A Biographical Sketch of Michael Hileman

FOREWORD

There’s always a story , as they say, and I’d love to hear it. Stories about my family fascinated me from a young age. My elders told tales of a scribe to Martin Luther, a Salem lawyer defending witches, a shotgun wedding, a bootlegger, and a young mother dying in childbirth, among others. My imagination reeled. I very much wanted to learn more about them.

After starting my own family, I set out to preserve the oral tradition and investigate my family tree, not just for myself, but so I could pass these stories down to my children. Mysteries soon emerged. How many of the legends were true? Were there more stories waiting to be discovered?

In the early 1990s, I family-researched the old-fashioned way. Still in its infancy, the Internet wasn’t yet a viable option for me. They were primitive times, indeed—order stacks of floppy discs through the U.S. mail? I couldn’t afford that. So with pen and notebook in hand, I dragged my dad around Iowa, to dusty county courthouses, tiny rural libraries, and wary relatives’ homes.

I scrolled through countless microfilm drawers of census records, land deeds, city directories, birth records, marriage records, and obituaries. I scrawled out numerous family group records, pedigree charts, research logs, and filled notebooks with citations and places I’d been. I wrote letters, answered more, and pieced together a family history.

The Hileman story begins years before the Revolutionary War in eastern Pennsylvania, and along with numerous other German-immigrant descendants, moves westward over well-trodden routes. Along the way, the Hilemans worked the usual trades. They were farmers, carpenters, ferrymen, clerks, draymen, boarders, and auctioneers—men and women who did whatever was necessary to eke out a living on the edge of the frontier. Most lived their lives in common fashion, experiencing the usual hardships of their time.

While at first glance their lives appeared mundane, it began to dawn on me how remarkable these people actually were, living more or less freely in a world so foreign to us today. By today’s standards, how these people struggled for the sake of a better life was in fact astonishing.

Nothing, however, prepared me for the surprise waiting for us when we visited old William Bill Hileman, a distant cousin still living in Waterloo. When Bill opened his door to my dad and me, we couldn’t deny the family resemblance. A trait many Hilemans share is a receding hairline which over time reveals a distinctively oblong dome. He was happy to see us and eager to share his findings. He claimed he was the official genealogist of the Hileman family, mainly because no one else seemed all that interested. I wished to differ, but yielded to his assertion.

First we calculated our common ancestor: my (three greats) grandfather and Bill’s (two greats) grandfather was Michael Hileman, Sr., who told of taking a yoke of oxen to supply his father’s company during the Revolutionary War.

Bill then produced a real prize to any genealogist: a stack of neatly typed, single-spaced pages containing the biography of his great-grandfather, Michael Hileman, Jr. The manuscript was borrowed, so Bill wouldn’t allow it to leave the house. However, he’d dictated the document onto cassette tapes, which he graciously loaned me. Upon returning home I copied the tapes and began transcribing the biography. But to my dismay, Bill had forgotten about the eight seconds of un-recordable leader at the beginning and end of each tape. The loss totaled several minutes of history, which I later believed was lost forever. The project ended up in a closet.

A few years went by. Harold (Hal) Hileman, living in California, contacted me, asking for information on the Waterloo Hilemans. He found he was a direct descendant of Michael, so I provided him with Bill’s address, telling him he was in for a treat. Hal later told me he’d made the trip to see him, but Bill no longer had the sketch. Hal’s story about his visit with Bill and how he miraculously recovered the lost biography appears in the Afterword.

Michael Hileman’s story is a rich, detailed account told in Forrest Gump-like fashion. It seems his family was present wherever history occurred. According to Michael, his grandfather served under George Washington along the Delaware. Michael himself taught school in western Pennsylvania. He met Abraham Lincoln prior to his debate with Stephen Douglass and shook his hand. He staked a claim at Pike’s Peak during the gold rush. Fighting for the 96th Illinois Infantry, he was captured at Chickamauga, spoke defiantly to Captain Wirz at Andersonville, and lived to tell about it. He homesteaded in Dakota Territory and proved up after a bitter dispute with the federal Land Commissioner, to whom he wrote Go to Hell, if you please. And in his later years, he took long walks with his grandson, a boy who would eventually become an FBI agent and a partner in a law firm.

