Deedsville, Ind.; two daughters and one son in Logansport, Ind., and
one son still at home.
[Marguerite L. Miller, Home Folks, Vol. I, 1910, pp. 128-133]
POWNALL, VACHEL JOSHUA [Fulton, Indiana]
BIOGRAPHY