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"^ 


F 


WILLIAM   M.   COCKRL'M 


^ 


PIONEER 


His  for  J  of  Indiana 


Stories^  Incidents  and  Customs  of  the 
Early  Settlers 


COL.  fVILLIAM  AffCOCKRUM 


Oakland  City,  Indiana 

PRESS  OF  OAKLAND  CITV  JOURNAL 

1907 


Bntered  ftccordlog  to  ta  Act  of  Coiip«M  In  the 
year  1907 

By  WlUIAH  11.  COCKXDH 

in  the  office  of  the  LibrKiiifi  pf  ConKTew  et  Walk- 
Ington,  D.  C.     All  TlgttlTf«^ed. 


ro  MT  ff^IFE, 

Wha  for  fifty  years  has  been  my 
faithful  partner  and  true  help- 
matet  this  book  ij  affectionately 
dedicated  hy       THE  AUTHOR. 


1 


PREFACE. 


In  this  voltnne  many  of  the  early  happening's  that  oc- 
curred during  the  settling  of  Indiana  are  given  for  the  first 
time  and  if  this  opportunity  wete  not  improved,  a  large 
amount  of  interesting  history  of  our  state  would  be  lost. 

The  wri4)cr  claims  no  special  credit  for  securing  this  his- 
tory as  it  has  been  a  pleasing  task,  self  assigned.  If  the 
reader  shall  gain  as  much  satisfaction  from  reading  this  vol- 
ume as  the  autiior  has  from  gathering  the  data  from  which 
to  compile  it,  he  will  be  amply  repaid  for  the  few  hours  he 
^^  is  so  engaged. 

It  is  very  ^rratifying  to  be  able  to  go  back  to  the  settling" 

^of  Indiana  and  tell  about  the  brave  men  and  women  who  first 

'^  invaded  its  wildness  and  from  whom  sprang  the  hardy  and 

*  superior  race  of  people  in  all  stations  of  life  that  now  live 

within  its  confines. 

For  fifty  years  the  data  for  this  volume  has  been  collect- 
ing: From  personal  acquaintance  with  the  pioneers,  from  a 
history  of  incidents  transmitted  from  parents  to  children  and 
from  tradition  that  is  accepted  as  reliable. 

From  the  above  three  sources  it  is  believed  that  the  truest 
history  of  the  people  of  that  early  date,  their  manners  and 
customs,  the  dangers  they  encountered  from  the  Indians,  the 
hunting  for  game  and  the  many  terrible  encounters  with  sav- 
age beasts,  has  been  secured. 

In  submitting  this  work  to  the  public  the  author  wishes 
here  to  acknowledge  his  indebtedness  to  those  who  aided  him 
in  his  researches  and  made  the  existence  of  this  volume  pos- 
sible. These  favors  have  come  from  all  parts  of  the  country^— 
from  historical  societies,  public  libraries  and  men  in  official 
positions.  The  names  of  those  giving  the  most  valued  assist- 
ance is  hereby  ^fiveii. 


8  PIONEER  HISTORY  OP  INDIANA. 

The  City  Library  of  Quebec  and  the  librarian  of  Public 
Library  of  Montreal,  Canada. 

The  State  Library  of  Indianapolis  and  the  assistant  li- 
brarian, Miss  Jennie  M.  Elrod. 

The  Hon.  Henry  S.  Lane,  when  U.  S.  Senator  from  In- 
diana, for  favors  shown  me  in  the  office  of  Public  Documents 
in  Washington. 

The  Hon.  Oliver  P.  Morton  for  his  aid  in  securing*  a  per- 
mit to  examine  official  papers  in  the  War  Department. 

The  Hon.  Daniel  S.  Lamont,  Ex-Secretary  of  War,  for 
favors  shown  me  in  the  War  Department. 

Gen.  Lew  Wallace  for  valuable  suggestions. 

Gen.  Russel  A.  Alger,  Ex-Secretary  of  War,  for  a  copy 
of  official  documents. 

Hon.  Benjamin  Harrison,  Ex-President  of  the  United 
States,  for  the  use  of  his  notes  on  the  unpublished  history  of 
Gen.  William  Henry  Harrison. 

Gen.  John  I.  Nealy  for  manuscript  and  data. 

Joseph  P.  McClure  for  incidents  of  pioneer  history. 

David  Johnston  for  the  data  for  many  hunting  and  excit- 
ing experiences  in  the  early  days  of  Indiana.   ,   ,    . 

Woolsey  Pride,  Jr.,  for  the  history  of  his  father's  settling 
at  White  Oak  Springs,  near  Petersburg,  Indiana. 

Captain  Graham,  of  near  Corydon,  Indiana,  for  the  data 
for  many  pioneer  incidents. 

Hon.  Conrad  Baker,  Ex-Crovemor  of  Indiana,  for  data. 

Gen.  Joseph  Lane,  Ex-Crovernor  of  Oregon,  for  interest- 
ing letters. 

Captain  A.  Miler  for  many  interesting  incidents. 

Col.  James  G.  Jones  and  Hon.  A.  L.  Robinson,  of  Evans- 
ville,  Indiana,  for  letters  corroborating  underground  railroad 
incidents. 

John  T.  Hanover,  of  **Freedmans  Bureau,"  for  valuable 
papers  in  making  underground  railroad  chapter. 

Dr.  John  W.  Posey  for  data  on  the  kidnapping  of  free 
necrroes. 

Rev.  D.  B.  Montgomery  for  especial  favors  in  data  and 
manuscripts  of  the  pioneer  days  of  Indiana. 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OP  ITTOIANA.  9 

» 

Charles  C.  Waters  for  manuscript  and  data. 

Jacob  W.  Hargrove  for  manuscript. 

Delome^s  unpublished  manuscript  of  his  twenty-seven 
years  among  various  Indian  tribes  in  what  is  now  the  State 
of  Indiana. 

John  B.  Dillon's  '*History  of  Indiana." 

John  P.  J)unii  Jr.'s,.*'History  of  Indiana." 

President  Theodore  Roosevelt's  "Winning  of  the  West.'* 

Goodrich's  * 'History  of  Indiana." 

Mrs.  Ella  C.  Wheatley  for  valuable  assistance  in  prepar- 
ing this  work. 

William  Mc  Adams'  * 'Record  of  Ancient  Races. 

Dr.  J.  R.  Adams,  of  Petersburg,  Indiana,  for  valuable 
data. 

Hon.  Oliver  H.  Smitk  for  valuable  assistance. 

Beard's  **Battle  of  Tippecanoe." 

Prof.  W.  D.  Pence,  Purdue  University. 

Dr.  Greorge  C.  Mason  for  data. 

E.  C.  Farmer  for  data. 

Rev.  W.  P.  Dearing  for  assistance. 


Crawfordsville,  Indiana, 

April  12,  1902. 
Col.  W.  M.  Cockrum, 

Oakland  City,  Indiana. 
My  dear  Sir  and  Companion: 

Your  letter  of  the  8th  inst.  is  received. 

There  is  no  rule  in  literary  work  that  two  want  to  follow 
in  the  same  way.  Writing  on  any  subject,  they  might  differ 
in  their  way  of  expression;  but  there  is  one  rule,  as  you  sug- 
gest, that  is  safe  for  all  to  follow — have  your  data  well  pre- 
pared and  follow  closely  the  subject. 

I  am  pleased  to  learn  that  you  have  been  securing  data 
for  more  than  fifty  years,  and  intend  writing  a  Pioneer  His- 
tory of  Southern  Indiana,  in  which  you  will  give  the  old 
heroes  that  drove  the  Indians  away  and  blazed  the  pathway 
for  our  greatness,  a  deserving  tribute  for  their  noble  work. 

Why  not  extend  your  boundary  and  include  the  State  for 
your  field  of  labor?  Your  lament  that  the  opportunity  for  a 
finished  education  in  your  day  was  so  limited  that  you  doubt 
your  ability  to  give  the  smooth  and  pleasing  touch  to  your 
writing  that  is  needed  in  a  book  to  be  read  by  the  cultured 
people  of  this  date,  is  not  well  taken.  Let  me  suggest  that 
your  amanuensis  may  have  all  that  is  required,  but  good 
horse  sense  is  not  in  the  market. 

Your  friend. 

Lew  Wallace. 


TABLE  OF  CONTENTS. 


General  Lew  Wallace's  Letter . . .  .* Page  10 

CHAPTER  I. 

French  Colonization  of  Indiana.  Explorations.  Settlements. 
Trading  Stations.  Forts.  Relations  with  Indians. 
Post  Vincennes.  Treatment  of  English  Explorers. 
Pontiac Pages  16-23 

CHAPTER  II. 

Gborgb  Rogbrs  Clark  and  the  English. 
Treatment  of  Inhabitants  of  the  Northwest  by  the  English 
and  Their  Indian  Allies.  Clark's  Resolve  to  Reduce  the 
Forts.  His  Alliance  With  the  French  Inhabitants. 
Reduction  of  Fort  Kaskaskia.  Reduction  of  Post  Vin- 
cennes. Vincennes  Recaptured  by  Lieutenant  (Jovernor 
Hamilton.  Attempt  of  Hamilton  to  Dislodge  Clark  and 
Drive  Him  From  the  Territory.  Capture  of  Francis 
Vigo.  Clark's  March  .  from  Kaskaskia  to  Vincennes. 
Capture  of  Vincennes.  Regaining  the  Confidence  of  the 
Indians.  Later  Achievements  and  Failures  of  Clark. 
Pages  24-68 

CHAPTER  III. 

The  Territory  Captured  by  General  Clark  from  1779 
TO  THE  Organization  of  the  Northwest  Territory. 

General  Todd's  Proclamation.  The  Court  of  Vincennes. 
Virginia  Cedes  Northwest  Possessions  to  the  United 
States.  Town  of  Clarksville  Laid  Off.  Deed  of  Cession. 
Ordinance  of  1787 Pages  69-75 

CHAPTER  IV. 
Thia  Northwest  Territory  Organijzed.      Laws  Governing  It. 


12  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  mDIANA. 

Governor  St.  Clair  and  the  Indians.     Militia  Established 
and  Civil  and  Military  Officers  Appointed.     Laws  Adopts 
ed  at  Vincennes.      Defeat   of   St.  Clair's  Army  by  the 
Indians.     General  Wayne's  Victory  Near  the  Maumee. 
First  Territorial  Legislature Pages  76-104 

CHAPTER  V. 

Prisoners  Recaptured  from  the  Indians.  Terrible  Fighting 
Around  the  Place  Where  Owensville,  Indiana,  No'vr 
Stands Pages  105-129 

CHAPTER  VI. 

Organization  of  Indiana  Territory.  William  Henry  Har* 
rison,  Governor.  General  Gibson,  Secretary.  Territor- 
ial Judges  Appbinted.  Slavery  Question.  Laws  of  In- 
denture.    Specimens  of  Indenture  Papers . .  Pages  130-148^ 

CHAPTER  VII. 

Settlement  of  Southern  Indiana.  The  Cruelty  of  the 
French Pages  149-lSZ 

CHAPTER  VIII. 

The  Pioneer.  Character.  Hardships.  Routes  Followed- 
Settlements.  Food.  Education.  Customs.  Thrilling 
and  Amusing  Incidents.  Weddings.  Work.  Dress. 
Crude  Manufactures Pages  153-196- 

CHAPTER  IX. 

Land  Claims  and  Territorial  Affairs.  Indian  Depredations.. 
Letters  of  Instruction  and  Orders  to  Captain  William 
Hargrove.  Burning  of  an  Indian  Town  Near  Owens* 
ville.  Division  of  Indiana  Territory.  Elections.  Land 
Offices Pages  197-236^ 

CHAPTER  X. 

The  Battle  of  Tippecanoe.  Importance  of  the  Victory.- 
Cause  of  Battle.  The  Principal  Contestants.  Negotia- 
tions for  Peace.  Collecting  Army  at  Vincennes.  Move- 
ment of  Army  From  Vincennes.  Fort  Harrison  Estab- 
lish efl.  Advance  on  Prophet's  Town.  Encampment. 
The  Battle.      Grovernor  Harrison's  Report  of  the  Battle.. 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA.  U 

Incidents  of  the  Battle.  Resolutions  Adopted  by  Terri- 
torial Le£:islature.  Roll  of  the  Army  that  Foug:ht  at 
Tippecanoe Pages  237-308 

CHAPTER  XI. 
Indiana's  Tribute  to  Kentucky Pages  309-310 

CHAPTER  XII, 
further  History  of  Tecumseh  and  the  Prophet .  .Pages  311-317 

CHAPTER  XIII. 

Pioneer  Industries. 

Orude  Farming. Implements.  Cooking.  Milling.  Flax. In- 
dustry. Loom.  Whipsawk  Shoe  Making.  Rope  Walk. 
Bee  Hunting.     Witchcraft P«e8»318-341 

CHAPTER  XIV. 
.Amusements  and  Sports  of  the  Early  Pioneers.  .Pages  343-344 

CHAPTER  XV. 

Indiana  During  the  War  of  1812. 
Pigeon  Roost  Massacre.  Attack  on  Fort  Harrison.  General 
Disturbance  Among  the  Indians.  General  Hopkins  Re- 
port to  the  Grovernor.  Expeditions  Against  the  Indians. 
Delaware  Indians  Removed,  to  Ohio.  General  Gibson's 
Message  to  House  of  Representatives  in  1813.  Territor- 
ial Government  Moved  From  Vincennes  to  Corydon. 
Miss  McMurtne's  Statement.  Treaty  of  Friendship  and 
Alliance  With  the  Indians.  General  John  Gibson.  Grov- 
ernor Thomas  Posey.  Logan,  the  Indian  Chief.  Terri- 
tory Laid  Off  Into  Five  Districts.  Judicial  System  Im- 
proved. Charters  Granted  to  Banks.  Rappites  at  Har- 
mony.     New  Harmony  Sold  to  Robert  Owens 

Pages  345-387 

CHAPTER  XVI. 

Indiana  Becomes  a  State 

^Constitution  Adopted.  Officers  Selected.  Governor  Jennings' 
First  Message.  Boundary  and  Area  of  State.  Survey. 
Taxes.      Internal   Improvements.      Purchase  of  Indian 


14  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 

Claims.  Counties  Organized.  Ag-ue  and  other  Illness.^ 
Failure  of  State  Banks.  William  Hendrick  elected  Gov- 
ernor. Site  of  Indianapolis  chosen  for  Capital.  Land 
Sharks.  Indianians  called  **Hoosiers".  Counties  Organ- 
ized. White  men  executed  for  Murder  of  Indians.  Let- 
ter from  Oliver  H.  Smith.  Improvements  recommended 
by  Governors  Hendricks  and  Ray Pages  388-426. 

CHAPTER  XVII. 

Animals  of  Early  Indiana. 

Game   Animals.      Game   Birds.     Ferocious   Animals.     Fur- 
Beaiing   Animals.      Birds  of  Prey .Pages  427-457, 

CHAPTER  XVIII. 

Schools  of  Early  Indiana. 
Houses.     Books.      Danger  from  Wild  Animals.     Opposition 
to  Free  Schools Pages  458-468. 

CHAPTER  XIX. 

The  Noble  Act  of  returning  soldiers  of  the  Battle  of  Tippe- 
canoe. Aaron  Burr's  Conspiracy  and  the  misfortunes 
attending  it.  DiflSculty  of  procuring  salt  and  desperate 
battle  with  two  Bears.  Incidents  of  Burr's  Conspiracy. 
Governor  Jennings'  Temperance  Lecture.  Battle  be- 
tween two  bears  and  two  panthers.  Panthers  killing  In- 
dians. A  Hermit.  Panthers  kill  a  man  and  boy.  Early 
days  near  Petersburg,  Indiana.  Panthers  killing  one 
and  desperately  wounding  another  man  of  a  surveying 
party.  Wild  Hogs.  Shooting  matches.  Early  Days  in 
Dubois  County,  Indiana.  Killing  of  eight  Indians. 
Hunting.  Early  days  near  Sprinklesburg,  now  New- 
burg,  Warrick  County,  Indiana.  A  young  woman  killed 
by  panthers.  Hunting  Wolves.  Hunting  Deer.  An 
amusing  incident  of  an  Irishman  and  the  hornet's  nest 
; . . ; Pages  469-507. 

CHAPTER  XX. 
Flat  Boating \ Pages  508-510. 

CHAPTER  XXI. 
General  Joseph  Lane.     A  Short  Biography.     Letters 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA.  15 

...:,.:. . . :   ;. Pages  511-516. 

CHAPTER  XXII. 
The  State  Bank  and  Other  Interesting   Matter.      Counties. 

Organized.  Michigan's  Attempted  Theft.  Speech  of 
Hon.  Isaac  Montgomery.  Land  Sharks.  Land  Specu- 
lators.     Brave  Women Pages  517-532 

CHAPTER  XXIIL 

Internal  Improvements. 

Canals.  Railroads.  State  Debt.  Turnpike  Roads.  Wabash 
Rapids.  Pottowattamie  and  Miami  Indians  Removed 
From  the  State : Pages  533-542 

CHAPTER  XXIV. 

Penal,  Benevolent  and  Educational  Institutions. 

State  Prison.  Asylum  for  Deaf  and  Dumb.  Asylum  for 
Blind.  Hospital  for  the  Insane.  State  Universities. 
State  Library Pages  543-548. 

CHAPTER  XXV. 

The  Mexican  War. 

Indiana  in  the  Mexican  War Pages  549-554 

CHAPTER  XXVI. 

Indian  Barbarity  and  the  Prodigal's  Return.  This  chapter 
is  given  to  show  one  of  many  spies  that  the  Anti-Slavery 

people  had  on  all  strangers  during  the  fifties 

Pages  555-55a 

CHAPTER  XXVII. 

The  Experience  of  Two  Young  Boys  With  Two  Bear  Cubs. 
The  Amusing  Story  of  How  Hogs  Were  Induced  to  Re- 
turn to  Their  Own  Range Pages  559-561 

CHAPTER  XXVIII. 

• 

Kidnapping  Free  Negroes.  Kidnapping  of  Reube  at  Prince- 
ton. Liberating  two  negroes  near  Princeton,  Indiana.. 
Kidnapping  two  free  negroes  three  miles  west  of  Prince- 
ton.      Attempt  to  kidnap  a  Barber  at  Petersburg,  In- 


16  PIONEER  fflSTORY  OF  INDIANA. 

diana.  Several  attempts  to  kidnap  negroes.  Dr.  John 
W.  Posey  and  Rev.  Eldridge  Hopkins  liberating  two  kid- 
naped negroes.  A  slave  hunt  at  Kirk's  Mills  Bridge  in 
Gibson  County.  An  attempt  to  catch  runaway  negroes 
ending  in  a  desperate  battle  with  wild  hogs.  Jerry  Sul- 
livan Raid  at  Dongola  Bridge.  Kidnapping  the  Gothard 
Boys.  Rev.  Hiram  Hunter  relieving  kidnaped  negroes 
Pages  562-597. 

CHAPTER  XXIX. 

Underground  Railroad. 

Fugitive  Slave  Law.  Anti-Slavery  League.  Routes  of  Fu- 
gitive Slaves.  Interesting  Letters.  Rev.  T.  B.  McCor- 
mick Pages  608-619 

CHAPTER  XXX. 
Indian  Religion Pages  620-622. 

CHAPTER  XXXI. 

The  Mound  Buildbrs. 

Age  of  Mounds.  Workmanship  of  Builders.  The  Tradition 
of  the  Piassa.  Remains.  Difference  between  Mound 
Builders  and  Indians Pages  623-632. 


CHAPTER  I. 


FRENCH  COLONIZATION  IN  INDIANA. 


Explorations — Settlements — Trading  Stations — Forts 
— Relations  With  Indians — Post  Vincennes— Treat- 
ment OF  English  Explorers — Pontiac. 


The  French,  who  first  settled  Canada  and  founded  Que- 
bec in  1608,  were  a  very  restless,  energetic  people.  They 
were  rovers  and  soon  making  friends  with  the  Indians,  made 
long  journeys  with  them  to  the  south  and  west.  How  far 
they  w^nt  on  these  excursions  is  not  known,  but  they  contin- 
ually advanced  their  settlement  in  these  directions. 

During  the  fifty  years  following  the  founding  of  Quebec, 
they  had  settled  a  large  section  of  the  country  bordering  on 
the  Great  Lakes.  Whether  any  of  these  rovers,  during  their 
many  expeditions,  up  to  1650,  paddled  their  canoes  along  the 
rivers  of  Indiana  is  unknown.  Who  was  the  first  man  to  ex- 
plore the  wildness  of  our  State  or  when  that  date  was,  are 
unsolved  questions  that  will  remain  hidden  in  the  archives  of 
the  Great  Builder  of  Worlds.  They  are  questions  of  no  real 
merit  and  only  interest  those  who  are  sticklers  for  exactness 
in  regard  to  the  minute  things  which  happened  more  than 
two  and  a  half  centuries  ago  in  the  wilds  of  North  America. 
The  data  that  is  known  from  accepted  tradition  and  written 
history,  carries  us  back  far  enough  into  the  dark  ages  of  this 
country  to  enable  us  to  give  such  credit  due  to  those  who  did 
explore  the  rivers,  lakes  and  wooded  hills  of  Indiana  as  will 
be  of  interest  to  those  who  are  searching  for  the  early  history 
of  our  State. 


18  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 

The  probabilities  are  that  at  this  early  date,  all  the  tef 
ritory  of  Indiana  was  owned  and  controlled  by  the  Miama 
Confederation  of  Indians,  which  comprised  four  tribes:  The 
Twightwees,  which  was  the  Miami  proper,  the  Weas  or 
Oniatenons,  the  Shockeys  and  Pinkashaws.  These  Indians 
were  of  the  Alg^onquin  nation.  At  the  junction  of  the  St» 
Mary  and  St.  Joseph  rivers,  where  the  Maumee  river  is 
formed  and  where  the  city  of  Ft.  Wayne,  Indiana,  now 
stands,  these  Indians  had  their  ancient  capital,  known  in  In* 
dian  lang^uag^e  as  Kekiong^a,  and  as  early  as  1676,  the  white 
people  (French)  had  a  fort  near  that  place.  From  that  sta* 
tion  the  French  fur  hunters  passed  up  and  down  the  Wabash 
river  and  into  the  Louisiana  possessions  of  France,  securing- 
loads  of  furs.  Returning  up  the  Wabash  they  carried  their 
bundles  across  the  portage,  thence  down  the  Maumee  to  Lake 
Erie  and  to  their  trading  stations  in  Canada  where  they  were 
sold  for  such  articles  as  the  Indians  and  French  hunters  need- 
ed. In  these  excursions  up  and  down  the  Wabash  it  is  reas- 
onable to  conclude  that  there  were  trading  stations  at  differ- 
ent points  along  their  route  where  the  fur  was  collected  by 
traders.  Vincennes,  no  doubt,  was  a  trading  station  several 
years  before  the  commencement  of  the  eighteenth  century. 

The  traders  coming  on  the  Wabash  connected  with  those 
coming  on  what  was  afterward  known  as  ihe  Old  Vincennes 
and  Clarksville  trace.  This  crossed  White  river  about  fifteen 
miles  southeast  of  Vincennes  and  crossed  the  Wabash  river 
at  Vincennes,  then  to  Kaskaskia  on  the  Mississippi  river* 
One  branch  of  this  old  traveled  way  ran  from  a  point  a  little 
west  of  the  place  where  it  crossed  the  Little  Wabash  river 
south  to  the  saline  section  of  southern  Illinois.  No  doubt 
this  old  road  had  been  a  main  traveled  way  from  east  to  west 
by  the  Indians  for  ages  before  any  white  man  ever  saw 
America.  Along  the  route  where  it  passed  over  Orange  and 
Floyd  Counties,  ledges  of  rock  that  it  crossed  showed  evi- 
dence of  much  wear,  when  first  traveled  over  by  the  Whites. 
This  could  not  have  been  possible  without  having  been  long- 
used  by  the  Indians,  as  they  wore  skin  coverings  on  their 
feet. 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA.  19 

That  Robert  De  LaSalle  went  up  and  down  the  Wabash 
and  other  Indiana  rivers  with  a  few  white  companion^  and 
Indian  guides  several  years  before  the  commencement  of  the 
eighteenth  century,  is  an  established  fact.  He  was  at 
Kekionga,  the  capital  of  the  Miamas,  about  1680  and  no 
doubt  was  about  the  same  time  at  the  beautiful  site  where 
Vincennes  now  stands.  That  there  was  a  rendezvous  where 
these  two  cities  stand  for  the  collecting  of  furs,  as  well  as  at 
Ouitanon  during  La  Salle's  explorations,  is  generally  conced- 
ed by  all  who  have  searched  for  this  early  information.  Dur- 
ing the  twenty  years  that  La  Salle  was  engaged  in  his  ex- 
plorations, from  1667  to  1687,  he  was  very  active  in  exploring 
all  the  regions  where  there  were  fur  bearing  animals. 

In  1698  LaMotte  Cadillac,  of  New  France,  who  was  a 
far-seeing  man  and  worked  for  his  country's  interests,  re- 
turned to  France.  He  went  to  see  Count  Pontchartrain  and 
placed  before  him  a  map  that  he  had  made  from  notes  and 
drawings  made  by  LaSalle  before  he  was  assasinated,  ex- 
plaining to  the  Count  the  new  route  that  this  map  described. 
This  route  connecting  New  France  and  Louisiana  by  a  reli- 
able waterway,  extended  from  the  Lakes  up  the  Maumee  to 
the  capital  of  the  Miamis,  now  Ft.  Wayne,  Indiana,  and 
thence  by  an  easy  portage  to  the  headwaters  of  the  Wabash, 
thence  down  that  river,  through  the  heart  of  a  most  valuable 
territory.  Cadillac  recommended  to  the  Count  that  it  was 
best  to  locate  a  chain  of  forts  along  that  route  for  defense  if 
needed  against  any  Indians  that  were  or  might  become  hos- 
liie  and  against  any  expedition  that  the  english  might  send 
out  from  their  North  American  possessions  east  of  the  Alle- 
ghany Mountains.  He  was  so  convincing  in  his  presentation 
of  the  subject,  that  Count  Pontchartrain  fell  in  with  his 
views,  granted  his  request  and  commissioned  him  to  carry 
out  the  enterprise.  The  next  year  Detroit  was  selected  as  the 
place  most  suitable  for  a  depot  of  military  stores  and  a  gen- 
eral trading  post  between  the  French  and  Indians  on  the 
southern  borders  of  the  Great  Lakes.  The  next  site  selected 
was  at  the  head  of  the  Maumee  river,  called  Fort  Miami; 
then  came  one  near  the  Wabash  on  the  Wea  prairie  a  few 


! 


20  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 

miles  below  where  the  city  of  Lafayette  now  stands,  called 
Ouiatenon.  The  next  trading  post  was  at  the  point  where 
the  city  of  Vincennes  now  stands,  afterwards  called  Post 
Vincennes.     These  forts  were  all  completed  by  the  year  1705. 

It  has  always  been  contended  that  the  French  Jesuits  had 
mission  stations  at  each  of  these  places  years  before  they  be- 
came military  posts.  The  garrisons  which  were  located  at 
each  of  these  stations  consisted  of  a  few  men,  only  sufficient 
in  their  strong  log  forts  to  insure  a  safe  retreat  for  the  fur 
traders  and  their  families. 

In  a  few  years  a  number  of  young  French  hunters  gath- 
ered around  these  stations  and  it  became  common  for  them  to 
marry  the  3'oung  Indian  women,  and  in  a  comparatively  short 
time  there  was  a  large  number  of  half  breeds  in  all  the  settled 
sections  where  the  French  lived.  •  These  hunters  adopted  the 
Indian  customs  and  this  intermarrying  of  the  two  races  was 
the  real  reason  for  the  very  close  alliance  that  existed  be- 
tween the  French  and  the  Indians — '*Blood  is  thicker  than 
water."  The  two  races  of  people  became  so  closelj-  akin  that 
their  interest  became  the  same.  The  men  put  in  most  of 
their  time  during  the  hunting  season  in  the  forests  hunting 
for  game,  or  along  the  streams  trapping  for  fur.  These  two 
occupations  comprised  all  there  vvc's  to  be  done.  Each  family 
would  work  together  and  have  a  small  field  of  corn.  The 
women  would  plant  and  tend  it.  They  cured  and  dried  the 
meat  that  was  killed  by  the  hunters  and  prepared  it  for  fu- 
ture use.  The  indolent  habits  of  these  Indians  and  mongrel 
French,  around  their  homes  were  indulged  in  by  all.  When 
they  sold  their  furs  they  would  invest  the  greater  portion  of 
it  in  villainous  whiskej',  that  would  make  those  drinking  it 
crazy  drunk.  During  the  orgies  engaged  in  by  these  savage 
woodsmen,  there  would  be  man}-  maimed  and  others  dead  be- 
fore the  protracted  '*spree"  was  over.  The  traders  who  sold 
this  injurious  stuff,  if  they  ever  were  honest,  lost  all  thought 
of  such  an  inconvenience  when  trading  with  the  Indians  and 
cheated  them  in  every  way  that  was  possible. 

The  Catholic  missionaries  who  helped  explore  the  North- 
west territory  and  labored  to  christianize  the  Indians,  were 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA.  21 

earnest,  devoted  men  who  did  all  they  could  to  better  the 
condition  of  the  Indians;  but  the  evil  effects  of  the  poisonous 
liquor  sold  them  6y  the  unscrupulous  traders  buying  their 
furs,  neutralized  all  the  good  done  by  the  missionaries  and 
kept  these  poor,  unfortunate  people  in  a  degraded  conditioji- 

The  post  where  Vincennes  now  is  was  included  in  the 
district  of  Illinois,  in  the  colony  of  Louisiana.  Fort  Chartres 
was  the  seat  of  government  of  the  district,  and  New  Orleans 
was  the  seat  of  government  of  the  province.  The  post  where 
Vincennes  is  located  had  different  officials  at  an  early  date 
who  acted  as  commanders  of  the  garrison.  Among  that  num- 
ber was  Francis  Morgan  De Vincennes,  for  whom  the  city  of 
Vincennes  was  named.  He  remained  its  commander  until 
sometime  in  1736,  when  he  was  killed  in  battle  with  the 
Chickasaw  Indians.  For  a  long  period  before  his  death  he 
was  in  command  of  all  the  French  posts  located  in  the  part  of 
Louisiana  province  that  is  now  Indiana. 

In  1736,  after  the  death  of  Vincennes,  St.  Ange  was 
placed  in  command  of  the  district  of  Illinois  with  his  head- 
quarters at  post  Vincennes.  This  command  was  held  by  him 
until  two  years  after  the  French  had  ceded  their  New  France 
and  a  part  of  their  Louisiana  possession  to  England  in  1763. 
During  the  long  period  that  France  held  control  of  the  Ter- 
ritorj'  that  is  now  Indiana,  the  only  improvement  made  by 
them  was  the  building  of  a  few  block-houses  and  a  few  crude 
buildings  around  these  stations.  They  did  not  attempt  to 
clear  up  the  country,  open  any  highways  or  to  make  any  per- 
manent improvements.  Their  business  was  hunting  and 
trapping,  and  so  they  did  not  want  the  country  cleared  as  it 
would  injure  their  occupation. 

During  the  one  hundred  and  forty-three  j^ears  between 
the  time  the  English  planted  their  colony  at  Jamestown,  Vir- 
ginia, in  1607  until  they  attempted  a  plant  a  colony  on  the 
west  side  of  the  Alleghany  mountains,  in  1750,  they  developed 
into  thirteen  colonies  and  more  than  one  million  people  living 
in  the  country  along  the  Atlantic  from  the  east  side  of  Flor- 
ida to  one  hundred  miles  east  of  Boston,  Massachusetts. 

During  that  long  period  of  nearly  one  hundred  and  fifty 


22  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 

years,  France  and  England  were  busy  acquiring  territory  and 
planting  colonies  in  their  locations  in  North  America.  They 
each  established  missionary  stations  to  christianize  the  Ind- 
ians. There  was  great  rivalry  between  catholic  France  and 
protestant  England  in  their  home  countries.  This  feeling 
was  carried  to  the  new  world  by  the  missionaries  and  used  to 
embitter  the  feelings  of  the  Indians  in  their  respective  col- 
onies against  the  other  nations.  Rev.  Cotton  Mather  says, 
in  one  of  his  works  published  the  last  of  the  seventeenth  cen- 
tury, that  a  noted  Indian  chief  informed  a  protestant  minis- 
ter of  Boston,  that  the  French,  when  instructing  the  Indians 
of  his  nation  about  the  christian  religion,  told  them  that 
Jesus  Christ  was  a  Frenchman  and  that  the  English  mur- 
dered him  and  that  he  arose  from  the  dead,  ascending  up  to 
heaven  and  all  who  would  come  into  favor  with  Christ  must 
help  them  in  their  war  against  the  English. 

In  1752  M.  Duquesne,  governor  of  New  France,  ordered 
George  Washington,  who,  with  others,  was  attempting  to 
survey  some  lands  near  where  the  city  of  Pittsburg,  Pennsyl- 
vania, now  stands  to  desist  and  leave  the  country.  Duquesne 
stated  that  the  French  government  claimed  all  the  territory 
bordering  on  the  Ohio  river  and  its  many  tributaries;  basing 
that  claim  on  the  discoveries  made  by  LaSalle,  in  the  latter 
part  of  the  seventeenth  centurj%  This  was  a  beginning  of 
the  long  and  bloody  war  between  England's  American  col- 
oniies  and  the  French  inhabitants  of  New  France.  In  many 
battles  between  the  French  and  English  people  from  1752  to 
1763,  for  the  supremacy  in  America,  the  French  inhabitants 
ivho  occupied  the  different  stations  in  what  is  now  Indiana, 
Icnew  but  little  about  the  war  and  there  were  many  isolated 
stations  in  that  territory  whose  people  did  not  know  until 
several  years  afterwards  that  France  had  ceded  her  North 
American  possessions  to  England. 

After  England  came  into  possession  of  New  France,  the 
posts  at  Quebec,  Montreal,  Detroil  and  other  stations  in  that 
territory  established  strong  garrisons  and  adopted  concilia- 
tory measures  to  win  the  Indians  from  their  allegiance  to 
France.     This  was  hard  to  do.    Pontiac,  who  would  not  give 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA.  23 

up  the  hope  that  his  great  father,  the  king  of  France,  would 
again  come  into  power,  fought  many  determined  battles 
against  the  English  and  would  not  be  consoled.  Finally  he 
went  to  St.  Louis  to  see  his  old  friend,  St.  Ange,  who  coim- 
seled  him  to  submit  and  give  to  England  the  same  loyality 
that  he  had  to  France,  telling  him  that  France  had  not  sold 
his  land  nor  would  the  English  take  it  away  from  him. 
This,  in  a  measure,  satisfied  the  great  Pontiac  and  he  went 
back  home,  coming  down  the  Mississippi,  up  the  Ohio  and  the 
Wabash.  Telling  his  people  that  there  would  be  no  more 
war,  he  discarded  his  rank  and  went  into  private  life  as  a 
hunter. 

A  tradition  that  has  come  all  the  way  down  from  genera- 
tion to  generation  was  often  told  by  the  Indians,  as  follows: 
The  great  chief,  Pontiac,  in  destroying  bands  of  Indians  op- 
posing his  confederation,  captured  mostly  women  and  child- 
ren who  were  sold  by  his  agents  to  the  resident  French  at 
the  different  posts,  receiving  in  exchange  guns,  powder,  lead, 
flints,  tomahawks  and  blankets.  He  was  killed  by  an  assasin 
in  the  woods  where  East  St.  Louis  now  stands,  because  sev- 
eral years  before,  one  of  his  bands  of  warriors  had  captured 
the  women  and  children  of  a  hunting  party  of  Illinois  Indians 
while  they  were  drying  meats  and  fish  on  the  shores  of  lake 
Michigan  and  Pontiac  ordered  them  all  sold  into  slavery  ex- 
cept a  beautiful  woman  who  was  the  wife  of  the  chief  of  the 
hunting  party,  whom  he  took  for  his  wife.  While  making  a 
visit  to  St.  Ange,  at  the  village  of  St.  Louis,  this  injured 
woman  hunted  up  some  of  her  kindred  and  assisted  them  in 
murdering  Pontiac.  The  hold  this  great  chief  had  on  the 
people  of  his  confederation  was  so  firm  that  when  they 
learned  of  his  murder  they  brought  on  a  war  of  extermina- 
tion and  before  it  was  over  the  Illinois  Indians  were  nearly 
all  killed.  The  beautiful  woman  who  caused  his  death  was 
re-captured  and  burned  at  the  stake. 


CHAPTER  IL 


GEORGE  ROGERS  CLARK  AND  THE  ENGLISH, 


Treatment  of  Inhabitants  of  Northwest  by  English — 
Their  Indian  Allies — Clark's  Resolve  to  Reduce 
THE  FoRTS-^His  Alliance  with  the  French  Inhab- 
itants— Reduction  of  Fort  Kaskaskia — Reduction 
OF  Post  Vincennes — Captain  Leonard  Helm  in  Charge 
OF  Vincennes — Vincennes  Recaptured  by  Lieut.  Gov- 
ernor Hamilton — Attempt  of  Hamilton  to  Dislodge 
Clark  and  Drive  Him  from  the  Territory — Capture 
OF  Francis  Vigo — Clark's  March  from  Kaskaskia  to 
Vincennes — Capture  of  Vincennes — Regaining  the 
Confidence  of  the  Indians — Later  achievements  and 
Failures  of  Clark. 


After  reading:  Theodore  Roosevelt's  extensive  work  on 
^'Winning:  the  West,"  William  E.  Engflish's  elaborate  history 
of  the  conquest  of  the  Northwest  territor}^  and  **The  Life  of 
Georg:e  Rog:ers  Clark"  and  John  P.  Dunn,  Jr.'s  ** American 
Commonwealth,"  in  which  his  Hannibal  of  the  west  is  one  of 
the  many  subjects  treated  by  him  in  an  entertaining:  and  in- 
structive manner,  it  may  seem  presumptuous  to  attempt 
to  write  about  that  subject,  but  to  attempt  to  write  a 
a  pioneer  history  of  Indiana  without  detailing:  the  heroic 
work  of  the  hero  of  the  Northwest  territory,  would  be  like 
presenting  the  play  of  '*Hamlet"  with  Hamlet  left  out. 

Greorge  Rogers  Clark  was  born  in  Albermarle  county, 
Virginia,  November  19,  1752.  In  early  life,  he,  like  Wash- 
ington, was  a  surveyor,  preparing  himself  for  his  work  as  a 
pioneer  in  a  new  country.     In  1774  he  served  as  an  officer  in 


PIONEEJ^  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA.  2S 

Dunmore's  war.  In  this  way  he  first  became  acquainted  with 
the  western  country.  In  1775  he  first  visited  Kentucky.  At 
that  time  he  was  a  Major.  That  fall  he  returned  to  Virg^inia 
and  commenced  making  preparations  to  move  to  the  west  the 
next  spring.  Having  moved  and  become  a  fixture  there,  he 
set  about  to  aid  the  people  and  that  section  of  the  country  to 
which  he  had  attached  himself.  The  advantages  were  ob- 
vious but  its  distance  from  the  settled  colonies  and  its  ex- 
posure to  hostile  Indian  tribes,  rendered  his  occupation  very 
perilous.  Clark  was  not  an  ordinary  man — his  mind  was  very 
comprehensive.  He  knew  no  danger  and  was  in  full  vigor  of 
young  manhood,  with  energy  and  determination  that  would 
surmount  all  difficulties. 

As  we  before  noted,  during  all  the  time  the  French  had 
control  of  the  territory  that  is  now  Indiana  they  made  no  per- 
manent improvements,  having  intermarried  and  adopted  the 
habits  of  the  Indians,  living  in  bark  and  skin  tepees.  There 
were  fewer  than  a  hundred  white  families  at  post  Vincennes;. 
at  Ouiatenon,  Wea  prairie,  near  Lafayette,  not  more  than 
fifteen  or  twenty  families  and  at  the  Twightee  village,  now 
Ft.  Wayne,  Indiana,  about  ten  families. 

From  1763  ilp  to  the  time  that  Vincennes  was  captured 
by  George  Rogers  Clark,  the  English  people  established  but 
few  posts.  They  only  strengthened  those  that  the  French 
had  at  Ft.  Miami  (Fort  Wayne)  and  the  stations  on  the  Wea 
prairies,  Ouiatenon  and  post  Vincennes.  At  these  stations, 
after  the  commencement  of  the  Revolutionarj^  war,  there  were 
British  officers  with  a  small  command  of  British  troops  that 
gathered  around  them  ^a  band  of  Indians  who  were  placed  un- 
der partisan  officers.  These  officers  sent  them  out  in  detach- 
ments to  prey  upon  the  unsuspecting  settlers  who  were  then 
upon  the  borders  of  the  Ohio  east  of  what  afterward  became 
Louisville,  Kentucky,  and  into  Virginia.  Those  from  Vin- 
cennes directed  their  depredations  principally  against  the 
scattered  settlements  in  northern  Kentucky.  This  condition 
of  things  continued  until  George  Rogers  Clark  captured 
Lieutenant  Gk)vernor  Hamilton  and  his  band  of  partisans  at 
Vincennes  in  1779. 


\ 


26  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 

After  the  treaty  between  France  and  England,  the  British 
authorities,  on  coming  into  possession  of  that  vast  empire,  did 
everything  in  their  power  to  keep  improvements  from  be- 
ing made.  There  were  several  propositions  made  to  the 
king  by  his  British  subjects  of  England  and  by  his  Amer- 
ican colonies,  who  had  means,  for  permission  to  make 
extensive  improvements  in  the  rich  country  bordering  on 
the  Ohio  and  Mississippi  rivers,  and  to  plant  colonies  in 
many  places.  All  of  these  propositions  were  rejected.  The 
few  settlements  which  were  made  got  along  the  best  they 
could  without  any  protection.  This  immense  territory  had 
Indian  towns  and  villages  scattered  all  over  it.  There  were 
many  desperadoes  who  left  the  colonies  and  made  their  homes 
among  the  Indians.  In  most  these  free-booters  were  fu- 
gitives from  justice. 

When  the  war  for  independence  came   these  desperate 
characters,  through  the  influence  of  British  agents,  declared 
their  allegiance  to  the  British  crown.      They,  through  their 
intercourse  with  the  Indians,  did  much  to  cause  them  to  take 
up  the  hatchet  against  the  Americans.     These  Indians  and 
their  partisan  allies  were  organized  into  detachments  to  go 
to  the  western  borders  of  the  American  colonies  to  murder, 
scalp  and  capture  the  inhabitants.     As  an  inducement  for 
them  to  do  this  bloody  work,  they  were  offered  as  a  reward, 
one   pound  for  children  and  women  scalps  or  for   them   as 
prisoners;  three  pounds  for  a  man's  scalp,  no  reward  for  him  as 
prisoner,  and  five  pounds  or  twenty  dollars  for  young  and  come- 
ly women  prisoners.     The  white  villians  who  were  with  their 
Indian  allies,  were,  if  possible,  more  Ipst  to  human  sympathy 
than  the  Indians.     They  seem  to  have  lost  all  human  feeling 
and   would  kill  and  destroy  the  helpless  people  whom  they 
found  on  the  borders.     Ignoring  all  restraint  they  deliberate- 
ly went  into  the  settlements  where  they  had  formerly  lived 
and  where  their  kith  and  kin  resided.     The  pleading  of  the 
helpless  and  aged  mother  or  the  wail  of  the  infant,  seemed  to 
b^  music  to  the  ears  of  these  brutal  butchers.      After  killing 
and  capturing  all  they  could,  they  burned  and  destroyed  the 
homes  and  such  property  as  they  could  not  carry  away.     Go- 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA.  27 

ing:  back  with  their  fiendish  Indian  allies  to  the  British  posts, 
they  were  received  with  great  military  parade  as  if  they  were 
Teturning  heroes  from  a  great  victory.  They  received  the 
Teward  for  their  scalps  and  then  five  pounds  for  the  young 
^women  prisoners,  who  were  turned  over  to  the  British  officers 
and  traders  to  a  life  of  servitude.  A  thousand  deaths  would 
have  been  preferable  to  the  violated  and  insulted  womanhood 
that  these  poor  helpless  victims,  mothers  and  fair  daughters 
of  Virginia  and  Kentucky  had  to  indure.  The  continued 
raids  made  by,  the  Indians  and  their  more  brutal  allies,  be- 
<:ame  so  damaging  to  the  exposed  settlements  that  there  was 
^reat  danger  of  their  being  broken  up.    - 

(ieneral  Clark  heard  the  appeal  of  these  abused  people 
and  determined  to  avenge  the  many  deaths  caused  by  these 
barbarians.  Having  explored  the  rurrounding  coimtry  of  his 
new  home  and  seen  much  of  the  Indians,  he  learned  that  the 
<:ontinual  hostility  that  they  showed  toward  the  white  people 
was  caused  by  the  British  commanders  and  their  emissaries 
at  Detroit,  Kaskaskia  and  Vincennes  and  that  these  posts 
would  retard  the  settlement  of  the  new  country.  He  was 
<:onvinced  that  the  thing  to  do  was  to  reduce  these  forts  and 
made  a  statement  of  these  facts  to  the  Virginia  legislature  in 
December,  1777,  outlining  a  plan  for  the  successful  accom- 
plishment of  this  purpose.  It  was  approved  by  Gk)vernor 
Henry  and  his  council,  and  twelve  hundred  pounds  was  ap- 
propriated for  the  expenses  and  four  companies  of  men  were 
raised  for  the  expedition.  In  the  spring  of  1778  they  rendez- 
voused at  Corn  Island  in  the  Ohio  river,  opposite  Louisville, 
Kentucky.  The  four  companies  were  commanded  by  Cap- 
tains Joseph  Bowman,  Leonard  Helm,  John  Montgomery  and 
William  Harrod. 

The  memoirs  of  Clark  say  that — **On  the  24th  of  June, 
1778,  we  left  our  camp  and  ran  up  the  river  for  a  mile  in 
order  to  gain  the  main  channel  and  shoot  over  the  falls.  I 
knew  that  spies  were  on  the  river  below  and  that  I  might 
fool  them,  I  resolved  to  march  a  part  of  the  way  by  land. 
The  force,  after  leaving  such  as  were  not  able  to  stand  the 
march  with  their  companies,  was  very  much  reduced  in  num- 


28  PIONEER  HISTORY  OP  INDIANA. 

bers  and  much  smaller  than  I  had  expected. 

* 'Owing  to  the  many  difficulties  I  had  to  encounter,  I 
found  it  was  best  to  chang:e  my  plans.  As  the  post  of  Vin- 
cennes  at  that  time  had  a  considerable  force  of  British  and  In- 
dians and  an  Indian  town  was  adjoining,  there  were  large  num- 
bers of  Indian  warriers  there  all  the  time.  I  regarded  Vin- 
cennes  of  much  more  importance  than  any  of  the  others,  and 
had  intended  to  attack  it  first,  but  finding  I  could  not  risk 
such  a  hazardous  undertaking,  I  resolved  to  go  to  Kaskaskia. 
There  were  several  villages  along  the  Mississippi  river  but 
they  were  some  distance  apart.  I  had  acquainted  myself 
with  the  fact  that  the  French  inhabitants  in  these  western 
villages  had  g'reat  influence  over  the  Indians  and  were  re- 
garded with  much  favor  by  them,  as  thej^  had  been  their  old 
allies  ill  former  war  before  the  English  captured  the  country 
from  them;  so  I  resolved.  If  possible,  to  attach  the  French  to 
our  interests.  I  had  received  a  letter  from  Colonel  Campbell, 
from  Pittsburg,  informing  me  that  France  had  formed  an 
alliance  with  the  Colonies.  As  I  intended  to  leave  the  Ohia 
at  Ft.  Massac,  three  leagues  below  the  mouth  of  the  Ten- 
nesee  river,  I  landed  on  a  small  ivsland  in  the  mouth  of  that . 
river  in  order  to  prepare  for  the  march.  A  few  days  after 
starting  a  man  named  Duff  and  a  party  of  hunters  coming 
down  the  river  were  stopped  by  oiir  boats.  They  were  for- 
merl}"  from  the  States  and '  assured  of  their  loyalt)\  They 
had  been  at  Kaskaskia  only  a  short  time  before  and  could 
give  us  all  the  intelligence  we  wanted.  The)'  said  that  Gov- 
ernor Abbot  had  left  Vincenhes  and  gone  to  Detroit;  that 
Mr.  Rochblave  commanded  at  Kaskaskia;  that  the  militia  was 
in  good  condition  and  would  give  us  a  warm  reception  if  they 
knew  of  our  coming;  that  spies  were  constantly  kept  on  the 
Mississippi  and  all  hunters,  Indians  and  others,  had  orders  to 
keep  a  close  lookout  for  the  rebels;  that  the  fort  was  kept  in 
good  order  and  that  the  soldiers  were  much  on  parade.  They 
had  been  taught  that  we  were  a  lot  of  desperate  men,  especi- 
ally the  Virginians.  The  hunters  said  if  the  place  could  be 
surprised,  .which  they  hoped  we  might  do,  they  thought  there 
would  be  no  resistance  and  they  hoped  we  would  take  them 


PIQNEEK  HISTORY  OP  INDIANA.  29 

and  let  them  aid  in  the  capture.  This  I  concluded  to  do  and 
they  proved  true  men  and  valuable  to  the  expedition.  No  part 
■of  the  information  pleased  me  more  than  that  the  inhabitants 
viewed  us  as  more  savage  than  the  Indians  and  I  was  deter- 
mined to  improve  upon  this  ii  I  should  be  so  fortunate  as  to 
^et  them  into  my  possession. 

Having  everything  ready,  we  moved  down  to  a  small 
guUey  a  short  distance  above  Ft.  Massac,  in  which  we  con- 
cealed our  boats  and  started  to.march.  On  the  fourth  of  July, 
in  the  evening,  we  got  within  a  few  miles  of  the  town,  where 
ive  lay  until  nearly  dark.  Keeping  spies  ahead  we  started  on 
the  march  and  took  possession  of  a  house  where  lived  a  large 
family,  on  the  banks  of  the  Kaskaskia  river,  less  than  a  mile 
from  the  town.  These  people  informed  us  that  a  short  time 
before  the  militia  had  been  under  arms  but  had  conciuded 
that  the  cause  of  the  alarm  was  without  foundation;  that 
there  were  a  large  number  of  men  in  town  and  that  the  Ind- 
ians had  all  gone  and  everything  was  quiet.  Boats  were  soon 
secured  and  the  command  crossed  the  river.  With  one  of  the 
divisions  I  marched,  to  the  fort  and  ordered  the  other  two 
divisions  into  different  quarters  of  the  town.  If  I  met  with 
no  rej^istance,  at  a  certain  signal  a  general  shout  was  to  be 
given  and  certain  parts  were  to  be  immediately  possessed  and 
the  men  of  each  detachment  who  could  speak  the  French 
language,  were  to  fun  through  every  street  of  the  town  and 
proclaim  what  had  happened  and  inform  ihe  inhabitants  that 
•ever}'  one  who  should  come  on  the  street  would  be  shot  down. 
This  had  the  desired  effect.  In  a  very  short  time  every  ave- 
nue was  guarded  to  prevent  anyone  from  escaping  to  give  the 
alarm  to  other  villages. 

**I  don't  suppose  that  greater  silence  ever  reigned  among 
the  inhabitants  of  a  place  than  did  over  those  of  this  post. 
Not  a  person  was  to  be  seen,  not  a  word  to  be  heard  from 
them  for  some  time;  but  the  troops,  by  my  order,  kept  up  the 
the  greatest  noise  all  over  the  town  during  the  whole  night. 
In  two  hours  time  all  the  inhabitants  were  disarmed  and  in- 
formed that  if  they  made  an  attempt  to  escape  they  would 
immediately  be  put  to  death. 


30  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 

*'The  morning:  after  the  capture  a  few  of  the  principal 
men  had  been  arrested  and  put  in  irons.  Soon  afterward  M, 
Gibault,  the  village  priest,  accompanied  by  some  aged 
citizens,  waited  on  me  and  said  the  inhabitants  expected  to 
be  separated,  perhaps  never  to  meet  again,  and  they  begged 
the  privilege  of  again  assembling  in  their  church,  there  to 
take  leave  of  each  other.  I  told  the  priest  that  we  had  noth- 
ing against  their  religion;  that  that  was  a  matter  the  Ameri- 
cans left  every  man  to  settle  with  his  God  and  that  the  peo- 
ple could  assemble  at  their  church  if  they  wished  to  but  they 
must  not  attempt  to  escape.  Nearly  all  the  population  as- 
sembled at  the  church.  After  the  meeting  a  deputation  con- 
sisting of  Gibault  and  several  other  persons  waited  on  me  and 
said  that  their  present  situation  was  the  fate  of  war  and  that 
they. could  submit  to  the  loss  of  property  but  they  asked  that 
they  might  not  be  separated  from  their  wives  and  children 
and  that  some  clothes  and  provisions  might  be  allowed  for 
their  support.  I  feigned  supprise  at  ihis  request  and  abruptly 
exclaimed — 'Do  you  mistake  us  for  savages?  I  am  almost 
certain  you  do,  from  you  language.  Do  3^ou  think  that  the 
Americans  intend  to  strip  women  and  children;  or  take  the 
bread  out  of  their  mouths?  My  countrymen  disdain  to  make 
war  on  helpless  innocents.  It  was  to  prevent  the  horrors  of 
Indian  butchery  upon  our  wives  and  children  that  we  have 
taken  arms  and  penetrated  this  remote  stronghold  of  British 
and  Indian  barbarity,  and  not  ihe  despicable  prospects  of 
plunder.'  I  further  told  them  as  the  King  of  France  had 
uniied  his  powerful  arms  with  those  of  the  Americans,  the 
war  in  all  probability  would  not  continue  long,  but  that  the 
inhabitants  of  Kaskaskia  were  at  libertj'  to  take  which  side 
the  pleased  without  the  least  clanger  either  to  their  families 
or  their  property,  nor  would  their  religion  be  an}^  source  of 
disagreement,  as  all  religions  were  regarded  with  equal  res- 
pect by  the  American  laws  and  that  any  insult  offered  to  it 
would  be  immediately  punished.  Then  1  said — 'And  now  to- 
prove  my  sincerity,  j^ou  will  inform  j^our  fellow  citizens  that 
they  are  quite  at  liberty  to  conduct  themselves  as  usual  with- 
out the  least  apprehension.     I  am  now  convinced  from  what 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA.  31 

I  have  leamefl  since  my  arrival  among:  you  that  you  have 
been  misinformed  and  prejudiced  against  us  by  the  British 
officers  and  your  friends  who  are  in  confinement  shall  be  im- 
mediately released.'  In  a  few  minutes  after  the  delivery  of 
this  speech,  the  gloom  that  had  rested  on  the  minds  of  the 
inhabitants  of  Kaskaskia  had  passed  away.  Their  arms  were 
restored  to  them  and  a  volunteer  company  of  French  Militia 
joined  a  detachment  under  Captain  Bowman,  when  that  oflBcer 
was  despatched  to  take  possession  of  Cahokia.  The  inhabit- 
ants of  this  small  village  readily  took  the  oath  of  allegiance 
to  the  State  of  Virginia."  The  news  of  the  treaty  of  alliance 
between  France  and  America  and  the  influence  of  the  mag- 
nanimous conduct  of  Clark^  induced  the  French  village  to  take 
the  oath  of  allegiance  to  the  State  of  Virginia. 