Once I’d immersed myself in the sketch, I turned my attention to the author, Michael’s son-in-law Thomas Pirnie, Jr., and I discovered some striking similarities. Like me, Pirnie had been a letter carrier for an Iowa city. He also enjoyed writing, having penned not only Michael’s biography but other historical pieces for news articles and county histories. Thomas and I also were deeply involved with our family’s history, and we both appreciated Michael’s willingness to share his remarkable life with his kin.

In the biography Pirnie mentioned that he regretted his lack of ability in the task of writing Michael’s biography, but history proves otherwise. Pirnie’s family homesteaded in Gann Valley the same time as the Hilemans and he attended school with Michael’s daughter Lottie. Later, back in Iowa, they married and had two sons. As documented in History of Buffalo County, 1885-1985, Gann Valley, South Dakota, Pirnie wrote historical sketches for both the Pirnie and Hileman families, recounting their homesteading years in Dakota. After they married, Thomas and Lottie had numerous opportunities to spend time listening to Michael’s adventures. But after inviting an elderly Michael and his wife Phebe to come live with them in their Cedar Rapids home, Pirnie knew it was time to sit with Michael and record his memoirs.

I enjoy how the author steps aside in the narrative, allowing Michael’s voice to shine through. It is Michael’s life told in his own words. His strong feelings for family, friends, and country are evident, along with his irascible charm and wit. His unfailing strength of character has much to teach us, even now. Over one hundred years later, I knew it was time to bring Michael’s story back into the light, reminding us the importance of learning from our past.

Are you ready for a good story? Look within.

Roger Hileman, great-great nephew of Michael Hileman, Jr., Iowa City, Iowa

Chapter One.

Thomas Pirnie narrates

The object of this biography is to give the descendants and friends of the one who is the subject of this sketch, a history of his life, as he was able to tell it, after he was past his ninety-third year of life.

All the neighbors and friends who have known him intimately for many years declare with much emphasis that he is the most remarkably preserved man mentally and physically whom they have ever known. So, in view of his extraordinary life and marvelous vitality at this time we feel prompted to record some of his history.

Michael Hileman’s ancestors were German on his paternal side and Scottish-Irish on the maternal side of the family. They all immigrated to America long before the colonies began their struggle for independence. They settled in York County, not far from where now is the city of York, Pennsylvania.

When the French and Indian War commenced his grandfather Edward Milligan was a very young man. His activities in this war were chiefly as a spy and scout. He went through with some very terrifying experiences, but escaped any very severe injury.

The Hilemans and the Milligans were all fully possessed of the strongest enthusiasm for the independence of the colonies when that spirit moved the colonies, and readily offered their services to help free them from the oppression of Great Britain.

He says: As far back as I can remember Grandfather Milligan held me spell-bound in relating his experiences of both the French-and-Indian and Revolutionary Wars. Perhaps it was because I was the youngest of the family that he so patiently told me more of those experiences than he did to the other children. He said that while he was scouting in York State, Grandfather Hileman was along the Delaware River with General Washington.

My father well remembered going with provisions for father and some of the neighbor friends, with his yoke of young oxen. The journey required two days. The condition of his father with cold and hunger was pitiable, as were all the others, he said.

His return home from these expeditions was always an occasion of great interest to the neighborhood for miles around. Upon one of these occasions father had a most trying time. It was while the troopers were starving that he made his way to headquarters with many good things to eat and under-clothing for grandfather. The sight of the oxen was more than the troopers could stand, so they immediately prepared to get hold of them to have a good feast, in short order. Father was in a pitiable state with fright and anxiety when the officers of the regiment quickly came to his rescue, saving the oxen. The supply of food and clothing was taken from father before the officers could prevent it.

All of this trouble was hard enough for the boy, but, when he was gently and kindly told by some of the neighbor men, whom he saw later, that his father was one of the few killed, his grief and worry was almost more than he could stand.

His home-going before had always been intended with so much joy in knowing that he had succeeded in taking a little of the comforts of home to the cold and hungry patriots who were so loyally supporting their brave and noble commander, George Washington.

"Grandfather Milligan was sent up the Delaware River to warn some of the Colonial troops who were stationed there at this time, of the expected advance of the British in that way after the Battle of Trenton.

During the Revolution grandfather Milligan was wounded in his thigh, and which always caused him some trouble.

Chapter Two.

