. History of Randolph County, Indiana with illustrations and biographical sketches of some of its prominent men and pioneers : to which are appended maps of its several townships. e of the chief mail routes in auld lang syne, and per-haps the most difficult and severe as well, was the one from Win-chester to Fort Wayne. That route was established before 1829. It was then themain link that the northern settlers had to civilization and to thegreat world outside the woods. Elias Kizer carried the mail on that obscure and well-nighimpassable track for several years before 1830. The Hawkinsboys, so
. History of Randolph County, Indiana with illustrations and biographical sketches of some of its prominent men and pioneers : to which are appended maps of its several townships. e of the chief mail routes in auld lang syne, and per-haps the most difficult and severe as well, was the one from Win-chester to Fort Wayne. That route was established before 1829. It was then themain link that the northern settlers had to civilization and to thegreat world outside the woods. Elias Kizer carried the mail on that obscure and well-nighimpassable track for several years before 1830. The Hawkinsboys, sons of John J. Hawkins, Esq., almost the earliest settlerin the forests of Jay, carried the mail for about eighteen months,about 1833. They went sometimes by the solitary Hawkinscabin near what has since been the village of Antioch in thecounty of Jay, and the Quaker Trace; and sometimes byJoab Wards, and the Godfrey farm west of Camden, andthence to Fort Wayne by the Godfrey Trail. It was a lonely,wearisome, burdensome task, and was too much for the boys;and ere long they were full fain to relinquish the labor tosome more hardy pioneer. And such a one was found in the per-. y^/-:^- //V7^^^ HISTORY OF RANDOLPH COUNTY. son of John Connor, who in the spring of 1835 laid hold of thework, and who kept it, through rain and mud, and frost andsnow and floods, year in and year out, for twenty-six or twenty-seven years, till 1861 ; and then he went into the array, old andwavworn as be was, and laid him down to die in the enemysland. Many a struggle had he with the hostile forces of nature,many a mud-hole, sometimes seventy-five miles long, undertookto bury him out of sight; many a flood rose across his pathway,many a fierce and bitter storm frowned and howled in his face,but ever in vain. The old hero came out of the contest aconqueror every time. Sometimes his horses, one or both, would lie down and die,under the terrible service; but he would simply get more andtry it again. It was alm
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