The  memoirs  of  Clark  proceed — "The  post  of  Vincennes 
was  never  out  of  my  mind  and  from  something  that  I  had 
learned,  I  had  reason  to  suspect  that  M.  Gibault,  the  priest,  was 
favorable  to  the  American  interest,  previous  to  our  arrival  in 
the  country.  He  had  great  influence  over  the  people  at  this 
period  and  Post  Vincennes  was  xmder  his  jurisdiction*  I  had 
no  doubt  of  his  loyalty  to  us  and  I  had  a  long  conference  with 
him  about  Post  Vincennes.  In  answer  to  my  questions  he 
said — that  he  did  not  think  it  worth  while  for  any  military 
preparations  to  be  made  at  the  falls  of  Ohio,  for  the  attack 
on  Post  Vincennes,  although  the  place  was  strong  and  there 
was  a  great  number  of  Indians  in  its  neighborhood,  who,  to- 
his  knowledge,  were  generally  at  war;  that  Grovernor  Abbot 
had  a  few  weeks  before,  left  the  place  for  some  business  at 
Detroit.  He  expected  when  the  inhabitants  were  fully  ac- 
quainted with  what  had  passed  at  Illinois  and  the  present 
happiness  of  their  friends  and  made  fully  acquainted  with 
the  nature  of  the  war,  that  their  sentiments  would  greatly 
change.  He  told  me  that  his  appearance  would  have  great 
weight  even  among  the  savage  and  if  it  were  agreeable  to  me 
he  would  take  this  business  on  himself,  having  no  doubt  of 
his  being  able  to  bring  the  place  over  to  the  American  inter- 
ests without  m)'^  being  at  the  trouble  of  marching  against  it. 
As  his  business  was  altogether  spiritual,  he  wished  that  an- 


-32  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 

other  person  might  be  charged  with  the  temporal  part  of  the 
-embassy,  but  he  said  he  would  privately  direct  the  whole  and 
named  Dr.  Lafont  as  his  associate.  This  was  perfectly 
agreeable  to  what  I  had  been  secretl)^  aiming  at  for  several 
days.  The  plan  was  immediately  settled  and  the  two  doctors 
with  their  attendant  retinue,  among  whom  I  had  a  sp)%  set 
about  preparing  for  the  journey  and  on  the  fourteenth  of 
July  started  with  an  address  for  the  inhabitants  of  post  Viri- 
cennes,  authorizing  them  to  garrison  their  town  themselves, 
which  was  intended  to  convince  them  of  the  great  confidence 
we  put  in  them.  All  this  had  the  desired  effect.  M.  Gibault 
and  his  party  arrived  and  after  a  day  or  two  occupied  in  ex- 
plaining matters  to  the  people,  they  all  acceded  to  the  pro- 
posal (except  a  few  emissaries  left  b)^  Governor  Abbot,  and 
they  immediately  left  the  Country)  and  went  in  a  body  to  the 
church,  where  the  oath  of  allegiance  was  administered  to 
them  in  a  most  solemn  manner.  An  officer  was  selected,  the 
fort  garrisoned  and  the  American  flag  displayed,  to  the 
astonishment  of  the  Indians,  and  everything  settled  far  beyond 
•our  most  sanguine  hopes.  The  people  here  began  to  immed- 
iately put  on  a  new  face  and  talk  in  a  different  st)'le  and  act 
as  perfect  freemen,  with  a  garrison  of  their  own  and  the 
United  States  at  their  elbow.  Their  language  to  the  Indians 
was  immediatel)^  altered.  They  began  as  citizens  of  the 
United  States  and  informed  the  Indians  that  their  old  father, 
the  King  of  France,  was  come  to  life  again  and  was  mad  at 
them  for  fighting  for  the  English.  They  said  they  would 
advise  the  Indians  to  make  peace  with  the  Americans  as  soon 
as  they  could,  otherwise  they  might  expect  the  land  to  be 
ver)'  bloody, 

'*The  Indians  began  to  think,  very  seriously  throughout 
the  country.  This  was  now  the  kind  of  language  they  got 
from  their  ancient  friends  of  the  Wabash  and  Illinois.  Through 
the  means  of  their  correspondence  spreading  among  the  nat- 
ions there  was  a  decided  change  in  all  the  neighbroring  tribes 

of  Indians. 

**M.  Gibault  and  party  accompanied  by  several  gentlemen 
irom  post  Vincennes,  returned  to  Kaskaskia  about  the  fourth 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA.  33 

of  Aug"ust  with  the  joyful  news.  During  his  absence  on  this 
business,  which  caused  me  great  anxiety,  (for  without  that 
post  all  my  work  would  have  been  in  vain),  I  was  engaged  in 
regulating  things  in  the  Illinois.  TheJ'reduction  of  these 
posts  was  the  period  of  the  enlistment  of  our  troops.  I  was 
at  a  great  loss  at  this  time  to  determine  how  to  act  and  how 
far  I  might  venture  to  strain  my  authority.  My  instructions 
were  silent  on  many  important  points  as  it  was  impossible  to 
foresee  the  events  that  would  take  place.  To  abandon  the 
country  and  all  the  prospects  that  opened  to  our  view  in  the 
Indian  department  at  this  time,  for  want  of  instructions  in 
certain  cases,  I  thought  would  amount  to  a  reflection  on  our 
Government  as  having  no  confidence  in  me  and  I  resolved  to 
usurp  all  the  authority  necessary  to  carry  my  points.  [I  had 
the  greater  part  of  the  troops  reenlisted  on  a  different  estab- 
lishment; commissioned  French  officers  to  command  a  com- 
pai)^  of  young  Frenchmen;  established  a  garrison  at  Cahokia 
commanded  by  Captain  Bowman  and  another  at  Kaskaskia 
commanded  by  Captain  Williams.  Post  Vincennes  remained 
in  the  situation  as  mentioned.  I  sent  Captain  John  Mont- 
gomery to  the  Gk)vernment  with  letters  and  dispatches  and 
again  turned  my  attention  to  Post  Vincennes.  I  plainly  saw 
that  it  would  be  highly  necessary  to  have  an  American  officer 
at  that  post  and  Captain  Leonard  Helm  appeared  to  be  suited 
in  man)'  waj^s  for  the  position.  He  was  past  the  meridian  of 
life  and  well  acquainted  with .  Indian  life  and  their  disposi- 
tions. I  sent  him  to  command  that  post,  also  appointed  him 
agent  for  the  Indian  affair  of  the  Wabash. 

* 'About  the  middle  of  August  Captain  Helm  started  out  to 
take  possession  of  his  new  command.  An  Indian  chief  called 
**Tobacco's  Son,"  a  Piankashaw,  at  this  time,  was  residing  in 
the  village  adjoining  Post  Vincennes.  He  was  called  by  the 
Indians — *'The  Grand  Door  of  the  Wabash;"  and  as  there  was 
nothing  to  be  undertaken  by  the  League  on  the  Wabash  with- 
out his  consent,  I  discovered  that  to  win  him  was  of  signal 
importance.  I  sent  him  a  spirited  compliment  by  M.  Gibault- 
— he  returned  it.  I  now,  by  Captain  Helm,  touched  him  on 
the  same  spring  that  I  had  the  inhabitants  and  sent  a  speech 


34  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 

with  a  belt  of  wampum,  directing  Captain  Helm  how  to  man* 
age  if  the  chief  was  pacifically  inclined  or  otherwise.  The 
Captain  arrived  safely  at  Post  Vincennes  and  was  received 
with  acclamation  by  the  people.  After  the  usual  ceremony 
was  over  he  sent  for  Grand  Door  and  delivered  my  letter  to 
him.  After  having  it  read  he  informed  the  Captain  that  he  was 
happy  to  see  him — one  of  Big  Knife's  chiefs — in  this  town. 
It  was  here  that  he  had  joined  the  English  against  him,  but 
Grand  Door  confessed  that  he  always  thought  they  looked 
gloomy.  He  said  that  as  the  letter  was  of  great  importance, 
he  would  not  give  an  answer  for  some  time;  that  he  must 
collect  his  counsellors  on  the  subject  and  was  in  hopes  that 
the  Captain  would  be  patient.  In  a  short  time  he  put  on  all 
the  courtly  dignity  that  he  was  master  of  and  Captain  Helm 
followed  his  example.  It  was  several  days  before  the  busi* 
ness  was  finished  as  the  proceedings  were  very  ceremonious. 

"At  length  the  Captain  was  summoned  to  the  Indian 
Council  and  informed  by  Tobacco  that  he  had  maturely  con- 
sidered the  case  in  hand  and  had  had  the  nature  of  the  war 
between  us  and  the  English  explained  to  their  satisfaction. 
As  we  spoke  the  same  language  and  appeared  to  be  the  same 
people,  he  always  thought  that  Big  Knife  was  in  the  dark  of 
it,  but  now  that  the  sky  was  cleared  up  he  found  that  Big 
Knife  was  in  the  right.  Perhaps,  he  said,  if  the  English 
conquered  they  would  serve  them  in  the  same  manner  that 
they  intended  to  serve  us.  He  told  the  Captain  that  his  ideas 
were  quite  changed  and  that  he  would  tell  all  the  Red  people 
on  the  Wabash  to  bloody  the  land  no  more  for  the  Englihh. 
He  jumped  up,  struck  his  breast,  called  himself  a  man  and  a 
warrior;  said  that  now  he  was  a  Big  Knife  and  took  Captain 
Helm  by  the  hand.  His  example  was  followed  by  all  present 
and  the- e\ening  was  spent  in  merriment.  Thus  ended  this 
valuable  negotiation  and  the  saving  of  much  blood.  In  a 
short  time  almost  all  of  the  various  tribes  of  the  different 
nations  on  the  Wabash  as  high  up  as  the  Ouiatenon,  came  to 
Post  Vincennes  and  followed  the  example  of  the  Grand  Door 
chief,  and  as  expresses  were  continually  passing  between  Cap- 
tain Helm  and  myself,  during  the  entire  time  of  these  treaties^ 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA.  35 

the  business  was  settled  perfectly  to  my  satisfaction  and 
greatly  to  the  advantage  of  the  public." 

Grovernor  Henry  soon  received  intelligence  of  the  success- 
ful progress  of  the  expedition  under  the  command  of  Colonel 
Clark.  The  French  inhabitants  of  the  village  of  Kaskaskia, 
Cahokia  and  Post  Vincennes,  having  taken  the  oath  of  allegi- 
ance to  the  state  of  Virginia,  the  (General  Assembly  of  that 
state  in  1778  passed  an  act  which  contained  the  following 
provisions,  viz: — *'A11  the  citizens  of  the  Commonwealth  of 
Virginia  who  are  already  settled  or  shall  hereafter  settle  on 
the  western  side  of  the  Ohio,  shall  be  included  in  the  district 
county  which  shall  be  called  Illinois  county  and  the  Gk)vernor 
of  this  Commonwealth,  with  the  advice  of  the  Council,  may 
appoint  a  County  Lieutenant  or  a  Commander  in  Chief  in  that 
county  during  pleasure,  who  shall  appoint  and  commission  so 
many  Deputy  Commandants  of  military  officers  and  commis- 
sioners as  he  shall  think  proper  in  the  different  districts  dur- 
ing pleasure;  all  of  whom,  before  they  enter  into  office,  shall 
take  the  oath  of  fidelity  to  this  Commonwealth  and  the  oath 
of  office  according  to  the  forms  of  their  religion;  and  all  the 
civil  officers  which  the  inhabitants  have  been  accustomed  to, 
necessar>"  for  the  preservation  of  peace  and  the  administration 
of  justice,  shall  be  chosen  by  a  majority  of  the  citizens  in  th"eir 
respective  districts  to  be  convened  for  that  purpose  by  the 
County  Lieutenant  or  Commandant  or  his  deputy  and  shall  be 
commissioned  by  the  said  County  Lieutenant  or  Commander  in 
Chief.*' 

Before  the  provisions  of  this  law  were  carried  into  effect, 
Henry  Hamilton,  the  British  Lieutenant  Governor  of  Detroit, 
collected  an  army  consisting  of  about  thirty  regulars,  fifty 
French  volunteers  and  four  hundred  Indians.  With  this  force  he 
passed  down  the  Wabash  and  took  possession  of  Post  Vincennes 
on  the  fifteenth  of  December,  1778.  No  attempt  was  made  by 
the  population  to  defend  the  town.  Captain  Helm  was  taken 
and  detained  as  a  prisoner  and  a  number  of  the  French  inhab- 
itants were  disarmed.  When  Governor  Hamilton  entered 
Vincennes,  there  were  but  two  Americans  there,  Captain 
Helm,  the  commander,  and  a  soldier  by  the  name  of  Henry. 


36  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 

The  latter  had  a  cannon  well  charged  and  placed  in  the  open 
fort  gate,  while  Helm  stood  by  with  a  lighted  match  in  hand. 
When  Hamilton  and  his  troops  got  within  hailing  distance, 
the  Captain  in  a  loud  voice  called  out — *'Halt."  This  stopped 
the  movements  of  Hamilton  who  in  reply  demanded  a  surren- 
der of  the  gaYrison.  Helm  exclaimed,  *'No  man  shall  enter  here 
until  I  know  the  terms."  Hamilton  answered,  *'You  shall 
have  the  honors  of  war."  The  fort  was  surrendered  with  a 
garrison  of  one  oflScer  and  one  private. 

Lieutenant  Grovernor  Hamilton,  before  leaving  Detroit, 
made  all  the  arrangements  for  a  grand  onward  rush  against 
the  settlements  west  of  the  Alleghenj^  Mountains  in  the  early 
spring  of  1779. 

Colonel  George  Rogers  Clark  in  the  latter  part  of  1778 
had  marched  into  the  wilderness  of  the  Northwest  with  less 
than  two  hundred  Virginians,  captured  Kaskaskia  and  Caho- 
kia  and  made  a  peaceable  conquest  of  Vincenties  in  the  heart 
of  the  Indian  country.  He  was  now  in  position  to  check  the 
savages  if  thej^  persisted  in  their  attacks  on  the  j  oung  settle- 
ments in  Kentucky  and  Virginia  and  to  break  up  their  confed- 
erations with  tlje  British.  Lieutenant  Gk)vernor  Hamilton  de- 
termined, if  possible,  to  recapture  the  lost  forts,  and  to  this 
end,  he  left  Detroit  with  a  company  of  Regulars  and  Volun- 
teers and  gathered  an  army  of  Indians  three  times  as  large 
as  Clark  had.  Having  recaptured  Vincennes  without  any  op- 
position, he  went  about  repairing  the  fort  to  make  suitable 
quarters  for  the  garrison.  Being  late  in  the  season  and  the 
weather  very  bad,  he  sent  his  Indian  army  awa}-  in  the  com- 
mand of  some  of  his  Canadian  Indian  partisans  to  the  Ohio 
river  to  watch  for  and  intercept  reinforcements  to  Clark's 
army  and  to  annoy  the  settlements  on  the  borders  of  Ken- 
tucky and  V^irginia.  He  sent  delegates  to  the  Southern  Indians 
to  prepare  them  for  the  coming  raid  when  spring  should  open 
and  selected  points  to  rendezvous  in  the  s^;)ring,  in  order  to  be  in 
a  position  to  dislodge  Clark  and  drive  him  out  of  the  country. 

His  intention  then  was  to  overrun  the  country  west  of  the 
Allegheny  Mountains  with  his  northern  and  southern  Indian 
confederates  and  sweep  away  all  opposition  to  the  British  in 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA.  37 

all  the  vast  region  between  the  Mississippi  river  and  the 
Alleghany  Mountains.  Fortunately  for  the  American  cause, 
Hamilton  had  underrated  his  rival  who  was  a  much  better 
soldier  and  much  more  resourceful  than  he  was. 

After  Post  Vincennes  had  been  recaptured  by  Hamilton 
from  Captain  Helm,  Clark  was  at  Kaskaskia  and  had  no  in- 
formation of  the  situation  there  until  the  latter  part  of  Janu- 
uary,  1779.  He  met  with  Francis  Vigo,  who  was  a  trader  at 
that  time  in  St.  Louis  and  favorable  to  the  Americans.  He 
tendered  Clark  his  services  and  was  requested  to  go  to  Post 
Vincennes  to  report  the  condition  of  things  at  that  place. 
Vigo  readily  accepted  the  hazardous  service  and  started,  but 
before  he  got  to  his  destination  he  was  captured  by  hostile 
Indians  and  carried  a'  prisoner  before  Grovernor  Hamilton 
who  had  then  been  at  the  Post  only  a  few  days.  For  some 
three  weeks  Vigo  was  held  a  prisoner  on  parole,  requiring 
him  to  report  daily  to  the  fort  then  called  Fort  Sackville. 
He  refused  to  be  set  at  liberty  which  was  offered  him  if  he 
would  swear  that  he  would  not  do  anything  during  the  war 
that  would  be  inimical  to  the  British  interesi:.  Father  Gi- 
bault,  who  was  a  great  friend  to  the  Americans,  as  we  have 
shown,  interested  himself  in  Vigo's  behalf  and  after  services 
one  Sunday  morning,  the  latter  part  of  January,  went  to  the 
fort,  attended  by  a  large  number  of  parishioners  and  notified 
Hamilton  that  they  would  not  sell  any  more  supplies  to  his 
troops  until  Vigo  was  released.  Hamilton  had  no  evidence 
against^him  so  he  agreed  to  release  him  on  condition  that  he 
would  not  do  anything  to  injure  the  British  interests  on  his 
way  to  St.  Louis.  Vigo  started  with  two  companions  down 
the  Wabash  and  Ohio  and  went  up  the  Mississippi  until  St. 
Louis  was  reached.  He  was  only  a  short  time  in  securing 
some  needed  clothing  and  supplies,  and  was  soon  in  his 
pirogue  going  down  the  Mississippi  as  fast  as  his  boat  would 
take  him.  Arriving  in  a  short  time  at  Kaskaskia,  he  gave 
Clark  a  minute  account  concerning  all  matters  at  Vincennes. 

Seven  days  after  receiving  Vigo's  report,  Clark,  with  a 
force  of  one  hundred  and  seventy  men,  started  on  a  dreary 
march    from   Kaskaskia   on   the   Mississippi     to    Vincennes 


38  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 

on  the  Wabash  river.  At  the  same  time  he  despatched  an 
armed  galley  with  forty  men  under  Captain  John  Rogers  to 
go  down  the  Mississippi  river,  up  the  Ohio  and  Wabash  to  a 
point  near  the  mouth  of  White  river.  The  route  Clark  fol- 
lowed was  aji  old  Indian  trace  through  forests  and  prairies. 
The  weather  being  uncommonl)'  rainy,  all  the  large  streams 
were  out  of  their  banks.  These  hardy  woodsmen,  weighed  down 
with  their  arms  and  provisions,  pressed  along  on  foot  through 
forest,  marshes,  ponds,  broad  rivers  and  overflowed  lowlands, 
until  they  reached  the  crossing  of  the  Little  Wabash  where 
the  bottoms  were  overflowed  several  miles  in  width  to  the 
depth  of  three  to  five  feet.  The  troops  waded  into  the  water, 
which  in  some  places  was  up  to  their  arm  pits,  even  to  the 
necks  of  some  of  the  shorter  men,  and  commenced  to  make 
their  way  across.  Diiring  the  journey  a  favorite  song  would 
be  sung,  the  whole  detachment  joining  in  the  chorus.  When 
they  had  arrived  at  the  deepest  part  from  whence  it  was  in 
tended  to  transport  the  troops  in  two  canoes  which  they  had  ob- 
tained, one  of  the  men  said  that  he  felt  a  path  quite  perceptible 
to  his  naked  fe^t,  supposing  that  it  must  pass  over  the  highest 
ground.  This  march  was  continued  to  a  place  called  *'The 
Sugar  Camp." 

Clark's  Memoirs  gives  the  following: — '* Where  we  found 
about  half  an  acre  of  dry  ground,  at  least  not  under  water, 
there  we  went  into  camp.  Most  of  the  weather  we  had  on  this 
march  was  warm  for  the  season.  The  night  we  went  into 
camp  was  the  coldest  we  had  and  the  ice  in  the  morning, 
which  was  the  finest  we  had  on  the  march,  was  from  one- 
half  to  three-quarters  of  an  inch  thick  near  the  shore  and 
still  water.  A  little  after  sunrise  I  lectured  the  men.  What 
I  said  to  them  I  have  forgotten  but  I  concluded  by  informing 
them  that  passing  the  place  that  was  then  in  full  view  and 
reaching  the  opposite  woods,  would  put  an  end  to  their 
fatigue.  I  told  them  that  in  a  few  minutes  they  would  have 
a  sight  of  their  long-looked-for  object  and  immediately 
stepped  into  the  water  without  waiting  for  a  reply,  whereup- 
on  there  was  a  great  huzza.  As  we  generally  marched 
through  the  water  in  line,  before  the  third  man  entered  I 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA.  39 

halted  and  called  to  Captain  Bowman,  ordering  him  to  fall  in 
the  rear  with  twenty-five  men  and  put  to  death  any  who  re^ 
fused  to  march,  as  we  wished  to  have  no  such  persons  among 
us.  All  gave  a  cry  of  approbation  and  on  we  went.  This 
was  the  most  trying  of  all  the  difficulties  we  had  experienced. 
I  generally  kept  fifteen  or  twent)-  of  the  strongest  men  near 
myself,  and  judged  from  my  own  feelings  what  must  have 
been  that  of  others. 

*'When  I  reached  the  middle  of  the  plain,  the  water 
being  about  mid-deep,  I  found  mjself  sensibly  failing  and  as 
there  were  no  trees  or  bushes  for  the  men  to  support  them- 
selves by,  I  feared  that  many  of  the  weak  would  be  drowned. 
I  ordered  the  canoes  to  make  the  land,  discharge  their  load- 
ing and  play  back  and  forward  with  all  diligence,  and  to  pick 
up  the  men  and  encourage  the  party.  I  sent  some  of  the 
strongest  men  forward  with  orders  that,  when  they  got  to  a 
certain  distance  to  pass  the  word  back  that  the  water  was 
getting  shallow  and  when  they  got  near  the  woods  to  cry 
out — %and'.  This  strategem  had  its  desired  effect.  The  men 
encouraged  bj^  it  exerted  themselves  almost  beyond  their  abil- 
ities, the  weak  holding  by  the  stronger,  the  water  nev^er  get- 
ting shallower  but  continuing  deeper.  Gretting  to  the  woods 
where  the  men  expected  land,  the  water  was  up  to  my 
shoulders,  but  gaining  the  woods  was  of  great  consequence. 
All  the  short  and  weakly  men  hung  to  the  trees  and  floated 
on  the  old  logs  until  they  were  taken  off  by  the  canoes. 
Those  who  were  strong  and  tall  got  ashore  and  built  fires. 
Many  would  reach  the  shore  and  fall  with  their  bodies  half 
in  the  water,  not  being  able  to  support  themselves  without  it. 
This  shore  was  a  delightful  dry  spot  of  ground  of  about  ten 
acres.  We  soon  found  that  the  fires  did  not  avail  to  warm 
the  men  and  bring  back  the  circulation,  but  two  strong  men 
had  to  take  the  weaker  ones  by  the  arms  and  run  them  up  and 
down  along  the  path  in  order  to  restore  the  circulation  and, 
it  being  a  delightful  day,  this  had  the  desired  effect.  Fortu- 
nately, as  if  designed  by  Providence,  a  canoe  of  Indian 
squaws  and  children  was  coming  up  to  town  and  took  through 
this  plain  as  a  near  way.     It  was  discovered  bj'  our  canoes  as 


40  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 

they  were  out  after  the  men  and  they  gave  chase,  taking  the 
Indian  canoe  captive.  On  board  there  was  a  half  a  quarter  of 
bUffalo,  some  com,  tallow  and  kettles.  This  was  a  grand 
prize  and  was  invaluable.  Broth  was  immediately  made  and 
served  to  the  weakest  ones  with  great  care.  Most  all 
men  got  a  little  but  a  great  many  gave  their  share  to  their 
weaker  comrades,  jocosely  saying  something  cheering  to 
them  as  they  did  so.  By  the  afternoon  this  little  refresh- 
ment and  fine  weather  gave  new  life  to  my  men. 

'* After  crossing  a  narrow,  deep  lake  in  the  canoes  and 
marching  some  distance  we  came  to  a  copse  of  timber  called 
"Warrior  Island."  We  were  now  about  two  miles  distant 
from  the  town  and  in  full  view  of  the  fort,  with  not  a  shrub 
between  us.  Every  man  feasted  his  eyes  and  forgot  that  he 
had  suffered  anything;  saying  that  all  that  had  passed  was 
owing  to  good  policy  and  nothing  but  what  a  man  could  bear, 
and  that  a  soldier  had  no  right  to  think;  passing  from  one 
extreme  to  another,  which  is  common  in  such  cases.  It  was 
now  that  we  had  to  display  our  abilities.  The  plain  between 
us  and  the  town  was  not  a  perfect  level.  The  sunken  ground 
was  covered  with  water,  full  of  ducks  and  we  observed  sev- 
eral men  on  horseback  shooting  them,  within  half  a  mile  of 
us.  We  sent  out  a  number  of  our  joung  Frenchmen  to  deco)- 
and  take  one  of  these  men  prisoner,  in  such  a  manner  as  not 
to  alarm  the  others,  which  they  did.  The  information  we  got 
from  this  prisoner  was  that  the  British  had  that  evening  com- 
pleted the  walls  of  the  fort  and  that  there  were  a  good  many 
Indians  in  town.  Our  situation  was  now  truly  critical  as 
there  was  no  possibility  of  retreating  in  case  of  defeat  and  in 
full  view  of  the  town  that  had  at  this  time  upwards  of  six 
hundred  men  in  it.  The  crew  of  the  galley,  though  not  fifty 
men,  would  now  have  been  a  reinforcement  of  immense  mag- 
nitude to  our  little  army.  But  we  would  not  think  of  them. 
We  were  now  in  the  situation  that  I  had  labored  to  get  our- 
selves in.  The  idea  of  being  made  prisoner  was  foreign  to  al- 
most everj^  man  as  they  expected  nothing  but  torture  from  the 
savage  if  they  fell  into  their  hands.  Our  fate  was  now  to  be 
determined,  probably  in  a  few  hours,  and  we  knew  that  noth- 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA.  41 

ing  but  the  most  daring  conduct  would  insure  success.  I 
knew  that  a  number  of  the  inhabitants  wished  us  well,  that 
many  were  lukewarm  to  the  interests  of  either  and  I  also 
learned  that  The  Grand  Door,  Tobacco's  Son,  had  but  a  few 
days  before,  openly  declared  in  council  with  the  British  that 
he  was  a  brother  and  friend  to  the  Big  Knife.  These  were 
favorable  circumstances  and  as  there  was  but  little  probabil- 
ity of  our  remaining  until  dark  undiscovered,  I  determined  to 
begin  the  career  immediately  and  wrote  the  following  placard 
to  the  inhabitants — 

*'To  the  inhabitants  of  Post  Vincennes,  Gentle- 
men:— Being  now  within  two  miles  of  your  village 
with  m)"  army,  determined  to  take  )our  fort  this 
night  and  not  being  willing  to  surprise  you,  I  take 
this  method  to  request  those  of  you  who  are  true 
citizens  and  willing  to  enjoy  the  liberty  I, bring  to 
you,  to  remain  still  in  your  houses;  and  those,  if  any 
there  be,  who  are  friends  to  the  King,  will  instantly 
repair  to  the  fort  and  join  the  * 'Hair-buying  Gen- 
eral'' and  fight  like  men,  and  if  any  such  as  do  not 
go  to  the  fort  shall  be  discovered  afterward,  they 
may  depend  on  severe  punishment.  On  the  contrary, 
those  who  are  true  friends  of  liberty  may  depend  on 
being  well  treated  and  I  once  more  request  them  to 
keep  out  of  the  streets  for  every  one  I  find  in  arms 
on  my  arrival  I  shall  treat  as  an  enemy." 

Signed,  G.  R.  Clark. 

**I  had  various  ideas  on  the  supposed  results  of  this  let- 
ter. I  knew  it  could  do  us  no  damage,  but  it  would  cause  the 
lukewarm  to  decide,  encourage  our  friends  and  astonish  our 
enemies.  We  anxiously  viewed  this  messenger  until  he  en- 
tered the  town  and  in  a  few  moments  could  discover,  by  our 
glasses,  some  stir  in  every  street  that  we  could  penetrate,  and 
great  numbers  running  or  riding  out  on  the  commons,  we 
supposed  to  view  us,  which  was  the  case.  The  thing  that 
surprised  us  was  that  nothing  as  yet  had  happened  that  had 
the  appearance  of  the  garrison  being  alarmed — no  drum, 
no  guns.  We  began  to  suppose  the  information  we  got 
from  our  prisoners  was  false  and  that  the  enemy  already 
knew  of  us  and  were  prepared.     A  little  before  sunset   we 


42  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 

moved  and  displa)'ed  ourselves  in  full  view  of  the  town, 
crowds  gazing  at  us.  We  were  plunging^  ourselves  into  cer- 
tain destruction  or  success,  nothing  less  than  these  being 
thought  of.  We  had  but  little  to  say  to  our  men  except  to 
inculcate  the  idea  of  the  necessit)'  of  obedience.  We  knew 
that  they  did  not  need  encouraging  and  that  anything  might  be 
attempted  with  them  that  was  possible  for  such  a  number  of 
men  to  perform.  They  were  perfectly  cool  under  subordina- 
tion, pleased  with  the  prospect  before  them  and  much  at- 
tached to  their  officers.  They  all  declared  that  they  were 
convinced  that  implicit  obedience  to  order  was  the  only  thing 
that  would  insure  success  and  hoped  that  no  mercy  would  be 
shown  to  persons  violating  such  orders.  Language  like  this 
from  soldiers  to  persons  in  our  situation  was  exceedingly 
agreeable. 

"We  moved  on  slowly  in  full  view  of  the  town,  but  as  it 
was  a  point  of  some  consequence  to  us  to  make  ourselves 
appear  as  formidable  as  possible,  in  leaving  the  covert  which 
we  were  in  we  marched  and  countermarched  in  such  a  manner 
that  we  appeared  numerous.  In  raising  volunteers  in  Illi- 
nois, every  person  that  set  about  the  business  had  a  set  of 
colors  given  him  which  they  brought  with  them  to  the  amount 
of  ten  or  twelve  pair.  These  were  displayed  to  the  best 
advantage  and  as  the  low  plain  we  marched  through  was  not 
a  perfect  level  but  had  frequent  raises  in  it,  seven  or  eight 
feet  higher  than  the  common  level,  which  was  covered  with 
water,  and  as  these  raises  generally  ran  in  an  oblique  direc- 
tion to  the  town,  we  took  advantage  of  one  of  them,  march- 
ing through  the  water  under  it,  which  completely  prevented 
our  being  numbered.  Our  colors  showed  considerably  above 
the  heights  as  they  were  fixed  on  long  poles  for  the  purpose 
and  at  a  distance  made  no  despicable  appearance.  As  our 
)'Oung  Frenchmen,  while  on  Warrior  Island,  decoyed  and  took 
several  fowlers  with  their  horses,  officers  were  now  mounted 
on  these  horses  and  rode  about,  more  completely  to  deceive 
the  enemy.  In  this  manner  we  moved  and  directed  our  march 
in  such  a  way  as  to  suffer  it  to  be  dark  before  we  had  advanced 
more  than  half  way  to  the  town.     We  then  suddenly  altered 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA.  43 

our  direction,  crossed  ponds  where  they  could  not  have  ex- 
pected us  and  about  eight  o'clock  gained  the  town.  As  there 
was  yet  no  hostile  move  we  were  impatient  to  have  the  cause  of 
this  unriddled,  and  Lieutenant  Bayley,  with  fourteen  men, 
was  ordered  to  march  and  fire  on  the  fort.  The  main  body 
moved  in  a  different  direction  and  took  possession  of  the 
strongest  part  of  the  town.  The  firing  now  commenced 
on  the  fort  but  they  did  not  believe  it  was  an  enemy,  as 
drunken  Indians  often  saluted  the  fort  after  night,  until 
one  of  their  men  was  shot  down  through  a  port  hole.  The 
drums  now  sounded  and  the  business  fairly  commenced  on 
both  sides.  Reinforcements  were  sent  to  aid  the  attack  on 
the  garrison  while  other  arrangements  were  making  in  town. 
We  now  found  that  the  garrison  had  known  nothing  of  us. 
Having  finished  the  fort  that  evening,  they  had  amused 
themselves  and  had  just  retired  before  my  letter  arrived.  As 
it  was  near  roll  call,  the  placard  being  made  public,  many  of 
the  inhabitants  were  afraid  to  show  themselves  out  of  their 
houses  for  fear  of  giving  offence  and  no  one  dared  to  give  in- 
formation. Our  friends  flew  to  the  commons  and  other  con- 
venient places  to  view  the  pleasing  sight.  This  was  observed 
from  the  garrison  and  the  reason  asked,  but  a  satisfactory 
excuse  was  given,  and  as  a  part  of  the  town  la)-  between  our 
lines  of  march  and  the  garrison,  we  could  not  be  seen  b)-  the 
sentinels  on  the  wall. 

**Captain  W.  Shannon  and  another,  being  some  time  be- 
fore taken  prisoners  by  one  of  their  scouting  parties  and  that 
evening  brought  in,  the  party  had  discovered  at  the  Sugar 
Camp  some  sign  of  us.  The}-  supposed  that  it  was  a  party 
of  observation  that  intended  to  land  on  the  height  some  dis- 
tance below  the  town  and  Captain  Lamotte  was  sent  to  inter- 
cept them.  It  was  at  him,  the  people  said,  they  were  looking 
when  they  were  asked  the  reason  of  their  unusual  stir.  Sev- 
eral suspected  persons  had  been  taken  to  the  garrison,  and 
among  them  was  Mr.  Moses  Henry.  Mrs.  Henry,  under  pre- 
tense of  conveying  him  provision,  went  and  whispered  to  him 
the  news  and  what  she  had  seen.  Mr.  Henry  conveyed  it  to 
the  rest  of  his  fellow  prisoners  which  gave  them  much  pleas- 


44        *        PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 

ure,  particularly  Captain  Helm,  who  amused  himself  very 
much  durinfif  the  siege  and,  I  believe,  did  much  damage. 
Ammunition  was  scarce  with  us  as  most  of  our  stores  had 
been  put  on  board  the  galley  and  though  her  crew  was  small, 
such  a  reinforcement  at  this  time  would  have  been  of  incalcu- 
lable value  in  many  ways.  Fortunately  for  us,  at  the  time  of 
its  being  reported  that  all  the  goods  in  the  town  were  to  be 
taken  for  the  King's  use  (for  which  owners  were  to  receive 
bills),  Colonel  Legras  and  Major  Bosseron  and  others,  had 
buried  the  greater  part  of  their  powder  and  balls.  This  was 
immediately  produced  and  we  found  ourselves  well  supplied, 
by  those  gentlemen.  The  Tobacco's  Son  (with  a  number  of 
his  warriors)  immediately  mustered  his  men  and  let  us  know 
that  he  wished  to  join  us,  saying  that  by  morning  he  would 
have  a  hundred  men.  We  thanked  him  for  his  friendly  dispo- 
sition, said  that  we  were  sufficiently  strong  ourselves  and  that 
we  would  council  on  the  subject  in  the  morning,  as  we  knew 
there  were  a  number  of  Indians  in  and  near  the  town  that  were 
our  enemies  and  some  confusion  might  occur  if  our  men  should 
mix  in  the  dark,  but  hoped  we  might  be  favored  with  his 
council  and  company  during  the  night,  which  was  agreeable 
to  him. 

'*The  garrison  was  soon  completely  surrounded  and  the  fire 
continued  without  intermission  (excepting  about  fifteen  min- 
utes a  little  before  day)  until  nine  o'clock  the  following  morn- 
ing. It  was  kept  up  by  all  the  troop,  excepting  fifty  men 
kept  in  reserve,  joined  by  a  few  of  the  young  men  of  the 
town  who  got  permission.  I  had  made  myself  fully  acquainted 
with  the  situation  at  the  fort,  the  town  and  the  parts  relative 
to  each  other.  The  cannon  of  the  garrison  was  on  the  upper 
floor  of  the  strong  block  houses,  at  each  angle  of  the  fort 
eleven  feet  above  the  surface.  The  ports  were  so  badly  cut 
that  many  of  our  troops  lay  under  the  fire  of  them  within 
twent)'-five  yards  of  the  walls.  They  did  no  damage  except 
to  the  buildings  of  the  town,  some  of  which  were  badly 
wrecked.  Their  musketry  in  the  dark  employed  against 
woodsmen,  covered  by  houses,  palings,  ditches  and.  the  banks 
of  the  river,  was  of  little  avail  and  did  no  injury  to  us  ex- 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA.  45 

• 

■cept  wounding  a  man  or  two.  As  we  could  not  afford  to  lose 
men  great  care  was  taken  to  preserve  them,  sufficiently  cov- 
ering them  and  to  keep  up  a. hot  fire  to  intimidate  the  enemy 
as  well  as  destroy  them.  The  embrasures  for  their  cannon 
were  mostly  closed,  for  our  riflemen,'  finding  the  true  direc- 
tion, would  pour  in  such  a  volley  when  the)^  were  open  that  the 
men  could  not  stand  to  the  guns  and  seven  or  eight  of  them 
were  killed  in  a  very  short  time.  Our  troops  would  frequently 
abuse  the  enemy  in  order  to  aggravate  them  to  open  their 
ports  and  ih"e  their  cannon  that  they  might  have  the  pleasure 
of  shooting  them  down  with  their  rifles,  fifty  of  which  would 
be  leveled  at  them  the  minute  the  port  flew  open.  I  believe 
if  they  had  stood  at  their  artillery  the  greater  part  of  them 
would  have  been  destroyed  in  the  course  of  the  night,  as 
most  of  our  men  lay  within  thirty  yards  of  the  walls,  and  in 
a  few  hours  were  covered  ^qual  to  those  in  the  fort  and  much 
more  experienced  in  that  mode  of  fighting.  Sometimes  an  ir- 
regular fire  as  hot  as  possible  was  kept  up  from  different  di- 
rections for  a  few  minutes  and  then  would  follow  only  a  con- 
tinual scattering  fire  at  the  ports  as  usual.  A  great  noise 
and  laughter  would  immediately  commence  in  different  parts 
of  the  town  b)^  the  reserve  parties  as  if  they  had  fired  on  the 
fort  a  few  minutes  for  amusement  and  as  if  those  contin- 
uall)^  firing  at  the  fort  were  only  regularl)'  relieved. 

**Conduct  similar  to  the  above  kepi  the  garrison  constantly 
alarmed.  They  did  not  know  what  moment  they  might  be 
stormed  or  blown  up,  as  they  could  plainly  discover  that  we  had 
flung  up  some  entrenchments  across  the  streets  and  appeared 
to  be  frequently  very  busy  under  the  bank  of  the  river,  which 
was  within  thirty  feet  of  the  walls.  The  situation  of  the 
magazine  we  knew  well.  Captain  Bowman  began  some  works 
in  order  to  blow  this  up  in  case  our  artillery  would  arrive 
but  as  we  knew  that  we  were  dailj'  liable  to  be  overpowered 
by  the  numerous  bands  of  Indians  on  the  river,  in  case  they 
had  again  joined  the  enemy  (the  certainty  of  which  we  were 
unacquainted  with),  we  resolved  to  lose  no  time,  but  to  get 
the  fort  in  our  possession  as  soon  as  possible.  If  the  vessel 
did  not  arrive  before  the  ensuing  night  we  resolved  to  under- 


46  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 

mine  the  fort  and  fixed  on  the  spot  and  plan  of  executing  the 
work  which  we  intended  to  commence  the  next  day.  The 
Indians  of  different  tribes  that  were  unfriendly  had  left  the 
town  and  neighborhood.  Captain  Lamotte  continued  to  hover 
about  in  order,  if  possibje,  to  make  his  way  into  the  fort  and 
parties  attempted  in  vain  to  surprise  him.  A  few  of  his  party 
were  taken,  one  of  whom  was  Maisonville,  a  famous  Indian 
partisan.  Two  lads  had  captured  him,  tied  him  to  a  post  in 
the  street  and  fought  from  behind  him,  supposing  that  the 
enemy  would  not  fire  on  them  for  fear  of  killing  him  as  he 
would  alarm  them  with  his  voice.  The  lads  were  ordered  to 
untie  their  prisoner  by  an  ofl&cer  who  discovered  them  at  their 
amusements  and  to  take  him  off  to  the  guard  which  they  did, 
but  took  a  part  of  his  scalp  on  the  way,  there  happening  to 
him  no  other  damage. 

''As  most  of  the  persons  who  were  the  most  active  parti- 
sans in  the* department  of  Detroit  were  either  in  the  fort  or 
with  Captain  Lamott,  I  got  extremely  uneasy  for  fear  that  he 
would  not  fall  into  our  power,  knowing  that  he  would  go 
away  if  he  did  not  get  into  the  fort  in  the  course  of  the  night. 
We  found  that  without  some  unforseen  accident  the  fort  must 
eventually  be  ours  and  that  a  reinforcement  of  twenty  men, 
although  quite  a  few  of  ihem  would  not  be  of  great  moment 
to  us  in  the  present  state  of  affairs,  and  knowing  that  we  had 
weakened  the  enemy's  forces  by  killing  arid  wounding  many 
of  iheir  gunners,  after  some  deliberation  we  concluded  to  risk 
the  reinforcement  in  preference  to  his  (Lamott's)  again  going 
among  the  Indians.  The  garrison  had  at  least  a  month's 
provisions  and  if  they  could  hold  out,  in  the  course  of  that 
time, he  might  do  us  damage. 

**A  little  before  day  the  troops  were  withdrawn  from  iheir 
positions  about  the  fort,  except  a  few  parties  of  observ^aiion. 
The  firing  entirely  ceased  and  orders  were  given  that  in  case 
of  Lamott's  approach,  not  to  alarm  or  lire  on  him,  without 
a  certainty  of  killing  or  taking  all.  In  less  than  a  quarter 
of  an  hour,  he  passed  within  ten  feet  of  an  officer  and  party 
that  lay  concealed.  Ladders  were  liung  over  to  Lamott  and 
the  others  and,  as  they  mounted,   our  party  shouted.     Many 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA.  47 

• 

of  them  fell  from  the  top  of  the  walls,  some  within  and  others 
back  but  as  they  were  not  fired  on  they  all  got  over,  much  to 
the  joy  of  their  friends.  In  considering  the  matter  they  must 
have  been  convinced  that  it  was  a  scheme  of  ours  to  let  them 
in  and  that  we  were  so  strong  as  to  care  but  little  about 
them.  The  firing  immediately  commenced  on  both  sides  with 
double  vigor  and  I  believe  that  more  noise  could  not  have 
been  made  by  any  equal  number  of  men.  Their  shouts  could 
not  be  heard  for  the  firearms,  but  a  continual  blaze  was  kept 
up  around  the  garrison  without  much  done  until  about  day- 
break, when  our  troops  were  drawn  off  to  posts  prepared  for 
them  about  sixty  or  seventy  yards  from  the  fort.  A  loop- 
hole then  could  scarcely  be  darkened  without  a  rifle  ball  pass- 
ing through  it  and  to  have  stood  by  their  cannon  would  have 
destroyed  their  men  without  a  probability  of  doing  much  ser- 
vice. Our  situation  was  nearly  similar.  It  would  have  been 
imprudent  in  either  party  to  have  wasted  their  men  unless 
some  decisive  stroke  required  it. 

**Thus  the  attack  continued  until  about  nine  o'clock  on  the 
morning  of  the  twenty-fourth.  Learning  that  the  two  priso- 
ners they  had  brought  in  the  day  before  had  a  considerable 
number  of  letters  with  them,  I  supposed  it  an  express  that  we 
expected  about  this  time,  which  I  knew  to  be  of  great  mo- 
ment to  us,  as  we  had  not  received  one  since  our  arrival  in 
the  country  and  not  being  fully  acquainted  with  the  charac- 
ter of  our  enemy,  we  thought  perhaps  these  papers  might  be 
destroyed.  To  prevent  this  I  sent  a  flag  with  a  letter  de- 
manding the  garrison,  the  letter  being  as  follows: — 

''Lieutenant  (jovernor  Hamilton:  Sir: — In  order 
to  save  yourself  from  the  impending  storm  that  now 
threatens  you,  I  order  )'ou  immediately  to  surrender 
yourself  with  all  your  garrison  and  stores,  for  if  I 
am  obliged  to  storm,  you  may  depend  on  such  treat- 
ment as  is  justly  due  to  a  murderer.  Beware  also  of 
destro)nng  stores  of  any  kind  or  any  papers  or  letters 
that  are  in  your  possession,  or  hurting  one  house  in 
town  for  by  heaven,  if  you  do,  there  shall  be  no 
mercy  shown  you." 

Signed,  G.  R.  Clark. 


48  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 

■The  British  Commandant  returned  the  following  ans- 


((/ 


wer: 


Lieutenant  Grovernor  Hamilton  begs  leave  to 
acquaint  Colonel  Clark  that  he  and  his  garrison  are 
not  disposed  to  be  awed  into  any  action  unworthy  of 
British  subjects." 

'*The  firing  then  commenced  warmly  for  a  considerable 
time  and  we  were  obliged  to  be  careful  to  prevent  our  men 
from  exposing  themselves  too  much  as  they  were  now 
much  animated,  having  been  refreshed  during  the  flag.  They 
frequentl)^  mentioned  their  wishes  to  storm  the  place  and  put 
an  end  to  the  business  at  once.  The  firing  was  heavy 
through  every  crack  that  could  be  discovered  in  any  part  of 
the  fort.  Several  of  the  garrison  were  wounded  and  there 
was  no  possibility  of  standing  near  the  embrasures.  Toward 
evening  a  flag  appeared  with  the  following  proposal: 

"Lieutenant  Governor  Hamilton  proposes  to 
Colonel  Clark  a  truce  for  three  days,  during  which 
time  he  promises  there  shall  be  no  defensive  work 
carried  on  in  the  garrison,  on  condition  that  Colonel 
Clark  shall  observe  on  his  part  a  like  cessation  of 
an)'  defensive  work.  That  is — he  wishes  to  confer 
with  Colonel  Clark  as  soon  as  can  be  and  promises 
that  whatever  ma)-  pass  between  them  and  another 
person  mutuall)*  agreed  upon,  to  be  present,  shall  re- 
main secret  till  matters  be  finished,  as  he  wishes 
that,  whatever  the  result  of  the  conference  may  be, 
it  may  tend  to  the  honor  of  each  party.  If  Colonel 
Clark  makes  a  difficulty  of  coming  into  the  fort,' 
Lieutenant  (jovernor  Hamilton  will  speak  to  him  by 
the  gate." 

Signed,  Henry  Hamilton. 

February  24,  1779. 

*'I  was  at  a  great  loss  to  conceive  what  reason  Lieuten- 
ant Governor  Hamilton  could  have  for  wishing  a  truce  for 
three  da)'s  on  such  terms  as  he  proposed.  Some  said  that 
it  was  a  scheme  to  get  me  into  their  possession  but  I  had  a 
different  opinion  and  no  idea  of  his  possessing  such  senti- 
ments, as  an  act  of  that  kind  would  in  all  probability,  ruin 
him.     Although  we  had  the  greatest  reason  to  expect  rein- 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA.  49 

forcements  in  less  than  three  days  that  would  at  once  put  an 
end  to  the  siege,  I  yet  did  not  think  it  prudent  to  agree  to 
the  proposals  and  sent  the  following  answer: — 

''Colonel  Clark's  compliments  to  Lieutenant 
Governor  Hamilton  and  begs  to  inform  him  that  he 
will  not  agree  to  any  terms  other  than  Mr.  Hamil- 
ton's surrendering  himself  and  garrison  prisoners  at 
discretion.  If  Mr.  Hamilton  is  desirous  of  a  confer- 
ence with  Colonel  Clark,  h€  will  meet  him  at  the 
church  with  Captain  Helm,  Feb.  24,  1779." 

Signed,  G.  R.  Clark. 

"We  met  at  the  church  about  eighty  yards  from  the  fort, 
Lieutenant  Governor  Hamilton,  Major  Hay,  Supt.  of  Indian 
Affairs,  Captain  Helm,  their  prisoner,  Major  Bowman  and 
myself.  The  conference  began.  Hamilton  produced  terms 
of  capitulation  that  contained  various  articles,  one  of  which 
was  that  the  garrison  should  be  surrendered  on  their  being 
permitted  to  go  to  Pensacola  on  parole.  After  deliberating 
on  every  article  I  rejected  the  whole.  He  then  wished  that  I 
would  make  some  propositions.  I  told  him  that  I  had  no 
other  to  make  other  than  I  had  already  made — that  of  his 
surrendering  as  prisoners  at  discretion.  I  said  that  his 
troops  had  behaved  with  spirit  and  that  they  could  not  sup- 
pose the}'  would  be  worse  treated  in  consequence  of  it;  that 
if  he  chose  to  comply  with  the  demand,  though  hard,  perhaps 
the  sooner  the  better.  I  added  that  it  was  useless  to  make 
any  further  propositions  to  me  and  that  by  this  time  he  must 
realize  that  the  garrison  would  fall.  We  must,  I  said,  view 
all  the  blood  spilled  in  the  future  by  the  garrison  as  murder 
and  that  the  troops  were  already  impatient  and  calling  aloud 
for  permission  to  tear  down  and  storm  the  fort.  If  such  a 
step  were  taken  many,  of  course,  would  be  cut  down  and  the 
result  of  an  enraged  bodj'  of  woodsmen  breaking 'in  must  be 
obvious  to  him;  it  would  be  out  of  the  power  of  the  American 
officers  to  save  a  single  man. 

''Various  altercations  took  place  for  a  considerable  time. 
Captain  Helm  attempted  to  moderate  our  fixed  determination 
and  I  told  him  he  was  a  British  prisoner  and  it  was  doubtful 


50  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 

whether  or  not  he  could  speak  on  the  subject.  Hamilton  then 
said  that  Captain  Helm  was  free  from  that  moment  and  might 
use  his  pleasure.  I  informed  the  Captain  that  I  would  not 
receive  him  on  such  terms  but  that  he  must  return  to  the  gar- 
rison and  await  his  fate.  I  then  told  Lieutenant  Governor 
Hamilton  that  hostilities  should  not  commence  until  five  min- 
utes after  the  drums  gave  the  alarm.  We  then  took  our 
leave  and  had  gone  but  a  few  steps  when  Hamilton  stopped 
and  politel)'  asked,  me  if  I  would  be  so  kind  as  to  give  him 
my  reason  for  refusing  the  garrison  on  an)-  other  terms  than 
those  I  offered.  I  told  him  I  had  no  objection  to  giving  him 
m}'  real  reasons  which  were  these — I  knew  the  greater  part 
of  the  principal  Indian  partisans  of  Detroit  were  with  him 
and  I  wanted  an  excuse  for  putting  them  to  death  or  other- 
wise treat  them  as  I  thought  proper;  the  cries  of  the  widows 
and  the  fatherless  children  on  the  frontiers  which  the)'  had 
occasioned  now  required  their  blood  from  my  hands  and  I  did 
not  choose  to  be  so  timorous  as  to  disobej'  the  absolute  com- 
mand of  their  authoritj'  which  I  looked  upon  as  almost  di- 
vine. I  would  rather  lose  fifty  men  I  told  him  than  fail  to 
impower  mj-self  to  execute  this  piece  of  business  with  propri- 
ety, and  if  he  wished  to  r;sk  the  massacre  of  his  garrison,  for 
their  sakes,  it  was  his  own  pleasure;  also  I  might  take  it  in" 
to  m}'  head  to  send  for  some  of  those  widows  to  see  them  exe- 
cuted. Major  Hay  gave  great  attention.  I  had  observed  a 
kind  of  distrust  in  his  countenance  which  in  a  great  measure 
influenced  mj-  conversation  during  the  time  and  on  my  con- 
cluding, 'Pray  sir,'  said  he,  *who  is  it  that  you  call  Indian 
partisans?'  *Sir,'  I  replied,  'I  take  Major  Hay  to  be  one  of  ihe 
principal  ones.'  I  never  saw  a  man  in  a  moment  of  execution 
so  struck  as  he  appeared  to  be — pale,  trembling,  scarcely  able 
to  stand.  Hamilton  blushed  and  I  observed,  was  much  af- 
fecied  at  his  behavior.  Major  Bowman's  countenance  suffi- 
cientl}'  explained  his  disdain  for  one  and  his  sorrow  for  the 
other.  Some  moments  elapsed  without  a  word  passing  on 
either  side.  From  that  moment  my  resolution  changed  res- 
pecting Hamilton's  situation.  I  told  him  that  we  would  re- 
turn to  our  respective  posts,  that  I  would  reconsider  the  mat- 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA.  51 

ter  and  would  let  him  know  the  results  and  no  offensive  meas- 
ures should  be  taken  in  the  meantime.  This  was  agreed  to 
and  we  parted. 

**When  all  that  had  passed  was  made  known  to  our  offi- 
ficers,  it  was  agreed  that  we  should  moderate  our  resolutions." 