Michael Hileman continues

Grandmother Hileman died on the old homestead near Little York. It was sometime later when grandfather’s brothers moved to Hollidaysburg, a prosperous little village in Huntingdon County, several toilsome days’ journey to the northwest, situated close beside the beautiful Juniata River. Father went with them to make a home for himself in the new country. His uncles took land from the state. He went to work at his trade in Frankstown. Most of his work was in house building and furniture making. He received about one dollar per day for his work. But he soon succeeded in doing more contract work than day’s work. His uncles got their land for a nominal price.

At this time George Washington was guiding the affairs of the young nation as its President.

About six miles from Hollidaysburg there was a Scottish settlement and it was here that grandfather Milligan’s farm was situated.

In the course of affairs father became acquainted with the belle of or one of the belles of the neighborhood, Polly Milligan was her name, as she was popularly known—her real name being Mary. The courtship soon ended in a very happy wedding. Grandmother Milligan had been dead for many years, so grandfather desired that the newly wedded pair should remain on the farm and he would make his home with them as long as he lived. With this understanding he deeded them the farm.

The house was a three-room log house which grandfather built shortly after the close of the Revolution. He was one of the earliest settlers in Huntingdon County.

So after father and mother were married father continued at the carpentering work, using the tenant’s house for his carpentry shop. In the course of time he also engaged young men as apprentices to help him, as he had plenty of work to make this necessary. The neighborhood supplied him with plenty of work such as trunks, bureaus, bedsteads, four-leaved tables, chairs, etc. to be made.

The first sawmill in the country was nearly sixty miles distant and which was reached with six-horse teams. Later a sawmill was built on Spruce Creek much nearer to us; and still later, one was built only a mile and a half from our home.

The forest abounded in white pine, yellow poplar, shell bark hickory and black walnut. The required sizes were all sawed for the various uses they were to be put to. Most of the country houses were built of hewn logs for many years after father and mother were married, or till about 1820. Father employed from four to six boys and men the year around in his shop. During the winter season they were kept busy at making up stock and furniture. He paid the journeymen fifty cents with board per day. The foreman receiving seventy-five cents per day and board. He could go out with some of the men and have the work done as well as with father to supervise the work. The wages paid were considered as good as one dollar per day and the workers to find their own board.

Mother being a farmer’s daughter, fulfilled the greatest expectations of father in the management of the farm: As this, he left for her to do. Wheat, oats and rye, were the chief crops raised. The grain was shipped in arks down the Juniata River to Harrisburg and Lewistown. Father always gave mother full credit for running the farm better than he could have done himself.

Mother had studied medicine with Doctor Wolf of Hollidaysburg, both before and after her marriage, so she was also a doctor beside her manifold duties of the home. In her practice of medicine she attended patients both far and near. All of her calls being made by horse-back. There was no such thing as a buggy in the whole of Huntingdon County at that time. Those who could afford a Dearborn wagon were considered well off indeed. This vehicle was a four-wheeled carriage without springs. Straight thills, a straight board seat which rested on a knee consisting of tough strips of hickory or elm fastened to the bottom at each end of the box, and so bent as to be attached to the seat in a way to give it a strong, springy support. This vehicle was the most comfortable means of riding other than horseback.

Mother’s patients lived as far as twenty miles distant from home, but she preferred to keep within a range of ten or twelve miles of Hollidaysburg. Doctor’s fees at that time were very reasonable. Mother’s being one dollar for services with medicine, where the patient lived within a distance of ten miles.

Quinine, calomel and jalap were the chief medicines used, but Mother avoided the use of calomel as much as possible and used Herb’s in its stead. Mustard plasters were used very extensively. Bean oil was used a great deal especially in the treatment of putrid sore throat, or diphtheria, as it is known today; it was a specific for this disease. And where mortification had not started it was almost a sure cure for this terrible disease.

One case I shall always remember Mother telling of: She was urgently summoned to farmer Dunkleburg’s where Doctor Johnston desired to hold consultation over the case of the father of the family, who was suffering intense agony with inflammation of the bowels, or, what most likely would be pronounced appendicitis today.

Mother was allowed to proceed with her treatment, which consisted of an application of a poultice of sliced bread covered with charcoal and hop yeast and soaked in whiskey. This was promptly applied and within two hours the poultice were completely dried by the heat of the inflammation. In ordinary cases it would have required about six hours to cause the same condition of the poultice. Mr. Dunkleburg’s life was saved. Dr. Johnston said: ‘Mrs. Hileman, you saved his life. Good God! You a woman, and I have studied in the best medical colleges of the country, but you have saved this man with full credit to yourself. Here is five dollars, and had I twenty-five I should as freely give it. He added, Of course it is a slight material reward for what you have done." It is needless to say that Mother’s heart swelled with joy in the realization that she had saved the man’s life, and she was also very happy to get the material reward.

