The Peffley, Peffly, Pefley Families in America, A historical and genealogical record of the Peffley, Peffly and Pefley families from 1729-1938; Published in 1938, By May Miller Frost and Clarence Earl Frost

Call Number: R929.2 P375

552 - JOEL PEFFLEY (son of No.551) married in Tippecanoe Co., Sept. 29th, 1853, SARAH ANN STAUTER, born in Penna., near Lancaster, Sept. 30th, 1829. Died Apr. 24th, 1902, (daughter of GEORGE and CHRISTINA (Myers) STAUTER). George and Christina moved to Tippecanoe Co., Ind., in 1834.

Issue: All born in Tippecanoe Co., Ind.

1 - WILLIAM HENRY THOMAS PEFFLEY, b. 1-15-1855.
2 - FRANKLIN JULIUS ALBERT PEFFLEY, b. 1-26-1857, d. 9-6-1887.
3 - FLORENCE LUCINA PEFFLEY, b. 10-20-1859, d. 11-22-1862.
4 - CLARAETTE ALLIE PEFFLEY, b. 11-28-1864.

FROM REMINISCENCES BY JOEL PEFFLEY. "In the spring of 1832 their first home was built in the wilderness, 'Hoosier cabin, a clapboard roof, a clapboard door, a clapboard loft and a puncheon floor.' This was a one room cabin sixteen by twenty feet, stick and mud chimney and a six foot fire-place. This home was near the present town of Ladoga, Indiana. The wilderness was full of wild animals.

"Father was a Cooper by trade. He made mother a churn, a tub, and a piggin. Mother did her first churning in a coffee pot, walked the floor and shook it until the butter came.

"Movers were passing frequently and this was the main stopping place between Danville and Crawfordsville. They often traveled after night to get here. I have seen a row of people lying from the fire-place to the door, heads to the wall. There was just room to walk from the fire-place to the door. Mother cooked for them at the blazing fire-place, with the people sitting around in the way. At about six years of age I was installed as dish-washer.

"The oak trees were so full of acorns that the hogs got fat in the woods. When we needed meat we took the gun and horse, shot one or two and dragged them home.

"Mother was ingenious. She cut a belt around a buckeye tree, about eighteen inches through, peeled it off, then with leatherwood bark sewed it together. Made a bottom of another piece pressed flat, and another made a top, then a narrow piece for a rim sewed on and she had a dandy band-box. Mother made our summer hats out of straw. For winter she made me a cap out of possum skin and made John one out of mole-skin. Circle's cap was made of coon- skin. Thomas' hat was made of ground squirrel skin with the tails hanging around. In this way we all knew our own caps.


"We always kept fire, but if it should go out we had flint and steel and punk and could have fire inside of an hour. Father helped his neighbors roll logs and raise houses and cleared land after night.

"Father loaned his big Virgina wagon to a party to haul the Government money from Crawfordsville to Cincinnati, only two men with each a single barrel pistol guarding it, and it went safely. Father traded off the old wagon and we then used a sled, winter and summer, hauling in the wheat and the hay out of the fields.

"Mother with a fire coal, marking on the hearth, taught me to write, so I could spell before I went to school. About 1837 John and I started to school at Hopewell, over two miles away. Kelsey was the teacher. Some children had no books, just a board and the teacher made letters on it for them.

"A man came to father and asked to work a half day to get 25 cents to pay postage on a letter that was in the postoffice. Labor was fifty cents a day. Father gave him the work and he got the letter.

"1838. About this time mother got a loom. She would spin and weave and make our clothes, work in the harvest field, come in at ten o'clock and get dinner. Father tapped sugar trees. She made molasses.

"1840. About this time father built the hewed log house. Now we had more room for movers and they came thick and fast. Mother printed a sign, 'private entertainment' with white lead and new milk for oil. On it was a picture of a woman holding to the frame.

"1842. On August 27th, a terrible accident occurred. Father with a load of tan-bark for Lucas' Tanyard, Thomas and Cyrus being along, on coming home a very large limb of a tree fell on them, killing Cyrus and badly hurting Thomas and nearly killing father and badly hurting one horse and wrecking the wagon. This made it hard on mother and us. At this time father owned eight hundred acres of land.

"In the summer of 1849 I taught my first school, three months for thirty-six dollars at the Harrison schoolhouse. Afterwards I went to school at Ladoga.

After I was twenty one I went to school one term and boarded at Uncle Joe Robinson's.

"About 1850 the brick house was built, Jonathon Shaver built it. I taught a school northwest of Ladoga in the summer of 1852 and boarded among the pupils. Jonathon Markey and I made rails for father. I would quit in the middle of the afternoon and go to my writing school, which I was teaching at Inlow's schoolhouse at night. Feb. 10th, 1851, I joined I.O.O.F. in Ridgeley Lodge No. 61.

"In the year 1853, Sept. 29th, I was married to Sarah A. Stauter of Tippecanoe Co. Taught three terms of school, was elected township clerk, served three years, then was elected justice of the peace. In the meantime I moved on the farm and took an active part in the grange movement of that day. I twice represented my Lodge as a delegate at the State Grange.

"In 1879 I sold my chattels and removed to Montgomery County, Indiana, to help care for my invalid parents. After two years I moved back to the farm in Tippecanoe Co. In 1888 I sold the farm and moved to Delphi, Indiana."

Joel like all the rest of the Peffleys possessed remarkable ability as a penman and wood-carver. He carved intricate designs and figures on peach-pits and wood. He carved many fine canes. One in particular he carved with figures of grass-hoppers doing all the things that people do. This was during the grasshopper plague. The cane was exhibited at the World's Fair at Chicago.