During  the  conference  at  the  church,  some  Indian  war- 
riors who  had  been  sent  to  the  Falls  of  Ohio  for  scalps  and 
prisoners  and  had  just  returned,  were  discovered,  as  the}'  en- 
tered the  plains  near  Post  V^incennes  and  a  part)'  of  American 
troops  commanded  b}'  Captain  William.s,  went  out  to  meet 
them.  The  Indians  who  mistook  the  detachment  for  a  party 
of  their  friends,  continued  to  advance  with  all  the  parade  of 
successful  warriors.  When  our  troops  had  arrived  at  the 
proper  distance  from  the  proud  and  strutting"  warriors,  they 
opened  fire  on  them,  killing  two  and  wounding  three  and  took 
six  prisoners  and  brought  them  into  town.  Two  of  them 
proved  to  be  white  men  and  related  to  some  of  dark's  French 
volunteers  and  were  released.  They  then  brought  the  three 
wotinded  and  four  Indian  prisoners  to  the  main  street,  near 
the  gate  of  the  fort,  there  tomahawked  them  and  threw  them 
into  the  river. 

In  the  course  of  the  afternoon  of  the  twenty-fourth  the 
following  articles  were  signed  and  the  garrison  capitulated: 

I.  Lieutenant  Governor  Hamilton  engages  to 
deliver  up  to  Colonel  Clark  Fort  Sackville  as  it  is  at 
present,  with  all  the  stores. 

II.  The  garrison  are  to  deliver  themselves  as 
prisoners  of  war  and  march  out  with  all  their  arms 
and  accoutrements. 

III.  The  garrison  is  to  be  delivered  up  at  ten 
o'clock  tomorrow. 

IV.  Three  days  time  to  be  allowed  the  garrison 
to  settle  their  accounts  with  the  inhabitants  and 
traders  of  this  place. 

V.  The  officers  of  the  garrison  to  be  allowed 
their  necessar}-  baggage. 

Signed  at  Post  Vincennes,  February  24,  1779. 

Agreed  for  the  following  reasons — the  remoter 
ness  from  succor,  the  state  and  quality  of  provisions, 


52  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 

unanimity  of  officers  and  men  to  its  expediency,  the 
honorable  terms  allowed  and  lastly — the  confidence 
in  a  generous  enemy. 

Signed,  Henry  Hamilton. 
Lieutenant  Governor  and  Superintendent. 

To  again  quote  from  the  memoirs — *'The  business  now 
being  nearly  at  an  end,  troops  were  posted  in  several  strong 
houses  around  the  garrison  and  patrolled  during  the  night 
to  prevent  any  deception  that  might  be  attempted.  Those 
remaining  on  duty  lay  on  their  arms  and  for  the  first  time  in 
many  days  past  got  some  rest. 

''During  the  siege  I  had  only  one  man  wounded.  Not  being 
able  to  afford  to  lose  man)%  I  made  them  secure  themselves 
well.  Almost  every  man  had  conceived  a  favorable  opinion 
of  Lieutenant  (jovernor  Hamilton.  I  believ^e  that  whatever 
affected  myself  made  some  impression  on  all  of  them  and  I  am 
happy  to  find  that  he  never  deviated  while  he  stajed  with  us 
from  the  dignity  of  conduct  that  became  an  officer  in  his  situ- 
ation. 

'*The  morning  of  the  twenty-fifth  approaching,  arrange- 
ments were  made  for  receiving  the  garrison,  which  consisted 
of  seventy-nine  men  and  about  ten  o'clock  it  was  delivered  in 
form  and  everything  was  immediately  arranged  to  the  best 
advantage.  On  the  twenty-seventh  our  galley  arrived  all 
safe.  The  crew  were  much  mortified  that  they  did  not  have 
a  hand  in  the  fray,  although  the)^  deserve  great  credit  for 
their  diligence.  They  had  on  the  passage  taken  up  William 
Myres,  express  from  the  government.  The  despatches  gave 
us  great  encouragement.  Our  battalion  was  to  be  completed 
and  an  additional  one  to  be  expected  in  the  spring.  On  the 
day  after  the  surrender  of  the  British  garrison,  I  sent  a  de- 
tachment of  sixt}'  men  up  the  Wabash  to  intercept  some  boats 
which  were  laden  with  provisions  and  goods  from  Detroit. 
The  detachment  under  the  command  of  Captain  Helm,  Major 
BovSserone  and  Major  Legras,  proceeded  up  the  river  in  three 
armed  boats  about  one  hundred  and  twenty  miles,  where  the 
British  boats,  seven  in  number  were  surprised  and  captured 
without  firing  a  gun.     These  boats  had  on  board  about  ten 


•    PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA.  S3 

thousand  pounds  worth  of  goods  and  provisions  and  were 
manned  by  about  forty  men,  among  whom  was  Phillip  De- 
jean,  a  magistrate  of  Detroit.  The  provision  was  taken  for 
the  public  and  the  goods  divided  among  the  soldiers,  except 
about  eight  hundred  pounds  worth  to  clothe  the  troops  we 
expected  to  receive  in  a  short  time.  This  was  very  agree- 
able to  the  soldiers  as  I  told  them  the  state  should  pay  them 
in  money  proportionate  to  the  time  of  service  and  they  had  a 
great  plenty  of  goods.  The  quantity  of  public  goods  added 
to  all  of  those  belonging  to  the  traders  of  Post  Vincennes 
that  had  been  taken  by  the  British  and  surrendered  to  us,  was 
very  considerable.  The  whole  was  divided  among  the  soldiers, 
except  some  Indian  medals  that  were  kept  in  order  to  be  al- 
tered for  public  use.  The  officers  received  nothing  except  a 
few  articles  of  clothing  that  they  stood  in  need  of. 

**We  yet  found  ourselves  uneasy.  The  number  of  priso- 
ners we  had  taken  added  to  those  of  the  garrison  was  so  great 
when  compared  to  our  own  numbers,  that  we  were  at  a  loss 
how  to  dispose  of  them  so  as  not  to  interfere  with  our  future 
operations.  On  the  seventh  of  March,  Captains  Williams  and 
Rogers,  set  out  by  water  with  a  party  of  twenty-five  men  to 
conduct  the  British  officers  to  Kentucky  and  to  further  weaken 
the  prisoners,  eighteen  privates  were  sent  with  them.  After 
their  arrival  at  the  Falls  of  the  Ohio,  Captain  Rogers  had 
instructions  to  superintend  their  route  to  Williamsburg,  to 
furnish  them  with  all  the  necessary  supplies  on  the  way  and 
to  wait  the  orders  of  the  Gk)vernor.  A  company  of  volunteers 
from  Detroit,  composed  mostly  of  young  men,  was  drawn  up, 
and  while  contemplating  the  trip  to  a  strange  coimtry,  they 
were  told  that  we  were  happy  to  learn  that  many  of  them  had 
been  torn  from  their  fathers  and  mothers  and  forced  to  go  on 
this  expedition  and  that  others,  ignorant  of  the  true  cause  of 
the  contest,  had  enlisted  from  a  principle  that  actuated  a 
great  number  of  men,  namely,  that  of  being  fond  of  enterprise. 
We  told  them  that  they  now  had  a  good  opportunity  to  make 
themselves  fully  acquainted  with  the  nature  of  the  war, 
which  they  might  explain  to  their  friends  and  as  we  knew 
that  by  sending  them  to  the  states  where  they  would  be  con- 


54  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA.    ' 

fined  in  jails,  probably  /or  the  course  of  the  war,  would  make 
a  great  number  of^-their  friends  in  Detroit  unhappy,  we  had 
thought  proper  for  their  sake  to  suffer  them  to  return  home. 
They  were  discharged  on  taking  an  oath  not  to  bear  arms 
against  the  Americans  until  exchanged.  They  were  furnish- 
ed with  arms,  boats  and  provision.  Many  others  that  we 
could  trust  we  suffered  to  enlist  in  the  army,  so  that  our 
charge  of  prisoners  was  much  reduced." 

The  hardships  and  great  exposure  endured  b}^  Clark  and 
his  men  in  the  terrible  march  from  Kaskaskia  through  the 
floods  of  the  Wabash  and  the  suffering  for  the  want  of  food 
endured  by  them  was  almost  beyond  endurance;  but  the  ex- 
citing times  attending  the  battle  and  the  great  victor)^  won  by 
them,  cured  all  their  ills  and  they  were  as  happ}^  and  cheerful 
as  if  they  had  spent  their  time  in  comfortable  barracks.  Of 
that  march  and  victory  John  Randolph  who  so  aptly  called 
Clark  **The  Hannibal  of  the  West,"  says — *'The  march  of  the 
great  man,  Clark,  and  his  brave  companions  in  arms  across 
the  drowned  lands  of  the  Wabash,  does  not  shrink  from  a 
comparison  with  the  passage  of  the  Thrasymeneus  marsh. 
The  mere  battle  of  St.  Vincent  dwindles  in  the  propor- 
tions of  a  mote  compared  with  that  of  Thrasymeneus 
but  it  was  the  turning  point  which  probably  settled  the  pos- 
session at  the  peace  of  Paris  of  a  territory  vastly  larger  than 
that  of  all  Italy,  which  was  the  stake  between  the  Carthagin- 
ians and  the  Romans.  The  Carthaginians  won  the  battle  but 
lost  the  stake.  Clark  won  both.  If  Hannibal  was  four  days  and 
four  nights  in  the  Clusian  marsh  in  summer,  the  Virginians 
were  five  days  in  the  winter  torrents  of  the  Wabash.  Clark 
underwent  all  the  hardships  of  his  men,  wading  the  floods, 
encouraging  them  to  follow — Hannibal  waded  the  marsh  on 
the  back  of  his  war  elephant." 

In  speaking  of  what  followed  the  capture  of  Post  Vin- 
cennes,  Clark  continues — "I  had  )et  sent  no  message  to  the 
Indian  tribes,  wishing  to  see  what  effect  all  this  would  have 
on  them.  The  Piankashaws  being  of  the  tribe  of  Tobacco's 
Son  were  always  familiar  with  us.  Part  of  the  behavior  of 
this  Grandee,  as  he  viewed  himself,  was  diverting  enough. 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA.  55 

He  had  conceived  such  an  inviolable  attachment  for  Captain 
Helm,  that  on  finding  the  Captain  was  a  prisoner  and  not 
being  as  )'et  able  to  release  him  he  declared  himself  a  prisoner 
also.  He  joined  his  brother  as  he  called  him  and  kept  contin- 
ually condoling  their  situation  as  prisoners  in  great  distress, 
at  the  same  time  wanting  nothing  that  was  in  the  power 
of  the  garrison  to  furnish.  Lieutenant  Governor  Hamilton, 
knowing  the  influence  of  Tobacco's  Son,  was  extremely  jealous 
of  his  behavior  and  took  every  pains  to  gain  him  by  presents. 
When  anything  was  presented  to  him  his  reply  would  be  that  it 
would  serve  him  and  his  brother  to  live  on.  He  would  not 
enter  into  council  saying  that  he  was  a  prisoner  and  had 
nothing  to  say  but  was  in  hopes  that  when  the  grass  grew 
his  brother,  the  Big  Knife,  would  release  him  and  when  he 
was  free  he  could  talk.  In  short,  they  could  do  nothing  with 
him  and  the  moment  he  heard  of  our  arrival  he  paraded  all 
the  warriors  he  had  in  his  village  joining  Post  Vincennes  and 
was  ready  to  fall  in  and  attack  the  fort,  but  for  reasons  for- 
merly mentioned  he  was  desired  to  desist. 

*'On  the  fifteenth  of  March,  1779,  a  party  of  upper  Pian- 
kashaws  and  some  Pottawattamie  and  Miami  chiefs  made 
their  appearance,  making  great  protestations  of  their  attach- 
ment to  the  Americans,  begging  that  they  might  be  taken  in 
under  the  cover  of  our  wings,  that  the  roads  through  the  land 
might  be  made  straight,  all  the  stumbling  blocks  might  be  re- 
moved and  that  our  friends  and  neighboring  nations  might  also 
be  considered  in  the  same  point  of  view.  I  well  knew  from  what 
principle  all  this  sprang.  As  I  had  Detroit  now  in  my  eye, 
it  was.  m)'  business  to  take  a  straight  and  clear  road  for  my- 
self to  walk  in  without  thinking  much  of  their  interest,  or 
an)'thing  else  but  that  of  opening  the  road  in  earnest,  by  flat- 
tery, deception  or  any  other  means  that  occurred.  I  told  them 
that  I  was  glad  to  see  them  and  was  happy  to  learn  that  most 
of  the  nations  on  the  Wabash  and  Maumee  rivers  had  proved 
themselves  to  be  men  by  adhering  to  the  treaties  they  had  made 
with  the  Big  Knife  last  fall,  except  a  few  weak  minded  that  had 
been  deluded  by  the  English  to  come  to  war.  I  did  not  Jcnow,  I 
said,  exactly  who  these  few  were  nor  much  cared  but  under- 


56  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 

stood  they  were  a  band  chiefly  composed  of  almost  all  the 
tribes.  Such  people  were  to  be  found  among  all  nations  but 
as  the  sort  of  people  who  had  the  meanness  to  sell  their  coun- 
try for  a  shirt,  were  not  worthy  of  the  attention  of  warriors, 
we  would  not  say  more  about  them  and  think  on  subjects 
more  becoming  to  us.  I  told  them  that  I  should  let  the  Great 
Council  of  America  know  of  their  good  behavior  and  that 
they  would  be  counted  as  friends  of  the  Big  Knife  and  would 
always  be  under  their  protection  and  their  country  secured  to 
them  as  the  Big  Knife  had  land  enough  and  did  not  want 
any  more,  but  if  ever  they  broke  their  faith,  the  Big  Knife 
would  never  again  trust  them,  as  they  never  held  friendship 
with  people  that  they  found  with  two  hearts.  They  were  wit- 
nesses of  the  calamities  the  British  had  brought  on  their 
countries  by  their  false  assertions  and  their  presents  which 
was  proof  of  their  weakness.  They  could  see,  we  told  them, 
that  their  boasted  valor  was  like  to  fall  to  the  ground  and 
they  would  not  come  out  of  the  fort  the  other  day  to  try  to 
save  the  Indians  that  they  flattered  to  war  and  suffered  them 
to  be  killed  in  their  sight.  As  the  nature  of  the  war  had 
been  fully  explained  them  last  fall,  they  might  clearly  see 
that  the  Great  Spirit  would  not  suffer  it  to  be  otherwise  and 
that  it  was  not  only  the  case  on  the  Wabash  but  everywhere 
else.  We  assured  them  that  the  nations  who  would  continue 
obstinately  to  believe  the  English  would  be  driven  out  of  the 
land  and  their  countries  given  to  those  who  were  more  steady 
friends  to  the  Americans.  We  further  told  them  that  we  ex- 
pected for  the  future  that  if  any  of  our  people  should  be  going 
to  war  through  their  country  they  would  be  protected  which 
should  always  be  the  case  of  their  people  when  among  us  and 
that  mutual  confidence  should  continue  to  exist. 

**They  replied  that  from  what  they  had  seen  and  heard, 
they  were  convinced  that  the  Master  of  Life  had  a  hand  in 
all  things,  that  their  people  would  rejoice  on  their  return  and 
that  they  would  take  pains  to  diffuse  what  they  had  heard 
through  all  the  nations  and  made  no  doubt  of  the  good  effect 
of  it.  After  a  long  speech  in  the  Indian  style  calling  all  the 
spirits  to  witness,  they  concluded  by  renewing  the  chain  of 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA.  5T 

friendship,  smoking  the  sacred  pipe  and  exchanging  belts 
and,  I  believe,  went  off  really  well  pleased  but  not  able  to^ 
fathom  the  bottom  of  all  they  had  heard.  The  greatest  part 
of  it  was  mere  political  lies.  Captain  Shelby,  afterward,  with 
his  own  copipany  only,  lay  for  a  considerable  time  in  a  Wea 
town  in  the  heart  of  their  country  and  was  treated  in  the 
most  friendly  manner  by  *  all  the  nations  that  he  saw.  He 
was  frequently  invited  by  them  to  join  and  plunder  what  was 
called  the  King's  pasture  at  Detroit,  meaning  to  steal  horses 
from  that  settlement.  Things  now  being  pretty  well  ar- 
ranged. Lieutenant  Richard  Brashear  was  appointed  to  the 
command  of  the  garrison  which  consisted  of  Lieutenants 
Baley  and  Chaplain,  with  forty  picked  men;  Captain  Leonard 
Helm,  commandant  of  the  town,  superintendent  of  the  Indian 
affairs;  Moses  Henry,  Indian  agent,  and  Patrick  Kennedy, 
quartermaster. 

**Givingnecessary  instructions  to  all  persons  that  I  left  in 
oflSce,  I  set  sail,  on  the  twentieth  of  March,  on  board  our 
galley  which  was  now  made  perfectly  complete,  attended  by 
five  armed  boats  and  seventy  men.  The  water  being  very 
high  we  soon  reached  the  Mississippi,  the  winds  favoring  us. 
In  a  few  days  we  arrived  at  Kaskaskia  to  the  great  joy  of 
our  new  friends.  Captain  Greorge  and  company  waiting  to  re- 
ceive us.  On  our  journey  up  the  Mississippi  we  had  observed 
several  Indian  camps  which  appeard  to  be  fresh  but  had  been 
left  in  great  confusion.  This  we  could  not  account  for  but 
were  soon  informed  that  a  few  days  past  a  party  of  Delaware 
warriors  came  to  town  and  appeared  to  be  very  impudent.  In 
the  evening,  having  been  drinking  they  said  they  had  come 
there  for  scalps  and  would  have  them  and  flashed  a  gun  at 
the  breast  of  an  American  woman  present.  A  sergeant  and 
party  at  that  moment  passing  the  house  saw  the  confusion 
and  rushed  in.  The  Indians  immediately  fled  and  the  ser- 
geant pursued  and  killed  them.  A  party  was  instantly  sent 
to  rout  the  camps  on  the  river,  this  being  executed  the  day 
before  we  came  and  being  the  sign  we  had  seen. 

**Part  of  the  Delaware  nation  had  settled  at  the  fork  of 
White  river  and  hunted  in  the  countries  on  the  Ohio  and 


58  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 

Mississippi.  The}'  had,  on  our  first  arrival,  hatched  up  a 
sort  of  peace  with  us  but  I  alwa)'s  knew  the)'  were  for  open 
war  but  never  before  could  get  a  proper  excuse  for  extermin- 
ating: them  from  the  countr)-  which  I  knew  thej'  were  loath 
to  leave.  All  the  other  Indians  wished  them  awa)-  as  they 
were  g:reat  hunters  and  killed  their  game.  A  few  da3S  after 
this  Captain  Helm  informed  me  bj'  express  that  a  part)'  of 
traders  who  were  going  by  land  to  the  falls  of  the  Ohio,  were 
killed  and  plundered  by  the  Delaware  Indians  on  White  river. 
It  appeared  that  their  designs  were  altogether  hostile  as  they 
had  received  a  belt  from  the  Great  Council  of  their  nation. 
I  was  sorry  for  the  loss  of  our  men  but  otherwise  pleased  at 
what  had  happened  as  it  gave  me  an  opportunity  of  showing 
the  other  Indians  the  horrid  fate  of  those  who  would  dare  to 
make  war  on  the  Big  Knife  and  to  excel  them  in  barbarity  I 
knew  was  the  only  way  to  make  war  and  gain  a  name  among 
the  Indians.  I  immediately  sent  orders  to  Post  Vincennes  to 
make  war  on  the  Delawares,  to  use  every  means  in  their 
power  to  destroy  them,  to  show  no  kind  of  mercy  to  the  men 
but  to  spare  the  women  and  children.  This  order  was  ex- 
ecuted without  delay.  Their  camps  were  attacked  in  every 
quarter  where  they  could  be  found.  Many  fell  and  others 
were  brought  to  Post  V'incennes  and  put  to  death.  The  wo- 
men and  children  were  secured.  They  immediately  applied 
for  a  reconciliation  but  were  informed  that  I  had  ordered  the 
war  and  my  people  dare  not  lay  down  their  tomahawks  with- 
out permission  from  me,  but  if  the  Indians  were  agreed,  no 
more  blood  should  be  spilled  until  an  express  should  go  to 
^Kaskaskia,  which  was  immediately  sent.  I  refused  to  make 
peace  with  the  Delawares  and  let  them  know  we  never  trust- 
ed those  who  had  once  violated  their  faith,  but  if  they  had  a 
mind  to  be  quiet  they  might,  if  they  could  get  any  of  their 
neighboring  Indians  to  be  security  for  their  good  behavior. 
I  informed  them  I  would  let  them  alone  but  that  I  cared  very 
little  about  it. 

* 'Privately  directing  Captain  Helm  how  to  manage,  a 
council  was  called  of  all  the  Indians  of  the  neighborhood  and 
my  answer  was  made  public.     The  Piankashaws  took  it  on 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA.  59 

themselves  to  answer  for  the  future  good  conduct  of  the 
Delawares  and  the  Tobacco's  Son  in  a  length)'  speech  in- 
formed them  of  the  baseness  of  their  conduct  and  how  richly 
they  had  deserved  the  blow  they  had  met  with.  He  had 
given  them  permission  to  settle  that  country  but  not  to  kill 
his  friends.  They  now  knew,  he  said,  that  the  Big  Knife 
had  refused  to  make  peace  with  them  but  that  he  (Tobacco's 
Son)  had  become  security  for  their  good  conduct  and  they 
might  go  and  mind  their  hunting  but  if  they  ever  did  any 
more  mischief — he  did  not  finish  but  pointed  to  the  sacred 
bow  that  he  held  in  his  hand  as  much  as  to  say  that  he  him- 
self would  in  the  future,  chastise  them.  Thus  ended  the  war 
between  us  and  the  Delawares  in  this  quarter,  much  to  our 
advantage,  as  the  nations  present  said  we  were  as  brave  as 
Indians  and  not  afraid  to  put  an  enemy  to  death." 

After  the  great  achievments  accomplished  by  Clark  in 
reducing  the  forts  on  the  Mississippi,  capturing  Vincennes 
and  permanently  establishing  the  Americans  in  control  of  all 
tha^t  portion  of  the  Northwest  territory  from  whence  the 
raids  were  made  up  and  started  that  were  so  disastrous  to 
the  scattered  settlements  on  the  borders  of  Kentucky  south 
of  the  Ohio  river;  and  after  making  treaties  with  the  Indians 
at  which  he  had  no  equal,  the  culminating  feat  that  this  hero 
wished  to  accomplish  was  to  capture  Detroit.  That  would 
have  put  a  finishing  stroke  to  the  intrigues  of  the  British 
agents  around  the  great  lakes,  with  the  Indians.  The  ac- 
complishing of  this  would  not  hav^e  been  attended  with  half 
the  hardships  that  he  and  his  army  had  undergone.  The 
French  and  half-breeds  would  all  have  been  his  allies  and  he 
would  have  had  the  influence  of  the  lower  Wabash  Indians 
whom  he  had  won  over  and  who  could  have  been  controlled 
to  aid  him  in  pacifying  the  other  Indians  farther  up  the 
Wabash.  Considering  the  favorable  situation  he  was  in,  it 
is  reasonable  to  suppose  that  he  ivould  have  captured  Detroit 
and  brought  all  that  section  under  the  control  of  the  Ameri- 
cans. The  accomplishment  of  this  great  achievement,  how- 
ever, was  not  to  be.  Virginia,  at  that  time,  was  having 
many  hurried  calls  for  troops  to  aid  the  army  in  other  quart- 


60  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 

ers  and  the  continental  money  had  become  so  depreciated  that 
it  was  worth  next  to  nothing.  Probably  other  military  as- 
pirants were  jealous  of  the  great  renown  that  Clark  had  won 
and  were  lukewarm  in  their  support  of  any  measure  that 
would  give  the  needed  help  to  carry  forward  the  enterprise 
that  would  still  further  have  added  to  his  heroic  record. 
Clark  returned  to  the  Falls  of  the  Ohio  in  the  last  of  the  sum- 
mer of  1779.  As  he  had  ordered,  the  garrison  that  he  had 
left  on  Corn  Island  had  already  moved  to  Louisville  and  had 
built  a  stockade.  He  busied  himself  with  the  affairs  for  the 
defense  of  the  country,  having  a  general  supervision  over  the 
country  around  the  Falls  and  the  territory  he  had  captured^ 
Clark  had  the  honor  of  being  the  founder  of  the  city  of  Louis- 
ville. A  well  informed  historian  of  that  city  says — **To 
Clark  belongs  the  honor  of  founding  that  city  as  clearly  as- 
does  the  glory  of  capturing  Kaskaskia,  Cahokia  and  Vin- 
cennes." 

Soon  after  his  return  from  his  great  victory  he  drew  a 
plan  of  the  proposed  town  of  Louisville  and  made  a  map  of 
the  public  and  private  divisions  of  the  land  as  he  thought 
they  ought  to  be  established.  This  map  is  still  preserved 
and  shows  the  wonderful  sagacity  of  General  Clark.  During 
the  time  from  1779  to  1781  he  was  busy  with  various  military 
operations.  One  of  these  was  building  Fort  Jefferson  on  the 
Mississippi  river,  four  miles  below  the  mouth  of  the  Ohio. 
This  probabl}'^  (though  sanctioned  by  Jefferson  and  the  Vir- 
ginia legislature)  was  a  mistake  as  it  brought  on  a  war  with 
the  southern  Indians.  A  Scotchman  named  Colbert  organ- 
ized the  Choctaw  and  Cherokee  Indians  and  with  one  thous- 
and warriors  attacked  the  fort.  They  lay  for  several  days 
beseiging  it  but  in  a  night  attack  were  repulsed  with  consid- 
erable loss.  General  Clark,  coming  to  its  relief,  the  siege 
was  raised  and  the  Indians  went  back  to  their  towns.  There 
were  a  great  many  raids  by  the  Indians,  some  of  them  com- 
manded by  British  ofl&cers  on  our  frontier.  Many  small  bat- 
tles were  fought  between  the  marauders  and  the  Americans, 
with  about  equal  damage  to  the  two  parties. 

There  was  a  loud  call  for  volunteers  to  fight  the  invaders* 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA.  61 

and  carry  the  war  into  their  own  country.  Clark  was  put  at 
the  head  of  this  expedition  against  Detroit.  He  was  at  the 
Falls  of  the  Ohio,  repaired  to  Fort  Pitt  and  made  every  ef- 
fort to  secure  volunteers  but  met  with  many  disappoint- 
ments. Finally  he  started  down  the  river  with  four  hundred 
men  and  in  a  few  days  was  followed  by  Colonel  Archibald 
Lochry  with  something  over  one  hundred  men.  One  place  of 
general  rendezvous  was  at  Wheeling,  Virginia.  Clark  waited 
five  days  and  as  he  had  met  with  so  many  disappointments, 
concluded  this  was  another  and  that  Colonel  Lochry  had  de- 
cided not  to  go  on  the  expedition.  In  this  he  was  unfortu- 
nately mistaken.  Colonel  Lochry  coming  to  Wheeling  found 
that  Clark  was  gone  and  decided  to  follow  on.  On  the  24th 
of  August,  1781,  Colonel  Lochry  ordered  the  boats  to  land  on 
the  Indiana  shore  about  ten  miles  below  the  Miami  river  and 
at  the  mouth  of  Lochry  creek,  the  line  between  Dearborn- 
and  Ohio  counties,  to  cook  provisions  and  cut  grass  for  their 
horses. 

Tradition  has  it  that  a  hunting  party  which  had  been 
sent  out  to  secure  meat  had  killed  a  buffalo  a  little  distance 
in  the  woods  and  the  troops  had  landed  to  cook  and  prepare 
the  meat  and  graze  their  horses,  when  they  were  fired  on 
by  a  party  of  Indians  that  were  in  ambush  not  far  from  the 
bank.  They  took  to  their  boats  expecting  to  cross  the  river 
and  were  fired  on  by  another  party  of  Indians  from  the  other 
shore.  The  Indians  in  large  numbers  swarmed  on  both  banks 
of  the  river,  waded  into  the  shallow  water  and  attacked  the 
boats,  killing  forty  of  the  men  and  capturing  the  rest.  The 
Colonel  and  a  number  of  his  men  were  murdered  after  they 
had  surrendered'  This  was  a  severe  blow  to  all  who  were  on 
that  ill-fated  expedition  and  all  hope  of  a  successful  campaign 
againstDetroit  was  lost. 

Clark  marched  from  Louisville  overland,  along  the  old 
Indian  trace  to  Vincennes.  On  arriving  there  he  found  every- 
thing in  a  bad  way.  The  greatest  cause  of  all  the  trouble 
was  the  depreciation  of  the  Colonial  currency.  Clark  is  ac- 
cused of  drinking  very  hard  at  this  time  and  many  of  his  men 
deserted. 


62  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 

During:  the  winter  of  1782  Great  Brittain  and  the  United 
Stales  made  their  provincial  treaty  of  peace  and  ag*reed  to  a 
cessation  of  hostilities.  In  consequence  of  this  there  was  a 
period  of  rest  along  our  frontiers  during  the  years  1783,  *84 
and  -85.  During  this  period  there  was  a  determined  effort 
made  to  secure  treaties  with  the  tribes  of  Indians  north  and 
northwest  of  the  Ohio.  Some  of  them  accepted  the  offers  of 
peace  proffered  by  the  treaties.  The  majority  of  the  Indians 
were  determined  not  to  give  up  their  lands  north  of  the  Ohio 
river.  The  Americans  >vere  as  determined  to  settle  that  sec- 
tion. The  Indians  formed  themselves  into  a  great  Northern 
confederacy;  nearly  all  the  Indians  joining  in  this  movement 
and  being  led  by  many  of  their  greatest  chiefs.  There  was 
a  continual  warfare  and  there  was  but  liiile  emigration  of 
Americans  into  ihat  section  for  a  dozen  years.  In  1783  Gen- 
•eral  Clark  was  dismissed  from  the  service,  or  more  properly 
speaking,  he  was  let  out  of  the  service  of  Virfj^inia.  There 
was  no  mone}'  to  pay  for  anything  and  the  authorities  of  that 
state  in  a  spasm  of  retrenchment  did  this  ungrateful  act 
without  considering  the  great  service  this  fearless  hero  had 
done  for  them.  On  that  occasion  Benjamin  Harrison,  the 
Governor  of  V'irginia.  wrote  lo  General  ^lark  a  letter  which 
contained  the  following  passage:— "The  conclusion  of  the 
war  and  the  distressed  situation  of  our  stale  with  respect  lo 
its  finances  calls  on  us  to  adopt  the  most  prudent  economy. 
It  is  for  this  reason  alone  that  I  have  come  to  the  determina- 
tion to  give  over  all  thought  for  the  present  of  carr.ving  on 
an  offensive  war  against  the  I.idiatis.  which  you  will  easily 
perceive  will  render  the  service  of  ger eral  ofiicers  in  that 
quarter  unnecessary.  You  will,  therefore,  consider  yourself 
out  of  command,  but  before  I  take  leave  of  you.  I  feel  called 
upon,  in  the  most  forcible  manner  to  return  3'ou  my  thanks 
and  the  thanks  of  the  Jouncil  for  the  v^ery  great  and  singular 
service  you  have  rendered  your  country  in  wresting  so  great 
and  valuable  a  territory  out  of  the  hands  of  the  British  enemy, 
repelling  the  attacks  of  their  savage  allies  and  carrying  on  a 
successful  war  in  the  heart  of  their  country-.  This  tribute  of 
praise   and    thanks   so   justly   due  I    am  happy    to  commu- 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA.  63 

nicate  to  you  as  the  united  Voice  of  the  Executive — '* 
General  Clark  was  out  of  the  service  but  when  trouble 
came  with  the  Indians  in  1786  there  was  no  one  to  lake  his 
place.  In  this  3^ear  they  were  upon  the  war-path  and  mur- 
dered a  good  many  white  persons,  some  of  these  taking  place 
around  Vincennes  and  others  in  the  new  settlement  being- 
made  near  Clarksville.  A  strong  military  force  was  raised  in 
Kentucky  for  the  purpose  of  attacking  the  Indians  on  the 
Wabash.  About  one  thousand  men  under  the  command  of 
General  George  Rogers  Clark  marched  from  the  Falls  of  the 
Ohio  for  Post  Vincennes  and  arrived  in  the  neighborhood  of 
that  place  early  in  the  month  of  October  where  the)^  la)^  in 
camp  for  several  days  wailing  ihe  arrival  of  some  militarj^ 
stores  and  provisions  which  had  been  shipped  on  keel  boats 
from  Louisville  and  ClarkvSville.  When  ihe  boats  arrived  at 
Post  Vincennes,  it  was  found  that  most  of  the  provision  was 
spoiled  and  that  part  which  had  been  brought  with  the  com- 
mand overland  was  almost  exhausted.  These  misfortunes 
soon  made  a  spirit  of  discontent  which  daily  increased.  The 
Kentuck}'  troops  having  been  reinforced  by  a  number  at  Post 
Vincennes,  were  ordered  to  move  up  the  Wabash  river  toward 
the  Indian  towns  which  lay  in  the  vicinity  of  the  ancient  post 
of  Ouiatenon.  The  people  of  these  towns  had  learned  of  the 
approach  of  the  Kentuckians  and  had  selected  the  place 
among  the  defiles  of  Pine  creek  for  an  ambuscade.  On  reach- 
ing the  neighborhood  of  the  Vermillion  riv^er  it  was  found 
that  the  Indians  had  deserted  their  village  on  that  stream 
near  its  junction  with  the  Wabash.  At  this  crisis,  when  the 
spirits  of  the  officers  and  men  were  depressed  by  disappoint- 
ment, hunger  and  fatigue,  some  person  circulated  through 
the  camp  a  rumor  that  General  Clark  had  sent  a  flag  of  truce 
to  the  Indians  with  the  offer  of  peace  or  war.  This  rumor 
combined  with  the  lamentable  change  which  had  taken  place 
in  the  once  temperate,  energetic  and  commanding  character 
of  Clark,  excited  among  the  troopers  a  spirit  of  insubordina- 
tion which  neither  the  command  nor  entreaties,  nor  the  tears 
of  the  General,  could  subdue.  At  that  encampment,  about 
three  hundred  men  in  a  body,  left  the  army  and  proceeded  on 


i64  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 

their  way  homeward.  The  remainder  of  the  troops  under  the 
command  of  (Jeneral  Clark,  then  abandoned  the  expedition 
and  returned  to  Post  Vincennes. 

In  this  same  month  of  October  a  board  composed  of  field 
officers  in  the  Wabash  expedition,  met  in  council  at  Post 
Vincennes  and  unanimousl)'  agreed  that  a  garrison  at  that 
place  would  be  of  essential  service  to  tlie  district  of  Kentucky 
and  that  supplies  might  be  had  in  the  district  more  than  sui^ 
ficient  for.  their  support,  b)^  impressment  or  otherwise,  under 
the  direction  of  a  commissary  to  be  appointed  for  that  pur- 
pose, pursuant  to  the  authority  invested  in  the  field  officers 
•of  the  district  by  the  executive  of  Virginia.  The  same  board 
appointed  John  Craig,  Jr.,  a  commissary  of  purchase  and  re- 
solved that  one  field  officer  and  two  hundred  and  fifty  men, 
-exclusive  of  a  company  of  artillery,  commanded  by  Captain 
Dalton,  be  recruited  to  garrison  the  Post  and  that  Colonel 
John  Holder  be  appointed  to  command  the  troops  in  this  ser- 
vice in  order  to  carry  these  resolutions  into  effect.  General 
Clark,  who  as8umed  the  supreme  direction  of  the  corps,  be- 
gan to  levy  recruits,  appoint  officers  and  impress  provision 
for  the  support  of  a  garrison  at  Post  Vincennes.  He  sent 
messengers  to  the  Indian  tribes  that  lived  on  the  borders  of 
the  Wabash  and  invited  these  tribes  to  meet  him  in  Council 
at  Clarksville  on  the  20Lh  of  November,  1786,  and  make  a 
treaty  of  peace  and  friendship.  The  chiefs  of  the  different 
bands  sent  word  to  General  Clark  that  they  were  willing  to 
meet  him  in  council,  not  at  Clarksville  but  at  Pjst  Vincennes. 
The  following  is  an  extract  from  their  answer — 


4.' 


My  elder  Brother: — Thou  ought  to  know  the 
place  we  have  been  accustomed  to  speak  at.  It  is  at 
Post  Vincennes.  There  our  chiefs  are  laid;  there 
our  ancestors  bed  is  and  that  of  our  father,  the 
French  and  not  at  Clarksville  where  3'ou  require  us 
to  meet  you.  We  don't  know  such  a  place,  but  at 
Post  Vincennes  where  we  always  went  when  necess- 
ary to  hold  council.  My  elder  Brother,  thou  inform- 
est  me  I  must  meet  you  at  the  place  I  have  mentioned 
yet  thou  seest,  my  Brother,  that  the  season  is  far  ad- 
vanced and  that  I  would  not  have  time  to  invite  my 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA.  65 

■A 

allies  to  come  to  your  council,  which  we  pray  you  to 
hold  at  Post  Vincennes." 

In  replying  to  this  message  and  to  other  communications 
of  similar  nature  Greneral  Clark  said — 

'*I  propose  the  last  of  April,  1787,  for  the  grand 
council  to  be  held  at  this  place,  Post  Vincennes, 
where  I  expect  all  those  who  are  inclined  to  open 
the  road  will  appear  and  we  can  soon  discover  what 
the  Deity  means." 

For  a  long  period  after  Greneral  Clark  was  let  out  of  the 
service  of  Virginia,  he  was  called  upon  by  the  United  States 
to  act  as  a  Commissioner  in  almost  all  the  treaties  made  be- 
tween the  United  States  and  the  Indians. 

There  is  an  amusing  story  related  about  the  treaty  of 
Fort  Mackintosh  on  the  Ohio  river  in  1785.  The  great  Chief 
of  the  Delawares,  Buckongehelas,  was  present  and  took  part 
ia  the  treaty.  After  the  other  chiefs  had  addressed  the 
United  States  Commisssioners  who  were  Grenerals  Greorge 
Rogers  Clark,  Arthur  Lee  and  Richard  Butler,  Buckongehelas 
arose  and  not  noticing  Lee  or  Butler,  went  to  Greneral  Clark 
and  took  him  by  the  hand  saying — ''I  thank  the  Great  Spirit 
for  having  this  day  brought  together  two  such  great  warriors 
as  Buckongehelas  and  General  Clark."  This  may  have  shown 
too  much  self-appreciation  on  the  part  of  this  great  Indian, 
but  it  was  recorded  that  he  possessed  all  the  qualities  of  a 
great  man  and  never  violated  a  treaty  nor  an  engagement. 

On  the  last  day  of  January,  1785,  General  Clark,  Richard 
Butler  and  Samuel  Parsons  were  appointed  United  States 
Commissioners  to  negotiate  a  treaty  with  the  Shawnees  and 
other  Indians.  At  this  treaty  an  incident  occurred  that 
showed  Clark's  fearless  character  and  was  a  striking  instance 
of  his  ascendancy  over  the  minds  oi  the  Indians  and  also 
showed  the  characteristics  which  gave  him  that  ascendancy. 
The  Indians  came  to  the  treaty  at  Fort  Washington  in  a 
most  friendly  manner,  except  the  Shawnees,  the  most  con- 
ceited and  warlike  of  the  aborigines — '*the  first  at  the  battle 
and  the  last  at  the  treaty."  Three  hundred  of  their  finest 
warriors  set  off  in  all  their  paint  and  feathers  filed  into  the 


66  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 

council  house.  Their  number  and  demeanor  so  unusual  at 
an  occasion  of  this  sort  was  altogether  unexpected  and  sus- 
picious. The  United  States  stockade  mustered  seventy  men. 
In  the  center  of  the  hall  at  a  little  table,  sat  the  Com- 
missioners, one  of  them  General  Clark,  the  indefatigable 
scourge  of  these  very  marauders,  also  General  Butler,  Mr. 
Parsons  and  a  Captain  Denny  being  present.  On  the  part  of 
the  Indians  an  old  councilsachem  and  a  war  chief  took  the 
lead.  The  latter,  a  tall,  raw-boned  fellow  with  an  impudent 
and  a  villainous  look,  made  a  boisterous  and  threatening 
speech  which  operated  effectively  on  the  passions  of  the 
Indians  who  set  up  a  prodigious  whoop  at  every  pause.  He 
concluded  by  presenting  a  black  and  white  wampum  to  sig- 
nify that  they  were  prepared  for  either  event,  peace  or  war. 
Clark  exhibited  the  same  unaliering  and  careless  countenance 
he  had  shown  during  the  whole  scene,  his  head  leaning  on 
his  left  hand,  his  elbow  resting  on  the  table.  He  raised  his 
little  cane  and  pushed  the  sacred  wampum  off  the  table  witli 
very  little  ceremony.  Every  Indian  at  the  same  time  started 
from  his  seat  with  one  of  those  sudden  simultaneous  and  pe- 
culiarly savage  sounds  which  startles  and  disconcerts  the 
stoutest  hearts  and  can  neither  be  described  nor  forgotten.  At 
this  juncture  Clark  arose,  the  scrutinizing  eye  cowered  at  his 
glance.  He  stamped  his  foot  on  the  prostrating  and  insult- 
ing symbol  and  ordered  the  Shawnees  to  leave  the  hall. 
They  did  so  apparently  involuntaril)'  and  were  heard  all 
night  debating  in  the  bushes  near  the  fort.  The  raw-boned 
Chief  was  for  war  and  the  old  Sachem  for  peace.  The  laiier 
prevailed  and  the  next  morning  ihe}'  came  back  and  ^ued  for 
peace. 

General  Clark  no  doubt  had  faults — all  men  do  but  his 
heart  was  in  his  work  and  everything  he  accomplished  was 
for  the  adv^ancemeni  of  the  interest  of  the  Country  he  loved 
so  well.  He  was  ever  ready  to  risk  his  life  for  it  and  its  peo- 
ple. No  man  who  was  acquainted  with  the  facts  of  General 
Clark's  business  affairs  with  the  United  States  ever  offered  a 
doubt  as  to  his  integrity.  His  only  fault  was  intemperance 
which  ruined  him. 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA.  67 

In  the  earl)"  nineties  when  the  Indians  had  become  very 
troublesome  throughout  the  Northwest,  there  was  great  need 
of  a  competent  commander  who  understood  the  Indians  and 
Indian  warfare.  Many  turned  to  Clark's  record  and  longed 
for  such  another  man.  Thomas  Jefferson  wrote  Mr.  Innis, 
of  Kentucky — "Will  it  not  be  possible  for  you  to  bring  General 
Clark  forward?  I  know  the  greatness  of  his  mind  and  am  the 
more  mortified  at  the  cause  that  obscures  it.  Had  not  this 
unhappily  taken  place  there  was  nothing  he  might  not  have 
hoped.  Could  it  be  surmounted  his  lost  ground  might  yet  be 
recovered.  No  man  alive  rated  him  higher  than  I  did  and 
would  again  were  he  to  become  once  more  what  I  knew  him." 

It  is  not  too  much  to  say  that,  had  it  not  been  for  Gen- 
eral Clark,  all  the  Northwest  Territory,  at  least  would  have 
been  in  the  hands  of  the  British  at  the  close  of  the  Revolu- 
tionary war  and  would  have  become  British  property.  At 
the  treaty  of  Paris  it  was  hard  work  to  hold  it.  P^rance  and 
Spain  were  opposed  to  the  boundary  of  the  United  Slj  tes 
coming  west  of  the  Alleghanj"  mountains  or  at  most  they  be- 
lieved that  the  land  between  the  Ohio  and  the  Cumberland 
rivers  should  be  all  the  possession  they  should  hold  west  of  the 
mountains.  Congress,  in  a  spirit  of  submission,  adv'ised  our 
three  commissioners,  Benjamin  Franklin,  John  Adams  and 
John  Jay,  to  take  no  step  without  the  knowledge  and  consent  of 
France.  Franklin  was  inclined  to  obey  these  instructions  but 
Adams  and  Jay  boldly  insisted  in  disregarding  them;  conse- 
quently the  treaty  was  made  with  England  without  the  dic- 
tates of  France. 

A  few  years  ago  in  the  State  House  at  Indianapolis,  a 
body  of  men  were  assembled  who  have  the  great  blessings 
of  a  free  government  with  the  rich  boon  of  American  laws 
and  American  independence  and  the  liberty  of  being  gov- 
erned by  the  votes  of  the  people,  guaranteed  to  them  by  the 
blood  of  heroism  and  generalship  of  the  leaders  and  soldiers 
of  the  Revolution;  and  to  none,  so  far  as  Indiana  is  concerned, 
do  they  owe  as  much  as  to  General  George  Rogers  Clark. 
The  question  this  assembly  was  considering  was — should 
George  Rogers  Clark  have  a  five  thousand  dollar  monument. 


68  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 

The  motion  was  acted  upon  adversely.  This,  considering*  the 
events  that  secured  the  great  states  of  Ohio,  Indiana,  Illinois, 
Michigan,  Wisconsin  and  Minnesota  to  the  United  States  by 
the  heroism  and  unparalelled  bravery  of  the  same  General 
George  Rogers  Clark,  places  these  law-makers  in  an  unenvia- 
ble light. 

Clark  continued  to  live  at  his  little  home  in  Clarksville 
until  1814  when  he  moved  to  his  sister's,  Mrs.  William  Crog- 
han,  at  Locust  Grove  near  Louisville,  Kentucky  and  lived 
there  until  the  day  of  his  death  which  occurred  on  the  twen- 
ty-third day  of  February,  1818.  His  achievements  were  those 
of  a  hero  and  will  have  but  few  paralells  in  our  country's 
history. 


CHAPTER   III. 


THE  TERRITORY  CAPTURED  BY  GENERAL  CLARK 

FROM   1779    TO  THE  ORGANIZATION  OF 

THE  NORTHWEST  TERRITORY. 


General  Todd's  Proclamation — The  Court  of  Vincennes 
— ^Virginia  Cedes  Northwest  Possessions  to  the 
United  States — Town  of  Clarksville  Laid  off — 
Deed  of  Cession — Ordinance  of  1787, 


In  the  year  1779  General  John  Todd,  who  had  a  commis- 
sion as  County  Lieutenant  from  the  colony  of  Virginia,  came 
to  the  settlements  captured  by  Clark  and,  in  accordance  with 
an  act  of  the  Virginia  legislature,  issued  a  proclamation  con- 
cerning the  settlements  and  titles  of  the  land  in  the  southern 
and  western  part  of  what  afterward  became  the  Northwest 
Territory.     The  proclamatio;i  read  as  follows: 

'^ILLINOIS  county}  To  Wit: 

* 'Whereas,  From  the  fertility  and  beautiful  situation  of 
the  lands  bordering  on  the  Mississippi,  Ohio,  Illinois  and 
Wabash  rivers,  the  taking  up  of  the  usual  quantity  of  land 
heretofore  allowed  for  a  settlement  by  the  government  of 
Virginia  would  both  injure  both  the  strength  and  commerce 
of  the  country — 

*'I  Do  Therefore  issue  this  proclamation,  strictly  en- 
joining all  persons  whatsoever  from  making  any  new  settle- 
ments upon  the  flat  lands  of  the  said  rivers  or  within  one 
league  of  said  lands  unless  in  manner  and  form  of  settlements. 


70  r  lONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 

as  heretofore  made  b}'  the  French  inhabitant,  until  further 
orders  herein  given. 

'*And  in  order  that  all  claims  to  lands  in  said  county  may 
be  full}'  known  and  some  method  provided  for  perpetuating 
b}'  record,  the  just  claims,  ever}-  inhabitant  is  required,  as 
soon  as  convenientl}'  may  be  to  lay  before  the  person,  in  each 
district,  appointed  for  ihe  purpose,  a  memorandum  of  his  or 
her  land  with  copies  of  all  their  vouchers  and  where  vouch- 
ers have  never  been  given  or  are  Ipst,  such  depositions  or  cer- 
tificates as  will  tend  to  support  their  claims;  the  memorandum 
to  mention  the  quantity  of  land,  to  whom  originally  granted 
and  when;  deducing  the  title  through  the  various  occupants, 
to  the  present  possessor.  The  number  of  adventurers  who 
will  shortly  over-run  this  country  renders  the  above  method 
necessar}',  as  well  to  ascertain  the  vacant  lands  as  to  guard 
against  trespasses  which  will  probably  be  committed  on 
lands  not  on  record. 

"Given  under  m}-  hand  and  seal  at  Kaskaskia,  the  15th 
of  June  in  the  third  year  of  the  Commonwealth.  1779. 

(Signed;     John  Todd,  Jr." 

For  the  preservation  of  peace  and  the  administration  of 
of  justice,  a  court  of  civil  and  criminal  jurisdiction  was  or- 
ganized at  Vincennes  in  June,  1779.  The  court  was  com- 
posed of  several  magistrates.  Colonel  J.  M.  P.  Legrass,  who 
had  received  the  appointment  of  Commander  of  the  Post  Vin- 
cennes, acted  as  the  president  of , this  new  court  and  exercised 
a  controlling  influence  over  the  proceedings.  Following  after 
the  usages  of  the  earl}-  commanders  of  the  French  posts  in 
the  west,  the  magistrates  of  the  court  at  Vincennes  com- 
menced to  grant  tracts  of  land  to  the  French  and  American 
inhabitants  of  the  town  and  to  the  officers,  both  civil  and  mil- 
itary, of  the  county.  The  court  assumed  the  power  of  grant- 
ing lands  to  all  applicants  and  at  the  end  of  the  year  1783 
there  had  been  twenty-six  thousand  acres  granted.  From 
1783  to  '87,  when  General  J^armor  stopped  the  granting  of 
land  by  the  Vincennes  court,  there  had  been  twenty-two 
thousand  acres  more  granted  b}^  that  court  to  individual  ap- 
plicants.    The  commander  of  the  post  and  the  magistrates 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA.  71 

over  whom  he  presided,  formed  the  opinion  that  they  were 
invested  with  the  authority  of  all  the  land  in  that  region 
which  had  in  1742  been  granted  by  the  Piankashaw  Indians 
to  the  inhabitants  of  Post  Vincennes  for  their  use.  Accord- 
ingly, an  arrangement  was  made  by  this  greed)'  court  where- 
by the  whole  country  in  which  the  Indian  title  was  supposed 
to  be  extinguished  was  divided  between  the  members  of  the 
court  and  orders  to  that  effect  were  put  on  record.  In  order 
to  have  the  appearance  of  modesty  each  member  of  the  court 
absented  himself  on  the  day  the  order  was  to  be  made  in  his 
favor. 

At  the  close  of  the  Revolutionarv  War  the  United  States 
was  deeply  in  debt  and  without  any  resources  to  pay  with 
except  what  could  be  derived  from  the  sale  of  lands  west  of 
the  Alleghany  Mountains.  The  title  of  this  domain  was 
claimed  by  a  number  of  the  colonies  and  states  as  their  char- 
ters extended  their  limits  to  any  land  acquired  on  their  west. 
Virginia  set  up  a  special  claim  on  account  of  her  conquest 
and  the  retaining  of  posessions  through  Greneral  George 
Rogers  Clark  to  all  the  land  of  the  Northwest  Territory.  To 
this  the  other  states  demurred  and  said  that  as  they  all  joined 
together  for  a  common  defense,  that  whatever  was  gained  by 
conquest  should  be  shared  equally  by  all.  There  was  so  much 
justice  in  this  that  Virginia  deeded  her  northwest  possessions 
to  the  United  States. 

By  an  act  of  the  seventh  of  January,  1781,"the  General  As-' 
sembly  of  Virginia  resolved  that  on  certain  conditions  they 
would  cede  to  Congress,  for  the  benefit  of  the  United  States, 
all  the  right,  title  and  claim  which  Virginia  had  to  the  terri- 
tory northwest  of  the  River  Ohio.  Congress,  by  an  act  of  the 
13th  of  September,  1783,  agreed  to  accept  the  cession  of  the  ter- 
ritory and  the  General  Assembly  of  Virginia  on  the  20th  of 
December,  the  same  year,  passed  an  act  authorizing  their  del- 
egates in  Congress  to  convey  to  the  United  States,  the  right, 
title  and  claim  of  Virginia  to  the  lands  northwest  of  the 
River  Ohio. 

In  October,  1783,  the  General  Assembly  of  Virginia 
passed  an  act  laying  off  the  town  of  Clarksville  at  the  Falls 


72  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 

of  the  Ohio  in  the  county  of  Illinois.  The  act  provided  that 
the  lots  of  half  an  acre  each  should  be  sold  at  public  auction 
for  the  best  price  that  could  be  obtained.  The  purchasers 
were  to  hold  their  lots  subject  to  the  condition  of  building  on 
them  within  three  years  of.  the  date  of  sale,  a  dwelling* 
house,  twenty  feet  by  eighteen  with  a  brick  or  stone  chimney. 
William  Fleming,  John  Edwards,  John  Campbell,  Walker 
Daniel,  George  R.  Clark,  Abraham  Chaplin,  John  Mont- 
gomery, John  Bailey,  Robert  Todd  and  William  Clark  were, 
by  the  act  of  the  assembly,  constituted  trustees  for  the  town 
of  Clarksville. 