Chapter Three.

On the twenty-second of June, 1820, I was born in the log cabin which grandfather Milligan had built when the country was almost a wilderness. I was the youngest of eight children. When my grandparents established their residence in this three-roomed log cabin the Indians occasionally made raids on the settlement, from their hunting grounds on the head waters of the Susquehanna River, beyond the Alleghanys. One of the worst of the raids of which grandfather told me of, was attended with the massacre of the Houser and Ulray families. Only two of the Houser family escaping the tomahawk and scalping knife, and these two were taken captive. They were very young children. They remained with the Ponchatonnies until forty years later, when the government in removing the tribe to the Western Reserve, which lay in what is now the state of Ohio, discovered Yoachim and Rachael Houser, who were now grown to middle age. Rachael was the wife of a chief. Yoachim had refused to marry a squaw, though he was made a chief by virtue of his bravery in the fight with the York State Indians, in which the chief was killed by Yoachim.

When told of the massacre of their parents and friends by the Punxsutawneys when they were taken captive so long before, they were dazed and almost unable to comprehend the situation. However, their liberators prevailed upon them to return to their home land, and scenes of their childhood, in the hope that memory, when upon the scenes of their childhood would recall something to their minds of the time before the terrible time of their capture.

Can we realize the feelings of these two unfortunate people as they were liberated from the Indians? Rachael being the mother of several papooses. Of course she was in the most trying of situation, for she had a mothers love for her children, though they were plainly of Indian blood.

They returned to the beautiful and peaceful Juniata valley amidst the splendid mammoth oaks, the shell bark hickory, the sycamore and the gigantic black walnut. The swallows flitted over the stream and the brown thrush sang amongst the boughs just as they did forty years before, while this man and woman were barefoot children rollicking in their childish glee.

In the presence of this scene much of it remained as it was in their childhood, but nothing was distinctly recalled to their memory, though they thought they could recall some glimpses of the past. What a sad situation! Memories which might have heaved their bosoms with emotion, and pained their beholding the scenes of their childhood. There remained in the neighborhood a few who well remembered the terrible ordeal when these two were so cruelly taken from them. And these people tried to suggest things to their memory, but nature had almost sealed the past of that day to them.

They remained but a little while until they returned to the Ponchatonnies, to live and to die with them, far beyond the Alleghanys, in what is now the state of Ohio.

Father said that several attempts had been made to find the captives but without success. The greatest attempt to do so was when a band of the strongest and the bravest of Huntingdon County ventured into the country of the Ponchatonnies at Cherrytree. And while reconnoitering here one of the strongest and the bravest of the party was suddenly surprised and taken captive, by the very Indians whom they were hunting for. Fortunate it was for Jake Confare that he was so cool-headed and brave. His comrades soon discovered footprints in the forest and immediately decided that they were those of Jake’s captors or slayers. They redoubled their efforts now to overtake them if possible, but the wily redmen escaped their pursuers without allowing themselves to be seen by the white men.

They took their captive to their tribe on their hunting grounds in pine wilderness of Kittanning. And here Jake awaited his fate or chance to escape.

For a year and a half he lived with the Punxsutawneys without even once evidencing a desire to escape. At last the long cold winter came freezing the Allegheny River from bank to bank, with parts of its surface as smooth as glass. Then it was a trader who came to the tribe, from the south, to establish with them a trade in skates. And they were delighted, but without demonstration, with what the trader had brought them. And they traded for many pairs of them. They expected to have in their captor an instructor, but in that they were deceived. Cool-headed Jake Confare conceived in their new acquisition a possible means of escape. They presented him with a selected pair of skates and indicated to him just what they expected of him. He was so skillful in pretense that he was a novice at the sport that he completely disarmed them of any suspicion they might have had of his taking advantage of them to attempt an escape. He feigned a greater awkwardness than any of them had in trying to master the skates. But he realized that he must do something to escape before the Indians were able to skate well, for then his chances would be hopeless.

One day he managed to draw his enemy beyond the usual skating limits, when he got them exceedingly interested by his skillful strokes and suddenly making a few long strong strokes he was beyond their reach. In a few moments they were aware of the fact that he was fleeing from them. He skimmed over the smooth ice with great speed, and never turned to see what his pursuers were doing. He knew that he was gaining on them, but he did not relax his muscles in the least.

