The Hoosier fiddle was a factor in all the festivities of the country folk. The fiddler was frequently an eccentric genius, ranking with the rural poet, who was often merely a maker of idle rhymes; however, the country fiddler in Indiana has held his own against latter-day criticism and the competition of the village brass band. Governor Whitcomb enjoyed local fame as a violinist, and Berry Sulgrove and General Lew Wallace, in their younger years, were skilful with the bow. Dr. H. W. Taylor, a conscientious student of early Hoosier customs, connects the Hoosier fiddler with the Scotch Highlanders, and has expressed his belief[13] that the Highlander folk coming to the United States naturally sought the mountain country of Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Georgia, and that the Scotch fiddle and its traditions survive principally in these mountainous countries. We are told that the fiddle of the Hoosiers is an exotic and cannot long survive, though fifteen years after this prediction a contest of Hoosier fiddlers was held in the largest hall at Indianapolis, and many musicians of this old school appeared from the back districts to compete for the prizes. The great aim of the old time fiddlers was to make their instruments “talk.” Their tunes enjoyed such euphonious names as “Old Dan Tucker,” “Old Zip Coon,” “Possum up a Gum Stump,” “Irish Washerwoman,” “Waggoner,” “Ground Spy,” and “Jay Bird.” Dr. Taylor discovered that the very Hoosier manner of bowing, _i.e._ fiddling, was derived from the Scotch, and he gives this description of it: “The arm, long, bony, and sinewy, was stretched forwards, downwards, and outwards from the shoulder, and at full length. There was absolutely no movement of the wrist, a very little at the elbow, and just a degree more at the shoulder.” Hall ironically observed that the country fiddler could, like Paganini, play one tune or parts of nearly two dozen tunes on one string; and like the great _maestro_ he played without notes, and with endless flourishes. He gives this attractive portrait of one of the New Purchase fiddlers:-- “He held his fiddle against his breast--perhaps out of affection--and his bow in the middle, and like a cart-whip; things enabling him, however, the more effectually to flog his instrument when rebellious: and the afflicted creature would scream right out in agony! Indeed, his Scremonah bore marks of premature old age--its fingerboard being indented with little pits, and its stomach was frightfully incrusted with rosin and other gummy things, till it looked as dark and careworn as Methuselah! Dan was, truly, no niggard of ‘rosum,’ for he ‘greased’ as he termed it, between his tunes every time! and then, at his first few vigorous jerks, fell a shower of dust on the agitated bosom of his instrument, calling out in vain for mercy under the cruel punishment.”[14]