On  the  first  day  of  March,  1784,  Thomas  Jefferson,  Sam- 
uel Hardy,  Arthur  Lee  and  James  Monroe,  delegates  in  con- 
gress on  the  part  of  Virginia,  executed  a  deed  of  cession  by 
which  they  deeded  to  the  United  States,  on  certain  conditions, 
all  the  right,  title  and  claim  of  Virginia  to  the  country  north- 
west the  River  Ohio.  The  deed  contained  the  following  con- 
ditions— '*The  territory  so  ceded  shall  be  laid  out  and  formed 
into  states  containing  a  suitable  amount  of  territory,  not  less 
than  one  hundred  nor  more  than  one  hundred  and  fifty  miles 
square  or  as  near  that  amount  as  circumstances  will  admit 
and  the  states  so  formed  shall  be  distinct  Republican  states 
and  admitted  members  of  the  Federal  Union  having  the  same 
rights  of  sovereignty,  freedom  and  independence  as  the  other 
states.  The  necessary  and  reasonable  expenses  incurred  by 
Virginia  in  subduing  any  British  post  or  in  maintaining  forts 
and  garrisons  for  the  defense  or  in  acquiring  any  part  of  the 
territory  that  is  here  ceded  and  relinquished,  shall  be  fully 
reimbursed  by  the  United  States.  The  French  and  Canadian 
inhabitants  and  other  settlers  of  Kaskaskia,  Post  Vincennes 
and  the  neighboring  villages  who  have  professed  themselves 
citizens  of  Virginia  shall  have  their  possessions  and  titles 
confirmed  to  them  and  be  protected  in  the  enjoyment  of  their 
rights  and  liberties.  A  quantity  not  exceeding  one  hundred 
and  fifty  thousand  acres  of  land,  promised  by  Virginia,  shall 
be  allowed  and  granted  to  the  then  Colonel  and  now  General, 
George  Rogers  Clark  and  to  the  officers  and  soldiers  of  his 
regiment  who  marched  with  him  when  the  posts  of  Kaskas- 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA.  7^ 

kia  and  Vincennes  were  reduced  and  to  the  oflScers  and  soK 
diers  who  have  since  been  incorporated  into  the  said  regi-^ 
ment;  to  be  laid  ofiF  in  one  tract  the  length  of  which  shall 
not  exceed  double  the  breadth,  in  such  a  place  on  the  north- 
west side  of  the  Ohio  as  a  majority  of  the  officers  shall  choose 
and  to  be  afterward  divided  among  the  officers  and  soldiers, 
in  due  proportion  according  to  the  laws  of  Virginia.  In  case 
the  quantity  of  good  lands  on  the  southeast  side  of  the  Ohio  on 
the  waters  of  the  Cumberland  river,  between  Green  river  and 
Tennessee  river  which  have  been  reserved  by  law  for  the  Vir- 
ginia troops  upon  continental  establishment,  should,  from  the 
North  Carolina  line,  bearing  in  farther  on  the  Cumberland, 
lands  than  was  expected,  prove  insufficient  for  their  legal 
bounties,  the  deficiency  shall  be  made  up  to  the  said  troops  in 
good  lands  to  be  laid  off  between  the  River  Scioto  and  Little 
Miami  river  on  the  northwest  side  of  the  River  Ohio  in  such 
proportions  as  has  been  engaged  to  them  by  the  laws  of  Vir- 
ginia. 

'*A11  the  lands  within  the  territory  so  ceded  to  the 
United  States  and  not  reserved  for  or  appropriated  to  any  of 
the  before  mentioned  purposes  or  disposed  of  in  bounties  to 
the  officers  and  soldiers  of  the  American  army,  shall  be  con- 
sidered as  common  funds  for  the  use  and  benefits  of  such  of 
the  United  States  as  have  become  or  shall  become,  members 
of  the  confederation  of  Federal  alliances  of  the  said  state  of 
Virginia  inclusive,  according  to  their  usual  respective  propor- 
tions in  the  general  charge  and  expenditure;  and  shall  be 
faithfully  and  bonafide  disposed  of  for  that  purpose  and  for 
no  other  use  or  purpose  whatsoever." 

In  the  spring  of  1784,  after  the  deed  of  cession  had  been 
accepted  by  Congress,  the  subject  of  future  government  of  the. 
territory  was  referred  to  a  committee  consisting  of  Messrs. 
Jefferson,  of  Virginia,  Chase,  of  Maryland  and  Howie,  of 
Rhode  Island.  The  committee  reported  an  ordinance  for  the 
government  for  the  territory  northwest  of  the  River  Ohio.. 
The  ordinance  declared  that  after  the  year  1800  there  should 
be  neither  slavery  nor  involuntary  servitude  otherwise  than 
in  the  punishment  of  crimes  in  any  of  the  states  to  be  formed. 


74  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 

out  of  said  territor3\  This  provision  of  the  ordinance  was 
rejected  but  on  the  23rd  of  April,  1784,  Congress,  by  a  series 
of  resolutions  provided  for  the  maintenance  of  temporary 
government  in  the  country  which  the  United  States  had 
acquired  northwest  of  the  Ohio. 

Soon  after  Virginia  had  deeded  her  lands  northwest  of 
the  River  Ohio  to  the  United  States,  General  Rufus  Putnam 
and  others  organized  a  Massachusetts  Company  which  had 
for  its  purpose  the  purchase  of  a  large  bod}'  of  land  in  what 
is  now  the  state  of  Ohio.  Continental  monej'  had  become 
very  cheap,  worth  from  fifteen  to  seventeen  cents  on  the  dol- 
lar. The  Company  had  secured  enough  of  it  to  pay  for  one 
and  one-half  million  acres  of  land.  Reverend  Manassa  Cut- 
ler, their  agent  had  also  intrusted'  to  his  care  for  other  par- 
ties a  large  amount  of  this  money,  in  all,  enough  to  purchase 
five  and  one-half  million  acres  of  land.  As  this  would  ma- 
terially reduce  the  national  debt,  the  administration  of  the 
United  States  was  in  favor  of  it.  At  that  time  Massachusetts 
owned  the  Territor}'  of  Maine  which  she  was  trying  to  sell 
and  was  opposed  to  the  opening  of  the  Northwest  Territory. 
This  put  Virginia  on  her  mettle  and  the  South  all  sided  with 
her.  Dr.  Cutler  had  come  on  to  New  York  to  lobby  for  the 
Northwest  Territory.  The  South  caught  the  inspiration  and 
rallied  around  him.  Massachusetts  was  in  a  peculiar  situa- 
tion: she  was  opposed  to  the  proposition  but  could  not  vote 
against  it  as  many  of  her  citizens  were  largely  interested  in 
the  western  purchase.  Thus  Dr.  Cutler  was  able  to  command 
the  situation.  True  to  the  convictions  of  his  heart  he  dic- 
tated one  of  the  most  complete  documents  of  good  statesman- 
ship that  has  ever  adorned  our  law-book.  The  important  sec- 
tion were  as  follows — 

**1.  The  exclusion  of  slavery  forever  from  the  Northwest 
Territory. 

**2.  Provision  for  Public  Schools.  Section  No.  16  in 
each  township  of  thirty-six  square  miles  will  be  retained  and 
sold  for  the  benefit  of  the  Public  Schools. 

'*3.  A  provision  prohibiting  the  adoption  of  any  consti- 
tution or  the  enactment  of  any  law  that  shall  nullify  pre-ex- 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA.  75 

isting  contracts.  Be  it  forever  remembered  that  this  compact 
declares  religion,  morality  and  knowledge  are  necessa^)^  to 
good  government  and  the  happiness  of  mankind  and  there- 
fore schools  and  the  means  of  education  shall  alwaj's  be  en- 
couraged." 

Dr.  Cutler  planted  himself  squarely  upon  this  platform 
and  would  not  )4eld,  giving  his  unquallified  declaration  that 
it  was  that  or  nothing.  That  unless  the  holders  of  the  terri- 
tory could  make  the  land  desirable  they — the  purchasers — 
did  not  want  it. 

On  the  13th  day  of  July,  1787,  the  bill  was  put  on  its 
passage  and  was  unanimouslj"  adopted.  Thus  the  great 
states  of  Ohio,  Indiana,  Illinois,  Michigan,  Wisconsin  and 
Minnesota,  a  might)'  empire,  were  dedicated  to  freedom,  in- 
telligence and  moralit)'. 


CHAPTER  IV 


The  Northwest  Territory  Organized — Laws  Govern- 
ing IT. — Governor  St.  Clair  and  the  Indians — Mil- 
itia Established  and  Civil  and  Military  Officers 
Appointed — Laws  Adopted  at  Vincennes — Defeat  of 
St.  Clair's  Army  by  Indians — General  Wayne's  Vic- 
tory Near  the  Maumee — First  Territorial  Legis- 
lature. 


On  the  fifth  of  October,  1787,  Major  General  Arthur  St. 
Clair  was  elected  by  Cong^ress  governor  of  the  territory  of  the 
United  States  northwest  of  the  River  Ohio.  By  the  first  in- 
structions which  Governor  St.  Clair  received  from  Congress 
in  1788  he  was  authorized  and  directed — first,  to  examine 
carefully  into  the  real  temper  of  the  Indians.  Second — To  re- 
move, if  possible,  all  cause  of  controversy  so  that  peace  and 
harmony  might  be  established  between  the  United  States  and 
the  Indian  tribes.  Third — To  regulate  trade  among  the  In- 
dians. Fourth — To  neglect  no  opportunity  that  might  oflfer 
of  extinguishing  the  Indian  right  to  land  westward  as  far  as 
the  River  Mississippi  and  northward  as  far  as  the  completion 
of  the  forty-first  degree  of  north  latitude.  Fifth — To  use 
every  possible  endeavor  to  ascertain  the  names  of  the  real 
head  men  and  warriors  of  the  several  tribes  and  to  attach 
these  men  to  the  United  States  by  every  possible  means. 
Sixth — To  make  every  exertion  to  defeat  all  confederations 
and  combinations  among  the  tribes  and  to  conciliate  the 
white  people  inhabitating  the  frontiers  toward  the  Indians. 

In  the  month  of  July,  1788  Governor  St.  Clair  arrived  at 
the  new  town  of  Marietta  at  the  mouth  of  the  Muskingum 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA.  77 

river,  where  he  began  to  organize  the  government  of  the 
Northwest  Territory  in  accordance  with  the  provisions  of  the 
ordinance  of  1787.  At  Marietta,  in  the  county  of  Washing- 
ton before  the  close  of  {be  year  1788,  the  Governor  and 
judges  of  the  (Jeneral  Court  of  the  Territory — Samuel  Hoi* 
■den  Parsons,  James  Mitchel  Varnum  and  John  Cleave  Simms, 
adopted  and  published  various  laws  under  the  following 
titles: 

1.  A  law  for  regulating  and  establishing  the  militia  in 
the  territory  of  the  United  States  northwest  of  the  River 
Ohio. 

2.  A  law  for  establishing  general  courts  of  the  peace  of 
•quarter  sessions  (and  therein  the  powers  of  single  justices); 
and  for  establishing  county  courts  of  common  pleas  (and 
therein  of  the  power  of  single  judges  to  hear  and  determine 
upon  small  debts  and  contracts);  and  also  a  law  for  estab- 
lishing the  oflSce  of  sheriff  and  for  the  appointment  of  sher- 
iffs— Published  on  the  23d  of  August. 

3.  A  law  establishing  a  court  of  probate — Published  on 
the  30th  of  August. 

4.  A  law  for  fixing  the  terms  of  the  general  court  of 
the  territory  of  the  United  States,  northwest  of  the  River 
Ohio — Published  on  the  30th  of  August.  This  law  was  made 
in  the  following  words — 

'*The  general  court  for  the  territory  of  the 
United  States  northwest  of  the  River  Ohio,  shall 
hold  pleas  civil  and  criminal  at  four  certain  periods 
or  terms  in  each  and  every  year  in  such  counties  as 
the  judges  shall  from  time  to  time  deem  most  con- 
ducive to  the  general  good,  they  giving  timely 
notice  of  the  place  of  their  sitting  on  the  first  Mon- 
days of  February,  May,  October  and  December,  pro- 
vided, however  that  but  one  term  be  held  in  any  one 
county  in  a  year,  and  all  processes,  civil  and  crim- 
inal, shall  be  returnable  to  said  court  wherever  they 
may  be  in  said  territorj\  And  as  circumstances  may 
so  intervene  as  to  prevent  the  session  of  the  Court  at 
the  time  and  place  fixed  upon,  it  shall  and  may  be 
lawful  for  the  Court  to  adjourn  from  time  to  time  by 
writ  directed  to  the  sheriff  of  the  county  and  to  con- 


7«  PIONEEIfc  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 

tinue  all  processes  accordinglj';  and  in  case  neither  of 
the  judges  shall  aiiend  at  the  time  and  place  afore- 
said and  no  writ  be  received  by  the  sheriff,  it  shall 
be  his  duly  to  adjourn  the  coijrt  from  day  to  day  dur- 
ing the  first  six  days  of  the  term  and  then  to  the 
next  term  to  which  all  processes  shall  be  continued 
as  aforesaid;  provided,  however,  that  all  issues  in 
fact  shall  be  tried  in  the  county  where  the  case  of 
action  shall  have  risen." 

5.  A  law  respecting  oath  of  office.  Published  on  the 
2d  of  September. 

6.  A  law  respecting  crimes  and  punishments.  Pub- 
lished on  the  6ih  of  September.  By  this  statute  the  crimes 
of  treason,  murder  and  houseburning  in  case  where  death  en- 
sues from  such  burning,  were  respectively  punished  by  death. 
The  crimes  of  burgalry  and  robber}'  were  punishable  by 
whipping,  not  exceeding  thirty-nine  stripes;  fine  and  im- 
prisonment for  any  term  not  exceeding  fort}-  years.  For  ihe 
crime  of  perjury  the  offender  was  punishable  b}'  a  fine  not  ex- 
ceeding sixty  dollars  or  whipping  not  exceeding  thirty-nine 
lashes,  disfranchisement  and  standing  in- the  pillory  for  a 
space  of  time  not  exceeding  two  hours.  Larceny  was  pun- 
ished by  fine  or  whipping  at  the  discretion  of  the  court.  If 
the  convict  could  not  pa}-  ihe  fine  of  the  court  it  was  lawful 
for  the  sheriff,  b}'  the  direction  of  the  court  to  bind  such  con- 
victs to  labor  for  a  term  not  exceeding  seven  years  to  any 
suitable  person  who  could  pay  such  fines.  Fo  gery  was  pun- 
ishable by  fine  and  disfranchisement  and  standing  in  the  pil- 
lory for  a  space  of  lime  not  exceeding  three  hours.  For 
drunkenne  s  ihe  law  was  as  follows: 

"11  arty  person  shall  be  convicted  of  drunken- 
ness befo;e  one  or  more  jusiices  of  ihe  peace,  the  per- 
son so  convicted  shall  be  fined  for  the  first  offense 
the  sum  of  five  dimes  and  for  ever}-  succeeding  olfense 
upon  Conviction  the  sum  of  one  dollar.  In  either  case 
if  the  o.fender  neglects  or  refuses  to  pa}'  the  fine,  he 
shall  be  set  in  the  stocks  for  the  space  of  one  hour, 
provided,  however,  ihat  complaints  .be  made  to  the 
justice  or  justices  within  two  days  after  the  offense 
shall  have  been  committed. 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA.  79 

''Whereas,  idle,  vain  and  and  obscene  conversa- 
tion; profane  cursing:  and  swearing  and  more  especi- 
all}'  the  irreverently  mentioning,  calling  upon,  or  in- 
voking the  sacred  and  Supreme  Being  b}'  an}'  of  the 
divine  characters  in  which  He  has  graciousl}'  conda- 
scended  to  reveal  His  infinitely  beneficent  purpose  to 
mankind,  are  repugnant  to  every  moral  sentiment, 
subversive  to  every  civil  obligation,  inconsistent  with 
the  ornaments  of  polished  life  and  abhorrent  to  the 
principles  of  the  most  benevolent  religion; 

''It  is  Expected,  Therefore,  If  crime  of  this 
kind  should  exist  it  will  not  find  encouragement, 
countenance  or  approbation  in  this  territory.  It  is 
strictly  enjoined  on  all  officers  and  ministers  of  jus- 
tice, upon  parents  and  other  heads  of  families  and 
upon  others  of  every  description,  that  they  abstain 
from  practices  so  vile  and  irrational  and  that' by  ex- 
ample and  precept,  to  the  utmost  of  their  power, 
they  prevent  the  necessity  of  adopting  and  publish- 
ing laws  with  penalties  upon  this  head. 

**And  it  is  Hereby  Declared  that  the  govern- 
ment will  consider  as  unworthy  its  confidence  all 
those  who  may  obstinately  violate  these  injunctions. 

"Whereas,  mankind  in  every  stage  of  informed 
society  has  consecrated  certain  portions  of  time  to 
the  particular  cultivation  of  social  vinues  and  the 
public  adoration  and  worship  of  the  Common  Parent  - 
of  the  Universe,  and  whereas  a  practice  so  rational 
in  itself  and  conformable  to  the  divine  precepts  is 
greatly  conducive  to  civilization  as  well  as  lo  moral- 
ity and  piety;  and  whereas  for  the  advancement  of 
such  important  and  interesting  purpose,  most  of  the 
Christian  world  has  set  apart  the  first  day  of  the 
week  as  a  day  of  rest  from  conimon  labor  a  id  pursuits; 

'*It  is  Hekeby  Therefore  Enjoined  that  all 
servile  labor,  works  of  necessity  and  charit}'  only  ex- 
cepted, be  wholly  abstained  from  on  said  day." 

7.     A  law  regulating  ma  rlages.     The  third    e:iion  of 
this  law  was  as  follows: 

'^Previously  to  persons  being  joined  in  marriage 
as  aforesaid,  the  intention  of  the  parties  shall  be 
made  known  by  the  publishing  of  the  same  for  the 
space  of  fifteen  days  at  the  leasi,  e'ther  by  the  same 
being  publiclv  and  openly  declared  three  several  Sun- 


m  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 

days,  holy  day  days  or  other  days  of  public  worship 
in  the  meeting  in  the  towns  where  the  parties  res- 
pectively belong"  or  by  publication  in  writing*  under 
the  hands  and  seal  of  one  of  the  judges  before  men- 
tioned or  of  a  justice  of  the  peace  within  the  county, 
to  be  afiSxed  in  some  public  place  in  the  town  where- 
in the  parties  respectively  dwell  or  a  license  shall  be 
obtained  of  the  Governor  under  his  hand  and  seal, 
authorizing  the  marriage  of  the  parties  without  pub- 
lication as  is  in  this  law  before  required." 

8.  A  law  in  addition  to  a  law  entitled — *'A  law  for 
regulating  and  establishing  the  militia  in  the  territory  of  the 
River  Ohio."    Published  on  the  23rd  of  November. 

9.  A  law  appointing  coroners.  Published  on  the  21st 
of  December. 

10.  A  law  limiting  the  time  of  commencing  civil  action 
and  instituting  criminal  prosecutions. 

After  the  session  of  the  court  of  Marietta  was  concluded 
and  the  laws  for  the  government  of  the  Territory  passed. 
Governor  St.  Clair,  accompanied -by  the  judges,  made  a  visit 
to  the  western  part  of  his  Territory  for  the  purpose  of  organ- 
izing a  civil  government.  Before  this  he  had  sent  instruc- 
tions to  Major  Hamtramck,  the  Commander  at  Vincennes, 
directing  him,  through  the  agency  of  friendly  Indians  that 
were  well  known  among  the  Piankashaws,  to  find  out  all  he 
could  about  the  Indian  tribes  along  the  Wabash.  He  accom- 
panied this  instruction  with  a  speech  for  each  of  the  tribes 
which  the  Major  sent  to  them  by  Antoine  Gamelin,  a  French- 
man, as  a  special  envoy  who  understood  the  language  of 
nearly  all  the  tribes  of  Indians  on  the  Wabash.  Gamelin's 
wife  was  the  daughter  of  the  head  chief  of  the  Ouiatenons 
and  through  that  influence  it  was  hoped  that  his  mission 
would  be  successful. 

Gamelin  visited  many  tribes  of  Indians  and  after  friendly 
council  with  them,  delivered  the  speeches.  In  his  route  he 
went  as  far  eastward  as  the  Miami  village  of  Kekionga  which 
stood  where  Ft.  Wayne  now  stands.  Gamelin's  report  will 
best  show  the  disposition  of  the  Indians  toward  the  Ameri- 
cans. 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA.  81 

*'The  first  village  I  arrived  at,"  says  Gamelin,  **is  called 
Kikapouguoi.  The  name  of  the  chief  of  this  village  is 
called  Les  Jambes  Croches.  He  and  his  tribe  have  a  good 
heart  and  accepted  the  speech.  The  second  village  is  at  the 
River  Vermillion,  called  Piankashaw.  The  first  chief  and  all 
the  warriors  were  well  pleased  with  the  speech  concerning 
peace  but  they  said  they  could  not  give  presently  a  proper 
answer,  before  they  consulted  the  Miami  nation,  their  eldest 
brethren.  They  desired  me  to  proceed  to  the  Miami  town, 
Kekionga,"and  when  coming  back  let  them  know  what  recep- 
tion I  got  from  them.  The  said  head  chief  told  me  that  he 
thought  the  nations  of  the  lake  had  a  bad  heart  and  were  ill- 
disposed  for  the  Americans  and  that  the  speeches  would  not  be 
received  particularly  by  the  Shawnees  at  Miamitown.  On  the 
■eleventh  of  April  I  reached  a  tribe  of  the  Kickapoos.  The 
head  chief  and  all  the  warriors  being  assembled,  I  gave  them 
two  branches  of  white  wampum,  with  the  speeches  of  His 
Excellency,  Arthur  St.  Clair,  and  those  of  Major  Hamtramck. 
It  must  be  observed  that  the  speeches  had  been  in  another  hand 
before  mine.  The  messengers  could  not  proceed  further  than 
the  Vermillion  on  account  of  some  private  wrangle  between 
the  interpreter  and  some  chief  men  of  the  tribes.  Moreover 
something  in  the  speech  displeased  them  very  much;  it  was 
that  portion  included  in  the  third  article  which  says— *I  do 
now  make  you  the  offer  of  peace — accept  it  or  reject  it  as  you 
please.'  These  words  seemed  to  displease  all  tribes  to  whom 
the  first  messenger  was  sent.  The}'  told  me  that  the}'  were 
menacing  and  finding  that  it  might  have  a  bad  effect,  I  took 
it  upon  myself  to  exclude  them  and  after  making  some  apol- 
ogy tlffe}'  answered  that  they  and  their  tribe  were  pleased 
with  my  speech  and  that  I  could  go  on  without  danger  but 
they  could  not  presently  give  me  an  answer,  having  some 
warriors  absent  and  without  consulting  the  Ouiatenons,  they 
being  the  owners  of  the  land.  They  desired  me  to  stop  at 
Quiiepiconnae  (Tippecanoe)  saying  that  they  would  have  the 
chief  and  warriors  of  the  Ouiatenons  and  those  of  their  na- 
tion assembled  there  and  I  would  receive  a  proper  answer. 
They  said  that  they  expected  bj'  me  a  draught  of  milk  from 


S2  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 

the  Great  Chief  and  the  commanding  oflScer  of  the  Post,  to 
put  the  old  people  in  a  good  humor;  also  some  powder  and 
balls  for  the  young  men  for  hunting  and  to  get  some  good 
broth  for  their  women  and  children — that  I  should  know  a 
bearer  of  speeches  should  never  be  with  empty  hands.  They 
promised  to  keep  their  young  men  from  stealing  and  to  send 
speeches  to  their  nations  in  the  prairies  to  do  the  same. 

**The  14th  of  April,  the  Ouiatenons  and  the  Kickapoos 
were  assembled.  After  my  speech  one  of  the  head  chiefs  got 
up  and  told  me — *Oh  Gamelin,  my  friend  and  son-in-law,  we 
are  pleased  to  see  you  in  our  village  and  to  hear  by  your 
mouth  the  good  words  of  the  Great  Chief.  We  thought  to 
receive  a  few  words  from  the  French  people  but  I  see  the  con- 
trary. None  but  the  Big  Knife  is  sending  speeches  to  us. 
You  know  that  we  can  terminate  nothing  without  the  consent 
of  our  brethren,  the  Miamis.  I  invite  you  to  proceed  to  their 
village  and  speak  to  them.  There  is  one  thing  in  your  speech 
I  do  not  like.  I  will,  not  tell  of  it;  even  were  I  drunk  I  would 
perceive  it  but  our  elder  brothers  will  certainly  take  notice  of 
it  in  )'our  speech.  You  invite  us  to  stop  our  young  men.  It 
is  impossible  to  do  it,  they  being  constantly  encouraged  by 
the  British.'  Another  chief  arose  and  said — *The  Americans 
are  very  flattering  in  their  speeches.  Many  times  our  nation 
went  to  their  rendezvous.  I  was  once  myself.  Some  of  our 
chiefs  died  on  the  route  and  we  always  came  back  all  naked 
and  30U,  Gamelin,  you  come  wi^h  speeches  wiih  empty 
hands.'  Another  one  said  lo  his  young  men — *If  we  are  poor 
and  dressed  in  deer  skins,  ii  is  our  own  fault.  Our  -^  le.ich 
traders  are  leaving  our  villages  because  you  plunder  them 
every  day,  and  it  is  lime  for  us  10  have  another  conduct.^ 
Still  another  one  expressed  himself  as  follows — 'Know  ye 
thai  the  village  of  Ouiatenon  is  ihe  sepulcher  tf  our  ances* 
tors?  The  chief  of  the  Americans  inviies  us  to  go  to  him  if 
we  are  for  peace.  He  has  not  his  leg  broken,  having  been  able 
to  go  as  far  as  the  Illinois.  He  might  come  here  himself  and 
we  should  be  glad  to  see  him  at  our  villa^^e.  We  confess  that 
we  accepted  the  ax  but  it  is  by  the  reproach  we  continually 
receive  from  the  English  and  other  nations,  which  receive  the 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA.  83 

ax  first,  calling^  us  women.  At  the  present  time  they  invite 
our  young  men  to  war.  As  to  our  old  people,  they  are  wishing: 
for  peace.'  They  could  not  give  me  an  answer  before  they 
received  advice  from  the  Miamis,  their  elder  brothers. 

*'On  the  18th  of  April  I  arrived  at  the  River  L'Anguille 
(Eel  river),  at  a  point  five  or  six  miles  above  the  place  where 
it  flows  into  the  Wabash.  The  Indian  village  located  there 
was  near  or  where  Logansport,  Indiana,  now  is.  The  chief 
of  the  village  and  those  of  war  were  not  present.  I  explained 
the  speech  to  some  of  the  tribes.  The}'  said  they  were  well 
pleased,  but  could  not  give  me  an  answer,  their  chief  men  be- 
ing absent.  They  desired  me  to  stop  at  their  village  coming 
back.  The)^  sent  with  me  one  of  their  young  men  to  hear 
the  ans-wer  of  their  eldest  brethren.  On  the  23d  of  April  I 
arrived  at  the  Miami  town.  The  next  day  I  got  the  Miamis, 
the  Shawnees  and  the  Delawares  all  assembled.  I  gave 
to  eaqh  naiion  two  branches  of  wampum  and  began  the 
speeches,  before  the  r  rench  and  English  traders  who  were 
invited  by  the  chiefs  to  be  present,  I  having  told  them  m}^- 
self  that  I  should  be  glad  to  have  them  present  since  I 
had  nothing  to  say  against  anybody.  After  the  speeches  I 
showed  them  the  treaty  concluded  at  Muskingum  (Ft.  Har- 
mor)  between  his  Excellency,  Governor  St.  Clair,  and  sundry 
natibns.  This  displeased  them.  I  told  them  that  the  pur- 
pose at  this  present  time  was  not  to  submit  them  to  any  con- 
ditions but  to  offer  them  the  peace,  which  made  their  dis- 
pleasure disappear.  The  great  chief  told  me  that  he  was 
pleased  with  the  speech  and  that  he  soon  would  give  me  an 
answer.  In  a  private  discourse  with  him  he  told  me  not  to 
mind  what  the  Shawnees  would  tell  me,  they  having  a  bad 
heart  and  being  the  pertubators  of  all  the^  nations.  He  said 
the  Miamis  had  a  bad  name  on  account  of  mischief  done  on 
the-  River  Ohio  but  he  told  me  it  was  not  occasioned  by  his 
young  men,  but  by  the  Shawnees,  his  young  men  having 
onl)^  gone  for  a  hunt. 

**On  the  25th  of  April,  Blue  Jacket,  chief  warrior  of  the 
Shawnees,  invited  me  to  go  to  his  house  and  there  said  to  me 
— 'My  friend,  by  the  name  and  consent  of  the  Shawnees  and 


84  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 

and  Delawares,  I  will  speak  to  you.  We  are  all  sensible  of 
your  speech  and  pleased  with  it  but,  after  consultation,  we 
cannot  give  you  an  answer  without  hearing  from  our  Father  at 
Detroit  and  we  are  determined  to  give  you  back  the  two 
branches  of  wampum  and  to  send  you  to  Detroit  to  see  and 
hear  the  chief  or  to  stay  here  twenty  nights  to  receive  his 
answer.  From  all  quarters  we  receive  speeches  from  the 
Americans  and  no  two  are  alike.  We  suppose  that  they  in- 
tend to  deceive  us.    Then  take  back  your  branches  of  wampum.' 

"The  26th  of  April  five  Pottawattomies  arrived  here  with 
two  negro  men  whom  they  sold  to  Engliah  traders.  The 
next  day  I  went  to  the  great  chief  of  the  Miamis,  called  Le- 
Gris,  his  chief  warriers  also  being  present  with  him.  I  told 
him  how  I  had  been  served  by  the  Shawnees.  He  answered 
me  that  he  had  heard  of  it  and  said  that  nation  behaved 
contrary  to  his  intention.  He  desired  me  not  to  mind  those 
strangers  and  that  he  would  soon  give  me  a  positive  answer. 

''The  28th  of  April  the  great  chief  desired  me  to  call  at 
the  French  traders  and  receive  his  answer.  'Don't  take  bad,' 
said  he,  'of  what  I  am  to  tell  you.  You  ma}'  go  back  when 
)'ou  please.  We  cannot  give  3'ou  a  positive  answer.  We 
must  send  your  speech  to  all  our  neighbors  and  to  the  lake 
nations.  We  cannot  give  a  definite  answer  without  consult- 
ing the  commandant  at  Detroit.'  He  desired  me  to  render 
him  the  two  branches  of  wampum  refused  b}'  the  Shawnees; 
also  a  copy  of  speeches  in  writing.  He  promised  me  that  in 
thirt}'  nights  he  would  send  an  answer  to  Post  Vincennes  by 
a  young  man  of  each  nation.  He  was  well  pleased  with  the 
speeches  and  said  they  were  worthy  of  attention  and  should 
be  communicated  to  all  their  confederates,  being  resolved 
among  them  not  to  do  anything  without  an  unanimous  con- 
sent. I  agreed  to  his  request  and  rendered  him  the  two 
brancihes  of  wampum  and  a  cop}'  of  the  speech.  Afterward 
he  told  me  that  the  five  nations  so  called  or  the  Iroquois  were 
training  for  something;  that  five  of  them  and  three  Wyan- 
dottes  were  in  this  village  with  branches  of  wampum.  He 
could  not  tell  me  presently  their  purpose  but  he  said  I  would 
know  of  it  verv  soon. 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA.  85 

'*The  same  day  Blue  Jacket  invited  me  to  his  house  for 
supper  and  before  the  other  chiefs  told  me  that,  after  another 
•deliberation,  they  thought  necessary  that  I  should  go  my- 
self to  Detroit  to  see  the  commandant  who  would  get  all 
his  children  assembled  to  hear  my  speech.  I  told  them  I 
would  not  answer  them  in  the  night — that  I  was  not  ashajned 
to  speak  to  them  before  the  sun. 

"On  the  29th  of  April  I  got  them  all  assembled.  I  told 
them  I  was  not  to  go  to  Detroit;  that  the  speeches  were  di- 
rected to  the  nations  of  the  River  Wabash  and  the  Miami  and 
to  prove  the  sincerity  of  the  speeches  and  the  heart  of  Gover- 
nor  St.  Clair  I  had  willingly  given  a  copy  of  the  speeches  to 
be  shown  to  the  commandant  of  Detroit  and  according  to  a 
letter  written  by  the  commandant  of  Detroit  to  the  Miamis, 
Shawnees  and  Delawares  mentioning  tO  them  to  be  peaceable 
with  the  Americans.  I  would  go  to  the  commandant  very 
willingly  if  it  were  in  my  direction  being:  sensible  of  his  sen- 
timents. I  told  them  I  had  nothing  to  say  to  the  command- 
ant, neither  he  to  me,  and  that  they  miist  immediately  resolve 
if  they  intended  to  take  me  to  Detroit  or  else  I  would  go  back  as 
soon  as  possible.  Blue  Jacket  got  up  and  told  me,  *My  friend, 
we  are  well  pleased  with  what  you  say.  Our  intention  is  not 
to  force  3'ou  to  go  to  Detroit;  it  was  onlj^  a  proposal,  think- 
ing it  for  the  best.  Our  answer  is  the  same  as  the  Miamis. 
We  will  send  in  thirty  nights  a  full  and  positive  answer  b}^  a 
young  man  of  each  nation  by  writing,  to  Post  Vincennes.' 

**In  the  evening  Blue  Jacket,  having  taken  me  to  supper 
with  him,  told  me  in  a  private  manner  that  the  Shawnee  na- 
tion was  in  doubt  of  the  sincerity  of  the  Big  Knives,  having 
been  already  deceived  by  them.  That  they  had  first  des- 
troyed their  lands,  put  out  their  fires  and  sent  away  their 
young  men,  being  a-hunting,  without  a  mouthful  of  meat; 
also  had  taken  away  their  women,  wherefore  man}'  of  them 
would,  with  a  great  deal  of  pain,  forget  these  affronts.  More- 
over that  some  other  nations  were  apprehending  that  offers  of 
peace  would  ma}  be  tend  to  take  away,  by  degrees,  their  lands 
and  would  serve  them  as  they  did  before.  A  certain  proof 
that  they  intended  to  encroach  on  their  lands  was  their  new 


8h  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 

settlement  on  the  Ohio.  If  ihey  didn't  keep  this  side  of  the 
Ohio  clear,  it  would  never  be  proper  reconcilement  with  the 
nations,  Shawnees,  Iroquois,  Wyandottes  and  perhaps  many 
others.  Legris,  chief  of  thie  Miamis,  asked  me  in  private  dis- 
course what  chief  had  made  treaty  with  the  Americans  at 
Muskinfifum  (Ft.  Harmon).  I  answered  him  that  iheir  names 
were  mentioned  in  the  treaty.  He  told  me  he  had  heard  of  it 
some  time  ago  but  that  they  were  not  chiefs  nor  delegates 
who  made  that  treaty;  the}'  were  only  young  men  who,  with- 
out authority  and  instructions  from  their  chiefs,  had  con- 
cluded that  treaty  which  would  not  be  approved.  They  had 
gone  to  the  treat}'  clandestinely  and  they  intended  to  make 
mention  of  it  in  the  next  council  to  be  held. 

"The  2nd  of  May,  I  came  back  to  the  L'Anguille.  One 
of  the  chief  men  of  the  tribe  being  witness  of  the  council  at 
Miamitown,  repeated  the  whole  to  them  and  whereas  the  first 
chief  was  absent,  they  said  ihej'  could  not  for  the  present 
time,  give  answer  but  that  they  were  willing  to  join  their 
speech  to  those  of  their  eldest  brethren.  'To  give  you  proof 
of  an  open  heart,'  they  said,  *we  let  you  know  that  one  of  our 
chiefs  has  gone  to  war  on  the  Americans  but  it  was  before  we 
heard  of  3'ou  for  certain  they  would  not  have  gone  hiiher.' 
They  also  told  me  that  a  few  daj^s  after  I  passed  their  village, 
seventy  warriors,  Chippewas  and  Ottawas  from  Michilimaci- 
nac  arrived  there.  Some  of  them  were  Pottawatiomies  who, 
meeting  on  their  route  the  Chippewas  and  Ottawas,  joined 
them.  *We  told  them,'  they  said,  Ve  heard  by  you — that  your 
speech  is  fair  and  true.  We  could  not  stop  them  from  going  to 
war.  The  Pottawattomies  told  us  that  as  the  Chippewas  and 
Ottawas  were  more  numerous  than  the}"  the}'  were  forced  to 
follow  them.' 

'*0n  the  3d  of  May  I  got  to  the  Weas.  They  told  me 
that  they  were  waiting  for  an  answer  from  iheir  eldest 
brethren.  'We  approve  very  much  our  brethren  for  not  to 
give  a  definite  answer  without  informing  of  it  all  the 
lake  nations.  Detroit  was  the  place  where  the  fire  was 
lighted,  then  ii  ought  first  to  be  put  out  there.  The  English 
commandant  is  our  father  since  he  threw  down  our  French 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA.  87 

father.     We   could    do    nothing    without   his   approbation.' 

*'The  4th  of  May  I  arrived  ot  the  villag'e  of  the  Kicka- 
poos.  The  chief  presenting  me  two  branches  of  wampum, 
black  and  white  said — 'My  son,  we  cannot  stop  our  young 
men  from  going  to  war.  Everyday  some  set  off  clandestinely 
for  that  purpose.  After  such  behavior  from  our  young  men 
we  are  ashamed  to  say  to  the  great  chief  of  the  Illinois  and 
of  the  Post  Vincennes  that  we  are  busy  about  some  good  af- 
fairs for  the  reconcilement,  but  be  persuaded  that  we  will 
speak  to  them  continuall}^  concerning  the  peace  and  when  our 
eldest  brethren  will  have  sent  their  answer,  we  will  join  ours 
to  it. 

"The  5th  of  May  I  arrived  at  Vermillion.  I  found  no- 
body but  two  chiefs.  All  the  rest  were  gone  a-hunting.  They 
told  me  they  had  nothing  else  to  say."  In  a  despatch  from 
Post  Vincennes  May  22d,  1790,  Major  Hamtramck  says — ''I 
enclose  the  proceedings  of  Mr.  Gamelin  by  which  Your  Ex- 
cellency can  have  no  great  hopes  of  bringing  the  Indians  to 
peace  with  the  United  States.  Gamelin  arrived  on  the  8th  of 
May  and  on  the  11th  some  merchants  arrived  and  informed 
me  that  as  soon  as  Gamelin  had  passed  their  village  on  his 
return,  all  the  Indians  had  gone  to  war;  that  a  large  party  of 
Indians  from  Michilimacinac  and  some  Pottawattomies  had 
gone  to  Kentucky  and  that  three  days  after  Gamelin  had  left 
the  Miami  village,  Kekionga,  an  American  was  brought 
there,  scalped  and  burned  at  the  stake." 

The  great  reason  that  the  French  and  afterwards  the 
English,  were  so  successful  in  dealing  with  the  Indians  and 
attaching  them  so  firmly  as  their  allies,  was  that  the}'  dealt 
with  them  as  a  parent  would  with  a  child,  giving  them  many 
presents  and  humoring  their  whims.  This  was  pleasing  to 
the  Indians  but  after  a  time  it  became  very  expensive.  As  a 
French  writer  puts  it — "These  importunities  of  gifts  for 
everything  that  they  saw  or  could  think  of,  grew  on  the  Ind- 
ians and  it  became  so  expensive  that  it  was  a  question  whether 
their  friendship  was  worth  the  great  trouble  and  expense." 

The  free  sons  of  fair  America,  who  were  the  best  blood 
of  many  foreign  nations,  knew  no  way  to  transact  business 


88  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 

with  the  aborigines  but  by  the  rules  of  business  that  would 
govern  the  transaction  of  one  people  with  another,  con- 
sequently they  were  not  successful  in  their  attempts  to  treat 
with  the  Indians  who  had  been  pampered  and  spoiled  by  the 
French  and  English  nations  to  hold  their  friendship.  In 
every  attempt  that  the  American  made  to  treat  with  the  In- 
dians for  friendship  or  concessions  of  territory  they  were  met 
with  the  taunt  that  they  were  not  like  the  French  and  Eng- 
lish, who  always  commenced  such  proceedings  with  a  large 
gift  of  many  articles  useful  to  the  Indians;  that  this  made 
their  hearts  glad  and  that  the  American  always  came  with 
empty  hands. 

Major  Gladwin,  the  British  commandant  at  Detroit,  had 
an  experience  with  Pontiac  and  his  confederated  bands  which 
is  described  by  him  in  a  private  letter  to  a  friend — 

'*The  Indians  under  Pontiac  have  been  so  domi- 
jieering  over  the  French  and  have  become  so  exacting 
that  when  my  commissioner  made  overtures  for  an 
alliance  of  peace  and  friendship,  he  was  rejected. 
They  gave  as  a  reason  for  not  making  the  treaty 
that  when  their  great  Father,  the  French  King, 
wanted  any  special  favor  he  gave  his  red  brethren  a 
ship  load  of  goods  of  all  kinds  for  the  Indians'  com- 
fort; that  the  tnglish  now  wanted  them  to  forsake 
their  allegiance  to  their  great  Father,  the  King  of 
France,  and  give  it  to  them;  for  this  they  should  at  , 
least  offer  them  three  ship-loads  of  guns,  powder, 
lead,  blankets,  clothing  of  all  kinds  and  many  ar- 
ticles for  decorating  their  body  to  expect  them  to 
grant  such  a  great  favor." 

Governor  St.  Clair  was  at  Kaskaskia  when  he  received 
Gamelin's  report  which  satisfied  him  that  there  was  no  prospect 
of  peace  with  the  Wabash  Indians.  He  sent  the  secretary 
of  the  Northwest  Territory,  Winthrop  Sargent,  to  Vincennes 
and  directed  him  to  lay  out  Knox  county  and  establish  the  mil- 
itia and  appoint  necessary  civil  and  military  officers.  Mr. 
Sargent  proceeded  to  Vincennes  where  he  organized  the  camp 
of  Knox,  appointed  the  necessary  civil  and  military  officers 
and  gave  notice  to  the  inhabitants  to  present  their  claims  to 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA.  89 

titles  of  land  which  was  found  to  be  a  very  difficult  proposi- 
tion.    In  his  report  to  the  president  he  said — 

'*The  lands  and  lots  which  were  awarded  appear 
from  the  evidence,  to  belong  to  those  persons  to 
whom  they  were  awarded,  either  by  grants,  purchase 
or  inheritance,  but  there  are  very  few  titles  which 
are  complete  owing  to  the  very  loose  way  that  pub- 
lic business  has  been  carried  on.  The  concessions 
by  the  French  and  British  commandants  ate  made 
on  small  scraps  of  paper  which  are  loosely  kept  in 
the  Notary's  office;  but  the  fewest  number  of  these 
concessions  are  in  a  book  of  record." 

The  most  important  land  transactions  were  often  found 
scrawled  down  on  a  loose  sheet  of  paper  in  very  bad  French 
and  worse  English.  Three-fourths  of  the  names  were  made 
with  marks  without  being  attested  by  a  notary  or  any  one 
else.  Many  of  these  claimants  at  the  post  of  Vincennes  had 
been  occupying  the  land  on  which  their  houses  were  built  for 
generations  and  the  only  evidence  of  their  having  any  claim 
to  it  would  all  be  recorded  on  a  piece  of  paper  not  an^^  too 
large  for  a  target  in  a  shooting  match.  Mr.  Sargent  said 
that  there  were  about  one  hundred  and  fifty  families  in  Vin- 
cennes in  1790.  The  heads  of  these  families  bad  at  some 
time  had  a  title  to  a  portion  of  the  soil  which  title  he  had 
spent  weeks  in  trying  to  straighten  out.  While  he  was  busy 
with  these  claims  he  received  a  petiiion  signed  by  eighty 
Americans  asking  for  confirmation  of  the  grants  of  land  ceded 
by  the  court  which  had  been  organized  by  Col.  John  Todd 
under  the  authority  of  Virginia. 

Congress  of  the  3rd  of  March,  1791,  authorized  the  gov- 
ernor of  the  territory  in  all  cases  where  the  improvements 
had  been  made,  under  a  supposed  title  for  the  same,  to  confirm 
the  persons  who  made  such  improvements  on  the  land  sup- 
posed to  have  been  granted,  not  to  exceed  in  quantity  four 
hundred  acres  to  one  person.  In  1790  a  session  of  court  was 
held  in  Vincennes  at  which  Wihthrop  Sargent,  Acting  Gov- 
ernor, presided  and  the  following  laws  were  adopted. 

1.  An  act  prohibiting  the  giving  or  selling  of  intoxicat- 
ihg  liquors  to  Indians  residing  in  or  coming  into  the  territory 


90  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 

of  the  United  States  northwest  of  the  River  Ohio  and  for  pre- 
venting foreigners  from  trading  with  the  Indians. 

2.  An  act  prohibiting  the  sale  of  spirituous  or  other  in- 
toxicating liquors  to  soldiers  in  the  service  of  the  United 
States,  being  within  ten  miles  of  an}'  military  post  within 
the  territory  of  the  United  States  northwest  of  the  River 
Ohio  and  to  prevent  the  selling  or  pawning  of  arms,  ammuni- 
tion, clothing  and  accoutrements. 

3.  An  act  for  suppressing  and  prohibiting  every  species 
of  gaming  for  money  or  other  property  and  for  making  void 
contracts  and  paj^ments  made  in  consequence  thereof;  and  for 
restraining  the  disorderly  practice  of  discharging  arms  at 
certain  hours  and  places. 


Post  Vincennes,  July  3,  1790. 

To  the  Honorable  Winthrop  Sargent,  Esq.,  Secre- 
tary in  and  for  the  territory  of  the  United  States 
northwest  the  River  Ohio  and  vested  with  all  the 
powers  of  governor  and  commander-in-chief: 
"Sin- 
As  you  have  given  verbal  orders  to  the  magis- 
trates who  formerl}^  composed  the  court  of  the  dis- 
trict of  Post  Vincennes  under  the  jurisdiction  of  the 
state  of  Virginia,  to  give  3'ou  their  reasons  for  hav- 
ing taken  upon  them  to  grant  concessions  for  the 
lands  within  the  district,  in  obedience  thereto,  we 
beg  leave  to  inform  3'ou  that  their  principal  reason  is 
that,  since  the  establishment  of  this  country,  the 
commandants  have  always  appeared  to  be  vested  with 
the  power  to  give  lands.  Their  founder,  Mr.  Vin- 
cennes, began  to  give  concessions  and  all  his  succes- 
sors have  given  lands  and  lots.  Mr.  Legras  was  ap- 
pointed commandant  of  Post  Vincennes  by  the  lieu- 
tenant of  the  connty — ^John  Todd  who  was,  in  the 
year  1779,  sent  by  the  state  of  Virginia  to  regulate 
the  government  of  the  country  and  who  substituted 
Mr.  Legras  with  his  power.  In  his  absence  Mr.  Le- 
gras. who  was  then  commandant,  assumed  that  he 
had  in  quality  of  commandant  authority  to  give 
lands  according  to  the  ancient  usages  of  other  com- 
mandants; and  he  verbally  informed  the  court  of  Post 
Vincennes  that  when  they  would  judge  it  proper  to 
give  lands  or  lots  to  those  who  should  come  into  the 
Territory  to  settle,  or  otherwise,  they  might  do  it; 
and  that  he  gave  them  permission  to  do  so. 


^      PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA.  91 

''These  are  the  reasons  that  we  acted  upon  and  if 
we  have  done  more  than  we  ou^ht,  it  was  on  account 
of  the  little  knowledge  we  had  of  public  aflfairs." 

F.  BossBRON  Pierre  Gamelin 

his 
L.  Edeline  Pierre  (X)  Querez 

mark 

While  in  Vincennes  in  1790  Mr.  Sargent  received  an  ad- 
dress from  the  leading  citizens  as  follows: 

"The  citizens  of  the  town  of  Vincennes  approach 
you,  Sir,  to  express  as  well  their  personal  respects 
for  your  honor  as  a  full  approbation  of  the  measures 
you  have  been  pleased  to  pursue  in  regard  to  their 
government  and  the  adjustment  of  their  claims  as  in- 
habitants of  the  territory  over  which  you  at  present 
preside.  While  we  deem  it  a  singular  l>lessing  to 
behold  the  principles  of  free  government  unfolding 
before  us,  we  cherish  the  pleasing  reflection  that  our 
posterity  will  also  have  cause  to  rejoice  at  the  polit- 
ical change  now  originating.  A  free  and  efficient 
government  wisely  administered  and  fostered  under 
the  protecting  wings  of  an  august  union  of  states, 
cannot  fail  to  render  the  citizens  of  this  wide,  ex- 
tended territory  securely  happy  in  the  possession  of 
every  public  blessing. 

"We  cannot  take  leave,  Sir,  without  offering  to 
your  notice  a  tribute  of  gratitude  and  esteem  which 
every  citizen  of  Vincennes  conceives  he  owes  to  the 
merits  of  an  officer  (Major  Hamtramck)  who  has  long 
commanded  at  this  post.  The  unsettled  situation  of 
things  for  a  series  of  3'ears  previous  to  this  gentle- 
man's arrival  tended  in  many  instances  to  derange 
and  in  others  to  suspend,  the  operations  of  these  mu- 
nicipal customs  by  which  the  citizens  of  this  town 
were  used  to  be  governed.  They  were  in  the  habit 
of  submitting  the  superintendence  of  their  civil  regu- 
lations to  the  officer  who  happened  to  command  the 
troops  posted  among  them;  hence,  in  the  course  of 
the  late  war  and  from  the  frequent  change  of  mas- 
ters, they  labored  under  heavy  and  various  griev- 
ances but  the  judicious  and  humane  attention  paid  by 
Major  Hamtramck  during  his  whole  command,  to  the 
rights  and  feelings  of  every  individual,  craving  his 


92  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 

interpositions,  demands  and  will  always  receive  our 
warmest  acknowledgment. 

'*We  beg  you,  Sir,  to  assure  the  supreme  authority 
of  the  United  States  of  our  fidelitj'  and  attachment 
and  our  greatest  ambition  is  to  deserve  its  fostering 
care  by  acting  the  part  of  good  citizens. 

**By  order  and  on  behalf  of  the  citizens  of  Vin- 
cennes. 

Antoine  Gamelin,  Magistrate. 
Pierre  Cjamelin. 
Paul  Gamelin. 
James  Johnson, 
Louis  Adeline, 
Luke  Decker, 
Francis  Bosseron, 
Francis  Vigo, 

Major  Commandant  Militia. 
Henry  Vanderburgh, 

Major  of  Militia." 

To  this  complimentary   testimonial,   Winthrop  Sargent 
made  a  brief  but  appropriate  reply  as  follows: 

**ViNCENNES,  July  25,  1790. 
Gentlemen: — 

Next  to  that  happiness  which  I  derive  from  a 
consciousness  of  endeavoring  to  merit  the  approba- 
tion of  the  sovereign  authority  6f  the  United  States 
by  the  faithful  discharge  of  the  important  trust  com- 
mitted to  me,  is  the  grateful  plaudits  of  the  respec- 
able  citizens  of  this  lerriiory  and  be  assured,  gentle- 
men, that  I  receive  ii  from  the  town  of  Vincennes 
upon  this  occasion  with  singular  satisfaction. 

**In  an  event  so  interesting  and  important  to  every 
individual  as  the  organization  of  civil  government,  I 
regret  exceedingly  that  you  have  been  deprived  of 
the  wisdom  of  our  worth}'  governor.  His  extensive 
abilities  and  long  experience  in  the  honorable 
walks  of  public  life  might  have  more  perfectly 
established  that  S3^stem  which  promises  to  3^ou  and 
posterity  such  political  blessings.  It  is  certain,  gen- 
tlemen, that  the  government  of  the  United  States  is 
most  congenial  to  the  dignity  of  human  nature,  and 
the  best  possible  palladium  for  the  lives  and  property 
of  mankind.  The  services  of  Major  Hamtramck  to 
the  public  and  his  humane  attention  to  the  citizens. 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA.  93 

while  in  command  here,  have  been  highly  meritor- 
ious and  it  is  with  g^reat  pleasure  that  I  have  offici- 
cially  expressed  to  him  my  full  approbation  thereof. 
'Your  dutiful  sentiments  of  fidelit}^  and  attach- 
ment to  the  general  government  of  the  United  States, 
shall  be  faithfully  transmitted  to  their  august  pres- 
ident. 

"With  the  warmest  wishes  for  the  prosperity  and 
welfare  of  Vincennes^  I  have  the  honor  to  be,  gen- 
tlemen, Your  obedient,  humble  servant, 

WiNTHROP  Sargent." 

During  most  of  the  years  1790  and  1791,  Groverner  St. 
Clair  was  very  busy  with  the  military  affairs  of  the  territory. 
The  civil  affairs  were  turned  over  to  Winthrop  Sargent  and 
he  was  given  authority  of  acting  governor.  St.  Clair  then 
deterniined  to  return  to  Ft.  Washington  where  General  Har- 
mor  was  stationed  and  consult  with  him  as  to  the  expediency 
of  sending  expeditions  against  the  hostile  Indians.  When  he 
arrived  at  Ft.  Washington  from  Kaskaskia,  after  a  consul ta- 
tian  with  his  military  leaders,  they  determined  to  send  a 
strong  detachment  against  the  Indians  located  on  the  head 
waters  of  the  Wabash.  At  that  time  the  United  States 
troops  in  the  northwest  were  but  little  over  four  hundred  ef- 
fective men.  A  part  of  the  milita  designed  to  act  with  the 
troops  on  these  expeditions  there  was  about  three  hundred 
from  Virginia,  that  rendezvoused  at  Fort  Steuben  and  with 
the  garrison  of  that  station  marched  to  Vircennes  and  were 
joined  to  the  forces  of  Major  Hamtramck  who  was  authorized 
to  enlist  what  milita  he  could  at  Post  Vincennes.  With  this 
force  he  marched  up  the  Wabash  river,  having:  orders  to  at- 
tack any  Indians  that  he  might  find  with  which  his  force  was 
strong  enough  to  engage.  The  governor  had  the  authorit}^ 
of  the  president  to  call  on  the  state  of  Virginia  for  one  thous- 
and troops  and  Pennsylvania  for  five  hundred.  These  troops, 
less  the  three  hundred  Virginians  that  went  with  Hamtramck, 
assembled  at  Ft.  Washington  add  were  joined  to  the  regular 
troops  at  that  station. 

On  the  last  of  September  Governor  Si.  Clair,  in  obedi- 
ence to  instructions  from  the  president  of  the  United  States, 


94  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDL\NA. 

sent   the   following   letter   to   the   British*  Commandant   at 
Detroit: 

''Marietta,  September  19,  1790. 

Sir:— 

As  it  is  not  improbable  on  account  of  the  military 
preparations  going  forward  in  this  quarter  of  the 
country  maj^  reach  you  and  give  you  some  uneasiness, 
while  the  object  to  which  they  are  directed  in  not 
perfectly  known,  I  am  commanded  by  the  president 
of  the  United  States  to  give  you  the  full  assurance 
thai  pacific  dispositions  are  entertained  toward  Great 
Britain  and  all  her  possessions;  and  lo  inform  you 
explicitly  that  the  expedition  about  to  be  undertaken 
is  not  intended  against  the  Post  you  have  the  honor 
to  command  nor  any  other  place  at  present  in  ihe 
possession  of  the  British  troops  of  his  Majesty;  but 
is  on  foot  with  the  sole  design  of  humbling  and 
chastising  some  of  the  savage  tribes  whose  depreda- 
tions are  becoming  intolerable  and  whose  cruelties 
have,  of  late,  become  an  outrage,  not  on  the  people 
of  America  onl}',  but  on  humanity;  which  I  now  do 
in  the  most  unequivocal  manner. 

