Logan Esarey preserved a great deal of the local pioneer knowledge and experience of his grandparents' and great-grandparents' generations in his famous description of EuroAmerican pioneer life The Indiana Home [1943, R.E. Banta, Crawfordsville, IN, with subsequent editions by Indiana University Press].

The Indiana Home describes early 19th-century pioneer lifeways of southern Indiana. It is as much an Esarey family narrative as an academic production. The original edition is available through Indiana University Press.

The original edition of The Indiana Home included Esarey family stories centered on their experiences in the Perry County region. These stories are not included in the subsequent Indiana University Press editions of the book. And then, one more story, "Aunt Lucindy Cox and the Water Dog" was unpublished and found among Logan's papers held by Patsy Van Kesteren.

Family Stories

• "The Bewitching of Blackstock" - About John and Sarah Hester Esarey (Logan's great-grandparents) 200 years ago, at about the time they migrated from Kentucky to Indiana. (PDF)
• "The Bullfrogs of Reily Hole" - Dates to the 1880s and refers to a well-known place on Oil Creek just downstream from Branchville. (PDF)
• "Aunt Lucindy and the Water Dog" - Also dates to circa the 1880s and describes an entertaining commotion that ensued when a local boy was bit by a large mudpuppy (salamander). Water Dogs were widely held to be poisonous. Although they can reach 16 inches and inflict a nasty bite, they are otherwise harmless. (PDF)

Logan Esarey

A sample of 19th century letters illustrate the continental migration of Esarey descendants in the 19th century. A few letters between brothers Jesse Esrey (1800-1855) who had moved on to Illinois and then Missouri, and his brother Jonathon Davis Esarey (1783-1858) who had stayed in Branchville, Indiana, survive. These are followed by a main body of letters between Jesse Esrey and his children who had moved to California just before the famous Gold Rush.

These letters are presented all together here for the first time and in more complete form than previously available.

Connection to the Donner Party

These letters also are part of the documentation of a far more famous event in American history - the ordeal of the Donner Party in the California Mountains in the winter of 1846/1847. Amanda Esrey and Daniel Rhoads had successfully come through to California in the 1846 migration and Daniel took part in the rescue and documentation of the Donner Party.

As a sidenote to the Esarey Civil War letters below, sons of Jesse Esrey who remained in Missouri during the Civil War fought for the Confederacy, while many of their cousins remaining in Indiana fought for the Union. Two of Jesse's sons, Thomas and James, died in the war.

Go to the letters

Jesse and Hannah Esrey

Several sets of letters between various Esareys and Esarey relatives during the Civil War highlight the experiences and mindsets perhaps typical of southern Indiana Union soldiers, sympathizers, and families at home. These are organized here by relation to John Clark Esarey and his wife Barbara Ewing Esarey.

Set 1: The John Clark Esarey Civil War Letters

The John Clark Esarey Civil War letters: During the early part of the war John Clark Esarey and his wife Barbara Ewing Esarey received a number of letters from relatives such as William Carmickle (35th Reg. Ind. Volunteers, who was killed June 1864 at Kennesaw Mountain in Georgia), and Albert Bird (49th Ind. Reg.). View the letters.

Then there is the late-war correspondence surrounding John Clark Esarey's own term of service in late 1864 and first half of 1865. These letters follow John Clark Esarey from his entry into the 53rd Reg. Indiana Volunteers (27 Sept 1864), through his participation in the devastating campaigns of William Tecumseh Sherman known as The March to the Sea and the Carolinas Campaign, to his discharge the following summer in Washington, D.C.

John Clark Esarey

Set 2: Jacob Esarey and Barbara Ann Elder Esarey Letters

Jacob and Barbara received letters from Barbara's Elder and Dedman relatives during this time. Jacob Esarey (born 1829) was the youngest brother of John Clark Esarey's father, Jesse Clark Esarey. A handful of letters from 1861-1863 have been preserved documenting the war-time experience of Dusquene Elder, James W. Elder, and Thomas Dedman. These letters describe Civil War service in Tennessee.

Set 3: Marcus and Isabel Patrick Benham Letters

Marcus and Isabel Benham were John Clark Esarey's aunt and uncle. More than two dozen letters have survived to this Crawford County couple from Isabel's relatives sharing news of Civil War service from military camps at such places as Pilot Knob, Helena, Mound City, Memphis, Vicksburg, and an army hospital in Clarysville, Maryland.

Jacob Esarey

Fire in the Hills

Hiram Frakes, born in Branchville in 1888, was the son of Mary Ann Esarey and Grayson Frakes, and grandson of Hiram Marcus Esarey (the elder) and Sophia Walker. He married Leota Walker of Branchville (daughter of Lacrosse and Fanny Walker). Their exciting (and occasionally dangerous) lives work as missionaries deep in the western Kentucky mountains from 1925 to 1950 is documented in the popular volume Fire in the Hills: The Story of Parson Frakes and the Henderson Settlement by Lee Fisher [1971] which features an introduction by the Reverend Billy Graham (Abingdon Press, New York).

This book has recently been reprinted by the Henderson Settlement in western Kentucky.

See a newspaper article on Hiram Frakes.