By Nancy Noel | For The Times-Post

Stephenson Hair was born in October 1841, died in July 1923 and is buried in Grove Lawn Cemetery. He made his home at 211 S. West Street in Pendleton.

In peacetime he drove a one-horse dray making deliveries, anything from a churn to a pot belly stove.

Hair was a Civil War veteran who fought as an artillerist with the 18th Indiana Battery.

The 18th Independent Battery Indiana Light Artillery, also known as Lilly’s Hoosier Battery and Lilly’s Battery, was a Civil War regiment formed in Indiana during the American Civil War.

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The regiment was formed at the end of 1860 by 22-year-old Eli Lilly, an Indianapolis pharmacist.

The Whistling Dick was a muzzle loader cannon. The gun gained fame because of a whistling sound the weapon caused the shells to make in flight.

Whistling Dick was not a large cannon. There have been many theories on why the shells made a whistling sound after the gun was fired, but no one is sure what caused this phenomenon.

Hair owned a Whistling Dick.

As a dyed-in-the-wool Republican and jokester, Hair used the cannon to celebrate Republican election victories.

After an election victory, friends would meet in Teague’s Tailor Shop in Pendleton and make cartridges for the cannon.

“Daddy” Hair was the only one allowed to fire the cannon.

When Benjamin Harrison was elected in 1888, Whistling Dick was worked overtime.

It is said the sound could be heard three miles out of town. At that time it was on a regular gun carriage and was usually wheeled to the stone quarry where Falls Park is today.

Noel is president of the Pendleton Historical Museum board.