** After  this  candid  explanation.  Sir,  there  is  every 
reason  to  expect  both  from  your  own  personal  char- 
acter and  from  the  regard  you  have  for  that  of  your 
nation  that  those  tribes  will  meet  with  neither  count- 
enance nor  assistance  from  any  under  your  command; 
and  that  you  will  do  what  in  your  power  lies  to  res- 
train the  trading  people  from  those  instigations, 
from  which  there  is  good  reason  to  believe  much  of 
the  injuries  committed  by  the  savage  has  proceeded. 

'*I  have  forwarded  this  letter  by  a  private  gentle- 
man in  preference  to  an  officer  by  whom  you  might 
have  expected  a  communication  of  this  kind,  that 
every  suspicion  of  the  purity  of  the  views  of  the 
United  States,  might  be  obv'iated." 

General  Harmer  left  Ft.  Washington  on  September  30th, 
with  an  army  of  fourteen  hundred  men  arrived  at  Maumee 
Octobor  17th  then  commenced  the  work  of  chastising  the 
Indians  but  met  with  misfortunes  that  were  more  injurious 
to  the  American  than  were  harmful  to  the  Indians.  The 
savasres   received  a    severe  chastisement  but  the  militia  be- 


^ 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA.  95 

haved  so  badly  that  it  was  of  but  little  service.  The  detach- 
ment of  three  hundred  and  forty  militia  and  sixty  regulars, 
under  the  command  of  Colonel  Hardin,  were  badly  defeated 
on  the  Maumee  October  22d.  On  the  next  day  the  army  took 
up  its  line  of  march  for  Ft.  Woshington  which  place  they 
reached  November  4th,  having  lost  in  the  expedition  one 
hundred  and  eighty-three  killed  and  thirty-one  wounded. 
During  the  progress  of  this  expedition,  Major  Hamtramck 
marched  up  the  Wabash  as  far  as  the  Vermilion  river,  des- 
troying several  deserted  villages  without  finding  any  enemy 
to  oppose  him.     He  then  returned  to  Vincennes. 

The  savages  were  badly  punished  by  these  expeditions 
yet  they  refused  to  sue  for  peace  and  continued  hostile. 

On  March  9th,  1791,  General  Henry  Knox,  Secretary  of 
War,  sent  a  letter  of  instructions  to  General  Scott  in  Ken- 
tucky, recommending  an  expedition  of  mounted  men,  not  to 
exceed  seven  hundred  and  fifty  against  the  Wea  towns  along 
the  Wabash.  With  this  force.  General  Scott  crossed  the 
Ohio  river  May  23d,  1791,  reached  the  Wabash  in  about  ten 
days.  Many  of  the  Indians,  having  discovered  his  approach 
deserted  their  villages  but  he  succeeded  in  destroying  all  the 
villages  around  Ouiatenon  together  with  several  Kickapoo 
towns,  killed  thirty-five  warriors  and  took  sixt3'-one  prisoners. 
Releasing  a  few  of  his  aged  prisoners,  he  iJfave  them  a  talk 
and  asked  them  to  carry  it  to  the  towns  farther  up  ihe  Wabash 
and  to  the  country  of  the  Maumee.  ^  Owing  to  the  disabled 
condition  of  his  horses  he  was  unable  to  go  farther. 

In  March,  1791,  Congress  provided  for  raising  and  equip- 
ping a  regiment  for  the  proieciion  of  the  froniieis  and  gov- 
ernor St.  Clair  was  placed  in  command  of  something  more 
than  three  thousand  troops,  some  of  ihem  yet  to  be  raised  and 
all  of  them  to  be  employed  in  quelling  the  Indians  in  the 
Northwest  Territory.  He  was  instructed  by  the  Secretar}-  of 
War  to  march  to  the  Miami  village,  Kekionga  and  to  estab- 
lish a  permanent  military  post  there  and  such  posts  elsewhere 
throughout  his  territory  as  would  be  in  communication  with 
Ft.  Washington.  The  post  at  the  Miami  village  was  to  be 
of  such  strength  as  to  hold  the  savage  in  that  neighborhood 


^6  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 

in  check;  also  to  afford  shelter  for  five  or  six  hundred  men  in 
case  of  an  emergency.  The  Secretary  of  War  urged  St.  Clair 
to  establish  that  post  as  the  most  important  part  of  his  cam- 
paign. As  in  previous  treaties,  the  Indians  were  to  be  con- 
ciliated, every  inducement  being  offered  to  them  to  cease 
their  hostilities.  Said  the  Secretary  of  War — "Having  com- 
menced your  march  upon  the  expedition,  and  the  Indians 
continuing  hostile,'  you  will  use  every  possible  exertion  to 
make  them  feel  the  effects  of  your  superiority  and  after  hav- 
ing arrived  at  the  Miami  village  and  put  your  works  in  a  de- 
fensible state,  you  will  seek  the  enemj'.  with  your  remaining 
force  and  endeavor  to  strike  them  with  great  severit3%  In 
order  to  avoid  future  wars,  it  might  be  proper  to  make  the 
Wabash  and  thence  over  the  Maumee  and  down  the  same  to 
its  mouth  on  Lake  Erie,  the  boundary  between  the  people  of 
the  United  States  and  the  Indians  (except  so  far  as  the  same 
would  relate  to  the  Wyandotts  and  the  Delawares)  on  suppo- 
sition that  they  will  remain  faithful  to  their  treaties,  but  if 
they  should  join  in  war  against  the  United  States  and  your 
arm}'  should  be  victorious,  the  said  tribes  should  be  removed 
without  the  boundary  mentioned." 

Before  starting  on  the  march  with  the  main  force  to  the 
Miami  town.  Governor  St.  Clair,  June  25th,  1791,  authorized 
General  Wilkinson  to  conduct  an  expedition  with  not  more 
than  five  hundred  mounted  men,  to  the  Indian'  villages  on  the 
Wabash.  Accordingly,  General  Wilkinson,  on  July  20th, 
wiih  his  mounted  men  well  armed  and  with  provision  for 
thirty  days,  marched  and  reached  the  Kenapacomaqua  village 
on  the  north  bank  of  Kel  ri/er,  (now  Cass  county,  Indiana,) 
six  miles  above  its  mouih  where,  on  August  7ih,  he  killed 
six  warriors  and  took  ihirt3'-four  prisoners.  This  town, 
which  was  scattered  along  the  river  for  three  miles,  was  to- 
tally destroyed  and  Wilkinson  and  his  command  encamped  on 
its  ruins.  The  next  day  he  commenced  his  march  upon  the 
Kickapoo  town  on  the  prairie  which  he  was  unable  to  reach, 
owing  to  the  impossible  condition  of  the  route  he  had  taken 
and  the  condition  his  horses  were  in. 

In  making  his  report  he  estimated  the  results  of  the  ex- 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA.  97 

pedition  as  follows:  He  had  destroyed  the  chief  town  of  the 
Ouiatenon  nation  and  made  prisoners  of  the  son  and  sisters 
of  the  King.  He  had  burned  a  respectable  Kickapoo  village 
and  cut  down  four  hundred  acres  of  com,  mostly  in  the  milk. 

There  is  no  doubt  that  these  expeditions  of  Hamtramck, 
Harmor,  Scott  and  Wilkinson  seriously  damaged  the  Indians 
but  they  were  not  subdued.  Thej'  regarded  the  policy  of  the 
United  States  as  calculated  to  exterminate  them  and  the  Eng- 
lish at  Detroit  urged  thenr  on.  They  were  excited  by  the  loss 
in  former  expedition  and  the  tales  of  woe  told  them  by  the 
British  traders,  to  such  a  degree  that  they  were  desperate. 
As  has  been  before  stated  at  that  time  the  British  govern- 
ment still  had  garrisons  at  Niagara,  Detroit  and  Michilimack- 
inac,  although  it  was  declared  in  the  second  article  of  the  def- 
inite treaty  of  peace  in  1783  that  the  king  of  Great  Britain 
would,  with  all  convenient  speed  and  without  causing  any 
destruction  or  carrying  away  any  negroes  or  property  of  the 
American  inhabitants,  withdraw  all  his  forces  from  the  gar- 
risons and  his  fleet  from  the  United  States  and  from  every 
post,  place  and  harbor  within  the  same.  That  treaty  also 
provided  that  the  creditors  on  either  side  should  meet  with 
no  lawful  impediment  to  the  recovery  of  the  full  value  in 
sterling  money  of  all  bonafide  debts  previously  contracted. 
The  British  government  contended  that  the  United  States 
had  broken  faith  in  this  particular  understanding  of  the 
treaty  and  in  consequence  refused  to  withdraw  its  forces  from 
the  territory'.  The  British  garrison  in  the  lake  region  was  a 
source  of  much  annoyance  as  the}^  offered  succor  to  the  hos- 
tile Indians  and  encouraged  them  in  making  raids  among  the 
Americans.  This  state  of  affairs  in  the  territory  northwest 
of  the  Ohio  continued  from  the  commencement  of  the  Revo- 
lutionary War  to  1796  when,  under  a  second  treaty,  all  British 
soldiers  were  withdrawn  from  the  countr3\ 

In  September,  1791,  St.  Clair  moved  from  Ft.  Washing- 
ton with  about  two  thousand  men.  On  the  3rd  of  November 
the  main  army  consisting  of  about  fourteen  hundred  effective 
troops  moved  forward  to  the  head  waters  of  the  Wabash 
where  Fort  Recovery  was  afterward  erected.     Here  the  army 


\ 


98  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 

encamped.  At  this  time  the  Little  Turtle,  Blue  Jacket  and 
Buckongehelas  and  other'  Indian  chiefs  were  secreted  a  few 
miles  distant  with  a  large  force  of  Indians  waiting  for  a  fav- 
orable opportunity  to  bring  on  an  attack.  This  they  com- 
menced on  the  morning  of  the  4th  of  November  a  little  while 
before  sunrise.  The  attack  was  first  made  upon  the  militia 
which  gave  way.  St.  Clair  was  defeated  and  returned  to  Ft. 
Washington  with  a  broken  and  dispirited  army,  having  lost 
thirty-nine  officers  and  five  hundred  and  forty  men,  killed  and 
missing  and  having  twenty-two  officers  and  two  hundred  and 
thirty-five  men  wounded.  St.  Clair  lost  several  pieces  of  artil- 
lery and  all  his  ammunition,  provision  and  baggage  were 
left  on  the  ground.  One  of  the  sad  features  of  this  terrible 
disaster  was  the  loss  of  more  than  two  hundred  women  who 
had  followed  their  husbands,  brothers  and  fathers  on  this 
campaign,  expecting  to  settle  with  them  in  some  of  the  fine 
country  that  would  be  reclaimed  from  the  Indians.  Over  the 
most  terrible  fate  that  awaited  and  was  meted  out  to  these 
unfortunate  women  it  is  best  to  draw  the  veil.  The  Indians,, 
in  this  battle,  manifested  the  most  fiendish  and  cruel  brutal- 
ity  to  the  dead  and  dying  Americans.  Believing  that  the 
whites  had  made  war  for  many  years  for  the  sole  purpose  of 
acquiring  land,  they  thrust  great  chunks  of  dirt  into  the 
mouths  and  the  great  gashes  cut  in  the  cheeks  of  the  dying 
and  dead  soldiers. 

The  defeat  of  St.  Clair's  army  was  a  severe  blow  to  the 
Northwest  Territory  and  retarded  the  settlement  of  the  mid- 
dle and  western  part  of  that  territory  for  many  years.  The 
Indians,  owing  to  the  very  easy  victory  which  they  had  gained 
over  the  Americans,  whose  army  was  almost  twice  as  large 
as  theirs,  determinedly  organized  many  raids  which  they  sent 
into  the  thinly  settled  region  of  the  Northwest  Territory, 
Kentucky  and  on  the  borders  of  Virginia.  There  was  so 
much  destruction  wrought  by  the  Indians  that  many  families 
who  had  come  to  the  settled  stations  around  the  Ohio  Falls 
and  at  Ft.  Washington,  moved  farther  back  to  Kentucky  and 
Virginia.  Some  military  critics  were  very  severe  and  out- 
spoken in  censuring  General  St.  Clair,  though  this  was  prob- 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA.  99 

ably  very  unjust.  The  main  reason  of  his  defeat  was  that  a 
large  portion  of  his  army  had  been  hastily  gathered  together 
and  many  of  them  were  from  the  thickly  settled  sections  of 
Virginia  and  Pennsylvania  where  they  had  had  no  experi- 
ence in  Indian  warfare  and  owing  to  the  hurried  disposition 
of  the  troops  before  the  commencement  of  the  main  eampaign, 
they  had  had  but  little  opportunity  to  receive  military  train- 
ing or  discipline;  also  a  portion  of  the  new  levies  were  com- 
manded by  officers  who  had  no  military  experience.  Greneral 
St.  Clair  was  an  old  man  and  had  been  very  successful  and 
efficient  during  the  seven  long  years  of  the  Revolution.  When 
he  was  chosen  to  the  important  position  of  Grovernor  of  the 
Northwest  Territory,  he  was  a  member  of  Congress  and  was 
president  of  that  body. 

After  the  return  of  the  defeated  army  to  Ft.  Washington, 
St.  Clair  resigned  his  position  of  Major  General  in  the  United 
States  army  but  retained  the  governorship  of  the  Northwest 
Territory  to  which  he  gave  all  of  his  time.  To  the  vacancy 
made  in  the  army  roll  by  the  resignation  of  St.  Clair,  General 
Anthony  Wayne  (more  familiarly  known  as  ''Mad  Anthony") 
was  promoted.  Greneral  Wayne  was  an  old  officer  and  had  won 
a  very  enviable  reputation  during  the  long  struggle  for  lib- 
erty. On  taking  command  he  at  once  moved  to  Ft.  Pitt 
(Pittsburg,  Penn.) 

In  1792  the  government  of  United  States  determined  to 
reorganize  and  place  a  large  army  in  the  field  for  the  purpose 
of  subduing  the  hostile  Indians  in  the  Northwest  Territory 
and  General  Wayne  set  about  preparing,  drilling  and  equipp- 
ing the  army  that  he  had  gathered  about  him  for  the  purpose 
of  thoroughly  chastising,  defeating  and  destroying  the  In- 
dians who  had  defeated  St.  Clair's  army  and  destroyed  so 
many  American  soldiers  and  American  women. 

During  the  rest  of  1792  and  up  to  October,  1793,  Wayne 
remained  at  Ft.  Pitt  but  on  the  latter  date  moved  with  his  army 
to  Ft.  Washington  where  he  remained  the  rest  of  that  year 
and  until  July,  1794,  preparing  his  army  to  be  in  the  best  con- 
dition for  effective  service,  drilling  them  in  a  manner  that 
they  would  be  able  to  resist  any  of  the  known  modes  of  In- 


100  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 

dian  warfare.  On  July  26th  Major  Greneral  Scott  with  sixteen 
hundred  mounted  riflemen  from  Kentucky,  joined  the  reg-ular 
troops  under  Wayne  at  Ft.  Washington  and  on  the  28th  of 
July  the)  combined  army  began  its  march  for  the  Indian 
towns  on  the  Maumee. 

Arriving-  at  the  mouth  of  the  Auglaize,  they  erected  Ft. 
Defiance  and  on  August  15th  they  advanced  toward  the  Brit- 
ish fort  at  the  rapids  near  the  Maumee.  On  the  20th,  al- 
most within  reach  of  the  British  guns  the  Americans  gained 
a  complete  victory  over  the  combined  forces  of  the  hostile 
Indians  and  a  compan}^  of  Detroit  militia,  amounting  to  sev- 
enty-eight men.  The  number  of  the  enemy  was  estimated  at 
two  thousand  against  about  nine  hundred  American  troops  ac- 
tuallyengaged.  As  soon  as  the  action  co  nmenced,  the  Ameri- 
cans charged  the  Indians  who  abandoned  themselves  to  flight 
and  dispersed  with  terror  and  dismay.  The  Americans  lost  on 
this  occasion  thirty-three  killed  and  one  hundred  wounded. 
The  loss  of  the  enemy  was  probably  three  times  as  great. 
Wa3'ne  remained  on  the  field  and  in  the  vicinity  for  several 
days  after  the  battle,  burninjg  the  Indian  towns  and  destro)'- 
ing  their  corn-field  for  many  miles  on  both  sides  of  the  Mau- 
mee. The  Indians  retired  from  that  section  disheartened  to 
the  country  far  to  the  north.  Wayne  continued  sending  mes- 
sages to  the  Indians  trying  to  persuade  them  to  meet  him 
and  form  a  treat)\ 

After  this,  for  a  time,  there  was  a  suspension  of  hos- 
tilities and  raids  by  the  Indians,  for  from  nearly  every  town 
in  the  Northwest  Territory  numbers  of  young  hunters  were 
engaged  in  that  battle.  Probably  the  Indians  never  on  the 
American  continent  had  gathered  together  a  more  efficient 
army  of  two  thousand  men,  commanded  by  some  of  their 
greatest  leaders.  Little  Turtle,  Blue  Jacket,  Buckongehelas 
and  many  other  distinguished  chiefs.  Tecumseh,  then  in 
the  first  flush  of  his  greatness  commanded  a  troop  of  one 
hundred  Indians  on  that  field.  They  had  chosen  their  battle 
field  in  a  large  territory  of  fallen  timbers  with  an  advance 
line  of  what  we  would  now  call  skirmishers  under  two  of 
their  most  successful  war  chiefs.     The  Indians  were  so  well 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA.  101 

located  that  they  had  no  doubt  that  they  would  gain  a  com* 
plete  victory  over  Wayne's  force.  They  had  invited  a  num- 
ber of  British  officers  and  soldiers  to  occupy  positions  in 
sight  of  the  field  to  see  them  annhilate  the  American  army, 
but  they  had  reckoned  without  their  host.  Greneral  Wayne 
had  an  army  of  four  thousand  men  equipped  and  drilled  that 
for  efficiency  and  moral  in  that  mode  of  warfare  perhaps  was 
never  excelled  on  the  American  continent.  It  was  com- 
manded by  some  of  the  most  resolute  and  efficient  officers 
who  have  honored  the  roll  of  fame  among  American  heroes. 

As  soon  as  the  battle  commenced  a  detachment  was  or- 
dered to  charge  both  flanks  of  the  Indian  army  and  the  centre 
and  in  a  very  short  time  it  put  them  to  precipitate  flight. 
Not  more  than  nine  hundred  of  Wayne's  men  had  an  oppor- 
tunity to  distinguish  themselves  in  that  battle.  After  the 
battle  during  the  time  that  Wayne  was  in  camp  near  the 
Maumee  he  and  his  staff  with  a  large  escort  of  cavalry,  made 
several  trips  of  observation  over  the  battle-field.  During 
some  of  these  trips  the  cavalcade  was  halted  in  front  of  the 
fort.  This  brought  on  such  a  spirited  controversy  between 
the  commander  of  the  British  fort — Wm.  Campbell — and  Gen- 
eral Waj'ne  that  it  seemed,  at  one  time,  as  if  a  collision 
would  be  brought  on  between  the  British  and  American 
armies. 

About  the  middle  of  September,  1794,  Wayne's  army 
commenced  its  march  toward  the  deserted  Miami  village  and 
on  the  following  day  arrived  there  and  selected  a  site  for  a 
new  fort  named  Ft.  Wayne.  The  fort  was  completed  near 
the  last  of  November  and  garrisoned  l)y.  five  hundred  and 
fifty-eight  men  and  officers,  infantry  and  artillery,  under  the 
command  of  Colonel  John  F.  Hamtramck.  After  this  Wayne 
resumed  his  march.  Arriving  at  Greenville  he  took  up  his 
headquarters  there  for  the  winter  and  remained  there  most  of 
the  summer  of  1795.  During  all  the  time  between  the  battle 
ane  up  to  August  of  the  next  year  Wayne  had  Ms  scouts  in- 
terpreters and  trusted  men  among  the  Indians,  trying  to  get 
them  to  meet  him  at  Greenville  for  the  purpose  of  making  a 
general  treaty  of  peace  with  all  the  hostile  Indians  of  the 


102  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 

Northwest  Territory  and  about  the  middle  of  Angfitst  he  suc- 
ceeded in  the  attempt. 

At  that  treaty  a  concession  of  a  large  amount  of  land  on 
the  Ohio,  Sioto  and  Miami  rivers  was  made  the  United  States 
by  the  Indians.  By  this  concession,  commencing  at  a  point 
on  the  eastern  Ohio  line  near  where  Ft.  Recovery  was  erect- 
ed, a  line  was  run  to  the  south  coming  to  the  Ohio  river  at  a 
point  opposite  the  mouth  of  the  Kentucky  river.  This  small 
strip  of  land  was  the  first  real  concession  made  b)^  general 
treaty  with  the  Indiansjthat  is  locate^  in  the  state  of  Indiana. 

After  the  conclusion  of  these  treaties  there  was  a  period 
of  rest  for  the  pioneers  as  the  Indians,  for  some  years  after- 
ward, were  a  little  shy  of  making  war  on  the  frontiers.  Dur- 
ing that  period  there  was  a  great  influx  of  settlers  into  Onio 
around  Marietta,  Ft.  Washington  and  at  points  in  the  terri- 
tory of  the  Ohio  Land  Company;  also  there  was  a  great  im- 
petus given  to  emigration  into  the  state  of  Ketucky,  around 
the  Ohio  Falls,  Louisville  on  the  north  side  of  the  river  at 
Clarksville  and  in  the  territory  set  oflf  for  the  ofl&cers  and 
soldiers  of  General  Clark's  army.  Outside  of  these  settle- 
ments in  Indiana  Territory,  there  was  no  emigration  to  any 
part  of  it  except  an  occasional  fool-hardy,  restless  pioneer 
who  would  locate  at  some  point  in  the  wilderness. 

The  territory  that  is  now  Indiana,  for  some  time  after 
1800  all  belonged  to  the  Indians,  except  the  small  strip 
granted  by  the  Greenville  treaty,  the  territory  of  Clark's 
grant  and  a  section  of  land  around  Vincennes  granted  by  the 
Piankashaw  Indians.  The  government  of  the  United  States 
had  repeatedly  warned  its  officers  at  the  different  stations  in 
the  territory  not  to  permitt  any  settlements  to  be  made  until 
the  land  was  acquired  from  the  Indians. 

In  1795  a  treaty  with  Spain  was  made  by  the  United 
States  which  secured  the  free  navigatin  of  the  Mississippi 
river.  After  the  treaty  was  signed  and  the  people  on  the 
borders  of  the  Alleghany  mountains  knew  of  it,  a  large  num- 
ber of  emigrants  came  to  the  Northwest  Territory.  Most  of 
them  Settled  at  various  points  in  what  soon  afterward  became 
the  state  of  Ohio. 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA.  103 

In  1796  the  British  evacuated  Detroit  and  the  United 
States  forces  occupied  the  territory.  The  post  at  Detrott 
was  g^arrisoned  by  troops  commanded  by  Captain  Potter,  sec- 
retary of  the  Northwest  Territory.  Winthrop  Sargent  went 
to  Detroit  and  organized  the  county  of  Wayne,  which  in- 
cluded all  that  is  now  the  state  of  Michigan,  northeast 
Indiana  and  northwest  Ohio.  During  that  year  settlements 
were  made  in  many  parts  of  Ohio. 

In  the  year  1798  nominations  for  representatives  for  the 
Territory  took  place  and  on  the  4th  of  February,  1799,  they 
convened  at  Losantville,  now  Cincinnati,  which  was  then  the 
capital  of  the  territory,  for  the  purpose  of  nominating  per- 
sons from  whom  the  members  of  the  legislature  were  to  be 
chosen,  in  accordance  with  a  previous  ordinance.  This  nom- 
ination being  made  the  assembly  adjourned  until  the  16th  of 
September,  1799.  From  those  names  the  President  selected 
as  members  of  the  council  Henry  Vanderburg  of  Vincennes, 
Robert  Oliver  of  Marietta,  James  Finley  and  Jacob  Burnett 
of  Cincinnati  and  Davi^  Vance  of  Vanceville. 

On  the  16th  of  September  the  Territorial  Legislature 
met  and  on  the  24th  the  two  houses  were  duly  organized, 
Henry  Vanderburg  being  elected  president  of  the  Council. 
The  message  of  (Joveruor  St.  Clair  was  addressjed  to  the  as- 
sembly and  on  the  13th  of  October  that  body  elected  William 
Henry  Harrison  as  delegate  to  Congress.  He  received  eleven 
votes  whieh  was  a  majority  of  one  over  his  opponent,  Arthur 
St.  Clair,  Jr.  The  number  of  acts  passed  at  this  this  session 
and  approved  by  the  Governor  was  thirty-seven.  The  most 
important  of  those  passed  related  to  the  militia  and  to  taxa- 
tion. On  the  19th  of  December  the  session  of  the  first  legis- 
lature in  the  west  was  closed  and  on  the  30th  of  December 
the  President  nominated  Captain  William  Byrd  to  the  office 
of  Secretary  of  the  Territory,  Vice  William  Henry  Harrison^ 
elected  to  Congress. 

In  1800  the  Northwest  Territory  was  divided.  Ohio  at 
that  time  was  preparing  to  form  a  state  constitution.  The 
division  was  made  by  commencing  at  the  mouth  of  the  Great 
Miami  river,  running  thence  north  until  that  line  intersects 


104  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 

the  boundary  line  between  the  United  States  and  Canada. 
The  report  of  the  committee  for  the  division  of  the  Terri- 
tory was  accepted  by  Congress  and  in  accordance  with  its 
suggestion  was  approved  May  7th.  Among  its  provisions 
were  these — 

**From  and  after  July  the  4th,  1800,  all  that  part  of  the 
Northwest  Territory  which  lies  •  westward  of  the  line  from 
the  mouth  of  the  Miami  river  to  the  north,  before  mentioned, 
shall  for  the  purpose  of  temporary  government  be  known  as 
Indiana  Territory  with  headquartors  of  the  same  at  Post 
Vincennes  on  the  Wabash  river." 


\ 


CHAPTER  V. 


Prisoners  Recaptured  from  the  Indians  —  Terrible; 
FIGHTING  Around  the  Place  Where  Owensville, 
Indiana,  now  Stands. 


In  1792  James  Greenway,  Thomas  Doyle  and  Stephen 
Murtree  were  soldiers  in  the  United  States  service  and  were 
on  duty  at  Vincennes  under  command  of  Major  Hamtramck. 
During  the  summer  of  that  year  their  term  of  enlistment  was 
out  and  they  were  given  their  discharges.  They  did  not  in- 
tend to  go  back  into  the  service  for  a  while  so  they  determined 
to  fit  out  a  hunting  and  trapping  outfit  as  in  that  early  day " 
there  were  but  two  kinds  of  employment  in  the  Northwest 
Territory:  one  was  soldiering  and  hunting  Indians  and  the 
other  was  hunting  game  and  trapping  for  furs. 

Securing  two  large  Indian  canoes  with  such  things  as. 
were  necessary  for  their  use,  they  started  down  the  Wabash 
intending  to  hunt  and  trap  on  that  river  and  its  tributaries. 
In  the  fall,  as  they  were  floating  down  the  Wabash  ihey  came 
to  a  small  island  seven  or  eight  miles  south  of  the  mouth  of 
White  river.  Examining  the  island  they  found  that  it  would 
be  a  good  place  to  make  a  camp,  so  selecting  a  site  giving 
them  a  good  view  up  and  down  the  river  and  both  banks,  they 
built  a  barracade  suitable  for  defense  and  inside  of  that  built 
a  small  cabin.  There  was  a  Frenchman  with  the  party  by 
the  name  of  Pierre  DeVan  who  looked  after  the  camp  and 
hunted  in  the  neighborhood.  ,  He  was  a  character  in  many 
ways  and  proved  to  be  a  hero  of  the  first  water.  He  had 
been  much  with  the  Indians  and  understood  the  language  of 
several  tribes.     He  had  a  great  hatred  for  all  Indians  as  they 


106  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 

had  murdered  his  uncle  who  was  the  only  relative  he  had  in 
this  country. 

The  fall  was  spent  in  hunting:  bear  and  deer  for  theif 

0 

skins,  the  winter  in  trapping.  During  the  early  winter  the 
hunters  had  gone  down  the  river  and  while  the  Frenchman 
was  roaming  over  the  little  island  he  saw  an  Indian  canoe  tied 
to  the  shore  opposite  the  mouth  of  a  creek  on  the  west  bank 
of  the  river.  He  slipped  back  and  hid  himself  in  a  convenient 
place  to  see  what  went  on.  He  didn't  have  long  to  wait  for 
an  Indian  was  seen  to  rise  up  from  back  of  a  log  looking  in 
every  direction  for  some  time.  Having  concluded  that  no  one 
was  there,  the  red  man  went  into  the  camp  and .  commenced 
loading  himself  with  the  camping  outfit  to  take  to  his  canoe 
and  while  in  the  midst  of  his  act  the  Frenchmaft  shot  him. 

When  the  hunters  returned  and  found  the  dead  Indian 
they  asked  DeVau  what  made  him  kill  the  Indian  and  he 
answered:  "Piankeshaw  Indian  a  great  liar  and  if  I  no  kill 
him  he  maybe  kill  me.  If  I  let  him  go  two  months  we  all  be 
killed."  They  very  materially  strengthened  their  fortifica- 
tions and  told  the  Frenchman  to  stay  inside  when  the}'  were 
gone  and  to  keep  a  good  look-out.  They  intended  to  stay  on 
the  island  as  long  as  the  water  would  let  them  as  fur  was 
much  better  late  in  the  winter  than  in  the  early  part.  They 
caught  man)'  beaver  and  it  was  the  last  of  February  before 
the  water  commenced  to  rise  so  as  to  causfe  them  any  alarm 
about  their  camp. 

They  got  everything  in  shape  and  loaded  all  their  things 
into  their  canoes  and  started  for  Vincennes  where  they  sold 
their  skins  and  purchased  a  good  supply  of  ammunition,  salt 
and  corn  meal  to  take  back  with  them  when  the  water  went 
down  which  was  about  the  middle  of  April.  When  they 
reached  the  island  again  they  found  that  the  high  water  had 
wrecked  their  fortifications  and  little  cabin  and  they  had  to 
do  their  work  all  over  again.  After  this  was. completed  they 
found  that  all  the  game  had  been  driven  out  of  the  bottoms 
by  the  high  waters  and  they  resolved  to  go  to  the  hills  on  the 
east  side  of  the  river  for  a  hunt. 

There  was  j'et  water  in  the  little  creek  for  their  canoes 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA.  107 

and  they  followed  it  upstream  for  several  miles  when  it 
seemed  to  become  a  brushy  pond.  They  left  their  canoes 
here  and  went  in  a  southeasterly  direction.  They  had  to 
wade  through  shallow  water  for  a  long  distance  before  they 
got  to  higher  land.  Here  they  made  a  fire,  dried  their  cloth- 
ing and  prepared  a  temporary  camp,  aiming  to  stay  until  thej 
had  all  the  meat  they  wanted  and  had  acquainted  themselves 
with  the  surrounding  country,  and  it  turned  out  they  had  no 
trouble  in  killing  all  the  deer  they  could  take  care  of. 

The  next  morning  they  all  went  to  a  place  seen  by  one 
of  them  the  day  before,  which  he  felt  sure  it  was  a  regular 
bear  den  in  a  cave  or  hole  in  a  bluflf.  While  they  were  hunt- 
ing for  the  place  they  heard  a  loud,  piercing  scream  not  far 
away,  coming,  apparently,  from  a  child.  It  was  very  loud  at 
first  but  gradually  grew  weaker  until  it  ceased.  The  hunt- 
ers were  greatly  startled  and  could  not  account  for  such  a 
noise  in  this  great  wilderness.  They  hid  in  the  bushes  for  a 
while  waiting  for  further  developments  but  did  not  see  or 
hear  anything  more. 

They  resolved  to  find  out  the  cause  of  the  screaming  and 
it  was  determined  that  Doyle  should  go  first,  the  other  two 
to  keep  him  in  sight  and  be  governed  by  his  motions.  He 
crawled  through  the  thick  brush  and  when  they  were  near  a 
high  bluff  he  signalled  to  the  others  to  come  to  him.  He  had 
seen  smoke  and  heard  voices  that  he  believed  to  be  those  of 
Indians.  The  smoke  seemed  to  come  from  the  eastern  side 
of  the  bluffs  and  they  determined  to  go  farther  around.  Ad- 
vancing very  carefully  for  two  or  three  hundred  feet  they 
could  see  the  fire  and  going  still  farther  could  see  that  there 
were  several  Indians  around  it  and  a  little  to  one  side  a  white 
man  and  woman  were  sitting  on  a  log  with  their  hands  tied 
behind  them.  There  were  four  Indians  in  view  and  the 
hunters  each  selected  one  to  shoot  at.  After  firing  they  de- 
termined they  would  reload  their  guns  where  they  were  and 
trust  to  luck  for  the  outcome.  They  all  fired  at  once,  killing 
two  and  fatally  wounding  another  one  that  fell  in  the  fire; 
the  fourth  one  ran  around  the  side  of  the  bluff. 

After  waiting  awhile  the  hunters  slipped  to  where  the 


108  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 

prisoners  were,  cut  the  leather  thongs  they  were  bound  with 
and  finished  the  Indian  who  was  kicking  and  squirming  in 
the  fire.  Doyle  determined  to  follow  the  other  Indian  and  in 
a  short  time  a  shot  was  heard  in  the  direction  he  had  gone. 
Soon  an  Indian  was  seen  running  eighty  or  ninety  yards 
away.  The  two  hunters  fired  at  him  and  he  dropped  his  gun 
but  kept  on  running.  On  going  around  the  bluflf  in  the  di* 
rection  Doyle  had  gone,  they  came  upon  his  lifeless  body, 
killed  no  doubt  by  the  Indian  at  whom  they  had  just  been 
shooting. 

The  prisoners  released  were  James  Griscom  and  his  wife, 
Rachel.  The  screaming  heard  by  the  hunters  was  little 
Mary  Griscom,  who  the  day  before  had  a  fall  that  had  hurt 
her  ankle  so  that  she  could  not  walk  and  had  to  be  carried 
for  several  miles  to  where  the  camp  was  made.  She  was  no 
better  the  morning  the  hunters  found  them  and  would  hinder 
their  time  in  marching,  so  the  Indians  resolved  to  kill  her. 
One  of  them  gathered  her  up  and  going  to  the  top  of  the 
bluflf  threw  her  over  to  the  bottom,  many  feet  below,  killing 
her. 

Griscom  informed  the  hunters  that  there  were  three 
more  Indians  that  had  gone  away  with  their  gtutis,  he  sup- 
posed to  hunt  and  that  they  might  return  at  any  time.  They 
took  the  Indians'  guns  and  hid  them  in  the  brush;  then  took 
Doyle's  body  around  to  the  end  of  the  bluflf  where  the  body 
of  the  little  girl  was  and  hastily  put  them  in  a  crevice  or 
shelf  in  the  rock  made  by  the  action  of  running  water  and 
covered  and  wedged  them  in  so  that  they  would  be  safe  from 
animals. 

After  consulting  together  they  resolved  to  avenge  the 
death  of  the  brave  Doyle  and  little  Mary  by  killing  th'e  other 
Indians  if  they  should  return.  Murtree  went  back  up  the 
slope  of  the  bluflf  to  a  point  where  he  could  see  for  some  dis« 
tance  around  and  also  s^e  where  the  fire  was.  The  others 
dragged  the  dead  Indians  into  the  brush,  then  made  up  the 
fire  and  hid  behind  a  screen  of  brush  so  they  could  have  a 
view  of  the  fire  and  of  Murtree  who  was  to  signal  to  them 
when  he  saw  anything  of  the  Indians.     They  were  in  that 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA.  109 

position  about  one  hour  when  Murtree  signalled  them  to  be 
on  the  look  out,  pointing  to  a  position  beyond  the  fire.  In  a 
short  time  two  Indians  came  into  a  view  with  a  deer  on  a 
pole  with  them.  As  they  came  near  the  fire  they  stopped 
and  looked  around  for  their  comrades.  At  that  moment 
Greenway  and  Griscom  fired,  killing-  one  and  breaking  the 
thigh  of  the  other,  who  fell  but  tried  to  drag  himself,  gun  in 
hand  to  a  log  and  was  killed  by  Murtree.  The  hunters  re- 
mained in  their  position  for  some  time  but  the  other  Indian 
did  not  return.  Fearing  that  the  Indian  wounded  in  the  first 
battle  would  be  able  to  find  some  other  band  of  warriors  and 
come  back  to  his  camp,  and  being  told  b)^  Griscom  that  an 
Indian  town  they  had  come  near  the  day  before  was  not  more 
than  six  miles  south  of  them,  they  concluded  to  get  away  as 
soon  as  they  could. 

Griscom  also  told  them  that  another  band  of  Indians 
with  four  prisoners  had  been  with  their  party  and  had  gone 
to  the  town.  The  band  he  was  with  would  not  go  to  the  vil- 
lage but  went  around  it. 

Gathering  up  such  of  the  plunder  stolen  by  the  Indians 
as  would  be  of  use  to  them,  and  taking  all  the  Indian  guns, 
they  went  to  their  camp  where  they  had  eight  deer  killed  the 
day  before.  It  took  a  long  time  to  load  thf  ir  canoes  as  the)' 
had  to  wade  through -the  slush  and  water  a  long  distance  to 
get  to  them.  It  was  late  in  the  afternoon  when  they  started 
for  their  island  camp  and  after  night  when  they  arrived 
there.  The  next  day  they  fixed  up  quarters  for  their  new 
comers  who  were  very  grateful  for  being  released  from 
captivity  but  were  very  sad  over  the  loss  of  their  little 
Mary. 

Griscom  gave  this  account  of  their  capture:  He.  with 
his  wife  and  little  daughter  seven  years  old;  George  Talbert 
and  wife,  a  sister  of  Mrs.  Griscom's  and  little  boy  five  years 
old;  Thomas  West  and  wife;  Davtd  Hope  and  wife;  a  brother 
James,  15  years  old  and  a  sister,  Jane,  11  years  old,  had  em- 
barked on  a  boat,  which  they  fitted  out  near  Wheeling,  Va.,  for 
the  mouth  of  the  Ohio  river.  Mr.  Hope  had  been  there  when  a 
soldier.  The  river  was  in  a  good  stage  of  water  and  the  run  most 


110  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 

of  the  way  had  been  very  pleasant,  not  requiring:  much  use  of 
the  oars.  They  saw  nothing  of  Indians  until  a  day  after 
passing  the  mouth  of  Green  river.  Late  in  the  evening, 
three  days  before  they  were  liberated  by  the  hunters,  they 
came  to  the  head  of  a  large  island  and  the  current  drew  the 
boat  into  the  channel  on  the  north  side.  As  soon  as  they 
were  well  into  the  schute  they  were  fired  on  by  a  concealed 
foe  on  the  north  bank,  killing  Talbert  and  Mrs.  West,  se- 
verely injuring  Hope  and  breaking  Mrs.  Hope's  arm.  They 
lay  down  in  the  bottom  of  the  boat  hoping  that  the  current 
would  carry  them  beyond  the  reach  of  ihe  Indians'  guns,  but 
soon  they  were  seen  coming  after  them  in  two  canoes.  The 
boatmen  fired  at  them,  killing  two  and  wounding  another  one. 
West  was  shot  and  fell  overboard.  Griscom,  in  his  hurry, 
broke  the  lock  of  his  gun  and  before  he  could  get  anoiher 
one  the  Indians  were  in  the  boat.  They  finished  killing 
Hope  and  his  wife  and  Mrs.  West,  as  ihey  were  badly 
wounded  and  captured  and  lied  the  oiher  seven.  The  boac 
was  soon  landed  and  unloaded  and  the  stores  divided  among 
the  twenty  Indians  capturing  them.  The  prisoners  were 
huddled  together  and  lay  on  the  bank  until  the  next  morning 
when  they  started  on  the  trip  northward.  On  the  second 
evening,  coming  to  the  edge  of  the  Indian  town  before  men- 
tioned, Mrs.  Talbert,  her  little  boy  and  the  two  Hope  child- 
ren were  taken  by  the  Indians  that  stopped  there.  The 
Griscom  family  was  taken  around  the  town  to  the  poii.t 
where  they  were  liberated.  The  two  hunters  and  Griscom 
had  many  consultations  trying  to  form  some  plan  to  recap- 
ture Mrs.  Talbert  and  the  three  children  taken  to  the  Indian 
town  if  they  were  still  there.  They  finally  took  Pierre 
DeVan,  the  Frenchman,  into  the  council  and  talked  over 
many  ways  to  best  accomplish  the  dangerous  undertaking 
and,  as  the}-  were  brave  men,  decided  that,  come  what  would, 
they  would  make  the  attempt. 

The  water  had  gone  down  until  it  was  nearly  all  out  of 
the  bottoms  and  the  hunters  made  arrangements  to  go  to  the 
Indian  town  which,  as  they  understood  from  Griscom,  was 
twelve  or  fifteen  miles  away,  at  the  same  time  intending  to  go 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA.  Ill 

by  the  bluff  and  bury  Doyle  and  the  little  girl.  They  were  in  a 
quandary  what  to  do  with  Mrs.  Griscom,  it  being  dangerous  to 
leave  her  at  the  camp  as  at  any  time  Indians  from  their  town 
on  the  Patoka  or  White  river  not  f af  to  the  northeast,  might 
came  to  the  Island.  She  decided  the  question  by  informing 
them  that  she  intended  to  go  as  she  had  been  raised  on  the 
frontier  of  Virginia  where  Indian  raids  and  counter  raids  by 
whites  were  of  frequent  occurence  and  that  she  would  not  in 
any  way  be  a  hindrance  to  them — if  need  be  using  a  rifle  as 
well  as  the  best.  This  being  settled  they  decided  to  start 
early  the  next  morning. 

They  marched  along  the  bayou  to  the  place  where  they 
had  left  their  canoes  on  the  other  trip  and  thence  to  their 
camp  of  two  weeks  before.  It  was  agreed  that  Murtree  should 
make  a  reconnoissance  of  the  surrounding  neighborhood,  going 
as  far  as  the  bluff.  He  i«ras  gone  about  an  hour  and  reported 
everything  as  they  had  left  it  except  that  he  didn't  see  the 
least  trace  of  the  five  Indians  they  had  killed  and  left  there. 
He  supposed  their  bodies  had  been  carried  away  and  eaten  by 
bears,  wolves  or  panthers  as  the  conntry  was  full  of  them. 
The  shelf  where  the  two  white  people  were  placed  was  just 
as  they  had  left  it.  They  all  went  to  that  point,  taking  an 
axe  and  a  wooden  shovel  that  they  had  made  for  the  occasion. 
After  selecting  a  place  for  the  grave  and  digging  it,  they  un- 
covered the  bodies,  carried  them  to  it  and  buried  them  side 
by  side.  Though  the  mother  of  little  Mary  was  a  brave 
woman,  it  was  very  trying  to  her  to  thus  give  up  her  only 
child.  It  was  necessary,  however,  not  to  waste  time  and  so 
they  were  soon  on  the  march  again,  Griscom  leading  the  way. 

He  intended  to  go  within  about  a  mile  of  the  town  and 
then  let  Pierre  DeVan,  the  Frenchman,  go  to  the  village  in 
his  full  Indian  dress,  representing  that  he  had  been  with  four 
Indian  hunters  going  to  the  Ohio  river;  that  he  had  shot  a 
deer  and  while  following  its  trail  had  gotten  lost  from  the 
party  and  failed  to  find  them,  his  purpose  being  to  find  the 
number  of  men  in  the  village  and  if  he  could,  to  see  Mrs. 
Talbert  and  give  her  a  word  of  their  plan. 

Griscom,  after  finding  a  good  hiding  place  for  the  party^ 


112  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 

went  with  him  near  to  the  town.  As  they  went  he  found  a 
good  place  for  defense,  not  more  than  half  a  mile  away  to 
which  he  could  bring  the  rest  of  the  party.  He  told  DeVan 
that  when  he  had  accomplished  his'  mission  to  come  to  this 
place. 

The  party  was  moved  up  to  the  new  position  Griscom 
had  found.  It  was  after  dark  when  DeVan  came  slipping  into 
<amp  and  reported  that  there  were  eight  or  nine  warriors  and  an 
old  man  who  seemed  to  be  the  head  and  that  he  had  seen  the 
white  woman  and  the  boy  but  not  the  other  children.  The 
Indians  seemed  to  want  him  to  go  away  as  they  told  him  his 
friends  were  to  the  east.  As  there  was  a  big  creek  he  could  not 
•cross  to  the  south  but  would  have  to  go  to  the  east  quite  a  dis- 
tance, then  south.  While  the  old  man  and  the  warriors  were 
in  consultation  he  had  a  chance  to  say  only  two  words  in  Eng- 
lish to  Mrs.  Talbert — '*Friends  near."  She  said  nothing  but 
looked  at  him  as  if  she  understood.  The  old  man  sent  a 
young  Indian  with  him  for  about  two  miles  east  and  put  him 
in  a  trace  that  would  take  him  to  the  creek  where  he  could 
cross  it.  He  went  south  far  enough  to  feel  sure  that  he  was 
not  watched,  then  turned  into  a  thicket,  waited  for  dark  and 
came  into  camp. 

They  all  held  a  consultation  and  it  was  decided  best  not 
to  attack  the  Indians  as  there  were  too  many  warriors,  but  to 
try  and  get  Mrs.  Talbert  by  stealth,  if  possible  and  not  to  at- 
tempt that  until  late  in  the  night. 

Waiting  until  after  eleven  o'clock,  DeVan,  Murtree  and 
Greenway  started,  the  hunters  intending  to  go  near  the  edge 
of  the  town  so  that  DeVan  could  have  a  point  to  come  to  if 
attacked.  Then  DeVan  was  to  do  his  part  in  his  own  way. 
Everything  was  very  quiet  for  nearly  an  hour  after  they  had 
taken  their  station.  At  that  time  three  Indians  came  to  the 
town  and  they  must  have  been  bearers  of  bad  nei^s  for  soon 
there  was  great  excitement  among  them.  Two  women  were 
screaming  and  tearing  their  hair. 

It  was  fully  two  o'clock  when  everything  was  quiet 
again  Soon  the  stillness  was  broken  and  a  terrible  noise 
raised  by   the  snapping  and  snarling  and  howling  of  many 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA.  113 

dog's  and  the  screaming  of  a  child,  which  raised  a  great  com- 
motion among  the  Indians.  Soon  the  Frenchmen  with  the 
little*  boy  in  his  arms  and  Mrs.  Talbert  after  him  came  run- 
ning to  where  the  two  hunters  were.  The  child  was  still  moan- 
ing so  loud  that  the  Indians  could  tell  thre  direction  in  which 
the}'  had  gone.  It  was  placed  in  its  mother's  arms  and  she  did 
all  she  could  to  make  it  keep  still.  DeVan  told  the  hunters 
it  was  best  for  them  to  take  the  woman  and  child  back  to  the 
others  and  for  all  of  them  to  start  north  b}-  the  north  star  and 
leave  him  to  check  the  Indians.  The}'  did  this  and  it  was 
l)ut  a  little  while  until  the  crack  of  a  rifle  was  heard, 
then  everything  became  still.  The  party  had  been  slipping 
away  for  some  time  when  another  rifle  was  heard  but  a  little 
way  to  the  rear.  In  a  few  moments  De Van  came  up  with  them 
and  told  them  to  go  as  they  were  until  just  before  day  and  to 
find  a  good  place  for  defense,  then  stop  at  that  place;  that 
there  were  several  Indians  following  them  but  he  would  keep 
them  in  check  until  daylight. 

Just  at  the  break  of  day  they  came  to  a  small  creek  where 
there  was  some  large  fallen  timber  that  would  make  a  good 
place  for  defense.  Hurriedly  piling  logs  between  two  large  fall- 
en trees  they  made  two  end  walls  which  provided  a  fort  that 
could  not  be  successfully  attacked  unless  the  enemy  had  such 
numbers  that  they  could  carry  it  by  storm.  Soon  another 
rifle  shot  was  heard  and  this  time  a  shot  was  fired  at  the 
blaze  or  flash  of  De  Van's  rifle.  In  a  few  minutes  DeVan  was 
seen  and  would  have  passed  had  not  Murtree  ran  to  him 
and  brought  him  into  the  improvised  fort.  They  kept 
a  careful  watch  for  the  Indians  and  in  a  little  while  two  were 
seen,  half  bent  one  behind  the  other,  following  the  trail  made 
by  DeVan.  Greenway  and  Murtree  instantly  fired  on  them. 
One  fell  and  the  other  showed  that  he  was  hit  but  managed  to 
g^et  behind  an  obstruction.  Another  Indian  rushed  to  the  one 
shot  down  and  dragged  him  out  of  sight,  DeVan  shooting  at 
him  but  missing  him.  After  this,  during  all  the  day  a  sharp 
look-out  was  kept  but  no  more  Indians  made  their  appear- 
ance. 

The  little  boy  who  was  hurt  in  the  morning  was  suffering 


114  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 

very  much.  DeVan  said  that  when  he  ran  out  of  the  Indian 
tepee  with  the  child  in  his  arms,  on  running:  around  it  he  ran 
into  a  dog  kennel  where  an  old  bitch  had  a  litter  of  good- 
sized  pups  and  such  another  fuss  as  they  made  he  had  never 
heard  before  and  the  old  dog:  bit  the  child  through  the  calf 
of  the  leg. 

In  the  evening  not  long  before  sundown  there  was  heard 
in  the  woods  to  the  west  of  them  the  chattering  of  many 
squirrels,  which  was  thought  very  probably  to  be  caused  by 
slipping  Indians,  and  a  very  sharp  look-out  was  kept  in  that 
direction.  Just  as  the  grey  dusk  of  evening  came  on  Mr. 
Griscom  had  his  arm  broken  by  a  shot  that  came  from  a  tree 
not  more  than  sixty  yards  away.  The  Indian  had  climbed  up 
•a  little  tree  behind  a  larger  one  so  that  he  could  see  over  the 
log  pile.  When  he^hot  he  tried  to  get  back  of  the  large  tree 
but  in  his  hurry  the  small  tree  swayed  so  much  with  him  that 
his  body  came  into  view  from  back  of  the  large  tree  and 
DeVan  shot  him,  his  body  falling  to  the  ground. 

After  this  everything  became  still  and  the  hunters  held  a 
consultation  to  agree  on  a  plan  to  pursue.  They  could  not 
form  a  correct  idea  of  the  number  of  Indians  beseiging  them 
nor  were  they  certain  that  there  were  any,  but  they  thought, 
as  they  were  encumbered  with  two  women,  the  child  and  the 
wounded  man,  that  they  had  better  not  run  any  more  risk 
than  was  necessary.  They  agreed  that  they  would  remain 
where  ihey  were  until  the  middle  of  the  night  and  then  at-^ 
tempt  to  go  to  the  bluff.  In  the  meaniime  DeVan  would  be 
making  a  reconnoissance  around  the  camp  and  along  the 
route  they  were  to  go.  After  he  had  been  gone  a  while  the 
hooting  of  an  owl  was  heard  in  the  direction  they  had  come 
that  morning.  After  a  little  while  it  was  repeated  and  soon 
it  was  answered  not  more  than  a  hundred  yards  from  where 
they  were.  DeVan  returned  and  said  that  he  was  certain 
that  the  answer  to  his  owl  call  was  made  by  Indians  and  that 
they  were  but  a  little  way  off — that  he  had  gone  to  the  north, 
the  way  the  little  party  would  have  to  go,  for  about  three 
hundred  3'ards  and  had  not  seen  or  heard  anything,  so  they  de- 
cided to  get  away. 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA.  115 

Greenway,  Murtree  and  Griscom  and  the  women  started 
,to  the  north,  DeVan  asking^  the  privilege  of  sta)4ng:  in  the 
rear.  They  had  to  travel  very  slowly  owing:  to  the  brush  and 
fallen  timber  and  had  gone  but  a  little  way  when  a  shot  was 
heard  and  in  a  little  time  another,  then  two  more  in  quick 
succession  not  more  than  two  hundred  yards  behind  them. 
They  came  to  a  large  fallen  tree  and  determined  to  stop  and 
fight  it  out,  but  had  just  gotten  into  position  when  DeVan 
came  up  with  them.  He  told  them  he  thought  it  best  for 
them  to  continue  their  march  as  he  had  fired  at  an  Indian  the 
first  time  not  more  than  fifteen  feet  away.  The  last  shot  he 
had  fired  was  at  an  object  about  eighty  yards  away  and  that 
two  shots  were  fired  it  the  blaze  of  his  gun,  one  of  them 
splintering  his  gun  stock.  He  could  not  tell  how  many  In- 
dians there  were  but  there  were  too  many  for  them  with  their 
small  party.  He  said  he  thought  he  could  keep  them  back 
but  if  he  found  ihat  he  could  not  he  would  come  to  them 
and  they  would  find  a  place  for  defense. 

The  women  and  hunters  started  again  and  had  gone 
about  half  a  mile  when  DeVan  hurried  up  to  them  and  told 
Griscom  and  the  women  to  go  as  fast  as  they  could  for  as 
much  as  a  hundred  yards  and  then  to  halloo  and  scream  loudly 
for  a  little  while  and  he  and  the  other  two  men  would  get  in- 
to a  good  position  and  wait  for  the  Indians. 

They  came  to  the  forks  of  a  good  sized  creek  and  soon 
had  a  good  position.  The  hallooing  and  screaming  were 
heard  and  as  ihey  expected,  in  ihree  or  four  minuies  six  or 
seven  Indians  came  came  into  view  hurrying  on  lo  where  the 
noise  was  made.  All  three  of  the  men  fired  and  killed  ;\vo 
Indians,  while  the  rest  were  heard  running  away.  One  of 
the  hunters  brought  the  rest  of  ihe  parvy  back  to  their  posi- 
tion and  they  all  remained  there  until  after  daylight  but  saw 
no  more  Indians. 

