Richardson Family Part Two

          On September 24, 1829,  Dorcus Barker daughter of Jeremiah and Mary Beeson Barker married Daniel Richardson,  son of Christian and Lovina Ingle Richardson, in Randolph County North Carolina.  The following is quoted from an article written in 1930 by a seventy year old grand-daughter of Dorcas and Daniel: Their honeymoon was a trip on horseback to  Indiana.  One horse carried them both with all their worldly possessions. It was a long and perilous journey through wilderness with only a blazed trail.  The dense forests were alive with wildcats, panthers and wolves.  One evening as they were riding late to find a shelter for the night, a piercing scream broke the stillness of the forest!  Looking up they saw a wildcat, ready to jump down on them. The horse seemed to sense the danger and lunged forward to safety, with only claw marks on his rump.  When they arrived in Indiana, they entered land near Center Valley in Hendricks County, where Dorcas sister Jane and her husband William Craven lived along with several of her brothers.   They put up a cabin, with help from the few neighbors.  One man came from White Lick, near Mooresville, another from Mill Creek, the others were nearer, seven in all.
     The following spring they sold this land at a profit and bought 80 acres a mile north of Hazelwood.  Here they lived in a rail pen and used a quilt for a door until they could get a house built.  The deed to this land is recorded in 1830.  Grandfather paid $1.25 an acre and earned much of the money by working on the National Road for 35 cents a day.  One evening as he was coming home through the forest a wildcat stalked him.  He built a fire and stayed by it all night.
     "When the cabin was first built it was one room, without floor or door.  Again the quilt was used until they could put up a door with leather hinges, then they felt rich indeed.  This cabin was in the woods, no clearing except as Daniel cut trees for use as wood, to split for rails, to make a puncheon floor for the cabin, to make crude farming implements, and make furniture,  Soon a second room was added with an attic. A brick chimney was built between the rooms with a stairs on one side and a pantry on the other side of the chimney."

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