Page 29 - Copshaholm Curriculum Book_2015

Oliver Family History 3

For the first time ever, the Olivers had plenty to eat—meat at every meal,
potatoes, onions, and corn on the cob. There was no corn in Scotland at that time, and
James thought the corn on the ear was a new way of cooking beans. He cleaned off
the cob and asked that the “stick” be refilled. By this time the Olivers had spent most of
their money. Finances were a major concern.

Within a few days James was working as a chore boy at a nearby farm for 50
cents a week and board. Using a neck yoke, he carried lunch to field workers, chopped
wood and did other menial tasks his employer demanded. James was ignorant of
American farm life. He could not hitch a horse to a wagon, he mistakenly pulled up corn
by the roots looking for the ears, he had never seen a cook stove and had no idea how
to use one. However, his employer liked his energetic ways, and when James finally
had to leave, his boss offered to triple his wages if he’d return.

That autumn, James moved with his family to Alloway, New York, a small town
settled by Scottish immigrants, where they resided on a farm until the next summer.
Prompted by the desire to obtain inexpensive land available in the Midwest, the Olivers
moved from Alloway to LaGrange County, Indiana in 1836. The trip, by boat and
wagon, took 21 days.

In the meantime, daughter Jane, who had left Scotland in 1834, had married
Charles Roy, who owned 60 acres in Clear Spring Township, LaGrange County. Son
Andrew, who also left in 1834, had obtained 160 acres of virgin land from the
government. James and others in the family set about to help him clear this land.

In that era, Mishawaka was known as St. Joseph Iron Works because of what
appeared to be inexhaustible deposits of bog iron from which castings could be made.
In December of 1836, several of the Oliver children, including James, moved there. The
reason for the move is not clear, but better opportunities might have been an influence.
The St. Joseph Iron Company, for which the town was named, was attempting to build a
dam across the St. Joseph River. James worked there for $6.00 a month until the
spring of 1837, when a depression left the company without ready cash.

Meanwhile he attended George Merrifield School but quit to help support his
mother after the death of his father on September 6, 1873. Attempts to help his mother
led to numerous jobs and adventures. He cut and sold wood, did menial chores,
labored as a farm hand, and, at one time, worked for Alexis Coquillard, a South Bend
pioneer, who was attempting to dig a canal to link the Kankakee and St. Joseph Rivers.
Sleeping in a shanty while wolves howled nearby proved too much for him. James
became ill with a type of malaria and quit.

Later James worked as a pole man on a keelboat, hauling wheat down the St.
Joseph River to Lake Michigan. He liked the work but when the captain was arrested
for defaulting on debts, James lost his job, wasn’t paid and walked the 15 miles from
Niles, Michigan to his home in Mishawaka.

James and his brother Andrew then found work in a small foundry owned by the
South Bend Blast Furnace Company of Mishawaka. There James learned to scratch
castings and cast molds, but the company failed in 1840. In the following years he
chopped wood, dug ditches, and cared for 500 hogs that he fed garbage from a gristmill
owned by the Lee Brothers. Later he worked in the gristmill, packing flour into wooden
barrels for $15 a month. The Lee brothers found him highly industrious and asked him