At  daylight  the}^  started  again,  this  time  leaving  Green- 
way  and  Murtree  lo  sta}'  a;  ihe  creek  for  a  while  to  see  if 
any  Indians  would  follow,  and  having  DeVan  pilot  the  party. 
They  had  gone  but  a  little  way  when  they  came  to  objects 
familiar  to  Mr.  Griscom  and  were  soon  at  the  south  end  of 


116  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 

the  bluff.  In  a  short  time  the  two  hunters  came  up  with 
them  and  they  went  into  their  temporar}-  camp.  Fortunatel)' 
one  of  the  party  had  killed  a  deer  and  some  of  it  was  soon 
prepared  and  ready  to  cook.  After  thus  refreshin<^  them- 
selves, they  went  to  their  island  home,  from  which  they  had 
been  gone  only  three  da)'s  and  two  nights  but  during-  that 
time  they  had  underdone  enough  exciting  eqperiences  to  last 
a  lifetime. 

After  the  very  exciting  experiences  that  the  three  hunt- 
ers had  gone  through  to  liberate  Mrs.  Talbert  and  her  child 
from  the  Indians  the)'  rested  for  seveial  days  in  their  com- 
fortable quarters  at  the  island.  Mrs.  Talbert's  little  boy  was 
ver}'  ill  for  some  time  from  the  dog  biie.  Mr.  Griscom*s  arm 
was  ver)'  sore,  the  ball  having  fraciufed  his  arm  and  it  was 
several  weeks  healing.  Mrs.  Talbert  said  ihat  the  Indians 
who  captured  the  boat  at  **Diamond  Island*'  belonged  to  two 
bands,  One  of  liieni  lo  ihe  town  sne  w^as  taken  to  "six  miles 
south  of  Owensville,"  the  other  belonged  to  a  much  larger 
town  farther  north;  and  the  reason  the  Indians  who  had  Mrs. 
Griscom  and  family  would  not  go  into  the  town  she  was  taken 
to  was,  that  the  two  factions  had  a  disagreement  about  the  di- 
vision of  prisoners  and  spoils  taken  at  the  boat  and  the}'  ^ere 
afraid  the  other  Indians  would  take  their  prisoners  away  from 
them.  She  said  that  if  the  Indians  chat  had  her  and  her 
child  had  any  knowledge  of  the  Indians  that  were  killed  at 
the  bluff,  they  never  made  it  known  to  her.  The  Indians 
that  came  into  the  camp  the  night  DeVan  came  after  her 
were  all  that  were  left  of  ten  from  the  town  who  at- 
tempted to  capture  another  boat  on  the  Ohio  river  and  the 
women  who  were  crying  and  tearing  their  hair  were  the  wives 
of  two  of  the  Indians  killed.  She  said  that  these  two  women 
would  have  killed  her  and  her  child  that  night  if  the  old  chief 
and  two  other  men  had  not  ptotected  her.  She  also  said  that 
the  two  Hope  children  were  given  to  three  Indians  of  one 
family  who  had  helped  capture  the  boat  and  were  adopted  b}' 
the  mother  to  take  the  place  of  a  boy  and  girl  of  hers  who 
had  died. 

A  few  days  after  Mrs.  Talbert  and  her  child  had  arrived 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA.  117 

at  the  Indian  town,  the  three  Indian  hunters,  the  two  white 
children  and  their  Indian  mother  went  away  in  canoes  down 
the  small  river  and  were  gone  for  five  days.  When  they  re- 
turned they  had  a  large  iron  kettle  with  them.  James  Hope 
told  Mrs.  Talbert  that  they  went  down  the  small  river  until 
it  went  into  a  much  larj^^er  river  about  onie-third  as  large  as 
the  Ohio  (meaning-  the  Wabash  j  and  finally  they  had  gone 
into  a  creek  on  the  west  side  and  left  their  canoes  and  then 
they  went  into  a  beautiful  grove  where  the  Indian  mother 
and  the  two  children  put  up  a  brush  and  bark  house  large 
enough  for  them  to  siay  in.  The  three  hunters  went  away 
and  did  not  come  back  until  in  the  evening  of  the  second  day 
and  the}^  then  had  an  iron  kettle  with  some  salt  in  it.  They 
did  not  say  how  they  got  it  but  said  the\'  '*make  salt  down  in 
the  woods  some  way  otf."  The  next  morning  the}-  took  sev- 
eral deer  they  had  killed  and  staried  home.  As  they  were  on 
their  way  the)^  stopped  at  a  place  not  far  above  the  mouth  of 
the  small  river  and  went  into  camp,  **a  very  pretty  place," 
James  said.  The  Indian  mother  asked  the  two  children  how 
they  would  like  to  live  in  that  place  and  told  them — * 'Maybe 
in  one  moon  we  live  here." 

The  next  day  they  came  back  to  the  town.  Mrs.  Talbert 
learned  from  an  Indian  woman  that  they  lived  at  a  much 
larger  town  north  but  they  had  had  some  trouble  and  about 
sixty  Indians  had  left  and  come  to  that  place.  She  also  said 
that  there  was  some  trouble  even  then  and  it  was  likely  that 
several  families  would  move  away  in  a  short   time  and  that 

• 

the  Indians  with  the  white  children  were  then  on  a  lookout 
for  a  new  home.  Mrs.  Talbert  said  that  the  same  Indians 
and  the  white  children  and  three  other  families  had  gone 
away  in  canoes  the  morning  before  DeVan  rescued  her  and 
she  did  not  know  when  they  intended  to  return;  Jlmes  Hope 
told  her  that  they  said  they  were  going  on  a  hunting  trip. 

From  their  recent  experience  the  hunters  felt  that  it  was 
best  for  them  to  be  well  prepared.  They  built  a  strong  cabin 
for  the  new  addition  to  their  camp  and  put  a  heavy  stockade 
around  their  cabins  with  port  holes  to  shoot  from  on  all  sides. 
The  guns  captured  from  the  Indians  were  inspected  and  three 


118  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 

of  them  put  in  serviceable  condition  and  their  stock  of  ammu- 
nition was  ample  for  any  probable  need.  Mr.  Griscom's  arm 
was  yet  very  sore  but  with  the  aid  of  his  wife  and  Mrs. 
Talbert  who  were  both  experts  with  rifles,  he  felt  sure  that 
he  could  defend  fhe  camp  agfainst  any  probable  attack  while 
the  hunters  were  absent. 

De Van's  heroic  action  during:  the  perilous  retreat  when 
Mrs.  Talbert  was  recaptured  had  raised  him  high  in  the 
esteem  of  his  comrads  and  they  had  invited  him  to  take  the 
place  of  Doyle  and  hunt  and  trap  with  them  and  share  their 
profits  while  the  camp  would  be  left  to  the  care  of  Griscom. 
The  three  hunters  intended  beings  on  the  chase  all  the  time 
and  when  near  enough  would  return  to  camp  at  night.  Their 
aim  was  to  hunt  for  large  game  during  the  summer  and  early 
fall  and  at  the  same  time  explore  the  surrounding  country. 
Greenway  and  Murtree  had  land  warrants  for  two  enlistments 
and  they  wanted  to  find  a  suitable  place  and  when  the  land 
was  surveyed  lay  their  claims.  They  knew  that  the  east  side 
of  the  river  was  infested  with  Indians  and  concluded  to  do 
their  hunting  for  a  time  on  the  west  side  and  inspect  the  dif- 
ferent creeks  and  inlets  for  beaver  in  order  to  trap  when  the 
fur  season  came. 

They  had  been  hunting  and  prospecting  for  several  weeks 
and  had  seen  no  Indians,  so  they  concluded  to  go  up  a  good 
sized  stream  that  empties  int;p  the  Wabash  river  on  the  east 
side  several  miles  south  of  their  island  camp,  on  an  inspec- 
tion for  Beaver  signs;  (this  small  river  now  known  as  Black 
river  drains  with  its  many  tributaries  a  large  section  of  fine 
country  and  at  that  time  was  one  of  the  best  beaver  trapping 
territories  in  southern  Indiana.)  They  ran  up  the  river  for 
several  hours  coming  to  a  good  sized  creek  that  empties  into 
the  river  on  the  northwest  side.  They  followed  this  for 
some  distance  until  they  came  to  point  where  they  could  con- 
ceal their  conoes  and  then  went  on  a  hunt,  agreeing  to  be 
back  to  that  place  at  night. 

It  was  late  when  DeVan  returned;  the  other  two  were 
there  before  him  and  had  prepared  a  temporary  camp.  DeVan 
said  that  when  he  was  about  two  miles  up  the   river  and  one 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA.  119 

mile  south  of  it  he  heard  voices  and  listeuing^  found  that  they 
were  coming:  nearer.  Secreting^  himself  in  a  thick  cluster  of 
vines,  in  a  short  time  he  saw  six  persons  passing^  within  about 
^ixty  yards  of  where  he  was  hidden.  These  persons  consist- 
ed of  three  Indian  men,  one  Indian  woman  and  two  white 
children,  the  girl  being  small  and  the  boy  a  good-sized  lad 
and  both  dressed  in  buckskin  the  same  as  the  Indians.  AH 
were  carrying  vessels  of  different  kinds  that  he  thought  were 
filled  with  honey. 

De Van's  report  made  it  certain  that  the  two  white  child- 
ren were  near  them  and  in  the  hands  of  the  Indians  and  from 
Mrs.  Talbert's  statement  it  was  almost  certain  that  they  were 
the  Hope  children.  It  was  decided  to  make  reconnoisance 
that  night  in  the  neigborhood  where  DeVan  saw  the  Indians 
and  see  if  they  could  locate  their  camp.  They  went  to  the 
place  where  DeVan  thought  he  was  hidden  when  the  Indians 
and  white  children  went  near  him.  On  going  in  this  direc- 
tion for  as  much  as  a  mile,  a  dog  commenced  to  bark  at  them 
not  far  away.  The  hunters  remained  quiet  for  some  time  and 
then  DeVan  proposed  that  he  should  go  near  and  find  out 
why  the  dog  was  there.  He  had  been  gone  but  a  short  time 
when  two  or  three  dogs  commenced  barking.  Talking  in  the 
Indian  tongue  was  heard  but  neither  Murtree  nor  Greenway 
understood  what  the)'  were  saying. 

Finally  a  light  was  made  by  pushing  the  chunks  of  wood 
up  together  and  several  persons  were  seen  moving  around. 
DeVan  slipped  back  to  the  place  where  the  rest  of  the  party 
were  and  said  that  he  had  gotten  within  one  hundred  and 
fifty  feet  of  the  camp  where  the  fire  was  and  that  there  were 
three  or  four  wigwams.  The  Indians  thought  that  it  was 
wolves  prowling  around  that  caused  the  dogs  to  bark  so  and 
the  fire  was  made  up  to  scare  th^m  away.  After  talking  over 
the  situation  they  determined  to  slip  around  the  camp  at  a 
safe  distance  and  see  what  they  could  find  out. 

On  going  around  they  found  a  spring  four  or  five  hun- 
dred feet  from  the  fire  that  evidently  was  used,  as  it  was 
covered  over  with  fresh  brush  to  keep  the  sun  out;  the  dogs 
all  the  time  they  were  walking  around  keeping  up  a  continual 


120  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 

barking:  following:  the  direction  the  hunters  were  gfoing. 
Several  Indians  were  seen  moving:  around  the  fire;  finally  one 
of  them  gfot  some  splinters  and  made  a  torch  in  order  to 
shine  the  e3'es  of  whatever  animal  it  was  and  with  their  g-uns 
started  in  the  direction  the  dog:s  indicated,  encouragfing  them 
to  attack.  The  hunters  saw  that  they  would  have  to  kill  the 
Indians  or  get  away  and  they  thougfht  it  would  lessen  their 
chance  to  recapture  the  children  if  they  were  to  shoot  the 
Indians  so  they  quietly  slipped  away  in  the  direction  of  the 
river. 

The  dogfs  followed  them  a  little  wa}'  and  then  went  back. 
The  Indians  were  seen  throwing:  their  torches  awa3\  The 
hunters  went  back  to  their  camp  satisfied  with  their  nigfht's 
work  in  locating-  the  Indians'  ceimp  where  they  believed  the 
children  were,  the  question  uppermost  in  their  minds  being- 
how  they  could  recapture  them.  They  felt  it  was  their  duty 
to  release  them  if  it  could  be  done  but  they  did  not  want  to 
run  unnecessary  risk  in  doing  it. 

They  were  some  little  time  in  forming  a  plan  of  action. 
Greenway  proposed  that  they  start  back  to  the  Indian  camp 
about  two  hours  before  day  and  hide  themselves  where  they 
could  see  what  was  going  on  and  where  they  would  have  a 
good  view  of  the  spring.  At  an  early  hour  they  started  for 
the  Indian  camp  without  any  settled  plan  of  what  they  would 
do  more  than  to  keep  a  look-out  for  the  white  children,  think- 
ing they  might  go  to  the  spring  for  water  for  themselves.  It 
was  still  dark  when  they  found  a  suitable  place  for  conceal- 
ment and  in  a  little  while  smoke  was  seen  coming  out  of  the 
tops  of  several  wigwams. 

Just  at  daylight  three  Indian  women  went  to  the  spring 
for  water  and  soon  after  four  Indians  with  their  guns  started 
on  a  hunt  followed  by  three  dogs.  After  this  there  was  still- 
ness for  some  time,  then  a  shot  was  heard  in  the  direction 
that  the  Indians  had  gone  and  in  quick  succession  two  or 
three  more  shots.  The  dogs  were  making  a  terrible  noise  as, 
if  furiousl}'  barking  at  some  animal  at  bay.  The  Indian  camp 
was  soon  in  a  stir  and  two  other  Indians  with  guns  started  to. 
the  sound  of  the  combat.     After  going  a  short  distance  they 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA.  121 

stopped  and  wer^  seen  to  examine  something*  on  the  ground 
and  started  to  follow  the  trail  made  the  night  before  by  the 
white  hunters  while  going  around  the  Indian  camp. 

These  last  two  Indians  went  for  some  distance,  finalh'  hal- 
looed to  some  one  in  camp  and  were  soon  joined  b}-  two  other 
Indians.  They  all  followed  the  trail  until  it  came  to  where 
the  hunters  started  to  their  camp  when  the  two  Indians 
came  out  with  the  torch.  They  seemed  to  be  holding  a  con- 
sultation and  then  the  last  two  Indians  that  had  come  out 
hurried  to  the  camp  and  got  their  guns,  all  four  starling  on 
the  trail.     Soon  after  the  Indians  had  left. 

A  white  bo}-  and  an  Indian  woman  were  seen  coming  to 
the  spring  with  an  iron  kettle  carried  between  them  on  a  pole, 
followed  by  a  little  white  girl.  When  at  the  spring  the  Indian 
woman  commenced  to  till  the  kettle.  The  burners  slipped  up 
behind  them;  DeVan  caught  the  woman  and  tied  a  thick 
piece  of  rawhide  in  her  mouth  so  thai  she  could  not  make  a 
noise  and  tied  her  hands  behind  her.  Greenway  spoke  to 
James  Hope,  the  boy,  and  told  him  that  Mr.  Griscom  had 
sent  for  them.  The  little  girl  was  badly  frightened  but 
James  (luieted  her.  Hiding  the  kettle  in  a  thickt^t  ihey  started, 
taking  a  direction  that  would  bring  them  to  the  river  several 
miles  east  of  that  place. 

As  the  Indian  hunters  w^ere  all  gone  the  captors  felt  as- 
sured that  the  Indian  woman  w^ould  not  be  missed  for  some 
time.  They  traveled  very  fast  and  before  noon  they  w^ere 
over  the  river  and  marching  rapidly  to  the  north.  DeVan 
told  the  Indian  woman  that  they  belonged  to  a  large  band  of 
white  people  who  were  hunting  for  the  two  children  and  that 
they  would  get  to  their  camp  the  next  morning.  lie  told  her 
that  she  would  not  be  hurt  as  she  had  been  good  to  the  chil- 
dren and  that  she  might  go  and  live  with  them  all  the  time 
or  when  they  got  to  camp  she  might  go  back — she  could  do 
as  she  pleased  as  they  did  not  intend  to  keep  her  a  prisoner. 

The  Indian  woman  said  that  she  had  three  sons  that  she 
did  not  want  to  leave  and  she  would  go  back  if  they  would 
let  her.  They  had  made  a  long  march  when  they  finally 
came  to  a  nice  camping  place.     After  eating^  their  supper 


122  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 

> 

they  gfathered  brush  and  leaves  for  beds.  Thej'  told  the  In- 
dian woman  that  she  had  better  go  on  with  them  but  she 
said  she  would  go  back.  After  taking:  her  leave  of  the  child- 
ren she  started  on  their  back  track  verj'  slowly  at  first  but 
was  soon  seen  running  like  the  winds. 

In  a  little  while  the  rescuing:  party  was  rapidly  march- 
ing: away,  shaping:  their  course  so  they  would  strike  the,  Wa- 
bash river  near  their  island  camp.  They  marched  for  several 
miles  after  the  Indian  woman  left  them  and  on  coming:  to  a 
suitable  place,  rested  until  two  o'clock  in  the  morning:  when 
they  ag:ain  started  and  a  little  before  day  found  that  they 
were  in  the  neig:hborhood  of  the  river  but  could  not  decide 
how  far  south  of  their  camp  as  it  was  yet  quite  dark.  Con- 
tinuing: up  the  river  fully  two  miles  they  came  to  familiar  ob- 
jects  that  they  knew  were  about  two  miles  south  of  the  island. 
They  had  g:one  one  mile  further  when  they  heard  the  sound 
of  g:uns  firing:  up  the  river.  They  could  not  account  for  this, 
as  there  was  too  much  of  it  for  any  hunting:  party,  unless  it 
was  an  attack  on  their  fort. 

Hurrying:  on  until  within  about  one-half  mile  of  the  fort, 
Murtree  went  forward  to  find  out  what  it  meant.  He  was 
g:one  but  a  little  time  and  when  he  g:ot  back  said  that  he  could 
not  see  anything:  of  the  people  at  the  fort  or  anyone  else  and 
that  the  firing:  was  from  the  fort  and  the  west  side  of  the  is- 
land. Murtree  said  he  thoug:ht  they  could  g:et  to  the  fort  by 
keeping:  themselves  well  screened  by  the  brush. 

They  hurried  on  until  opposite  the  stockade.  They  could 
not  see  anything:  of  the  white  people  but  every  little  while  a 
rifle  would  crack;  sometimes  two  or  three  of  them.  The  fir- 
ing: of  those  outside  the  stockade  was  very  rapid  at  times. 
Leaving:  the  two  children  in  hiding:,  the  three  hunters  waded 
in  as  far  as  they  could  and  swam  to  the  island.  Green  way 
and  Murtree  went  to  the  g:ate,  made  themselves  known  and 
were  admitted.  DeVan  took  a  canoe  back  and  broug:ht  the 
children.  The  Indians  were  behind  larg:e  log:s  at  the  water's 
edg:e  firing:  at  the  stockade  but  were  doing:  no  damag:e  to  those 
inside  the  worts. 

DeVan  was   near  the  southwest  ang:le  of  the  stockade 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA.  123 

when  he  heard  a  sound  as  if  some  one  was  strug-gling  or 
strangling  on  the  outside  near  the  wall.  He  got  an  augur 
and  bored  a  hole  near  the  ground  so  he  could  see  what  it  was 
that  caused  the  noise  and  found  that  an  Indian  was  lying 
there  in  the  last  agonies  of  death.  He  could  see  another  In- 
dian not  more  than  ten  feet  away  who  was  being  dragged, 
feet  formost,  with  a  strap  held  by  some  other  Indian  behind 
a  log  and  soon  the  dead  Indian  was  out  of  sight.  In  a  few 
moments  he  saw  an  Indian  crawl  from  back  of  the  same  log 
and  tie  a  cord  to  the  wounded  Indian  and  drag  him  away. 
The  opening  was  so  small  he  could  not  bring  his  gtm  to  bear 
on  the  Indian. 

The  Indians  during  all  this  time  kept  up  constant  firing. 
Soon  they  ceased  firing  and  Murtree  and  DeVan  went  out  on 
the  east  side  and  crawled  around  the  fort.  The  Indians  were 
in  their  canoes,  some  of  them  having  crossed  the  river,  were 
carrying  some  of  their  dead  and  wounded  companions  up  the 
bank.  The  two  hunters  got  in  a  good  position  and  fired  upon 
them.  Those  in  the  fort  were  firing  from  the  port  holes  and 
the  Indians  in  two  of  the  canoes  that  were  in  the  stream  were 
returning  the  fire.  The  canoes  drifted  with  the  current 
down  the  river  beyond  gunshot.  Thie  occupants  rowed  them 
to  the  shore  and  climbed  up  the  bank,  carrying  their  bark 
canoes  with  them. 

After  the  battle  was  over  and  the  Indians  had  gone,  the 
hunters  made  an  examination  of  the  island  but  did  not  find 
any  dead  Indians,  but  pools  of  blood  in  many  places  made  it 
evident  that  many  of  them  had  been  hit. 

Mr.  Griscom  said  that  two  days  before  two  canoes  with 
four  Indians  were  seen  coming  down  the  river.  One  of  them 
put  to  shore  and  two  Indians  landed  and  after  looking  aroimd 
for  about  a  half  an  hour  went  back  to  their  canoe.  They 
then  went  down  the  river  and  were  gone  for  two  or  three  hours 
and  then  they  were  seen  coming  back,  passing  on  the  west 
side  of  the  river  apparently  paying  no  attention  to  the  fort  It 
was  thought  they  had  gone  for  good  but  the  next  day  several 
canoes  were  seen  up  the  river.  They  landed  on  the  west  side 
and  went  into  camp  having  large  fires.  "This,"  said  Griscom, 


124  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 

* 'caused  us  to  keep  a  careful  lookout.  There  were  3'et  four 
g-uns  that  had  been  capiured  in  the  former  battles  with  the 
Indians  that  had  not  been  put  in  serviceable  shape.  These 
were  cleaned  up,  new  flints  put  in  the  locks  and  loaded.  This* 
g^ave  us  seven  guns  for  defense  and  every  precaution  was 
taken  to  have  everj'thing  in  readiness,  all  of  us  determining" 
to  remain  up  all  night.  It  was  near  the  middle  of  the  night 
when  some  objects  were  seen  moving  between  the  fort  and 
the  west  side  of  the  island.  We  called  to  them  thinking  it 
might  be  you  hunters  returning  but  there  was  no  response 
and  nothing  was  seen  until  jusi  at  daylight.  At  that  time  I 
was  irying  to  see  over  the  top  of  the  stockade  by  leaning  a 
piece  of  board  out  against  the  timbers  and  tiptoeing  so  that 
I  could  raise  my  eyes  above  the  lup  of  the  wall,  when  a  shot 
was  lired  at  me  that  cut  the  side  of  my  cap.  At  once  a  rush 
was  made  by  a  number  of  Indians  to  scale  the  walls  and  get 
into  the  fort.  Kortunaiely  the  women  were  ai  their  posts 
and  shot  several  times  at  the  Indians  not  more  than  forty  feet 
aw^ay  and  before  they  ceased  iheir  attempt  to  take  the  fort 
there  must  have  been  eight  or  ten  of  them  killed  or 
wounded." 

The  Indians  fell  back  to  the  west  side  of  the  island  and 
had  been  shooting  at  the  stockade  until  after  the  hunters  had 
gotten  into  the  fort.  None  of  the  white  people  had  been 
seriously  hurt  in  the  battle.  Mrs.  Talbert  had  her  cheek 
burned  by  a  ball  that  grazed  her  face.  The  Indians  in  at- 
tempting to  storm  the  fort  made  a  fatal  mistake.  The  white 
people  went  into  a  strong  log  cabin  built  in  the  center  of  the 
stockade  wuth  port  holes  on  every  side,  which  was  made  on 
purpose  to  repel  such  an  attack.  There  was  but  one  Indian 
who  got  over  the  walls  and  Mrs.  Griscom  shot  him  through 
the  head.  Another  one  got  on  top  of  the  wall  and  was  shot, 
falling  inside  the  fort;  several  others  were  shot  as  they  at- 
tempted to  get  over  the  wall.  Griscom  said  he  was  certain 
that  as  many  as  six  Indians  had  been  killed  and  as  many 
more  wounded.  From  what  they  could  see  and  hear  when 
the  Indians  undertook  to  storm  the  fort  there  were  as  many 
as  twenty-five  of  them.     The  heroic  action  of  the  two  women 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA.  125 

saved  the  lives  of  those  in  the  fort  at  the  time  of  the  attack 
b)'  being:  in  the  inner  fort  with  two  loaded  guns  apiece. 

After  the  battle  a  close  watch  was  kept  all  day  and  night 
but  no  Indians  were  seen.  The  hunters  built  two  more  strong: 
cabins  and  prepared  them  far  defense  as  well  as  for  comfort. 
By  this  time  it  was  ver)'  hot  weather  and  they  decided  to 
stay  close  around  their  camp  until  the  weather  became  cooler. 

The  Hope  children  gave  a  very  interesting"  history  of 
their  experience  while  they  were  prisoner/.  The  three  young 
hunters  who  had  theiri  for  their  part  of  the  boat-fight  spoils 
were  looked  up  to  by  the  other  Indians  as  their  ver)'  best 
warriors.  Their  mother,  to  whom  they  gave  the  Hppe  child- 
ren, wa<^  the  widow  of  a  prominent  chief  who  was  killed  in 
Kentucky  some  years  before.  In  adopting  the  children  in 
place  of  two  of  hers  who  had  died  she  first  gave  them  articles 
that  had  belonged  to  the  dead  children  and  then  had  them 
take  off  their  clothing  and  put  on  a  buckskin  suit.  She  next 
brought  some  tea  in  a  bowl,  sprinkling  some  of  it  over  them, 
then  giving  them  a  small  portion  to  drink  after  which  she 
drank  a  small  portion  herself.  After  this  ceremon}^  she  took 
them  into  her  wigwam  and  gave  each  of  them  a  number  of 
skins  for  their  beds.  James  Hope  said  that  no  one  could  have 
been  kinder  to  them  than  was  this  Indian  mother.  She  would 
have  them  sit  down  by  her  and  would  pat  and  caress  them 
calling  them  by  their  Indian  names.  At  other  times  she 
would  look  at  them  and  cry  most  piteously  and  then  caress 
them  with  all  the  affection  of  a  fond  mother. 

James  said  that  the  morning  he  told  Mrs.  Talbert  that 
they  were  going  on  a  hunting  excursion  was  the  last  time  he 
had  heard  of  the  town  where  she  was  prisoner.  .Eight  men 
and  four  women  besides  their  Indian  mother  came  to  the  place 
where  he  was  recaptured  with  all  their  effects  and  none  of 
them  had  heard  of  their  former  home  since. 

The  Griscoms,  Mrs.  Talbert  and  the  hunters  held  many 

consultations  about  what  was  best  for  them  to  do.     They  had 

lost  what  little  they  owned  when  the  boat  was  captured  and 

.Mrs.  Talbert  had  lost  her  husband.     If  they  wanted  to  do  so, 

they  could  not  go  back  to  Virginia  and   they  did  not  have 


12h  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 

friends  Or  relatives  at  any  other  place.  The  country  on  every 
side  was  a  wilderness  roamed  over  by  ^hostile  Indians.  At 
Vincennes  and  Kaskaskia  there  were  small  settlements  of 
white  people  and  a  few  American  soldiers  were  in  forts  at 
these  places  but  there  was  nothing:  they  could  do  if  they  went 
there.  The  people  there,  outside  the  soldiers,  were  of  an- 
other nation  and  were  only  friendly  to  the  Americans  because 
they  hated  the  Eng^lish  more. 

These  unfortunate  people  were  high  minded  and  did  not 
want  to  be  a  burden  to  the  hunters  who  were  there  for  the 
profit  of  hunting:  and  trapping:  for  fur.  The  hunters  pro- 
posed to  Mr.  Griscom  that  he,  his  wife,  Mrs.  Talbert  and  the 
two  Hope  children,  should  remain  on  the  island  until  they 
could  do  better  or  the  hig:h,  water  forced  ihem  to  g:o  away  and 
Griscom  should  assist  them  in  hunting:  and  trapping:  and 
share  in  the  profits;  the  two  women,  with  the  help  of  the 
children,  taking:  care  of  the  camp.  This  was  ag:reed  lo  and 
everything:  was  put  in  readiness  for  the  fall  and  winter'^*  hunt, 
all  the  time  being:  very  careful  to  keep  waich  for  the  Indians. 
Greenway  made  a  trip  lo  Vincennes  during:  the  warm 
weather  and  learned  that  there  was  g:reai  activity  among  ihe 
Indians;  that  ihey  were  continually  on  ihe  war  path  and  that 
there  had  been  many  skirmishes  between  them  and  the  Ken- 
tuckians  who  were  always  as  read)'  to  fig:ht  as  the  Indians 
were. 

The  warm  weather  had  finally  g:one  and  the  fall  had 
come.  The  hunters  were  on  the  chase  killing:  bear  and  deer. 
Buffalo  were  plenty  in  small  herds  and  many  of  them  were 
killed.  Thg  meat  was  cured  by  drying:  it  and  the  hides  pre- 
pared for  market.  There  were  no  incidents  other  than  come 
to  hunters  during:  the  fall  and  winter.  They  secured  the 
hide  of  many  beaver  and  other  fur  bearing:  animals.  Near 
the  last  of  February  the  hig:h  water  came  and  they  had  to 
abandon  their  comfortable  quarters,  all  g:oing:  to  Vincennes 
to  sell  their  peltry  and  live  until  the  waier  went  down. 

Griscom  and  his  wife  remained  for  several  years  in  the 
neig:hberhood  of  Vincennes,  hunting:  and  trapping:  but  finally 
moved  to  the  Illinois  country. 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA.  127 

Mrs.  Talbert  married  a  discharg^ed  soldier  at  Vincennes 
and  later  moved  to  the  neighborhood  of  the  Yellow  Banks 
now  Rockport. 

The  two  Hope  children,  James  and  Jane,  found  a  soldier 
in  the  fort  at  Vincennes  who  was  a  cousin  of  their  mother's. 
He  took  them  in  charge  until  his  enlistment  was  out  and  then 
went  with  them  to  the  country  north  of  the  Cumberland  river 
not  far  south  of  where  Bowling  Green,  Kentucky,  is  now 
located. 

Greenway,  Murtree  and  DeVan  enlisted  in  the  army  and 
were  with  Wayne  at  the  battle  of  Maumee.  After  the  war 
was  over  DeVan  came  back  to  his  old  hunting*  grounds  and 
was  on  the  chase  until  just  before  the  battle  of  Tippecanoe 
when  General  Harrison  engaged  him  as  scout  to  do  some  work 
in  finding  out  what  the  Indians  west  of  the  Wabash  were 
doing  and  if  it  were  likely  the  Prophet  could  control  them. 
His  report  was  so  satisfactory  to  Greneral  Harrison  that  he 
enlisted  him  in  the  army  and  gave  him  an  easy  position  in  the 
quartermaster's  department. 

Murtree  after  the  war  of  1812  was  over  was  mustered  out 
at  Niagara  Falls,  finaltyeame  west^and- laid  warrants  on  land 
in  Posey  county. 

James  Greenway  was  promoted  to  a  Quartermaster's  Ser- 
geant and  was  in  the  regular  army  for  many  years.  After 
the  last  war  with  England  was  over  General  John  I.  Neely» 
who  was  an  aide-de-camp  and  Adjutant  Greneral  to  General 
Wm.  H.  Harrison,  was  detailed  by  the  government  to  settle 
up  the  quartermaster  and  commissary  business  at  several 
military  stations  in  the  northwest.  James  Greenway,  a  quar- 
termaster-sergeant was  detailed  and  ordered  to  report  to  Gen- 
eral Neeiy  for  duty  in  closing  out  the  surplus  quartermaster 
supplies  and  he  proved  to  be  a  very  competent  man  in  his 
line  of  business.  They  were  at  this  work  more  than  a  year 
and  in  this  way  became  very  well  acquainted.  During  that 
time  Greenway  showed  General  Neely  the  notes  of  the  prin- 
cipal events  of  his  life  for  many  years  before  the  date  they 
were  working  together.  The  locality  mentioned  in  the  notes 
was  familiar  to  the  General  and  he  secured  a  copy  of  them; 


128  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 

in  this  wa)'  the  data  for  this  chapter  was  secured.  General 
Neely  was  very  much  interested  in  the  stirring  events  that 
took  place  twenty-five  years  before  that  time  in  the  neig'h- 
borhood  of  his  home,  as  they  were  narated  to  him  by  Green- 
way. 

When  they  had  finished  the  work  the  General  invited  him 
to  v4sit  him  and  they  would  then  go  over  the  places  men- 
tioned in  the  notes.  This  invitation  was  accepted  and  in  the 
fall  of  1818  Greenway  secured  a  furlough  and  visited  him  at 
his  Gibson  county  home. 

They  were  hunting  several  weeks  together  and  during 
that  time  they  went  to  Coffee  Island  and  up  CofFee  bayou  to 
what  is  known  as  Brushy  pond,  thence  over  the  old  trace  to 
the  bluff.  The  located  the  grave  where  Thomas  Doyle  and 
Mary  Gr;scom  were  buried  in  1793.  They  at  that  time  had 
filled  the  last  two  feet  of  the  grave  with  various  sized  rocks 
to  keep  the  animals  from  digging  the  bodies  out  and  it  was 
b)'  these  rocks  that  the  General  and  Greenwa}"  now  identified 
the  graves.  By  the  invitation  of  General  Neely,  Major  David 
Robb,  who  was  an  old  Tippecanoe  comrade,  was  with  the 
party  the  day  the  gravies  were  located  and  he,  being  a  sur- 
ve3'or,  took  the  following  notes: 

**On  the  level  land  at  the  base  of  a  high  bluff,  Thomas 
Doyle  and  Mary  Griscom  are  buried  in  the  same  grave,  23 
feet  northwest  of  the  northwest  point  of  the  bluff,  located  in 
the  southwest  quarter  of  section  thirty-three,  township  two, 
south,  range  12,  west,  the  survey  of  1804." 

In  1867,  Captain  David  F.  Embree,  a  grandson  of  David 
Robb,  showed  the  author  the  notes  that  had  been  made  in 
his  grand-father's  field  note  book  of  that  early  da}',  also  on 
the  same  leaf  the  notes  of  3'oung  Ziba  Foote*  who  was 
drowned  in  Foot's  pond  in  1804  was  recorded  as  being  located 


Author's  Note — Young  Foot  referred  to  was  an  enjjineer  from  the 
east  and  was  with  one  of  the  surveying  corps  in  southwestern  Indiana  late 
in  the  fall  of  1804,  surveying  the  land  that  was  ceded,  by  the  Indians  to  the 
United  States  in  August  of  the  same  year.  He  attempted  to  cross  Foot's 
pond  (named  for  him)  on  a  frail  raft)  that  came  apart  and  let  him  into  deep 
water  and  he  was  drowned.      Years  afterward   his  brother,  Dr.  Foot,  pur- 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA.  129 

in  section  21,  township  3,  south,  rang^e  13,  west. 

After  the  visit  was  over  Greenway  returned  to  his  post 
and  nothing:  more  was  heard  of  him  until  1827  he  wrote  Gen- 
eral Neeley  this  letter: 

'*St.  Louis,  Mo.,  June  14,  1827. 

General  John  I.  Neely, 

Princeton,  Indiana. 
Dear  Sir: — 

I  will  have  finished  my  seventh  enlist- 
ment in  the  army  on  the  24th  day  of  Augfust,  this 
year.  I  intend  to  come  to  Indiana  and  will  call  on 
you.  I  want  to  gfo  to  the  bluff  and  have  a  largfe  stone 
cut  out  of  it,  if  it  is  sound  rock  and  place  it  over  my 
cousin,  Thomas  Doyle's,  gfrave.  I  hope,  sir,  that 
ever>'thing^  has  been  favorable  to  you.  I  am  your 
obedient 

James  Greenway." 

He  never  came  and  this  is  the  last  General  Neely  ever 

heard  of  him. 


chased  a  stone  quarry  at  Bedford,  Indiana,  had  the  bones  of  his  brother 
taken  np  from  where  they  had  been  buried  on  the  banks  of  Foot*s  pond  and 
carried  to  Bedford  where  he  had  a  grave  cut  out  of  a  solid  limestone  rock, 
put  the  bones  in  it  and  sealed  them  up. 


CHAPTER  VI. 


Organization  of  Indiana  Territory  —  William  Henry 
Harrison — General  Gibson,  Secretary — Territorial 
Judges  Appointed — Slavery  Question — Laws  of  In- 
denture— Specimens  of  Indenture  Papers. 


On  the  division  of  the  territory  of  the  United  States 
northwest  of  the  River  Ohio,  by  an  act  of  Cong^ress,  May  the 
7th,  1800,  Indiana  Territory  comprised  all  of  the  northwest 
territory  except  that  which  soon  became  the  state  of  Ohio. 
The  people  retained  all  the  laws  and  rig^hts  that  were  gfiven 
to  them  by  the  Ordinance  of  1787,  that  had  been  in  force  in 
the  Northwest  Territory.  On  the  13th  of  May,  1800,  Wil- 
liam Henry  Harrison  (who  was  a  native  of  Virgfinia  and  at 
that  time  a  member  of  Cong^ress  from  the  Northwest  Terri- 
tory) was  appointed  gfovernor  of  Indiana  Territory.  General 
John  Gibson,  who  had  fougfht  througfh  the  Revolution  from 
the  commencement  to  the  close  and  had  come  out  of  the  war 
with  the  rank  of  a  General,  was  appointed  secretary.  The 
secretary  arrived  at  Vincennes,  which  had  been  selected  for 
the  seat  of  gfovernment  for  the  Indiana  Territory,  in  July  and 
in  the  absence  of  the  Governor  he  appointed  military  and  civil 
officers.  It  was  not  until  Januar3%  1801,  that  Harrison  came 
to  Vincennes  where,  by  proclamation  he  called  the  Judges 
William  Clark,  Henrj^  Vanderburg:  and  John  Griffith,  who 
had  been  appointed  Territorial  Judges,  to  meet  at  the  new 
territorial  capital,  Vincennes,  for  the  purpose  of  adopting 
such  laws  as  were  required  for  the  government  of  the  terri- 
tory and  and  for  the  performance  of  other  acts  conformable 
to  the  laws  and  ordinance  of  Congress. 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA.  131 

The  g^ovemor  and  the  judg^es,  accordingly,  met  at  Vin- 
cennes  on  the  12th  of  January,  1801,  and  continued  to  hold 
session  from  day  to  day  until  the  26th  of  the  same  month, 
when  they  adjourned  after  having:  adopted  and  published 
seven  laws  and  three  resolutions  as  follows: 

1.  A  law  supplemental  to  a  law  to  reg^ulate 
county  levies. 

2.  A  resolution  concerning:  attorneys  and  coun- 
selors-at-law. 

3.  A  law  to  reg^ulate  practice  of  the  gfeneral 
court  upon  appeals  and  writs  of  errors. 

4.  A  law  respecting:  amendments  and  jeofail. 

5.  A  law  establishing:  courts  of  g^eneral  quarter 
session  of  the  peace  in  the  counties  of  Knox,  Ran- 
dolph and  St.  Clair. 

6.  An  act  repealing  certain  acts. 

7.  A  law  appointing:  a  territorial  treasurer. 

8.  A  resolution  for  the  establishment  of  ferries. 

9.  A  law  concerning:  the  fees  of  officers. 

10.     A  resolution  concerning:   the  compensation 
of  the  clerk  of  the  legislature.  '^ 

The  territorial  judges  held  their  first  session  of  court  of 
the  Indiana  Territory  at  Vincennes,  the  3d  day  of  March, 
1801.  The  first  grand  jury  impanelled  in  the  Indiana  Terri- 
tory was  composed  of  nineteen  person:  Luke  Decker,  Antoine 
Marshal,  Joseph  Baird,  Patrick  Simpson,  Antoine  Petit, 
Andre  Montplaisure,  John  Ockilpree,  Johnathan  Marney, 
Jacon  Trevebaug,  Alexander  Valley,  Francis  Turpin,  Fr. 
Compagnoitte,  Charles  Languedoc,  Louis  Severe,  Fr.  Langue- 
doc,  George  Catt,  John  B.  T.  Barois,  Abraham  Decker  and 
Phillip  Catt, 

The  law  machinery  of  the  territory  being  constructed, 
the  questions  that  came  principally  before  the  courts  and 
which  attracted  more  attention  than  any  other  subject  during 
the  first  years  of  the  Indiana  Territory,  were  land  specula- 
tion, the  adjustment  and  settling  of  land  titles  and  the  per- 
plexing question  of  slavery  that  had  been  in  existence  in  the 
Territory  for  sixty-five  years  before  the  ordinance  of  1787 


I 


132  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 

was  adopted  and  was  one  of  the  most  stubbornly  contested 
questions  before  the  courts.  The  courts,  unfortunately  for 
those  interested  in  having  the  wise  provisions  of  the  ordinance 
of  1787  carried  out,  were  in  sympathy  with  the  slave-holding 
element.  Governor  Harrison,  after  assuming  control  of  the 
affairs  of  the  territory,  exerted  his  energies  in  trying  to  ac- 
quire lands  from  the  Indians  by  treaty.  (A  historj^  of  these 
treaties  is  found  in  the  chapter  on  '^Harrison  in  the  Tippe- 
canoe Campaign.") 

When  the  Indiana  Territory  was  formed,  Vincennes  was 
the  town  of  the  most  importance.  At  that  time  there  was  a 
small  settlement  whiere  the  town  of  Lawrenceburgc,  Dear- 
born count)',  now  stands.  At  Armstrong  station  on  the  Ohio 
there  was  a  small  settlement  and  at  Clarksville,  opposite  the 
Falls  of  the  Ohio,  there  was  another  small  one.  Outside  of  this, 
in  what  is  now  the  state  of  Indiana,  there  were  no  other  set- 
tlements by  the  white  people  except  an  occasional  adventurer 
who  had  been  a  prisoner  or  raised  among  the  Indians,  settling 
in  some  section  near  an  Indian  town.  The  only  mode  of  com- 
munication between  the  stations  of  Indiana  Territory  was  by 
the  Ohio,  Mississippi  or  Wabash  rivers.  Detroit  was  a  town 
of  considerable  importance  but  had  been  destroyed  b}'  fire  in 
1798.  It  was  so  remote  from  the  vSections  bordering  on  the 
Ohio  river  that  intelligence  from  that  section  was  oul}-  ob- 
tained probably,  once  a  year.  The  mode  of  communi- 
cation between  the  Ohio  Falls,  Vincennes  and  the  farther 
western  stations  was  along  the  old  Indian  trace  connecting 
these  places,  which  had  been  there  from  time  immemorial. 

For  many  years  before  the  capture  of  the  Northwest  Ter- 
ritory from  the  British  by  Czeneral  Clark,  the  French  inhabi- 
tantsof  the  settled  stations  Vincennes,  Kaskaskia,  Detroit  and, 
other  places,  held  slaves  and  dealt  in  them  as  they  became 
wealthy  in  the  fur  trade.  Some  of  these  traders  made  annual 
trips  down  the  Mississippi  to  New  Orleans  and  brought  back 
slaves,  men  and  women.  It  is  safe  to  say  that  at  thetime  Vin- 
cennes was  captured  in  1779,  the  different  posts  in  the  North- 
west Territory-  had  more  than  200  negro  slaves.  Adding  to 
this  the  increase  from  natural  cause  and   from  those  brought 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA.  133 

in  from  Virg^inia,  Kentucky  and  the  Carolinas,  up  to  the  time 
that  Indiana  Territory  was  formed  and  William  Henry  Harri- 
son was  made  its  governor,  there  were  more  than  three  hundred 
slaves  in  the  Northwest  Territory,  leaving^  out  what  soon  be- 
came the  state  of  Ohio.  There  was  little  notice  taken  of 
slavery.  Harrison  was  from  Virginia  and  favored  slavery  yet 
he  issued  a  proclamation  prohibiting  the  removal  of  inden- 
tured negroes  from  the  Territory. 

The  United  States  judges  appointed  were  owners  of 
slaves.  In  the  summer  of  1794  Judge  Turner,  under  Gover- 
nor St.  Clair's  administration  of  the  Northwest  Territory  Was 
at  Vincennes  holding  court.  During  that  term  he  had  a  ser- 
ious misunderstanding  with  Judge  Vandaburgh  who  was  the 
Probate  Judge  of  Knox  county,  Northwest  Territory.  In  the 
midst  of  the  controversy  a  negro  and  his  wife  held  as  slaves 
by  Vandaburgh  applied  to  Judge  Turner's  court  for  emanci- 
pation by  writ  of  habeas  corpus.  The  evidence  was  all  in  and 
Judge  Turner  would  have  given  them  their  freedom  but  the 
night  before  the  decision  was  to  be  given  the  negroes  were 
kidnapped,  carried  south  and  sold. 

The  author  here  gives  a  specimen  of  a  decision  by  the 
three  federal  judges,  Vandaburgh,  Clark  and  Griffin,  during 
Harrison's  administration.  There  were  proceedings  brought 
for  the  emancipation  of  a  negro  and  negress  that  had  been 
brought  into  Indiana  Territory  from  Kentucky  and  held  with- 
out compliance  with  the  formalities  of  the  indenture  laws. 
Influential  people  aided  these  negroes  in  making  a  habeas 
corpus  proceedings  by  which  they  were  released,  on  a  techni- 
cal insufficiency  of  evidence  for  the  claimant.  The  full  court 
made  a  ruling  that  the  negros  were  not  fugitive  from  slav- 
ery. 

After  this  decision  the  party  claiming  the  negroes  at- 
tempted to  carry  them  out  of  the  Territory  and  back  to  Ken- 
tucky. When  new  proceedings  were  instituted,  which  was 
tried  in  1806,  the  judges  heard  the  case  and  decided  that  the 
negroes  were  neither  fugitives  from  justice  nor  slavery  and  re- 
leased them.  They  further  said,  in  giving  their  opinion,  that 
this  order  was  not  to  impair  the  rights  of  the  defendants  or 


134  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA.  . 

any  other  person  who  should  have  them  for  slaves  provided 
the  defendant  or  any  other  person  could  prove  them  to  be 
slaves. 

After  this  the  two  neg^roes  built  a  cabin  on  the  banks  of 
the  Wabash  river  near  Vincennes  from  which  place  they  were 
kidnapped  by  a  Frenchman  hired  for  that  purpose,  carried  to 
New  Orleans  and  sold  into  slavery.  With  such  a  trio  of 
judg^es  as  those  making:  this  decision  was  there  any  wonder 
that  slavery  was  in  full  force  in  many  places  in  Indiana  Ter- 
ritor)'  at  the  time  the  state  was  admitted  to  the  union? 

In  1803  the  United  States  purchased  from  France  for  the 
sum  of  fifteen  million  dollars  ($15,000,000)  the  territory  that 
has  since  been  divided  into  the  states  of  Louisiana,  Arkansas, 
Missouri,  Iowa,  Kansas,  Nebraska,  North  and  South  Dako- 
ta, Montana,  Wyoming^  Indian  Territory,  Colorado,  and  that 
part  of  Minnesota  west  of  the  Mississippi  river.  During:  the 
year  of  1804  all  that  country  north  of  the  thirty-third  degfree 
was  attached  to  Indiana  Territory  by  Cong^ress  and  was  under 
the  control  of  Governor  Harrison.  The  next  year  this  Loui- 
siana Territory  was  detached  and  orgfanized  into  a  separate 
territory. 

On  the  22d  of  November,  1802,  Governor  Harrison,  in  com- 
pliance with  the  wishes  of  many  citizens  of  the  territory,  is- 
sued a  proclamation  notifying^  them*  that  there  would  be  an 
election  held  in  the  several  counties  of  the  territory'  on  the 
11th  day  of  December,  1802,  for  the  purpose  of  choosing:  del- 
eg^ates  to  meet  in  convention  at  Vincennes  on  the  20th  of  De- 
cember, 1802.  The  number  of  delegfates  from  Knox  county 
was  four;  from  Randolph  county,  three;  from  St.  Clair  coun- 
ty, three;  Clark  county,  two.  The  main  object  of  those  who 
favored  the  callings  of  the  convention  was  to  take  into  consid- 
eration the  expediency  of  repealing^  or  suspending:  article 
sixth  of  the  ordinance  of  1787  which  prohibited  the  holding: 
of  slaves  in  all  the  territory  that  at  that  time  was  in  the 
Northwest  Territory. 

The  convention  assembled.  Governor  Harrison  presiding:. 
There  was  a  document  prepared  in  which  the  deleg:ates  in  be- 
half of  the  people  of  the  Indiana  Territory  g:ave  their  consent 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA.  135 

that  the  sixth  article  of  the  ordinance  of  1787  mig^ht  be  sus- 
pended. This  document  tog^ether  with  the  memorial  from 
the  deleg^ates  and  a  number  of  slave-holding*  inhabitants  of 
the  territory  was  laid  before  Congress  and  in  the  House  of 
Representatives  on  the  2d  of  March,  1803.  Mr.  Randolph,  of 
Virginia,  chairman  of  the  committee  that  this  resolution  and 
report  were  referred  to,  makes  this  report — '*The  rapidly  in- 
creasing population  of  the  state  of  Ohio  is  sufficient  evidence 
to  your  committee  that  the  labor  of  slaves  is  not  necessary  to 
prompt  the  growth  of  settlements  of  the  colonies  in  that  sec- 
tion. That  slave  labor,  the  dearest  that  can  be  employed,  is 
only  advantageous  in  the  cultivation  of  products  more  valua- 
ble than  any  known  in  that  quarter  of  the  United  States. 
The  committee  deems  it  highly  dang-erous  and  inexpedient  to 
impair  provisions  wisely  calculated  to  promote  the  happiness 
and  prosperity  of  the  northwest-country  and  to  give  strength 
and  security  to  their  extensive  frontiers.  In  the  salutary  op- 
eration of  this  sagacious  and  benevolent  restraint,  it  is  be- 
lieved that  the  inhabitants  of  Indiana  will  at  no  distant  day 
find  ample  remuneration  for  a  temporary  privation  of  labor 
and  of  immigration." 

Congress  refused  to  suspend  the  sixth  article  of  the  ordi- 
nance of  1787  in  opposition  to  the  views  and  wishes  which 
were  afterward  expressed  in  several  petitions,  resolutions  and 
memorial,  by  the  legislative  authority  and  many  people  of 
Indiana  territory,  the  decision  of  Congress  remained  un- 
changed. 

The  principal  reasons  which  were  assigned  by  the  memo- 
rials in  favor  of  the  suspension  of  the  sixth  article  of  the  or- 
dinance of  1787,  were  that  such  a  suspension  would  be  highly 
advantageous  to  the  territory,  that  it  would  meet  the  appro- 
bation of  nine-tenths  of  the  citizens  of  the  territory;  that  the 
abstract  question  of  liberty  and  slavery  was  not  considered  as 
involved  in  the  suspension  of  the  article  as  the  number  of 
slaves  in  the  United  States  would  not  be  increased  by  the 
measure  and  the  suspension  of  the  article  would  be  equally 
advantageous  to  the  territory,  to  the  slave-holding  states  and 
to  the  slaves  themselves;  that  at  the  time  of  the.adoption  of  the 


136  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 

ordinance  slavery  had  existed  in  the  territory;  that  it  was 
made  to  apply  to  for  a  g^reat  many  years  before  and  that  the 
ordinance  was  passed  by  Congfress  without  consulting:  the  inter- 
ests of  the  citizens  of  the  territory,  who  were  in  no  wise  repre- 
sented in  that  body  and  the  number  of  slaves  would  never  bear 
such  a  proportion  to  the  white  population  as  would  endang^er 
the  peace  and  prosperity  of  the  country.  The  views  of  those 
citizens  of  Indiana  Territory  who  were  not  in  favor  of  the 
proposed  suspension  of  the  sixth  article  of  the  ordinance  of 
1787,  were  at  different  times  sent  to  the  committees  at  Con- 
gfress  having  that  matter  in  chargfe,  in  the  shape  of  memo- 
rials and  remonstrances.  A  larg^ely  attended  meetings  of  the 
citizens  of  Clark  county  was  held  at  Spring^ville;  John  Beg^g^s 
being:  elected  president  and  David  Floyd  secretary.  A  com- 
mittee was  raised  consisting^  of  Charles  Beggs,  Abraham  Lit- 
tle, Robert  Robertson,  John  Owens  and  James  Beggfs.  They 
prepared  a  memorial  which  was  adopted  by  the  meetings  and 
laid  before  Congfress  on  the  7th  of  November,  1807.  The 
memorial  of  the  citizens  of  Clark  county  show  that  great 
anxiety  has  been  and  still  is  evinced  by  some  of  th^  citizens 
of  this  territory  on  the  subject  of  the  introduction  of  slavery 
into  it.  In  no  case  has  the  voice  of  the  citizens  been  unani- 
mous. In  1802  at  a  special  convention  of  delegates  from  the 
several  counties  a  petition  was  forwarded  to  Congress  to  re- 
peal the  sixth  article  of  the  ordinance  of  1787. 

At  that  convention  the  representatives  in  the  eastern 
part  of  the  territory  who  were  at  Vincennes  were  decidedly 
opposed  to  the  petition.  Again  in  the  year  1805  the  subject 
was  taken  up  and  discussed  in  the  general  assembly,  a  ma- 
jority of  the  members  of  the  House  of  Representatives  voted 
against  the  memorial  and  it  was  rejected  as  is  shown  by  the 
journal  of  that  house,  but  a  number  of  the  citizens  thought 
it  proper  to  sign  the  same.  Among  those  who  fraudulently 
attempted  to  force  this  memorial  on  Congress  as  the  declared 
expression  of  the  majority  of  the  representatives  of  that  as 
sembly  were  the  speaker  of  the  House  of  Representatives  and 
the  president  of  the  council. 

Afterward  the  president  of  the  council  was  charged  with 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA.  13T 

this  duplicity  when  he  denied  having:  ever  sig^ned  the  same. 
History  gfives  the  folio  wing:  account  of  this  paper: 

'*This  fraudulent  paper  was  forwarded  to  the  Congfress 
of  the  United  States  as  the  expressed  wish  of  the  legislators 
of  this  territory.  In  the  present  year  of  1807  this  subject  was 
taken  up  bj"  the  legislature  of  this  territory  again  and  a  ma- 
jority of  both  houses  passed  the  resolution  to  suspend  the 
sixth  article  in  a  proportion  of  two  to  one  and  it  is  presumed^ 
this  action  is  before  you.  Let  it  be  understood  that  when 
this  action  was  taken,  that  there  were  but  .three  members  of 
the  assembly  present,  beside  the  speaker,  who,  for  certain 
reasons,  positively  refused  to  sign  the  resolution.  As  a 
last  substitute  after  the  bill  was  passed,  they  prevailed  on 
the  president  to  vacate  his  seat  and  appoint  one  of  the  other 
-members  speaker  pro  tem.  for  the  purpose  of  signing  the  res- 
olution. This  doubtful  conduct  of  a  small  minority  of  the 
representatives  of  this  territory  will  be  convincing  to  your 
honorable  committee  in  Congress  that  those  in  this  territory 
are  driven  to  a  desperate  strait  in  order  to  unlawfully  hold 
their  slaves. 