Their blood-curdling yells for a while as they followed him making his nerves tingle with anxiety as he sped on towards the fort a hundred miles away. And he was constantly in suspense of the fear that Indians in his advance would intercept him. In this he was most fortunate, nothing molested him in his way down the river.

Just before darkness fell over the cold, wooded hills he was sighted by some of the soldiers from the fort who were doing a little exploring. As soon as they saw him they knew he was in distress and nearly exhausted. And indeed he was so much so that he was unable to proceed to the fort that night.

It seems that the Indians had followed him almost to the place where the troops came to his rescue. But they were so familiar with the country that they were very cautious as they neared the fort, and so avoided being seen by the soldiers who met Confare.

Three days passed before he was able to proceed on to the fort, Fort Pittsburg it was. He was honored as a real hero at the fort. And every kindness and attention was shown him. Before his muscles had recovered their usual strength and flexibility to make him in a fit condition for the journey home, he had told the soldiers many intensely interesting accounts of his experiences since he started on the expedition to the home of the Ponchatonnies in search of the two little captive children.

When his muscles recovered from the awful strain they had been under in his escape from his captors, he returned to his home near Fort Holiday. Joy throughout the neighborhood was unbounded when the word was sent around of his return. The whole community had been in despair after the return of his companions without him. His account of his life while in captivity among the Ponchatonnies gave intense interest to young and old for many a day.

At the time of the return of Rachael and Yoachim, Jake Confare and grandpa were old men. When the brother and sister returned to the Indians to live the remainder of their lives it was almost more than Jake and grandfather could stand. They hated the Ponchatonnies, and in fact all of the Indians so intensely.

Chapter Four.

Our little log school house was situated near to the pike road which connected Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, and over which many thousands of tons of provisions were transported every day by large wagons, which were drawn by six-horse teams.

This road was built and maintained by the state. A toll of an eleven-penny bit every ten miles for a wide-tired wagon, and a narrow-tired wagon was charged twice that much. The toll keeper was usually an old man or a cripple, and sometimes a woman occupied the position. During fair weather the traffic was such that it was seldom we could not see a wagon upon this great highway.

Our school was not so diminutive as might be imagined of that period in our country’s history. The dimensions of the structure as nearly as I can remember, were eighteen by thirty feet. One door in the south end supplied the means of exit and entrance. A window in each side extended the entire length of the building. Each window was made of eight sashes. The panes were about ten by twenty inches, and the two panes being only puttied together in the center of the sash. The sash could be raised and lowered. This was a real luxury. In the north end of the building was the only one that could be so manipulated and it was designed for the especial use of the school master, whose platform was placed beside it. Upon this platform a split-bottom chair and a black walnut desk which father had made many years before, were arranged for the teacher’s use.

The pupils’ desks consisted of pine boards fastened to the side wall by wooden pegs, driven between the logs. The seats were planks which had been somewhat smoothed by the jack plane. The smaller children whom it was deemed did not require instruction in penmanship sat upon plank seats without the desk before them. There were no receptacles for the books of any but the teacher. Usually two studied from one book. Our books were very limited in number. The United States Speller was the chief text book. For reading, we first used the testament or Bible, but later used the English Preceptor, which was really a reader. It was considered extremely difficult, and when one could read this book correctly and unhesitatingly it was considered sufficiently evident that the pupil could pass.

Our first schoolmaster, when I was of school age, was Erwin, hailed from the Emerald Isle. He was fully possessed of the qualifications necessary for the duties he was to assume.

He was quite enterprising, as evidenced by the promptness in securing scholars in a surprisingly short time. In the number of scholars he secured it guaranteed him a salary of eighteen dollars per month, but without board. He lived at the tavern which was about a quarter mile down the pike.

He proved to be a very efficient instructor, and strong with the rod!, a most important part of a schoolmaster’s duties of that day. And in this he was very economical of his time, passing up one side and down the other, laying the spruce or birch sapling across two backs at one stroke quite often. The boy at the extreme end of the sapling getting the worse of the punishment. The sting of the rod was always more sharp when he had been indulging too freely in rye at the tavern, which could be bought at that time for twenty-five cents a gallon, the very best Monongahela whiskey. He was an excellent quill maker, which was