| Notes |
- The following is taken from a Glossbrenner family research of the family:
Written by: Harry Wishard Glossbrenner Jan., 1956
My last visit with Uncle Dave Prather was at the beginning of the 1922.
It was bitterly cold, the earth crackling wiht snow and ice, so cold that I
was tempted to break my promise to see hin at New Year's time.
"Rock Ledge Farm" was located some eight miles N.E. of Jeffersonville and, at
that time, an electric interurban line between Charlestown and Jeffersonville
skirted the farm with a stop located about a half mile from the house, by
road. There, on that cold New Years morning, cousin Hervert Prather met me
with a cutter sleigh and team on frisky horses. The road stretched fro a good
half mile to the south of the farm before Uncle Dave's private road to the
house struck off north on level graound, at right angles to the main road.
From both roads the ground sloped down to a depth of at least one hundred
feet, then rose even higher beyond a little brook which started from a never
failing spring in the rocks. The hill on the far side was heavily seamed with
rock ledges and, behind the twisted old cedar trees, the old house at the top
of the hill proudly faced the road. In summer, a small flock of sheep grazed
in the meadow before the house, always as fresh and clean as a city park.
Pastures for the horses and cattle lay beyond the bsarns at the left of the
road to the house with the fields and cultivated ground behind the house.
His was a fine, big, solid brick Colonial house with walls twelve inche3s
thick, white stoop in fromt with a solid panelled door with glass sidelights,
opening into a wide center hall that ran straight through to open at the rear
onto a double decked, brick-floored porch which extended the full length of
the long square hall and single bed-room on the second floor. This bed-room,
above the "parloour" of like size, was as large as two rooms in the same of
our modern apartments with two double four-poster beds laced with rope and
piled high with feather mattresses facing a huge fire place which, with
cupboards, or "presses" as they were called, on either side of the fire-place,
filled the entire wall space opposite the entrance door.
This was the house I had visited year agter yhear from my early childhood
until my marriage and this was the house to which I came on that cold New
Years morning to find Uncle Dave with his ever present pipe smiling and
chuckling as he gripped my hand and his greeting, as always, "howdy, well you
did come back".
Cousin Herbert had a date that night and left with bells jingling, Lena
retired soon after, leaving Uncle Dave and me, alone for the first and only
time I can recall, before the friendly, open fire. I do not know what I said
or asked that prompted hin to talk about himself, his family and my family.
I do know that I sat enthralled, listening to him until after midnight. David
Prather's grandfather was one of the Clark County's earliest pioneers, coming
to the territory of Indiana from N. Carolina, by way of the Cumberland Gap.
He, himself was born in Indiana and as a child, went to school with Rebecca
Anne Glossbrenner, my father's only sister. "I never had but one sweet-heart,"
he said "and I never asked Annie to marry me. We always knew we would get
married and when we did, I brought her here to this house and we have lived
here ever since." They had severn children.
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Prater/Prather Genealogy* 120,000+ Family Members
1844 - 1924 (79 years)