'*It  is  contended  by  the  pro-slavery  element  that  a  major- 
ity of  the  voters  of  this  territory  are  in  favor  of  annulling 
the  sixth  article  in  the  ordinance  of  1787,  while  those  opposed 
to  slavery  being  in  the  territory  feel  sure  that  a  majority  of 
all  the  voters  are  opposed  in  any  way,  disapproving  an}'  of 
the  provision  in  the  ordinance  of  1787,  believing  that  such  an 
action  would  be  an  insult  offered  to  the  Congress  of  the 
United  States. 

"There  is  a  large  emigration  coming  into  the  section  of 
the  country  around  the  Falls  of  the  Ohio  and  your  committee 
thinks  it  best  for  all  concerned  to  allow  the  present  condition 
of  things  to  remain  undisturbed  until  there  is  sufficient  num- 
ber in  different  sections  of  the  said  territory  to  form  into 
states  and  to  adopt  state  constitutions.  Then  all  questions 
for  the  well  being  and  happiness  of  the  people  to  be  governed 
by  the  constitutions  can  be  adjusted  in  accordance  with  the 
wishes  of  the  majority." 

When  it  became  evident  to  the  slave  holders  of  the  terri- 


138  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 

tory  that  Congress  would  not  make  any  provision  for  nullify- 
ing the  sixth  article  of  the  ordinance  of  1787,  in  order  that 
they  might  hold  the  slaves  that  were  then  in  the  territory, 
the  obnoxious  indenture  laws  were  passed  by  the  legislature 
in  1807.     The  provisions  of  that  act  are  herein  given. 

"The  laws  of  the  Indiana  Territory  concerning 
slaves  and  negro  or  mulatto  servants.  An  act  con- 
cerning the  introduction  of  negroes  and  mulattoes 
into  this  Territory. 

**Sec.  1..  It  shall  and  may  be  lawful  for  any 
person  being  the  owner  or  possessor  of  any  negroes 
or  mulattoes  of  any  age  above  the  age  of  fifteen 
years  and  owing  service  or  labor  as  slaves,  in  any 
of  the  states  or  territories  of  the  United  States,  or 
for  any  citizen  of  the  said  states  or  territories  of  the 
United  States  purchasing  the  same;  to  bring  the 
said  negroes  or  mulattoes  into  this  Territory. 

*'Sec.  2.  The  owner  or  possessor  of  any  negroes 
or  mulattoes,  as  aforesaid,  and  bringing  the  same  in- 
to this  territory,  shall  within  thirty  days  after  such 
removal  go  with  the  same  before  the  clerk  of  the 
court  of  common  pleas  of  the  proper  county;  and,  in 
the  presence  of  said  clerk,  the  said  owner  or  posses- 
sor shall  determine  and  agree  to  whith  his  or  her 
negro  or  mulatto,  upon  the  terms  of  years  which  the 
said  negro  or  mulatto  will  and  shall  serve  his  or  her 
owner  or  possessor  and  the  said  clerk  is  hereby 
authorized  and  required  to  make  a  record  thereof  in 
a  book  which  he  shall  keep  for  that  purpose. 

**Sec.  3.  If  any  negro  or  mulatto  removed  into 
this  territory  as  aforesaid  shall  refuse  to  serve  his  or 
her  owner  as  aforesaid,  it  shall  and  may  be  lawful 
for  such  persons,  within  sixty  days  thereafter  to  re- 
move the  said  negro  or  mulatto  to  any  place  by  the 
laws  of  the  United  States  or  territory  from  whence 
such  owner  or  possessor  may  or  shall  be  authorized 
to  remove  the  same. 

'*Sec.  4.  If  any  person  or  persons  shall  neglect 
or  refuse  to  perform  the  duty  required  in  the  second 
or  to  take  advantage  of  the  benefit  of  the  preceding 
sectipn,  hereof,  within  the  time  there  respectively 
prescribed,  such  person  or  persons  shall  forfeit  all 
claims  and  rights  whatever  to  the  service  and  labor 
of  such  negroes  or  mulattoes. 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA.  139 

"Sec.  5.  Any  person  removing:  into  this  terri- 
tory and  being:  the  owner  or  possessor  of  any  neg:ro 
or  mulatto  as  aforesaid,  under  the  ag:e  of  fifteen 
years;  or  if  anj'  person  shall  hereafter  acquire  a  pro- 
perty in  any  neg:ro  or  mulatto  under  the  age  afore- 
said, and  shall  bring:  them  into  this  territory,  it 
shall  and  may  be  lawful  for  such  person  or  persons, 
owners  or  possessors,  to  hold  the  said  neg:ro  or  mulatto 
to  service  or  labor,  the  male  until  they  arrive  at  the 
age  of  thirty-five  years,  the  female  until  they  arrive 
at  the  ag:e  of  thirty-two  5'ears. 

**Sec.  6.  Any  person  removing:  any  neg:ro  or 
mulatto  into  this  territory  under  the  authority  of  the 
preceding:  section,  it  shall  be  incumbent  upon  such 
persons  within  thirty  days  thereafter  to  reg:ister  the 
name  and  ag:e  of  such  negro  or  mulatto  with  the 
clerk  of  the  court  of  common  pleas  for  the  proper 
county. 

*'Sec.  7.  If  any  person  shall  remove  any  negro 
or  mulatto  from  one  county  to  another  county,  with- 
in this  territory  who  may  or  shall  be  brought  into 
the  same  under  the  authority  of  either  the  first  or 
fifth  section  hereof,  it  shall  be  incumbent  upon  such 
person  to  register  the  name  and  also  the  age  of  said 
negro  or  mulatto  which  the  said  clerk  of  the  county 
from  whence  and  to  which  said  negro  or  mulatto 
may  be  removed,  within  thirty  days  after  such  re- 
moval. 

'*Sec.  8.  If  any  person  shall  neglect  or  refuse  to 
perform  the  duty  required  by  the  two  preceding  sec- 
tions hereof,  such  persons,  for  such  offense  shall  be 
fined  in  the  sum  of  fifty  dollars  to  be  recovered  by 
indictment  or  information  and  for  the  use  of  the 
proper  county. 

"Sec.  9.  If  any  person  shall  neglect  or  refuse  to 
perform  the  duty  and  service  herein  required,  he  shall, 
for  every  such  neglect  or  refusal,  be  fined  in  the  sum 
of  fifty  dollars  to  be  recovered  by  information  or  in- 
dictment and  for  use  of  the  county. 

"Sec.  10.  It  shull  be  the  duty  of  the  clerk  of  the 
court  of  common  pleas,  aforesaid,  when  any  person 
shall  apply  to  him  to  register  any  negro  or  mulatto, 
agreeable  to  the  preceding  section,  to  demand  and 
receive  the  said  applicant's  bond  with  sufficient  se- 
curity in  the  penalty  of  five  hundred  dollars,  payable 


J 


140  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 

to  the  governor  or  his  successors  in  office,  conditioned! 
that  the  neg^ro  or  mulatto,  negroes  or  mulattoes,  as 
the  case  may  be,  shall  not,  after  the  expiration  of 
his  or  her  service,  become  a  county  charge  which 
bond  shall  be  lodged  with  the  county  treasurers,  res- 
pectively, for  the  use  of  the  said  counties,  provided 
always  that  no  such  bond  shall  be  required  orrequira- 
ble  in  case  of  time  of  service  of  such  negro  or  mulatto, 
shall  expire  before  he  or  she  arrives  at  the  age  of 
forty  years,  if  such  negro  or  mulatto  be  at  that  time 
capable  to  support  him  or  herself  by  his  or  her  own 
labor. 

**Sec.  11.  Any  person  who  shall  take  or  forcibly 
carry  out  of  this  territory  or  who  shall  be  aiding  or 
assisting  therein  an}^  person  or  persons  owing  or  hav- 
ing owed  service  for  labor,  without  the  consent  of 
such  person  or  persons,  previously  obtained  before  any 
judge  of  the  court  of  common  pleas  of  the  county 
•  where  such  persons  owing  or  having  owed  such  service 
or  labor  resides,  which  consent  shall  be  certified  by 
said  judge  of  the  common  pleas  to  the  clerk  of  the 
court  of  common  pleas  where  he  resides  at  or  before 
the  next  court.  Any  person  so  offending,  upon  con- 
viction thereof,  shall  forfeit  and  pay  one  thousand 
dollars,  one-third  to  be  used  by  the  county,  two-thirds 
to  be  used  b)^  the  person  taken  or  carried  away.  To 
be  recovered  by  action  of  debt,  provided  there  shall 
be  nothing  in  the  section  so  construed  as  to  prevent 
any  master  or  mistress  from  removing  any  person 
owing  service  or  labor  from  this  territory  as  described 
in  the  third  section  of  this  act. 

**Sec.  12.  The  said  clerk  for  every  register  made 
in  the  manner  aforesaid  shall  receive  seventy-five 
cents  from  the  applicant  therefor. 

**Sec.  13.  The  children  born  in  this  territory  of  a 
parent  of  color  owing  service  or  labor  by  indenture, 
according  to  the  law,  shall  serve  the  master  or  mis- 
tress of  such  parent,  the  male  until  the  age  of  thirty 
and  the  female  until  the  age  of  twenty-eight  years. 

*'Sec.  14.  The  provisions  contained  in  a  law  of 
this  territory  respecting  apprentices,  entitled,  '*an 
act  respecting  apprentices''  shall  be  enforced  as  to 
such  children  in  case  of  misbehavior  of  the  master  or 
mistress  or  for  cruelty  or  ill-usage.  Approved  Sep- 
tember 17,  1807. 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA.  141 

The  first  laws  for  the  indenture  of  slaves  were  made  by 
the  board  of  control  in  Indiana  Territory — the  governor  and 
the  three  federal  judgfes  in  1803.  They  provided  that  '*per- 
sons  coming:  into  the  territory  under  a  contract  to  serve  a 
stated  period  at  an}'  kind  of  labor  shall  serve  that  term/' 

This  contract  was  assig^nable  to  any  person  in  the  terri- 
tory if  the  slaves  consented.  This  law  was  made  so  that  per- 
sons coming:  to  the  territory  from  slave  states  before  starting: 
could  indenture  their  slaves  for  as  long:  a  period  as  they  would 
be  of  service  to  them;  in  most  cases  for  thirty  years. 

The  next  attempt  to  clinch  slaver)^  in  the  territory  was 
by  an  act  of  ihe  Territorial  Leg:islature  in  1805.  An  act  for 
the  introduction  of  neg:roes  and  mulattoes  into  the  territory 
was  passed.  It  provided  that  any  slave  holder  in  the  United 
States  could  bring:  any  slave  over  fifteen  years  old  into  the 
territor)^  and  within  thirty  days  after  coming:,  mig:ht  enter  in- 
to an  ag:reement  with  such  slaves  before  the  clerk  of  a  court 
of  common  pleas  as  to  the  number  of  years  such  slaves  would 
serve  their  masters.  If  the  slaves  should  refuse  to  ag:ree,  the 
master  had  sixt}'  days  in  which  to  send  him  to  a  slave  state. 

The  laws  of  the  Indiana  Territory  concerning:  slaves  and 
neg:ro  or  mulatto  servants  passed  in  180T  were  the  same  as 
those  in  1805.  Neither  of  these  laws  had  any  validity  as  they 
were  in  direct  opposition  to  laws  passed  by  the  Cong:ress  of 
the  United  States  for  the  g:overnment  of  their  Northwest  Ter- 
ritory. But  notwithstanding:  all  that  the  indented  neg:roes 
were  compelled  to  serve  their  masters  for  the  time  specified  in 
the  indentures  and  in  man)-  cases  those  so  indentured  were  by 
one  means  and  another  taken  into  slave  states  where  they 
are  sold  into  slavery  for  life.  Unfortunately  the  clear  cut  laws 
prohibiting:  slavery  in  the  territory  did  not  have  much  force 
with  those  intrusted  with  the  administration  of  the  laws. 
There  was  no  secret  about  holding:  slaves  in  all  the  counties 
of  the  territory. 

In  1820,  four  years  after  the  state  was  admitted  into  the 
Union,  there  were  one  hundred  and  ninety  slaves  in  servitude 
in  Indiana  as  shown  by  census  report.  Knox  county  had  one 
hundred   and    eig:hteen;    Gibson   county,    thirty-one;    Posey 


142  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 

county,  eleven;  Vanderburgh,  ten;  the  other  twenty-one  were 
held  in  Spencer,  Warrick.  Owen,  Sullivan,  Scott  and  Pike 
counties.  The  other  twenty-four  counties  that  were  in  the 
state  at  that  time  had  no  slaves.  Slavery  in  Indiana  did  not 
disappear  from  the  census  report  until  1850.  Most  of  the  ne- 
gfroes  who  were  emancipated  by  their  owners  or  by  leg^al  pro- 
cess were  afterwards  kidnapped  and  sold  into  slavery  in  the 
south. 

Below  is  given  a  few  specimens  of  the  way  the  poor,  un- 
suspecting: neg^roes  were  fooled,  being:  made  to  believe  they 
were  sig:ning  their  emancipation  papers,  when  in  fact,  they 
were  sig:ning:  an  indenture  that  g:ave  the  control  of  their  labor 
for  a  long  period  of  years  to  their  so-called  masters  who,  in 
many  cases,  pretended  to  be  liberating:  them.  Since  writing: 
this  article  it  has  been  thoug:ht  best  to  withhold  the  names 
of  those  making:  these  pretended  emancipation  papers  and  use 
fictitious  ones  for  the  reason  that  many  of  the  descendants  are 
still  living:  and  are  among  the  best  people  of  the  state  and 
who  would  scorn  any  such  dishonest  action. 

'*On  the  27th  day  of  July,  1813,  I,  Joseph  Bar- 
ton, have  this  day  set  free  my  slave,  Thomas  Tur- 
ner, and  I  hereby  make  and  acknowledge  the  eman- 
cipation paper  for  his  complete  freedom.  The  said 
Thomas  Turner  for  the  privilege  of  being  known  as 
a  free  man,  has  agreed  to  indenture  his  services  to 
me  for  a  period  of  thirty  years  from  date. 

(SEAL.)  Joseph  Barton. 

'1,  Thomas  Turner,  do  hereby  accept  the  eman- 
cipation papers  for  which  I  sincerely  thank  my  for- 
mer master  and  do  cheerfully  agree  to  indenture  my- 
self to  the  said  Joseph  Barton  as  per  the  above  agree- 
ment. Thomas  Turner. 

July  27,  1813.  X  My  own  mark. 

On  the  30th  day  of  August  this  generous  hearted  Joseph 
Barton  sold  this  negro  to  a  person  for  five  hundred  and  thir- 
ty-five dollars  who  smuggled  him  across  the  Ohio  river  where 
he  was  sold  into  slavery  in  the  south. 

*1.  George  Endicutt,  have  decided  to  emancipate 
my  slave.  Job  Boyce,  and  I  hereby  certify  that  I  this 
day    give    him    his    freedom  and  it  affords  me  the 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA.  143 

g^reatest  pleasure  to  bear  witness  that  he  has  always 
been  an  obedient,  faithful  and  honest  servant.  By 
an  ag^reement  of  the  said  Job  Boyce  he  agrees  to  in- 
denture himself  to  me  for  twenty-three  years,  or 
until  he  is  sixty  years  old.  George  Endicutt. 
(SEAL)     August  30th,  1813. 

**I,  Job  Boyce,  of  my  own  free  will  do  hereby  ac- 
cept my  freedom  papers  from  rfiy  former  master, 
George  Endicutt,  and  have  agreed  to  indenture  my- 
self to  him  for  the  time  specified  in  the  agreement, 
August  20,  1813.  Job  Boyce, 

X  My  own  mark. 

(SEAL)  Witness,  James  Boswell." 

''September  26th,  1813.  I,  Noah  Freeman,  of 
Indiana  Territory,  on  this  date,  do  hereby  emanci- 
pate my  slave,  Mary  Ann,  to  enjoy  all  ihe  rights  of 
freedom  that  a  negro  and  an  uneducated  woman  can. 
It  affords  me  great  satisfaction  to  testify  that  she 
has  been  a  most  faithful  and  obedient  servant.  This 
paper  and  her  freedom  to  be  in  force  and  effect  after 
the  26th  day  of  September,  1833.  Until  that  time 
she  has  indentured  her  service  to  me  and  my  familv. 

Noah  Freeman. 

'*I,  Mary  Ann,  the  former  slave  of  my  master, 
Noah  Freeman,  accept  my  emancipation  papers  and 
do  agree  to  faithfully  work  for  my  former  master 
and  mistress  until  the  20th  day  of  September,  one 
thousand,  eight  hundred  and  thirty-three. 

Mary  Ann. 
X  My  mark. 
(SEAL)  Witness,  Jason   Brown.'* 

'*This  is  to  certify  that  I,  James  Hartwell,  of 
my  own  free  will  and  accord,  do  this  day  emancipate 
and  give  freedom  to  a  negro  slave,  named  Charles 
Hope,  brought  by  me  from  North  Carolina.  In  mak- 
ing these  papers  I  want  to  bear  testimony  to  the 
painstaking  and  careful  way  he  has  done  his  work, 
and  that  he  is  a  quiet  and  most  obedient  servant  and 
has  always  been  very  easily  managed.  For  these 
good  qualities  it  affords  me  great  pleasure  to  be  able 
to  give  him  his  rightly  earned  freedom.  For  some 
necessary  expenses  that  has  to  be  incurred  before  he 


144  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 

can  leave  the  home  he  has  so  long  lived  at  and  for 
the  love  he  has  for  me  and  my  family,  he  hereby 
agrees  to  indenture  his  services  to  me  for  twenty- 
nine  years  from  the  18th  of  October,  1809,  which  is 
the  date  of  this  agreement.  James  Hartwell. 
(SEAL) 

''I,  Charles  Hope,  do  hereby  acknowledge  my 
thankfulness  to  my  master  for  the  kindness  he  has 
shown  in  setting  me  free  and  I  cheerfully  accept  the 
conditions  in  my  freedom  papers  and  agree  to  serve 
the  time    specified,  or   until  death. 

Charles  Hope. 
X  His  mark." 

Note  the  meanness  of  this  hyprocrite  who  made  the  great 
show  of  giving  this  negro  pretended  freedom  with  such  a  good 
certificate  of  character,  which  would  make  the  negro  more 
saleable  when  he'  had  an  opportunity  to  sell  him;  and  on  the 
fifteenth  day  of  the  next  November  he  ^//^/sell  him  to  a  neigh- 
bor for  four  head  of  horses,  ten  head  of  cattle  and  one  hund- 
red acres  of  military  donation  land  and  a  promissory  note  for 
three  hundred  dollars.  The  next  j-ear  this  negro  went  with 
his  master  down  the  Wabash  river  on  a  pretended  trip  to  the 
valine  country  of  Illinois,  but  was  carried  farther  south  and 
was  sold  into  slavery  for  life. 

In  1805  the  Kukendal  family,  by  their  agent,  Samuel 
Vannorsdell,  had  two  negroes  arrested  and  were  attempting 
to  carr}'  them  out  of  the  territory  when  Governor  Harrison 
issued  a  proclamation  forbidding  their  removal,  as  Vannors- 
dell did  not  have  the  consent  of  the  negroes  to  remove  th^pi. 
This  brought  on  a  spirited  law-suit,  Governor  Harrison  and 
others  becoming  bondsmen  for  the  negroes.  The  case  went 
over  to  the  next  term  of  court.  At  that  term  the  two  negroes 
^were  produced  in  court  but  in  the  meantime  Governor  Harri- 
son had  indentured  one  of  them  for  a  period  of  eleven  years. 

In  1854  the  author  was  visiting  a  family  in  an  old  set- 
tled portion  of  southern  Indiana.  During  that  visit  it  be- 
<:ame  known  to  a  joung  lady  of  that  fanily  that  he  was 
gathering  data  of  incidents  concerning  the  early  settlers  and 
of   anything   that    would    be    of   interest   about    **Ye  Olden 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA.  145 

Tymes."  This  young  lady  informed  him  that  they  had  the 
emancipation  and  indenture  papers  of  "Old  Tome,"  who  was 
their  slave  and  friend,  which  papers  she  thought  would  be  of 
real  worth  to  one  gathering  such  data.  She  said  she  would 
show  the  papers  and  he  might  copy  them  provided  he  would 
not  use  their  names.     This  was  readily  agreed  to. 


May  26,  1815. 
To  All  Whom  it  May  Concern: 

This  is  to  certify  that  this  day  I  have  set  free 
and  by  these  presents  do  give  emancipation  papers 
to  my  faithful  servant  Thomas  Agnew,  and  from 
this  date  he  shall  be  known  as  a  free  man.  Given 
under  my  hand  and  seal.  Thomas  Truman. 

(SEAL)  Witness,  Joseph  Forth. 


ii/ 


This  is  to  certify  that  I  have  this  day  received 
my  emancipation  papers  from  my  former  master.  As 
I  don't  know  any  other  home  but  the  one  I  have  al- 
ways lived  at,  I  do  hereby  indenture  myself  to  my  mas- 
ter, John  Trueman,  for  thirty  3^ears  from  this  date, 
he  agreeing  to  feed  and  clothe  me  during  that  time. 

Thomas  Agnew. 
May  26th,  1815.  X  His  mark. 

After  the  papers  were  copied  this  intelligent  young  lady 
related  this  interesting  story  of  Tom's  life: 

**Just  before  the  state  of  Indiana  was  admitted  into  the 
Union  m}'  father  moved  here  from  a  slave  state  and  brought 
with  him,  Tom.  whom  he  had  owned  from  his  infancy.  He 
had  no  thought  that  there  would  be  any  trouble  about  it  as 
Tom  was  a  fixture  in  the  family.  A  friend  one  day  told  my 
father  that  parties  were  preparing  to  .bring  habeas  corpus 
proceedings  and  emancipate  Tom.  The  only  thing  my  father 
could  do  was  to  emancipate  him  and  have  him  indenture  his 
time  after  he  was  a  freeman.  This  was  done  as  shown  above 
and  Tom  went  on  faithfully  with  his  work  as  before.  This 
was  neariy  twenty  years  before  I  was  born. 

**The  good  old  faithful  slave  worked  on  the  farm  with 
my  father  for  nearly  twenty-seven  years  after  the  indenture  was 
made,  when  my  father  sickened  and  died.  Tom  then  kept  on 
working  with  my  brother  the  same  as  before. 


( 


146  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  DCDIAXA, 


«*i 


On  settling^  np  the  estate,  it  was  found  that  mj  father 
was  more  in  debt  than  had  been  supposed  and  there  would  be 
but  little  left. 

**A  cousin  of  mj  father  who  lived  in  a  slave  state  where 
he  had  moved  from,  held  a  mort^r^^  on  our  farm.  This 
cousin  was.  a  ^Shylock^  and  demanded  the  last  cent  which 
would  take  everything^,  farm  and  all  at  a  forced  sale.  He« 
however,  made  this  proposition  to  my  mother:  that  if  Tom 
would  go  home  with  him  and  work  for  him  as  long  as  he 
lived,  he  would  release  the  mortgage.  This,  my  mother 
would  not  consent  to  as  Tom  had  less  than  two  years  of  his 
indenture  term  to  put  in  and  he  was  so  faithful  to  the  family 
that  she  would  not  listen  to  such  a  transaction. 

^^Tom  had  learned  the  condition  of  things  as  nothing- 
was  kept  from  him  and  he  had  planned  with  this  cousin  to 
give  his  life  service  for  the  family's  comfort.  He  would  not 
consent  to  anything  but  that  he  must  go  to  save  the  farm 
and  the  family  from  want.  The  agreement  was  made,  the 
mortgage  was  cancelled  and  Tom  went  to  the  home  of  his 
new  master,  now  a  slave  in  fact. 

^'Some  time  after  this  an  uncle  of  my  mother  died  and 
left  her  several  thousand  dollars.  This  made  us  independent 
and  my  mother's  first  thoughts  were  of  Tom.  She  went  to 
hunt  for  him  and  found  him  faithfully  working  away.  She 
went  to  his  master,  told  him  that  she  wanted  to  take  Tom 
back  with  her  and  that  she  was  prepared  to  pay  him  in  full 
for  his  mortgage,  interest  and  trouble.  This  he  refused,  say* 
ing  that  Tom  was  priceless  and  that  no  money  could  buy 
him.  She  tried  in  every  way  to  have  him  agree  to  let  Tom 
go  with  her  but  he  was  obdurate.  Tom  told  her  not  to  mind 
him,  that  there  would  be  but  a  few  more  years  for  him  to 
serve  as  age  was  creeping  on  and  he  would  soon  be  in  another 
country  where  no  trouble  could  come. 

**My  mother  was  a  nervy  woman  and  she  determined  to 
liberate  Tom  if  it  could  be  done.  She  was  advised  to  go  to 
Evansville  and  see  a  lawyer  by  the  name  of  Conrad  Baker* 
My  mother  explained  to  Mr.  Baker  Tom's  situation  and  gave 
him  a  statement  of  the  Evidence  that  could  be  obtained.    She 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA.  147 

also  gRve  him  the  emancipation  and  indenture  papers.  Mr. 
Baker  told  her  there  was  no  doubt  about  Tom  bein^:  legally 
free  and  if  he  could  be  gotten  into  a  free  state  there  would  be 
no  further  need  of  legal  proceedings.  It  was  found  that  this 
could  not  be  done  so  proceedings  were  brought  in  the  county 
where  Tom  was  held  in  slavery,  to  liberate  him.  The  facts 
with  affidavits  to  back  them  up  were  filed  with  the  case.  The 
court,  after  hearing  all  the  evidence,  decided  that  since 
Tom  had  been  given  emancipation  papers  which  made  him 
free  and  since  he  had  indentured  himself  for  thirty  years  and 
had  put  in  over  time  on  that  agreement,  he  was  now  free. 

**Tom  came  back  to  Indiana  with  my  mother  and  lived 
with  our  family  during  the  rest  of  his  life  and  when  he  died 
we  gave  him  a  royal  funeral,  feeling  that  we  had  lost  our  best 
friend  and  one  of  nature's  noblemen." 

After  Colonel  Baker  was  elected  governor  of  Indiana,  the 
author  wrote  him  about  this  case  and  sent  him  a  copy  of  the 
emancipation  and  indenture  papers  with  a  pretty  full  history 
of  the  case.     His  reply  is  here  given  in  full: 

EXECUTIVE  OFFICE. 

Indianapolis,  Ind.,  Sept.  20,  1870. 
Colonel  W.  M.  Cockrum, 
Oakland  City,  Indiana. 

I  am  in  receipt  of  your  letter  together  with  the 
enclosure  of  the  15th  inst.  It  affords  me  great  pleas- 
ure to  say  that  no  case  in  my  whole  practice  as  a 
lawyer  was  so  gratifying  to  me  as  the  liberation  from 
bondage  of  that  true-hearted  old  Nubian,  Tom  Ag- 
new. 

I  well  recollect  the  lady,  Mrs.  Trueman,  who 
was  my  client  in  the  case.  She  was  so  well  pleased 
with  the  good  deed  she  had  been  instrumental  in 
bringing  about  that  she  wanted  to  pay  me  three  or 
four  times  my  rightful  fee. 

Allow  me,  my  dear  Colonel,  to  congratulate  you 
on  the  loving  task  that  you  have  assigned  yourself  of 
perpetuating  the  history  of  the  Pioneer  and  the  thrill- 
ing events  that  occurred  during  that  early  period. 
There  will  never  be  another  time  in  this  country's 
history  when  such  noble,    self-sacrificing  men   and 


148  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 

women  will  live  as  those  who  cleared  the  way  for  the 
g^reat  civilization  that  will  come  to  our  state. 

Very  Truly, 

Conrad  Baker." 

The  author  has  access  to  much  more  data  of  indentures 
made  by  those  having  negroes  in  control  at  an  early  day  in 
Indiana.  That  which  has  already  been  given  is  evidence  to 
the  readers  of  the  way  the  pro-slavery  people  of  Indiana  in- 
tended to  perpetuate  slavery  and  that  the  head  of  the  terri- 
torial government  was  in  sympathy  with  the  slavery  parti- 
sans. When  the  constitution  for  our  state  was  being  framed 
in  1816  the  slavery  clause  was  defeated  by  only  two  votes. 


CHAPTER  VII. 


Settlement  of  Southern  Indiana — The  Cruelty  of  the 
French. 


During-  all  the  time  from  1790  except  the  last  part  of  the 
year  1794  and  1795  up  to  several  years  after  the  formation  of 
Indiana  Territory  in  1800,  the  country  now  known  as  south- 
ern Indiana  was  completely  at  the  mercy  of  the  Indians,  ex- 
cept a  mile  or  so  outside  the  fort  of  Vincennes,  not  much  be- 
yond the  range  of  the  guns  of  the  few  regulars  stationed  at 
that  post.  The  great  victory  won  by  General  Wayne  over 
the  Indians  in  1794  on  the  waters  of  the  Maumee  had  a  very 
pacific  effect  on  all  the  Indians  of  the  Northwest  Territory 
for  a  year  or  so,  as  nearly  every  section  of  that  vast  country 
had  bands  of  young  hunters  in  that  battle;  but  there  were 
bands  of  roving  Indians  who  were  always  watching  for  the 
white  people  coming  to  settle  in  this  part  of  the  country. 
The  Indians  were  on  or  near  the  lines  leading  from  their 
towns  on  White  river  to  the  Ohio  river  most  of  the  time  in 
spring,  summer  and  fall  months. 

It  is  frequently  asked  why  all  southern  Indiana  was  so 
completely  under  the  control  of  the  savage  bands  of  Indians 
at  the  close  of  the  eighteenth  century  when  there  had  been  a 
post  at  Vincennes  for  sixty-five  years  and  a  fort  with  French 
regulars  was  there  as  early  as  1702.  It  seems  that  the  French 
people  at  that  time  who  were  as  jealous  of  the  settlement  of 
the  country  by  other  people  than  their  own,  as  were  the  In- 
dians and  that  they  were  either  trappers  or  buyers  of  furs 
and  did  not  want  this  country  settled  as  it  would  do  away 
with  their  vocation. 


150  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 

There  was  no  part  of  Indiana  that  was  not  owned  by  the 
Indians  until  1803  except  the  strip  ceded  at  Greenville  in 
1795  when  General  Wayne  held  a  treaty  with  many  tribes  of 
Indians.  The  land  ceded  by  that  treaty  commenced  at  Ft. 
Recovery  on  the  west  line  of  what  afterward  became  the  state 
of  Ohio  running  thence  in  a  southerly  direction  to  the  Ohio 
river  opposite  the  mouth  of  the  Kentucky  river.  This  line 
was  made  thinking  that  the  Ohio  state  line  would  come  to 
that  point  instead  of  the  mouth  of  the  Miami  river.  The 
treaty  made  in  1803  was  a  part  of  the  Vincennes  tract  includ- 
ing quite  a  section  of  territory  in  the  Illinois  country,  west 
of  the  Wabash  river. 

The  territory  obtained  by  the  treaty  of  1804  commenced 
on  the  Wabash  river  at  the  south  line  of  the  Vincennes  tract, 
running  thence  down  that  river  to  its  mouth,  thence  up  the 
Ohio  river  to  Louisville;  west  from  that  point  until  that'  line 
intersected  the  line  of  the  Vincennes  tract,  thence  around  that 
line  on  the  south  side  to  the  place  of  starting.  This  last 
treatv  gave  to  the  United  States  all  of  southwestern  Indiana 
and  at  once  settlers  commenced  to  come  into  that  territory. 
Before  that  period  they  had  been  warned  to  keep  off  the  In- 
dians' land  both  by  the  Indians  and  the  commanders  govern- 
ing the  Northwest  and  Indiana  Territories.  Many  persons 
who  had  started  from  Virginia,  Tennessee  and  the  Carolinas, 
intending  to  settle  in  the  Northwest  Territory,  had  stopped 
in  Kentucky  all  along  the  southern  bank  of  the  Ohio  near  the 
river  and  were  only  wating  for  an  opportunity,  when  the 
United  States  had  possession  of  the  property  to  emigrate  into 
that  country.  During  the  years  1805  and  1806  there  was  a 
large  emigration  settled  in  many  parts  of  southern  Indiana. 

The  French  were  as  relentless  in  their  cruelty  to  the  peo- 
ple of  the  colonies  before  they  were  defeated  by  the  colonial 
and  British  troops  as  were  the  Indians.  It  is  true  that  when 
General  Greorge  Rogers  Clark  captured  Kaska&kia,  Cahokia 
and  Vincennes  in  1779  the  French  in  these  places  were 
the  Americans'  friends  but  the  reason  for  this  was  that  the 
French  had  been  badly  beaten  .by  the  colonial  and  English 
troops  while  the  colonies  were  controlled  by  the  English,  los- 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA.  151 

ing  their  princely  possession,  Canada,  and  the  Northwest 
T^erritory  and  they  were  ready  to  befriend  and  help  anyone 
who  was  against  the  British. 

The  former  history  of  the  French  when  they  were  the  rul- 
ing power  ifi  all  the  cbuntry  west  of  the  Allegheny  mountains 
and  north  of  the  Ohio  river  was  full  of  bloody  massacres  in 
•connection  with  their  Indian  allies,  in  some  cases  the  French 
being  more  brutal  and  cruel  in  their  treatment  of  the  helpless 
people  on  the  border  settlements  who  fell  into  their  hands 
than  the  Indians. 

In  the  massacre  at  Fort  William  Henry  in  1757  by  the 
French  and  their  Indian  allies,  under  Montcalm,  the  French 
outnumbered  the  Indians  five  to  one.  The  Indians  indiscrim- 
inately murdered  the  men  and  carried  the  women  and  children 
into  captivity,  not  one  of  them  ever  returning  to  their  homes. 
.  When  Captain  Beaujeau  at  Fort  Duquesne  with  four  hun- 
dred Indians  and  thirty  Canadians  won  a  complete  victory 
over  Braddock,' these  savages  with  their  tomahawks  killed 
the  wounded  and  scalped  them  without  protest.  When  they 
returned  to  the  fort  at  night  they  were  all  loaded  down  with 
plunder  and  scalps  and  had  fifteen  prisoners  with  them  who 
they  stripped  of  their  clothing  and  burned  to  death  on  the 
parade  ground  of  the  fort  where  their  brutality  was  wit- 
nessed by  one  thousand  regular  Frencn  soldiers  without  a 
protest  by  any  Frenchman.  (Narrated  by  Colonel  John  Smith 
who  was  a  prisoner  at  the  fort  at  that  time.) 

Again  the  French  and  Indians  went  from  Montreal,  Can- 
ada, in  the  depths  of  winter  to  Schenectady,  New  York,  cap- 
tured the  town,  killing  all  the  men  and  carrying  the  women 
into  captivity  to  a  fate  worse  than  death.  This  was  very 
early  in  our  country's  history  and  is  reproduced  here  to  show 
that  the  savage  acts  of  the  French  were  not  confined  to  a 
later  period  when  the  English  had  given  them  provocation, 

Lafayette  was  a  brave,  generous  Frenchman  who,  of  his 
own  volition,  espoused  the  cause  of  the  United  States  against 
Great  Britain.  He  was  actuated  by  no  hope  of  reward  except 
the  glory  that  would  accrue  to  him  if  successful  and  though 
a  very  young  man  he  had  foreknowledge  that  was  valuable 


\ 


152  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 

to  him.     This  country  gave  him  princely  presents  and  loaded 
him  with  all  the  honors  due  to  his  heroic  actions. 

The  alliance  with  France  during:  our  war  for  independ- 
ence was  brought  about  by  our  commissioners,  mostly  through 
the  influence  that  Dr.  Franklin  had  with  the  men  of  letters 
in  France  and  through  his  great  influence  with  the  good- 
natured  king,  Louis  XVI.  To  the  United  States  it  was  a  great 
blessing  in  time  of  need  and  to  France  it  was  a  great  blessing 
to  transfer  her  maritime  war  with  England  into  the  waters 
of  her  ally.  The  loans  negotiated  by  Colonel  John  Laurans 
and  others  were  all  paid  with  a  good  premium  and  no  doubt 
the  French  people  expected  that  the  United  States  would 
stand  by  her  in  any  quarrel  she  might  have  with  other  na- 
tions. In  1793  when  she  was  at  war  with  Spain,  M.  Grenet, 
the  French  minister  to  this  country,  tried  to  enlist  men  in 
Kentucky  and  elsewhere  to  capture  Louisiana  and  after  he 
had  been  recalled  and  Mr.  Fauchit  was  sent  as  minister  the 
French  tried  to  involve  us  in  her  many  wars  with  European 
nations  and  when  she  found  that  she  could  not  do  that,  cap- 
tured and  confiscated  some  of  our  best  merchant  vessels. 
When  our  commissioners  attempted  to  adjust  the  matter, 
France  demanded  tribute  money  for  some  trumped  up  claim 
and  only  released  our  ships  when  Commodore  Truxton  had 
captured  two  of  her  best  war  vessels. 

The  United  States  owes  nothing  to  England  or  France 
for  when  either  of  them  had  a  chance  with  their  Indian 
allies  in  front,  they  committed  deeds  of  cruelty  that  will  ever 
blacken  the  pages  of  history. 


CHAPTER  VIII. 


The  Pioneer — Character — Hardships — Routes  Follow- 
ed —  Settlements  —  Food  —  Education  —  Customs  — 
Thrilling  and  Amusing  Incidents — Weddings — Work 
— Dress — Crude  Manufactures. 


The  close  of  the  Revolutionary  War  in  1783  was  an  epoch 
in  this  country's  onward  march  to  the  great  destiny  laid  out 
for  it  by  the  Maker  and  Ruler  of  the  Universe.  The  old  he- 
roic soldiers  came  out  of  that  protracted  strufi:g:le,  buoyant 
and  hopeful,  exulting^ly  proud  of  the  achievements  that  they 
had  been  instrumental  in  bringing:  about.  They  were  rich  in 
deeds  of  valor  and  patriotism  but  very  poor  in  stores  of  wealth. 
The  country  for  seven  long  years  had  been  over-run  by  con- 
tending armies  almost  from  end  to  end  and  had  been  devas- 
tated by  fire  and  sword  of  a  ruthless  and  cruel  enemy. 
T^either  age  nor  sect  was  exempt  from  their  merciless  brutal- 
ity. The  gloating  and  boasting  English  were  cruel  and  their 
two  allies,  the  detested  Tories  and  the  barbarous,  savage  In- 
dians, committed  every  atrocious  act  of  cruelty  that  a  brutal 
foe  could  invent.  In  many  cases  the  families,  homes,  towns 
and  neighborhoods  were  broken  up,  the  property  destroyed 
and  the  people  murdered  or  scattered  to  the  four  winds. 

When  the  excitement  attending  the  momentous  events 
had,  in  a  measure,  subsided,  there  were  hundreds  of  the  old 
heroes  who  had  fought  with  Washington,  Lafayette,  Putnam, 
Green,  Sumpter,  Servier  and  Marion  who  found  themselves 
without  any  property  or  occupation  and  no  prospect  of  better- 
ing their  conditions.     There  was  no  money  but  the  worthless. 


154  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 

continental  script.  The  gold  and  silver  had  all  been  sent  to 
France  and  Spain  for  arms  and  munitions  of  war.  Many  of 
these  old  heroes  were  maimed  by  wounds,  still  more  of  them 
broken  down  by  diseases  that  came  to  them  by  the  severe 
trials  and  privations  of  the  long  struggle  for  liberty. 

Most  of  the  above  two  classes  were  unable  to  do  anything 
and  could  but  remain  in  the  section  of  their  former  homes; 
but  the  strong  and  hardy  veterans,  by  hundreds  determined 
to  better  their  condition  if  possible.  The  fame  of  Daniel 
Boone  was  known  to  them  and  glowing  descriptions  of  the 
rich  country  west  of  the  mountains  on  both  sides  of  the  Ohio 
river  were  told  them  by  hunters  and  trappers  and  by  the  re- 
turning soldiers  who  had  been  in  the  campaign  of  Greneral 
Gteorge  Rogers  Clark  when  he  saved,  to  the  then  enfeebled 
American  republic,  the  princely  heritage  of  the  Northwest 
Territory. 

There  was  a  great  uprising  of  the  people  on  the  borders 
of  the  colonies  nearest  the  much-talked-of  country  west  of  the 
mountains,  preparing  to  emigrate  to  new  homes.  They 
started  in  every  conceivable  manner;  some  on  horseback; 
others  in  two-wheeled  carts  and  still  others  in  wooden-wheeled 
wagons  drawn  by  oxen,  probably  one-half  of  them  with  their 
rifles  and  axes,  a  small  bundle  of  clothing  and  with  their 
young  wives,  on  foot.  These  emigrants  settled  and  made 
their  homes  in  Tennessee  and  Kentucky,  many  of  them  around 
the  Ohio  Falls  and  up  the  Ohio  from  there. 

The  Indians  were  at  war  with  any  who  attempted  to  in- 
vade what  they  termed  their  country  which  meant  all  the 
region  west  of  the  Alleghany  Mountains.  From  the  time  of 
Daniel  Boone's  first  advent  into  the  wilds  of  Kentucky  in  1769 
the  Indians  waged  a  relentless  war  to  drive  him  and  his  fol- 
lowers back  from  their  favorite  hunting  grounds.  During  the 
next  fifteen  years  many  of  these  adventurers  were  killed  but 
the  Indians  suffered  as  well. 

About  1785  the  old  heroes  of  the  Revolution  commenced 
to  arrive  in  large  numbers  and  made  extensive  settlements  in 
many  sections  of  the  country  south  of  the  Ohio  and  north  of 
the  Tennessee  rivers.     The  Indians  became  still  more  deter- 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA.  ISS 

mined  to  stop  this  advance  and  during  the  next  twenty  years 
many  of  the  old  pioneers  were  killed,  but  the  Indians  suffered 
more  and  finally  were  driven  north  of  the  Ohio  river.  After 
that  raiding  bands  of  Indians  occasionally  crossed  the  Ohio 
and  murdered  people  in  the  outlying  settlements  of  Kentucky. 
The  whites  would  organize  counter  raids  and  invade  the  wil- 
derness of  the  Northwest  Territory  and  punish  the  Indians, 
at  times  killing  large  numbers  of  them  and  destroying  their 
towns  and  cornfields. 

As  the  Kentuckians  settled  up  near  the  south  bank  of  the 
Ohio  river,  the  Indians  moved  back  farther  north,  the  White 
river  becoming  the  southern  line  of  their  principal  settle- 
ments, leaving  a  territory  from  thirty  to  forty  miles  between 
the  Indians  and  the  whites  from  the  Wabash  on  the  west  to 
the  Miami  on  the  east.  There  were  a  few  small  scattering 
Indian  towns  in  the  wilderness  between  the  two  main  lines. 
The  men  who  had  fought  at  King's  Mountain  and  all  over  the 
thirteen  colonies  to  wrest  this  country  from  the  tyrannical 
yoke  of  England  were  not  made  out  of  the  sort  of  material 
that  would  tamely  sit  down  and  let  a  race  of  half-naked  In- 
dians say  that  they  might  come  thus  far  and  no  farther. 
Boldly  they  crossed  the  Ohio  or  floated  down  its  waters  in 
boats  to  locate  in  the  fertile  wilderness  of  Indiana. 

The  pioneers  met  with  a  determined  opposition  from  the 
dusky  denizens  of  the  forest  in  their  attempts  to  locate  in 
new  homes;  This  was  about  one  or  two  years  before  Harri- 
son had  succeeded  in  making  treaties  with  the  Indians  where- 
by he  secured  all  southern  Indiana  as  far  as  Louisville  and 
many  of  these  emigrants  were  killed  and  others  had  to  re- 
cross  the  river.  Those  that  remained  were  besieged  almost 
every  day  by  the  Indians  that  were  lying  in  ambush,  watch- 
ing for  an  opportunity  to  shoot  the  trespassers  as  they  con- 
sidered the  emigrants.  They,  had  to  build  strong  forts  in 
every  section  where  they  attempted  to  form  settlements  and 
were  compelled  most  of  the  time  to  remain  within  the  walls 
of  these  stockades  that  surrounded  the  blockhouses,  all  the 
time  keeping  a  lookout  for  their  sly  enemy.  In  many  cases 
they  suffered  for  the  want  of  food,  not  daring  to  go  into  the 


156  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 

forest  for  g-ame  when  there  was  such  an  abundance  on  every 
hand.  In  some  sections  the  only  respite  the  people  had  from 
their  forced  imprisonment  was  when  cold  weather  came  in 
early  winter.  The  Indians  dreaded  the  cold  and  the  snow 
and  during  such  seasons  they  were  mostly  in  their  towns  and 
in  their  wigwams. 

When  the  pioneers  found  that  the  Indians  were  gone 
they  would  kill  buffalo,  bear,  deer  and  turkeys,  curing  the 
buffalo  and  venizen  meat  by  drying  it  and  making  bacon  out 
of  the  bear  meat,  storing  away  large  quantities  of  it  in  the 
blockhouses  to  have  when  the  weather  became  warm  and  the 
Indians  were  again  on  the  watch  for  an  opportunity  to  des* 
troy  them.  These  men  had  come  with  a  determination  to 
stay  and  make  a  home  for  themselves  and  families.  They 
took  every  precaution  for  protection  against  the  Indians  and 
they  endured  the  most  trying  privations  to  succeed.  More 
people  came,  thus  making  the  settlement  stronger  and  soon 
small  patches  were  cleared.  Ofien  one  man  was  concealed 
and  on  the  watch  with  his  rifle  while  another  cleared  a  small 
field  that  was  put  in  corn  and  vegetables  and  this  was  culii- 
vated  in  the  best  way  they  could.  There  was  great  privation 
endured  by  these  brave  people  who  for  weeks  at  a  time  had 
nothing  to  eat  but  lean,  jerked  meat  of  the  deer  and  buffalo 
and  a,  few  kernels  of  nuts  and  acorns.  When  the  corn  was 
ripe  enough  to  be  used  for  food  there  was  great  comfort  in 
store  for  those  who  had  become  surfeited  by  eating  nothing 
but  meat. 

The  emigrants  who  settled  in  Indiana  at  an  early  date 
came  over  the  traces  made  by  the  Indians.  One  of  these 
routes  was  by  the  way  of  Red  Banks,  where  Henderson,  Ken* 
tucky,  now  is;  thence  to  the  north  through  Vanderburg 
county,  on  through  Gibson  county  to  Vincennes.  Most  of 
these  emigrants  who  made  their  homes  in  northern  Vander-- 
burg  county  and  western  Gibson  county,  came  over  that  route- 
There  was  another  crossing  of  the  Ohio  at  the  Yellow  Banks, 
where  Rockport,  in  Spencer  county,  stands.  This  route  ran 
to  the  north  through  Spencer,  Warrick  and  Pike  counties  to 
the  old  Delaware  town  at  the  forks  of  the  White  river  and 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA.  157 

there  was  another  crossing*  at  the  mouth  of  Blue  river.  The 
-emigrants  who  came  over  this  route  settled  mostly  in  Harri- 
:son  and  Washington  counties. 

The  old  trace  that  crossed  the  Ohio  river  at  Louisville, 
Ky.,  known  to  the  white  people  as  the  Clarksville  and  Vin- 
•cennes  trace,  that  had  been  a  main  traveled  way  from  time 
immemorial,  was  the  most  favored  route  and  two-thirds  of  all 
the  early  settlers  who  came  to  southern  Indiana,  west  of 
XK)uisville,  came  over  that  route.  The  settlers  east  of  Louis- 
ville on  the  Ohio  river  or  in  the  country  adjacent  to  it,  came 
■down  the  Ohio  in  boats  from  Pennsylvania  and  Virginia.  At 
the  treaty  of  Greenville  made  with  the  Indians  in  1795  by 
General  Wayne  a  small  strip  was  ceded  in  which  parts  of  sev- 
eral of  the  eastern  counties  of  Indiana  were  situated.  Many 
of  the  soldiers  who  were  stationed  at  Ft.  Washington  (Cin- 
cinnati) as  their  terms  of  enlistment  expired  settled  aroCind 
that  fort,  out  lo  the  Miami  river  and  up  that  river  on  both 
sides. 

There  was  a  settlement  made  in  1805  near  the  spot  where 
the  cit)"  of  Richmond  now  stands.  Richard  Rue  and  George 
Holeman  were  captured  south  of  Louisville,  Kentucky,  by  the 
infamous  Simon  Girt3%  who  was  in  command  of  a  small  band 
of  Indians.  During  a  time  of  their  imprisonment  they  had 
seen  the  rich,  fertile  regions  oi  the  Whiie  Water  country  and 
as  soon  as  they  were  released  they  went  home  and  in  a 
short  time,  with  some  of  their  neighbors,  made  the  first  set- 
tlement in  that  section  of  the  state.  At  an  early  date  there 
was  a  settlement  at  Armstrong  Station  on  the  Ohio  river  in 
Clark  county. 

The  pioneers  who  first  came  to  Indiana  could  not  have 
remained  for  any  length  of  time  had  it  not  been  for  the  game 
which  was  so  abundant  on  every  hand.  They  often,  for  weeks 
at  a  time,  had  no  other  food  than  the  bear,  deer  and  turkey 
meat.  They  used  every  sort  of  substitute  for  bread,  often 
roasting  the  white-oak  acorns  and  eating  them  in  the  place 
of  bread  with  their  meat.  They  would  gather  the  seeds  of 
the  wild  rice  and  wild  barley  and  mix  it  with  the  roasted 
acorn,  pounding  it  all  up  together,  making  ash  cakes  of  the 


L^ 


158  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 

meal  thus  obtained.  On  such  food  as  this  with  a  bountiful 
supply  of.  meat,  the  old  pioneers  and  their  families  subsisted, 
but  as  soon  as  they  could  raise  a  patch  of  corn  all  this  was 
done  away  with  and  the  meal  made  from  the  com  with 
beetles,  seasoned  with  the  rich  bear  grease  and  made  into 
bread  was  used,  and  these  hardy  people  prospered  and  grew 
fat  on  it.  They  were  perfectly  healthy  and  the  children 
raised  in  this  way  made  the  strongest  men  and  women.  Dys- 
pepsia and  kindred  stomach  troubles  were  not  known.  There 
was  but  little  opportunity  of  obtaining  an  education  yet  they 
were  students  of  nature  and  every  day  learned  useful  lessons 
that  stood  them  in  need  for  self-protection  and  the  protection 
of  their  families. 

In  a  few  years  after  the  first  settlers  came  there  were,  in 
most  cases^  those  about  the  forts  or  blockhouses  who  could 
teach  the  young  people  the  first  principles  of  education  and 
in  after  years  these  people  improved  the  information  thus 
gained  by  reading  the  few  books  that  were  in  the  country  and 
many  of  them  became  learned  in  all  things  needed  at  that 
time.  The  young  people  were  married  at  a  much  earlier 
X  period  in  life  than  the  young  people  of  this  day.     A  boy  at 

that  time,  sixteen  or  seventeen  years  old  was  counted  on  to  do 
a  man's  work  and  to  do  his  part  in  hunting  or  in  scouting  for 
Indians.  The  six  or  eight  years  now  taken  to  secure  an 
education  b)^  our  young  people  to  prepare  them  to  be  co  npeient 
to  do  their  part  in  ihe  great  battle  of  life  was  spent  by  lH  i* 
grand  and  great-grand-fathers  and  mothers  preparin^^  il  i> 
country  so  that  such  great  aitainmenis  could  be  s«. cured  by  the 
present  generation.  The  difficulties  in  commencing  housekeep- 
ing then  were  not  so  great  as  now.  They  did  not  have  to  wait 
until  they  had  saved  raone)'  enough  to  build  a  fine  house  and 
furnish  it  with  the  luxuries  of  life  before  they  4;ot  mar- 
ried, thus  spending  eight  or  ten  years  of  the  best  poruo  i  of 
their  lives  and  often  failing  in  their  expectations.  They 
were  contented  to  commence  life  as  their  mothers  and  fathers 
had  before  them  with  nothing  but  what  they  could  manufac- 
ture and  devise  from  the  cabin  down  to  all  their  furniture 
and  dress.     Instead  of  spending  their  time  lamenting  their 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA.  159 

sad  fortune,  they  were  happy  in  their  love  for  each  other  and 
for  the  great  blessing^  of  perfect  health  which  they  enjoyed. 

The  possessions  of  these  people  worried  them  not  at  all 
for  neither  of  them  had  anything^  but  a  ^mall  wardrobe  of 
common,  warm  clothes.  They  had  the  great  book  of  nature 
before  them  and  were  happy  studying  its  changing  scenes. 
Neither  did  they  worry  about  dressmakers*  for  they  all  make 
their  own  clothing  from  shoe  pacs  and  moccasins  to  the  hats 
or  bonnets  which  they  wore.  There  was  no  change  of  fash- 
ion to  keep  up  with  and  they  did  not  worry  about  what  this  or 
that  one  had  for  they  all  dressed  alik«  and  employed  their 
time  about  more  useful  things  than  learning  the  different 
styles  of  making  dresses  and  clothing.  They  enjoyed  life  as 
they  found  it  and  loved  the  simple  amusements  that  all  en- 
gaged in  at  that  date.  Many  could  go  on  the  puncheon  floor 
and  dance  for  hours  without  fatigue.  They  -had  free  use  of 
their  bodies,  not  being  encumbered  with  tighi  belts  that  hin- 
dered them  from  breathing  and  did  not  know  what  a  corset 
was,  that  garment  which  at  this  date  holds  the  body  of  its 
victims  as  if  in  the  grip  of  a  vise.  Thus  they  could  use  every 
part  of  their  body  an  freely  as  nature  intended  it  t^  be  used. 
In  raising  their  children  these  hardy  women  furnished  all 
the  food  they  needed  in  infancy  from  iheir  own  breasts,  thus 
laying  the  foundations  for  strong  men  and  women  to  take 
their  places. 

The  clothing  of  the  men  and  boys  was  in  keeping  with 
their  daily  life  and  made  for  the  most  part  of  deer  skins. 
When  this  was  well  dressed  it  made  comfortable  and  service- 
able shins,  leggings  and  coats.  Sometimes  the  women  made 
their  .petticoats  of  this  very  useful  and  serviceable  material. 
The  deer,  elk  and  buffalo  skins  furnished  the  material  from 
which  all  footwear  was  made. 

In  an  early  daj'  there  were  many  scattered  herds  of  buf- 
falo in  all  sections  of  Indiana  but  no  such  innumerable  droves 
as  the  later  hunters  were  used  to  see  on  the  great  western 
prairies.  The  buffalo  skin  was  covered  with  a  shaggy  coat 
of  kinky  wool.  Sometimes  this  was  sheared  and  when  mixed 
with  a  small  portion  of    the   wild   nettle   fibre,    to   give    it 


160  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 

strenth,  it  was  carded  and  spun  the  same  as  sheep's  wool  was. 
Later  on,  from  this  coarse  thread  they  wove  a  cloth  using  the 
nettle  thread  for  chain  that  made  strong  and  comfortable 
clothing.  The  buffalo  hair  was  mixed  with  the  fur  and  hair 
of  other  animals,  usually  the  long  hair  of  the  bear,  then  was 
•carded  and  spun.  They  knit  this  into  warm,  serviceable  stock- 
ings but  without  the  fiber  of  the  nettle  as  it  was  too  short  to 
have  the  needed  strength  to  hold  together. 

In  most  cases  the  first  settlers  were  young  men  just  mar- 
V  ried,  who,  with  their  young  wives,  their  axes  and  their  rifles 
and  such  other  property  as  they  possessed,  came  boldly  into 
this  then  dense  wilderness.  If  they  were  so  fortunate  as  to  find 
any  before  them,  they  would  stop  a  few  days  and  select  a 
place  to  make  their  home.  They  then  cut  the  logs  for  their 
cabin  and  with  the  help  of  their  new  found  friends  would  car- 
ry the  logs  and  put  them  up,  covering  the  cabin  with  boards 
made  with  their  axes  for  frows  and  putting  weight  poles  on 
to  hold  the  boards  in  place.  Cracks  between  the  logs  were 
stopped  by  wedging  in  pieces  of  timber  and  then  filling  it  all 
full  of  mud.  A  hole  of  the  proper  size  was  cut  in  the  side 
for  a  door  and  often  the  only  door  shutter  was  a  bear  skin. 
For  a  fire  place  and  chimney  they  cut  out  three  or  four  logs 
the  width  wanted,  at  the  end  of  the  cabin  and  built  a  three- 
sided  crib  on  the  outside,  joining  it  to  the  building.  Layer 
upon  layer  of  mud  were  then  put  on  the  inside  of  the  crib 
making  the  jambs  and  backwall  as  high  as  needed  to  be  out 
of  danger  of  the  fire,  letting  the  smoke  take  care  of  itself. 

The  floor  and  carpet  were  of  mother  earth.  For  a  bed- 
stead the)' would  drive  a  fork  into  the  ground  far  enough 
from  the  side  and  end  of  the  cabin,  then  put  a  pole  in  the 
fork  and  into  a  crack  between  the  logs  and  another  pole  the 
other  way  from  the  fork  and  to  a  crack  in  the  logs,  thus 
making  the  end  and  side  rails  of  the  bedstead.  After  this  they 
put  other  poles  lengthwa)'s  as  close  as  they  wanted  and  piled 
fine  brush  over  this,  covering  the  brush  with  skins  of  ani- 
mals. At  this  time  the  proverbial  blue  figured  coverlid  made 
by  their  good  mothers  in  their  old  North  or  South  Carolina, 
Tennessee  or  Kentucky  homes  would  come  into  use  with  such 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA.  161 

other  bed  clothing  as  they  were  fortunate  enough  to  have 
brought  with  them.  The  deficiency,  if  any,  was  supplied  by 
bear  and  deer  skins. 

They  made  a  table  in  the  corner  in  the  same  way  as  the 
bed  was  made  only  it  had  for  a  top  thick  boards  made  level 
with  an  axe.  For  seats  the  back  log  was  used  until  it  was 
wanted  for  its  place  to  form  the  back  of  the  fire,  when  its 
mate  was  put  in  and  used  for  a  seat  until  it  was  wanted.  If 
they  were  fortunate  enough  to  own  an  auger,  three-legged 
stools  were  made. 

Many  of  the.  first  settlers  for  a  few  years  lived  in  what  was 
called  in  that  day,  a  half-faced  camp,  made  by  putting  two 
large  forks  in  the  ground  the  proper  distance  from  a  large 
fallen  tree  to  make  a  twelve  or  fourteen  foot  pen  then  putting 
a  pole  from  fork  to  fork  and  other  poles  from  that  one  to  the 
log  as  closely  as  they  were  wanted  and  then  piling  brush  on 
this.  They  then  rolled  logs  up  to  the  two  sides  as  high  as 
they  wanted  them  leaving  the  outer  end  open  usually  facing 
the  south.  Large  fires  were  made  at  this  open  end  during 
cold  weather,  the  occupants  lying  with  their  feet  to  it  and 
their  heads  toward  the  large  log.  Usually  these  camps  were 
made  in  the  dry  season  and  by  the  time  the  rainy  season  came 
on  they  would  have  plenty  of  skins  to  cover  them  and  line 
the  sides,  thus  keeping  the  rain  and  cold  out  and  drying  the 
skins  at  the  same  time. 

These  brave  people  did  the  best  they  could  to  have  the 
comforts  of  life  but  they  had  very  little  to  do  with.  There 
was  not  a  nail  in  a  hundred  miles  of  them.  The  settler's 
young  wife,  his  cabin,  rifle,  axe  and  possibly  a  horse  were  all 
his  earthly  possessions,  but  he  was  rich  in  good  health,  de- 
termination and  pluck.  With  his  axe  he  cleared  a  few  acres 
for  corn  and  vegetables,  with  his  rifle  he  could  have  plenty 
of  the  choicest  meats  and  skins  of  bear,  deer,  beaver,  otter 
and  raccoon  to  exchange  for  salt,  ammunition  and  a  few 
necessities  of  life,  when  he  could  get  his  furs  to  market  prob- 
ably seventy-five  miles  away. 

About  what  was  going  on  in  the  outside  world  he  knew 
nothing  and  cared  less  for  he  had  a  world  of  his  own  around 


162  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 

him,  fresh  and  crude  as  nature  could  make  it.  Probably  he 
had  not  more  than  two  neigfhbors  and  they  three  to  five 
miles  away,  the  only  means  of  communication  between  them 
being:  made  on  foot  over  a  path  running:  around  fallen  tree 
tops  and  over  log^s,  a  blaze  made  on  a  tree  or  sapling:  now  and 
then  keeping:  them  in  the  rig:ht  direction.     He  had  severed  j 

all  connection  with  his  old  home  and  the  outside  world  bid- 
ding: adieu  to  mother  and  friends  and  to  the  early  associa- 
tions that  are  so  dear  to  all.  With  all  this  sacrifice  he  was 
happy  and  contented  and  determined  to  face  the  g:reat 
battle  of  life  and  to  win.  Nature's  volumes  were  ever  open 
before  him  and  he  studied  well,  learning:  the  thing:s  need- 
ful for  his  protection.  He  was  threatened  with  dang:er  from 
the  lurking:  savag:es  who  ever  watched  for  an  opportunity  to 
destroy  him  and  his  home  and  in  many  cases  did  kill  and 
capture  the  whole  family,  but  still  others  came  to  fill  their 
places. 

When  two  or  three  had  settled  in  the  same  place  .they 
built  forts  and  in  dang:erous  times  moved  iheir  families  into 
them  remaining:  there  much  of  the  time  during:  the  summer 
and  fall  months.  While  the  women  were  ihere  their  hus- 
bands and  fathers  were  in  the  wilderness  watching:  the  slip- 
ping: enemy,  sometimes  killing:  one  and  ag:ain  several  of  them. 
It  g:ot  so  that  the  Indians  dreaded  them  and  came  less  fre- 
quently. The  pioneers  determined  to  drive  them  away  so 
that  the  dang:er  to  their  families  would  ce.ise.  Finally  they 
hunted  the  Indians  in  bands  and  in  many  battles  defeated 
them.  They  met  them  on  their  own  g:rounds,  defeating:  and 
driving:  them  out  of  this  reg:ioii  and  on  the  rains  of  their  sav- 
ag:e  wig:wams  this  beautiful  country  has  been  made. 

Sebastian   Fredrick   Mjrdered    B/  Indians  Near    Vin- 

CENNES. 

Some  years  ag:o  Hon.  Jasper  N.  Davidson  related  to  the 
author  the  following:  interesting:  story.  I  asked  him  to  write 
it  for  this  work  which  he  has  kindly  done. 

**There  are  many  thing:s  in  connection  with  the  early  his- 
tory of  Indiana  that   doubtless  never  will  be  written.     The 


\ 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA.  163 

early  settlers  were  surrounded  by  such  thrilling  occurrences, 
attacks  by  prowling  bands  of  Indians  and  savage  wild  beasts, 
lacking  the  necessities  of  life  and  wanting  the  neighboring 
enjoyments  and  communications,  that  much  suffering  as  well 
as  inconveniences  resulted  from  these  things.  The  innate 
desire  to  possess  a  home  of  their  own,  coupled  with  the  love 
of  freedom  and  religious  liberty,  led  them  to  plunge  into  the 
almost  impenetrable  wilderness,  surmounting  all  obstacles,  en- 
during privation  hunger  and  want  in  a  way  and  to  an  extent 
that  no  other  people  have  ever  done. 

'*No  history,  either  sacred  or  profane,  contains  accounts  of 
a  people  who  endured  more  or  underwent  greater  hardships 
or  overcame  such  opposition  with  greater  deeds  of  daring 
than  the  early  settlers.  Knowing  ihese  things  and  with  a 
fixed  and  steadfast  belief  in  the  Guiding  Hand  of  the  Great 
Dispenser  or  all  things,  we  have  a  right  to  believe  that  the 
discovery  and  peopling  of  this  God-favored  land  was  provi- 
dentially delayed  until  such  time  as  a  people  should  rise  up 
who  could  be  trusted  with  the  marvelous  duties  of  occupying, 
peopling,  redeeming  and  governing  the  fairest  and  best 
country  on  the  globe. 

**None  were  more  fitted  for  this  task  than  those  who  set- 
tied  Indiana  Territory.  Just  before  the  close  of  the  eight- 
eenth century  the  few  American  settlers  who  were  located 
near  Vincennes  were  driven  to  the  forts  in  and  around  the  Old 
Post  as  Vincennes  was  then  called.  The  writer  has  with  great 
interest  listened  many  times  to  the  accounts  of  those  times 
given  by  my  grandmother.  Her  father,  who  was  named 
Sebastian  Fredrick  had  come  down  from  Pennsylvania  with 
the  very  earliest  immigrants.  The  family  consisted  of  sev- 
eral sons  and  one  daughter,  grandmother.  She  told  of  the 
efforts  of  the  heads  of  the  families  in  their  endeavors  to  pro- 
vide for  their  own;  of  how  her  father  with  his  sons  and  an- 
other man  went  about  six  miles  southeast  into  the  sugar 
woods  and  prepared  to  make  sugar.  After  everything  was 
in  readiness  the  season  came  on,  sap  flowed  in  abundance  and 
success  seemed  to  reward  their  efforts.  When  the  prowling 
bands  of  Indians  learned  of  the  location  of  the  camp  their 


164  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 

visits  were  of  dailj^  occurence  and  each  of  the  bucks,  after 
eating  all  they  could  of  the  warm  sug^ar,  must  have  a  gener- 
ous cake  or  two  to  carry  awa}'  with  them.  This  became  so 
common  and  proved  so  heav}^  a  tax  on  the  supply  that  the 
men  objected  to  the  amount  carried  off  and  they  went  away 
muttering  in  their  own  tongue. 

"In  a  few  days  these  men  were  sent  to  the  fort  for  pro- 
visions and  to  carry  in  the  sugar  already  made.  They  left 
greai-grandfather  Fredrick  in  charge  of  the  camp  and  to 
keep  the  kettles  going.  Early  in  the  night  the  savages  who 
had  become  offended  by  reason  of  not  getting  all  the  sugar 
they  wanted,  finding  grandfather  there  alone,  attacked  him. 
Evidences  next  morning  when  the  sons  returned  from  the 
fort,  showed  that  a  desperate  encounter  had  taken  place,  as 
the  bodies  of  two  dead  Indians  and  the  body  of  my  grand- 
father with  a  tomahawk  sunken  in  his  skull,  were  found. 
The  tapping  gouge  had  been  driven  repeatedly  into  his  body 
around  his  neck  and  left  sticking  in  the  gash  as  driven  in  by 
the  murderous  wretches.  There  was  every  evidence  of  a  des- 
perate fight  and  horrible  as  the  results  were  there  had  been 
enough  of  them  left  to  sugar  off  all  the  syrup  on  hand  and 
carry  away  all  they  had  made,  together  with  grandfather's 
scalp,  gun  and  all  tools. 

'*The  faithful  dog,  a  large  mastiff,  lying  dead  near  the 
body  of  his  master  had  been  a  valiant  helper  in  the  fray  as 
long  as  life  lasted.  A  large  piece  of  a  buckskin  garment 
still  between  his  teeth  showed  by  the  blood  stains  on  it  that 
his  work  had  not  been  without  results.  The  savages  who 
could  travel  made  their  escape  and  were  not  again  seen  in 
those  parts  as  anyone  knew  of. 

*'My  grandmother  in  a  year  or  two  after  this  had  a  very 
narrow  escape  and  delivery  from  one  of  these  savages  in  the 
following  manner: 

"It  was  the  custom  at  the  fort  for  each  family  or  some 
member  of  it  to  bear  a  reasonable  part  of  the  burdens  of  pro- 
viding wood  and  other  necessary  supplies  for  the  general 
want.  Grandraothdf,  at  that  time,  being  a  young  widow 
(named  Glass)  with  two  small  boys  too  young  to  be  of  any 


I 


I 

\ 


PIONEER  HISTORY'  OF  INDIANA.  165 

service,  was  in  need  of  wood.  There  being:  none  nearer  than 
two  or  three  miles  (as  Vincennes  is  located  in  a  large  prairie) 
she  had  secured  the  use  of  a  horse  and  small  one-horse  cart 
or  wagon  and  as  women  in  those  days,  and  for  many  years 
after  this,  were  accustomed  to  the  use  of  the  axe,  she  repair- 
ed to  the  woods  alone  for  the  purpose  of  gathering-  and  bring- 
ing in  a  load  of  wood.  While  at  work  she  heard  a  "click- 
click"  as  if  some  one  were  trying  to  fire  a  piece  of  **punk'* 
with  a  pocket-knife  or  a  piece  of  steel  and  a  flint  which  was 
then  and  until  much  later,  the  only  mode  of  making  a  fire^ 
Now  and  then  the  same  sound  would  greet  her  ears  but  being 
very  busy  and  intent  upon  getting  her  load  of  wood,  to  re- 
turn to  the  fort,  paying  but  little  attention  to  the  noise* 
Presently  a  gun  fired  some  distance  from  her  and  soon  one  of 
her  acquaintances  from  the  fort  came  to  her  and  threw  a 
fresh  Indian  scalp  at  her  feet  with  the  remark  'See  Mrs* 
Glass  how  near  you  came  to  losing  your  life.'  She  accom- 
panied him  some  distance  in  the  thick  woods  to  a  large 
sassafras  stump  around  which  sprouts  had  grown  up  thickly 
enough  to  completely  hide  a  man.  Here  the  Indian  had  hid- 
den and  tried  to  shoot  grandmother  but  the  flint  lock  gun 
would  not  go  off  thus  giving  the  white  man  an  opportunity 
to  spy  him  out  and  with  a  well-directed  shot  bring  him  down. 
The  **click-click"  she  had  heard  and  which  led  .the  white 
man  to  the  spot  in  time  to  save  grandmother's  life  was  the 
failure  of  the  flint  on  the  Indian's  gun  to  strike  fire." 

These  reminiscences  of  the  daily  lives  of  our  ancestors 
make  us  realize  clearly  how  they  were  constantly  exposed  to 
the  attacks  of  the  stealthy,  prowUng  Indian. 

God  never  gave  life  to  a  truer  and  nobler  set  of  men  and 
women  than  those  who  drove  out  the  Indians,  subdued  the 
wild  animals,  cleared  away  the  forests  and  transmitted  life  to 
the  strong  hardy  race  that  now  occupies  this  glorious  country. 

JOHN  SEVERNS. 

The  first  man  to  make  a  permanent  settlement  in  what  is 
now  Gibson  county  was  John  Severns,  a  Welshman  who 
emigrated  to  Virginia  with  his  parents.     At  the  beginning 


I 


166  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 

of  the  Revolutionary  war  he  enlisted  as  a  soldier  and  was  in 
the  army  for  a  while.  Before  his  time  was  out  he  secured  a 
furloug^h  and  visited  his  parents  in  the  wilds  of  West  Virginia 
and  tog^ether  with  all  the  family  was  captured  by  the  Ind- 
ians. His  father,  mother,  a  younger  brother  and  sister  were 
murdered  by  them  while  he  and  his  older  brother  were  held 
as  prisoners  and  taken  back  to  the  Indian  town  somewhere 
on  the  headwaters  of  the  White  River.  Mr.  Severns  claimed 
that  during  the  years  that  he  was  a  prisoner,  many  times  on 
a  hunting  excursion  with  the  Indians  with  whom  he  lived, 
he  had  hunted  over  all  the  land  tributarj'  to  the  White  and 
Wabash  Rivers  and  over  the  same  land  on  which  he  after- 
ward settled. 

After  being  a  prisoner  for  seven  years  he  made  his  escape 
and  soon  afterward  married  and  settled  in  Kentucky  where 
he  lived  for  three  years.  In  1790  he  came  to  this  dense  wild- 
erness and  settled  on  the  south  bank  of  the  Patoka  river,  two 
and  one-half  miles  north  of  Princeton  at  a  point  now  known  as 
Severns'  Bridge.  By  his  knowledge  of  the  Indian  dialect, 
their  manners  and  customs,  he  was  enabled  to  make  friends 
with  them  and  they  permitted  him  to  settle  among  them.  At 
that  time  there  was  a  large  Indian  town  on  the  north  bank 
of  the  Patoka  river,  nearly  opposite  his  home.  Mr.  Severns 
was  a  very  useful  man  to  the  other  settlers  who  came  some 
years  after.  The  Indians  had  the  utmost  confidence  in  him 
and  on  this  account  he  rendered  very  helpful  aid  to  his  white 
neighbors.  His  older  brother,  who  was  captured  with  him, 
was  given  to  another  family  of  Indians  and  taken  away  and 
he  never  saw  him  again.  This  brother  was  adopted  by  a 
prominent  chief  and  later  married  an  Indian  woman.  Many 
years  after  Mr.  Severns  had  settled  in  this  country,  two  of 
his  brother's  sons  visited  him.  They  were  half  breeds  and 
were  dressed  in  the  Indian  costume.  He  tried  to  prevail  on 
them  to  leave  off  their  Indian  costume  ^nd  adopt  that  of  the 
white  man  but  they  refused,  saying  that  their  father  was  dead 
and  they  only  knew  how  to  live  as  their  tribesmen  did  and 
they  would  not  leave  their  friends. 

Mr.  Severns   lived    to   a   good  old   age   and  left  several 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA.  167 

children.  One  of  his  daughters  married  Robert  Falls  and 
from  that  union  there  has  been  a  large  family  of  that  name 
in  this  part  of  the  state  ever  since,  some  of  them  becoming 
very  prominent.  William  Leathers  married  one  of  the 
■daughters  and  many  of  their  descendants  are  in  this  section 

yet. . 

David  Johnson  who  came  to  Gibson  county  in  an  early 
•date,  first  settled  in  the  southern  part  of  the  county  but  in 
1817  located  the  farm  where  he  spent  his  life,  two  miles  north 
of  Francisco.  He  was  a  noted  hunter  and  was  at  one  time 
with  a  hunting  party  of  which  John  Severns  was  one.  On 
that  occasion  the  early  settlement  of  that  section  was  dis- 
cussed. Mr.  Severns  having  been  here  so  many  years  before 
any  other  white  man  was  accepted  as  authority  on  all  such 
subjects.  He  told  the  party  that  in  the  fall  of  the  year  1793 
he  was  with  a  half  dozen  of  his  Indian  neighbors  hunting 
and  that  he  stayed  all  night  at  an  Indian  town  near  the 
forks  of  White  river.  During  the  night  two  white  prisoners 
were  brought  in,  having  been  captured  on  the  Ohio  river. 
Early  next  morning  everything  was  great  excitement;  every- 
one was  in  great  glee  over  the  capture  and  preparations  were 
made  for  the  trial  and  killing  of  the  two  white  men.  First 
two  lines  were  formed  facing  each  other  and  the  two  men 
were  compelled  to  run  the  gauntlet  betweens  the  lines.  A 
point  some  hundred  yards  beyond  the  lines  of  the  gauntlet 
was  designated  as  the  place  that  was  to  be  reached  to  save 
their  lives.  One  of  the  men  was  of  middle  age  but  frail  and 
the  other  was  a  strong  athletic  young  fellow.  The  lines 
were  made  up  of  more  than  one  hundred  Indians,  mostly 
squaws  and  boys,  with  enough  active  men  to  keep  the  prison- 
ers from  getting  away.  The  young  man  was  the  first  to 
make  the  race  and  he  got  through  the  line  and  to  the  life 
station  without  being  much  hurt — only  a  few  scratches  from 
sharp  sticks.  The  older  man  before  he  started,  held  up  his 
hands  and  oflfered  a  prayer  to  Gk>d  for  aid,  then  commenced 
the  race  which  was  not  more  than  half  completed  before  he 
was  knocked  down  by  a  heavy  club  in  the  hands  of  a  squaw 
and  was  set  upon  by  the  horde  of  squaws  and  boys  and  beaten 


168  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 

to  deathi  As  soon  as  he  was  knocked  down  the  young:  man 
who  was  several  hundred  feet  away  ran  like  a  deer  and  jump- 
ed into  the  throng  of  red  devils  and  tried  to  save  his  friend's 
life  but  was  soon  overpowered  and  dragged  away.  For  this 
brave  act  the  chief  of  the  village  adopted  the  young  man  to 
take  the  place  of  a  son  that  he  had  lost.  Mr.  Severns  on  be- 
ing asked  why  he  did  not  intercede  for  the  prisoners  said  that 
if  he  had  attempted  to  interfere  it  would  have  cost  him  his 
life. 

If  it  were  possible  to  draw  the  veil  and  disclose  a  view 
of  the  now  misty  past,  many  thrilling  incidents  would  be 
seen  that  would  melt  the  heart  of  the  stoic  and  the  wail  of 
despair  would  be  heard  from  those  being  tortured  for  no 
other  reason  than  to  gratify  the  hellish  desire  of  the  Indians 
to  destroy.  These  things  took  place  in  this  grand  country 
of  ours  now  inhabited  by  happy,  prosperous  people  but  once 
covered  with  Indians  and  Indian  towns. 

From  1785  to  1812  more  than  two  thousand  men,  women 
and  children  were  carried  into  captivity  from  Kentucky,  and 
the  Northwest  Territory  and  not  one  in  ten  of  them  was 
ever  heard  of  afterward.  No  doubt  two-thirds  of  these  help- 
less victims  were  burned  at  the  stake  by  the  Indians,  they 
having  no  regard  for  age  or  sex,  but  as  joyfully  gloated  over 
the  death  of  the.  helpless  infant  or  its  mother  as  they  did  over 
the  strong  warrior  whom  they  had  captured. 

The  Indian  women  would  employ  all  manner  of  cruel 
torture  to  make  their  helpless  victims  more  miserable. 
When  burning  at  the  stake  they  would  keep  the  fire  so  low 
as  to  burn  them  only  by  slow  degreefe  causing  them  to  sufiFer 
for  many  hours  before  death  would  come  to  their  relief. 

No  doubt  exists  now  that  the  Indians  were  incited  to  do 
many  murders  that  they  would  not  have  done,  by  the  British 
at  Detroit  and  Vincennes.  The  blood-thirsty  Colonel  Hamil- 
ton, the  British  Commander  at  Vincennes  when  the  post  was 
captured  by  General  Clark  in  1779  had  a  standing  reward  for 
scalps  but  no  reward  for  prisoners  so  the  Indians  killed  their 
prisoners  and  took  their  scalps  in.  Also  the  same  demon 
while  in  command  at  Detroit  ordered  the  white  British  sub- 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA.  169^ 

jects  and  the  Indians  to  spare  neither  men,  women  or  child- 
ren but  to  kill  all  and  bring  their  scalps  to  his  post  trader 
and  they  would  be  paid  for  at  a  price  agreed  upon,  depend- 
ing on  the  age  and  sex. 

There  have  been  a  few  instances  where  individual  Ind- 
ians have  shown  that  the  milk  of  human  kindness  was  in 
them  but  as  a  rule  General  Sheridan  was  ringh  when  he  said 
that — ''The  only  good  Indian  are  dead  Indians." 

•      WOOLSEY    PRIDE. 

Tradition  has  it  that  the  first  white  settler  in  what  is 
now  Pike  county  was  Woolsey  Pride.  In  1800  he  built  a 
cabin  near  what  was  known  as  White  Oak  Springs.  During 
the  next  two  or  three  years  the  Tislow,  Miley,  and  Conrad 
families  arrived  and  settled  in  the  same  section,  making  quite 
a  settlement.  Game  of  all  sorts  was  in  abundance  and  Ind- 
ians, were  plenty  but  friendly.  The  great  victory  of  General 
Wayne  over  them  in  1794  had  made  a  great  change  iu  their 
actions  toward  the  few  white  people  who  lived  in  the  differ- 
ent sections  of  the  Northwest  Territory  at  that  time.  There 
were  not  many  outbreaks  until  about  1804  when  all  the  tribes 
in  this  section  came  under  the  influence  of  the  celebrated 
Shawnee  Chief,  Tecmseh,  and  his  brother,  the  one-eyed  pro- 
phet who  was  a  crafty,  smart  rascal  but  a  great  fraud. 

In  1806  or  1807  Pride  built  a  fort  of  heavy  logs,  large 
enough  to  hold  his  family  and  all  his  neighbors  and  built  a 
heavy  stockade  around  it  by  splitting  large  logs  in  the  mid- 
dle and  hewing  the  edges  until  they  were  thick  enough  to 
stop  a  rifle  ball,  then  setting  them  in  a  trench  three  feet 
deep,  leaving  eight  feet  above  the  ground.  The  gates  were 
made  in  the  most  substantial  manner,  the  intention  being  to 
keep  them  closed  at  night  and  all  the  time  when  there  was 
threatened  danger.  One  night  the  gate  had  been  left  un- 
fastened by  some  late  arrival  and  during  the  night  a  very 
fine  horse  belonging  to  Mr.  Pride  got  out  and  the  next  morn- 
ing could  not  be  found.  He  determined  to  make  an  effort  to 
find  it,  although  he  did  not  know  whether  it  had  been  stolen 
bp  some  prowling  Indian  or  had  gone  away  of  its  own  accord. 


J 


170  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 

He  equipped  himself  with  his  halter  and  trusty  rifle  and 
started  to  hunt  the  horse  but  found  it  hard  to  get  any  trace 
of  him.  Late  in  the  afternoon  he  heard  a  g^un  fire  a  long: 
ivay  off  and  determined  to  find  who  the  hunter  was.  He 
-went  in  the  direction  the  sound  came  from  and  after  a  long 
ii^ralk  he  saw  his  horse  standing:  in  the  edg^e  of  a  glade. 
When  he  got  near  the  horse  he  discovered  that  an  Indian  was 
standing  by  it  doing  something  with  a  strap  around  the 
horse's  neck.  Getting  his  gun  in  readiness  he  slipped  up  on 
tne  Indian  whose  gun  he  saw  lying  by  the  carcass  of  a  deer 
some  yards  away.  He  called  the  horse  by  name.  This 
frightened  the  Indian  and  by  his  frantic  gestures  to  show 
Pride  he  was  friendly  the  horse  became  frightened  and  ran 
away,  taking  the  Indian  with  him. 

It  turned  out  that  the  Indian  had  shot  a  deer  and  while 
trailing  it  by  the  blood,  found  the  horse  grazing,  made 
friends  with  him  and  caught  him  and  putting  a  leather  strap 
around  his  neck,  led  him  along  until  he  found  the  dead  deer; 
he  soon  dressed  the  deer  and  had  it  ready  for  loading  on  the 
horse  but  the  small  string  around  the  horse's  neck  was  not 
strong  enough  so  the  Indian  had  cut  strips  of  the  deer's  hide 
and  fastened  them  together  tying  one  end  around  the  horse's 
neck  and  the  other  around  his  arm  to  make  sure  that  he  did 
not  get  away  so  when  the  horse  became  frightened  and  ran 
away  he  took  Mr.  Indian  with  him.  Pride  followed  the  trail 
'  they  made  and  soon  found  them.  The  Indian  had  lodged  in 
a  thick  bunch  of  saplings  and  vines  and  the  horse  was  mak- 
ing frantic  efforts  to  pull  him  through,  and  had  broken  his 
arm,  nearly  pulling  it  out  of  its  socket.  Mr.  Pride  quieted 
the  frightened  animal,  freed  the  Indian  and  did  all  that  he 

> 

could  for  him,  offering  to  take  him  to  his  home  but  as  he 
ivould  not  go  he  left  him  and  never  knew  what  became  of 
him.  The  large  family  ot Prides  in  Daviess,  Pike  and  Gibson 
counties  are  relatives  and  most  of  them  descendants  of  this 
man. 

Jean  LaTure. 
In  the  fall  of  1851  or  1852,  I  went  with  my  father,  in  a 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA.  171 

ivagon  to  Evansville  on  the  Evansville  and  Petersburg  road. 
When  we  reached  a  point  near  where  the  road  g^oes  into  the 
bottoms  of  Smith's  fork  of  Pig^eon  Creek,  something-  went 
wrong  with  the  running  gears  of  our  wagon  and  we  could 
not  go  much  farther  without  having  it  repaired.  We  turned 
south  on  the  road  that  used  to  g^o  to  the  McDaniel  mill  on 
Smith's  fork  and  kept  on  until  we  came  to  the  place  where 
the  road  left  the  bottom  and  up  a  little  hill  to  a  house.  Here 
i«re  found  a  man  who  could  repair  the  wagon,  but  it  would 
require  three  or  four  hours  to  do  it.  While  waiting  father 
made  some  inquiries  about  a  point  not  far  from  where  we 
were  and  I  went  with  him  to  it,  taking  our  dinners  with  us. 
We  were,  as  I  now  remember,  about  one  hundred  yards  from 
Smith's  fork.  While  we  ate  our  dinner  father  related  to  me 
this  strange  and  pathetic  story.  In  the  winter  of  1833-4  he 
loaded  a  flat  boat  with  pork,  venison,  hams  and  poultry  at 
Winslow  and  ran  it  out  of  Patoka  river  en  route  to  New  Or- 
leans. Soon  after  he  got  into  the  Ohio  river,  one  of  his 
principal  darsmen  became  very  ill  so  much  so  that  he  had  to 
leave  him  at  Paducah,  Kentucky  in  charge  of  a  physician  and 
hire  another  man.  This  one  was  an  intelligent,  middle-aged 
man,  dressed  in  a  full  suit  of  buckskin  with  all  the  adorn- 
ments ths^t  the  Indians  wore  and  carrying  the  most  finely 
finished  rifle  father  had  ever  seen.  The  new  man  went  to 
work  and  proved  to  be  a  good  hand  and  was  better  acquainted 
with  the  river  than  any  of  the  crew.  Arriving  id  the  neigh- 
borhood of  Memphis  it  was  learned  from  returning  boatmen 
that  there  wrs  a  better  chance  to  sell  the  load  by  coasting^ 
along:  the  lower  Mississippi  than  by  going  to  New  Orleans. 
At  Vicksburg,  Miss.,  the  crew  were  paid  off,  except  two  who 
were  retained.  One  of  these  was  the  man  hired  at  Paducah, 
^whose  name  was  Jean  LaTure.  They  landed  at  different 
points  on  the  river  and  it  took  about  one  month  to  sell  out  the 
produce  on  the  boat.  During  the  time  they  were  leisurely 
coasting  down  the  river  LaTure  found  out  that  father  was 
from  this  section  of  Indiana  and  related  to  him  this  story. 

He  said  that  his  father  was  with  Lafayette  for  a  while 
during  the  Revolutionary  War  and  afterward  settled  in  Vir- 


172  PIONEER  HISTORY  OP  INDIANA. 

ginia  where  he  married  a  beautiful  French  woman.  He  him- 
self was  born  in  Virg^inia  and  was  about  ten  years  old  when 
his  father  resolved  to  move  to  Kentucky.  After  staying- 
there  about  three  years  he  decided  to  come  to  Indiana  Ter- 
ritory and  to  Vincennes  where  he  learned  he  had  relatives. 
''We  had  two  horses,"  said  La  Ture  '*and  loaded  one  with  our 
plunder,  the  other  was  for  my  mother  and  eight-year-old 
sister  to  ride.  We  started  and  traveled  for  several  days, 
coming  to  green  river.  We  followed  it  to  the  point  where  it 
runs  into  the  Ohio  and  then  could  find  no  way  to  cross  either 
river  so  went  up  the  Ohio  for  seven  or  eight  miles  and  found 
a  family  of  friendly  Indians  who  carried  us  over  in  a  canoe, 
the  horses  swimming.  This  was  in  the  fall  of  1803.  We 
then  traveled  in  a  northerly  direction  for  more  than  a  day 
when  we  came  to  a  large  creek  (Big  Pigeon).  Following 
along  this  creek  we  crossed  one  of  its  forks  (no  doubt  Big 
creek  in  Greer  township,  Warrick  county)  and  continued  for 
several  miles  farther  and  came  to  another  fork  (Smith's 
Fork).  We  did  not  cross  this  but  went  up  the  south  bank 
until  we  found  some  high  land  and  selected  a  place  for  a 
camp,  intending  to  stay  a  few  days  and  rest.  After  being  in 
camp  about  two  days,  nine  or  ten  Indian  hunters  cai^ie  in  pre- 
tending to  be  very  friendly.  We  gave  them  food  which  they 
ate  but  after  finishing  their  meal  they  jumped  up  so  suddenly 
that  we  had  not  time  to  think;  giving  a  loud  yell  one  caught 
me,  another  my  little  sister  and  a  third  attempted  to  hold  my 
mother  but  she  got  hold  of  an  ax  and  in  the  scufHe  struck  the 
blade  into  the  Indian's  thigh,  severing  the  main  artery  from 
which  he  bled  to  death.  Another  Indian  ran  up  back  of  my 
mother  and  killed  her  with  a  club.  My  father  was  killed  at 
the  first  by  two  Indians  with  clubs.  About  half  of  them  took 
the  dead  Indians  away  and  were  gone  for  some  time.  The 
rest  loaded  our  plunder  on  the  horses  and  we  went  away  to 
the  north,  leaving  my  father  and  mother  where  they  fell, 
after  taking  their  scalps.  After  wandering  that  day  and  a 
part  of  the  next  we  came  to  a  big  Indian  town  near  a  river 
which  I  think  now  is  White  river.  Mv  little  sister  was  left 
there  and  I  never  saw  her  afterward.     I  was  taken  to  an  In- 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA.  173 

dian  town  near  Lake  Michigan  and  lived  with  the  Indians 
for  several  )  ears.  I  went  with  a  party  on  a  hunting  expedi- 
tion and  was  gone  several  da3's,  during  which  trip  I  made  my 
escape  and  met  a  party  of  General  Harrison's  soldiers  after 
the  battle  of  Tippecanoe  and  went  with  them  to  Vincennes. 
I  went  through  the  war  of  1812  and  since  then  I  have  hunted 
Indians  and  killed  every  one  that  I  could." 

He  asked  my  father  if  he  thought  he  could  go  with  him 
to  the  place  and  was  told  that  there  was  no  doubt  of  it  as  he 
had  hunted  all  over  that  section.  So  LaTure  came  home 
with  my  father,  who  sent  word  to  Jonas  Mayhall  who  had 
also  hunted  all  over  that  country  with  him,  asking  him  to 
meet  him  on  a  certain  day  at  an  agreed  place  and  go  with 
him  and  LaTure,  which  Mr.  Mayhall  did.  When  they  got 
near  to  the  point  that  was  thought  to  be  the  place  LaTure 
jumped  from  his  horse  and  ran  to  the  point  and  cried  out — 
**Oh!  my  beautiful  mother,  how  I  wish  I  could  have  died  with 
you!"  He  lay  down  on  the  ground  and  cried  as  nis  heart 
would  break.  The  scene  was  too  much  for  the  two  men  and 
they  rode  away  and  were  gone  for  some  time.  Finally  my 
father  went  to  LaTure  and  asked  him  to  get  his  horse  and 
go  home.  He  asked  my  father  to  lead  the  horse  home,  fell- 
ing him  how  much  he  thanked  him  for  his  kindness  and  said 
that  he  wanted  to  stay  with  his  father  and  mother  until  sun- 
rise next  morning.  '*Then  I  shall  go"  he  said  ''and  to  the 
last  day  that  I  live  I  will  kill  every  Indian  that  it  is  in  my 
power  to  do,  to  avenge  the  lives  of  my  dear  parents." 

During  the  summer  of  1834,  father  went  south  and  with 
his  brother,  William  R.  Cockrum,  bought  the  steamboat 
Otsego  and  ran  her  for  some  time  in  the  lower  Mississippi 
trade.  They  secured  a  contract  from  the  Government  to  car- 
ry a  large  quantity  of  military  stores  from  New  Orleans  up 
the  Arkansas  river  to  the  distributing  points  for  the  several 
outposts  and  forts  in  that, section.  During  one  the  trips  up 
the  river  Jean  LaTure  came  to  the  boat  and  was  gladly  wel- 
comed by  my  father  who  had  him  stay  on  the  boat  as  his 
guest  until   it   had  to  return.     In  bidding  good  bye  he  said 


174  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 

that  he  was  successfully  hunting  Inians  and  intended  to  da 
so  as  long  as  life  lasted. 

Jonas  Maj^hall,  mentioned  above,  was  the  father  of  the 
late  (Jeorge  C.  Mayhall  and  the  grandfather  of  the  Mayhall 
children  who  now  reside  in  Oakland  City. 

JOEL    HARDEN. 

David  Johnson  was  at  Vincennes  in  the  summer  of  1824 
for  the  purpose  of  entering  land.  While  there  he  met  Joel 
Harden  and  as  they  roomed  together  at  the  hotel,  they  soon 
got  acquainted  and  being  fond  of  the  chase  as  most  all  men 
were  at  that  early  period,  they  told  each  other  their  many 
adventures.  The  following  was  told  by  Harden,  which  the 
author  believes  will  prove  interesting  to  his  readers. 

Late  in  the  summer  of  1792  a  large  band  of  Indians  went 
into  Kentucky  from  north  of  the  Ohio  river.  When  across 
the  river  they  broke  up  into  small  bands  so  as  to  over-run  a 
large  territory  in  a  short  time.  They  were  of  the  Kickapoo 
and  Delaware  nations.  **My  father,  with  my  brother  and 
myself  (my  mother  was  dead)  had  made  a  temporary  camp 
not  far,  I  think,  from  where  Bowling  Green,  Kentucky  is,'^ 
said  'Harden.  "We  had  commenced  to  build  a  cabin  but  on 
the  night  of  the  third  day  we  had  been  there  Indians  rushed 
into  our  camp.  My  father  attempted  to  kill  one  and  was 
killed  and  my  brother  and  I  were  captured.  He  was  19  and  I 
16  years  of  age.  They  scalped  my  father  and  took  our  rifles 
and  what  little  plunder  we  had  and  started  north.  It  was 
about  three  days  before  we  goi  lo  the  Ohio  river  which  we 
crossed  at  a  point  I  afterward  learned  was  Yellow  Bank — in 
the  Kickapoo's  language  Weesoe  Wusapinuk — where  Rock- 
port  now  stands.  There  was  an  old  Indian  trace  to  the  north 
that  we  traveled  a  part  of  two  days  and  came  to  a  large 
spring  where  the  Indians  were  to  meet.  Already  a  number 
were  there  and  in  a  day  or  so  all  of  them  had  arrived.  I 
think  there  were  sixty-five  or  seventy  warriors  and  they  had 
captured  a  number  ot  women  and  children  besides  myself  and 
brother  and  a  negro  slave.  There  was  a  disagreement  be- 
tween the  two  tribes  of  Indians  about  the  division  of  plunder 


PIONEER  HISORY  OF  INDIANA.  175 

One  of  Delawares  was  determined  to  have  the  neg^ro  as  he 
could  sell  him  to  the  English  officers  in  Canada  at  a  g^ood 
price.  As  the  negro  was  being  led  away  one  of  the  Kickapoos. 
shot  him  dead.  The  Delaware  shot  my  brother  in  retalia- 
tion. This  brought  on  a  battle  between  these  two  bands  of 
Indians  that  was  terrible  for  a  short  time.  The  Kickapoos 
had  the  advantage  from  the  start,  rushing  the  Delawares. 
and  capturing  all  their  prisoners — I  now  think  seven  or  eight 
women  arid  children — and  all  their  plunder,  but  before  it  was 
over  and  the  Delawares  gone,  there  were  six  Kickapoo  war- 
riors dead  and  as  many  wounded.  The  Delawares  carried 
their  dead  and  wounded  away  with  them  but  they  lost  a  num- 
ber. The  Indians  remained  at  the  springs  for  several  days 
taking  care  of  their  wounded,  then  they 'started  along  the 
little  trace,  traveling  northward  and  crossed  two  good  sized 
rivers  and  on  to  the  Indian  town  at  ihe  forks  of  White  river. 
In  a  short  time  we  continued  to  the  north  until  we  got  to  a 
British  Fort  in  Canada  in  the  neighborhood,  of  Detroit  where 
I  was  sold  to  an  officer  for  a  servant  and  was  held  for  several 
years.  I  made  my  escape  by  the  aid  of  a  Frenchman  who 
had  taken  a  fancy  to  me  and  hated  the  British  officer  for 
some  ill  treatment.  This  Frenchman  secured  a  canoe  and  we 
ran  out  of  an  inlet  to  Lake  Erie  and  paddled  along  the  coast 
until  we  got  to  the  Maumee  river,  thence  up  that  river  to  a 
fort  established  by  General  Wayne  several  years  before,  and  I 
remained  in  this  section  for  some  time.  While  General  Har- 
rison was  at  Ft.  Meigs  I  went  there  and  was  at  the  battle  of 
the  Thames  where  Tecumseh  was  killed.  After  the  close  of 
the  war  of  1812,  I  enlisted  for  five  years  in  the  regular  service. 
For  the  last  five  years  I  have  been  hunting  and  trapping 
along  the  Wabash  and  its  tributaries  and  have  no  relatives 
in  the  world  that  I  know  of." 

The  next  morning  Mr.  Johnson  invited  this  lonely, 
weather-beaten  soldier  to  go  home  with  him,  which  invita- 
tion he  accepted  and  remained  with  him  for  more  than  two 
years.  In  the  fall  of  that  same  year  Mr.  Johnson  made  ar- 
rangements for  his  annual  hunt.  Together  with  Jessie 
Houchin,  who  lived  at  that  time  on  the  Hargrove   farm  east 


176  PIONEER  HISORY  OP  INDIANA. 

-of  what  is  now  Oakland  City  and  his  guest,  Mr.  Harden,  he 
•started  for  the  old  polk  patch  now  Selvin,  Warrick  county, 
where  they  intended  to  make  their  camp  and  hunt,  at  the 
same  time  helping  Harden  to  locate  the  place  where  the  In- 
dian battle  was  fought.  They  stopped  on  the  way  for  Con- 
rad LeMasters  who  lived  about  two  miles  east  of  Pleasant- 
ville.  Pike  county.  Mr.  LeMasters  was  ready  as  he  had  no- 
tice of  their  coming.  The  first  day  they  killed  several  deer 
and  a  bear  and  it  was  after  night  when  they  got  to  their  des- 
tination. They  had,  good  success  in  their  hunting  and  had 
more  game  than  they  knew  what  to  do  with.  Of  the  deer 
only  the  hind  quarters  and  the  hides  were  taken,  the  rest  be- 
ing left  where  it  was  killed.  The  second  day  Mr.  LeMasters 
was  seriously  hurt  fn  a  fight  with  a  bear  and  had  to  go  home* 
The  hunting  party,  the  after  hearing  Harden's  story  was  sat- 
isfied that  it  was  at  Honey  Springs  that  the  Indian  battle  had 
taken  place  so  the  two  of  the  party  who  were  left,  resolved 
as  they  went  home  to  go  into  the  neighborhood  and  let  Har- 
riett find  the  springs,  which  they  did.  While  they  were 
searching  they  asked  Harden  to  take  a  pail  and  see  if  he 
could  find  some  water  and  they  would  try  and  find  a  bee  tree. 
After  being  gone  for  a  short  time  they  saw  him  coming  back 
as  fast  as  his  horse  would  carry  him.  He  was  all  excitement, 
telling  them  that  he  was  sure  he  had  found  the  place  they 
were  hunting.  They  went  back  with  him  and  notwithstand- 
ing there  had  been  some  improvements  made  at  and  near  the 
springs,  Harden  was  very  positive  that  it  was  the  one,  show- 
ing the  hunters  the  place  where  his  brother  was  killed,  which 
was  about  200  feet  southeast  of  the  spring.  The  Kickapoo 
Indians  were  killed  about  300  feet  south  of  the  springs.  The 
Delawares  retreated  to  the  southwest  and  their  men  were 
killed  in  that  direction. 

Staying  all  night  at  the  springs,  the  hunters  returned 
home  the  next  morning.  The  two  falls  following  the  same 
hunting  party  was  formed  and  they  either  went  or  returned 
by  the  springs  where  Harden  would  wander  over  the  land 
near  them  for  hours  at  a  time. 

In  a  statement  made  by  John  Fuquay,  who  was  scout  to 


PIONEER  HISORY  OF  INDIANA.  177 

General  Gibson,  Secretary  of  State  for  Indiana  Territory,  in 
1802,  as  to  whether  it  would,  be  safe  to  survey  the  land  be- 
tween the  Ohio  and  White  rivers  he  said — * 'There  is  an  old 
Indian  trace  running  from  the  yellow  banks  to  the  headwa- 
ters of  the  Little  Pigeon,  where  there  has  been  a  large  Indian 
town,  then  in  a  northwesterly  direction  to  a  large  spring, 
then  along  the  spring  branch  to  little  Patoka  and  it  crosses 
the  large  Patoka  at  a  good  ford  and  continues  to  the  forks  of 
White  river. 


Data  of  the  recapture  of  three  Kentucky  women  from  the 
Indians  in  what  is  now  Pike  county,  Indiana,  was  furnished 
the  author  in  1855  by  William  Leathers,  son-in-law  of  John 
Severns.     The  story  is  as  follows: 

In  1795  John  Severns  was  on  White  river  hunting,  when 
he  met  two  Indian  trappers  one  of  whom  he  had  known  in- 
timately during  his  captivity  among  the  Indians.  They  had 
been  in  the  employ  of  the  Hudson  Bay  Company,  of  Canada, 
for  several  years  but  had  come  south  to  do  a  little  trapping 

0 

on  their  own  account  and  had  a  large  number  of  traps  with 
them,  mostly  for  beaver.  Severns  told  them  of  the  many 
beaver  and  beaver  dams  along  the  Patoka  river  and  its  tri- 
butaries.* 

After  talking  tlie  matter  over  the  Indians  agreed  that 
they  would  hunt  bear  for  awhile  and  put  in  the  late  fall  and 
winter  trapping  for  beaver,  all  of  which  was  carried  out. 
From  the  start  the  three  men  had  all  they  could  do  to  keep 
their  traps  set  and  care  for  their  peltry.  The  intention  of 
the  trappers  was  to  stay  a  few  days  in  the  neighborhood, 
<:atch  all  they  could  and  then  go  on  farther.  In  this  way 
they  thought  the)-  could  go  over  the  best  trapping  territory 
during  the  winter.  The  weather  had  become  pretty  cool'and 
the  trappers  had  made  their  camp  against  a  bluff  bank  of  the 
river    where  a  thick  vein  of  coal  was  cropping  out.     They 


•author's  Note.  I  have  heard  hunters  say  that  there  was  no  place  in 
the  western  country  where  there  had  been  more  beaver  than  on  the  Patoka 
river  and  that  many  had  been  caught  as  late  as  1835.  To  this  day  the  signs 
of  their  industr>*  are  to  be  seen  in  many  places. 


178  PIONEER  HISORY  OF  INDIANA. 

built  their  fires  against  the  coal  and  had  a  good  one.  This, 
camp  as  the  river  runs  was  from  35  to  40  miles  from  Mr. 
Severns'  home.  The}"  had  been  there  several  da3S  and  had 
become  pretty  well  acquainted  with  the  surrounding  country 
when  one  morning  as  they  lay  in  their  comfortable  quarters 
a  little  before  day  they  were  startled  by  the  firing  of  several 
guns  not  far  away.  The}"  would  have  thought  it  was  In- 
dians shooting  at  a  bear  or  a  gang  of  wolves  prowling  around 
their  camp  had  it  not  been  for  the  loud  hallooing  and  the 
screaming  of  a  child  or  a  woman,  that  continued  for  some 
time.  The  trappers  hastily  put  out  the  fire  and  got  into  a 
position  to  defend  themselves.  In  a  short  time  daylight  came 
arid  Severns  and  one  of  the  Indians  determined  to  reconnoitre 
near  their  camp.  On  going  up  thir  river  some  distance  ihey 
heard  talking  and  were  satisfied  that  it  was  while  people. 
The  Indians  slipped  away  and  went  back  to  camp  while 
Severns  went  in  the  direction  of  the  talking  and  soon  saw 
several  men  and  women  sitting  around  a  fire.  One  man,  who 
was  on  the  lookout,  saw  Severns  and  seeing  that  he  was  a 
white  man,  called  to  him  and  when  he  got  to  the  party  he 
saw  seven  of  the  hardiest  type  of  Keniucky  backwoodsmen 
and  three  women.  One  of  the  men  was  wounded  by  a  ball 
through  the  top  of  the  shoulder.  The  women's  clothing  was 
badly  torn  and  their  feet  almost  bare!  The}'  looked  weary 
and  careworn  and  the  stop  had  been  made  to  make  some  cov- 
ering for  their  feet  so  they  could  travel,  but  they  were  very 
short  of  suitable  material.  Severns  told  them  that  if  they 
would  wait  until  he  could  go  to  his  camp,  less  than  a  mile 
away,  he  would  provide  them  with  all  the  material  they 
needed.  The  proposition  was  gladly  accepted  and  he  soon 
returned  with  the  saddle  of  a  deer  and  a  dressed  buck  skin. 
While  he  was  at  camp  he  advised  the  Indians  to  keep  close  as 
he  did  not  know  much  about  the  people,  only  that  they  had 
recaptured  three  white  women  from  the  Indians  and  had  kill- 
ed several  of  the  latter  and  that  he  might  go  a  little  way 
with  them  to  find  out  what  he  could.  The  moccasins  were 
soon  mended  and  the  party  started  on  the  long  return  trip. 
Severns  went   with  them  for  a  few  miles  and   learned  that 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA.  179 

they  lived  in  central  Kentucky  and  that  nearl}^  all  of  the  men 
of  their  settlement  had  gfone  to  a  salt  spring  to  make  salt. 
While  the}-  were  absent  six  Indians  attacked  two  houses  and 
captured  the  three  women.  A  boy  not  far  from  one  of  the 
houses  saw  the  Indians  and  ran  to  two  men  building  a  cabin 
and  gave  the  alarm  and  then  all  the  other  families  ran  to  the 
fort  not  far  away.  A  runner  was  sent  after  the  men  at  the 
salt  spring  bui  it  was  nearly  two  days  before  they  could  get 
bacK  aiid  Start  afier  the  Indians.  After  ihac  they  followed 
them  on  the  run  as  they  knew  the  Indians  would  make  haste 
to  get  back  over  the  Ohio  river.  When  the  Kentuckians  had 
crossed  the  river  they  had  no  trouble  in  following  the  trail 
because  most  of  the  way  they  were  on  a  trace  that  crossed  at 
the  ford  where  Severns  found  them.  *Xast  night  about  eleven 
o'clock,"  one  of  the  men  told  Severns  **our  out  runner  came 
back  to  the  party  just  after  we  had  retired  for  the  night  and 
told  us  that  he  had  seen  a  little  glimmer  of  fire  about  a  half 
mile  ahead.  Two  of  our  men  went  back  with  him  and  in 
about  an  hour  one  of  them  came  back  and  said  they  had 
located  the  Indians  and  that  the}'  were  all  asleep  except  one 
who  was  guarding  the  prisoners  and  that  as  well  as  they  could 
count  them  as  they  lay,  there  were  six  Indians  and  the  three 
women,  and  that  their  camp  was  at  the  foot  of  a  bluff.  He 
left  the  other  two  on  a  hill  about  a  hundred  yards  from  the 
Indians.  There  was  a  small  valley  between  them  and  they 
had  a  clear  view  of  the  camp.  The  rest  of  us  went  to  the 
hill  and  after  a  Whispered  council  decided  to  deploy  out  so  as 
to  reach  the  camp  from  the  south  and  east  sides  and  as  soon 
as  we  could  get  near  enough,  to  charge  the  Indians  and  kill 
them  before  they  could  defend  themselves.  The  men  who  are 
husbands  of  two  of  the  women  were  to  look  after  them.  In 
creeping  up  we  found  the  little  valley  covered  an  inch  or  two 
deep  with  water  from  a  gushing  spring  near  the  Indians' 
camp  which  greatly  delayed  our  attack  and  it  was  nearly  five 
o'clock  when  we  rtished  on  them,  killing  four  before  they 
could  use  their  guns.  The  one  left  on  guard  shot  one  of  our 
men  in  the  shoulder  and  he  and  another  one  got  away,  the 
guard  with  a  broken  arm." 


180  PIONEER  HISTORY  OP  INDIANA, 

After  hearing:  his  story,  Mr.  Severns  wished  them  a  safe 
journey  and  returned  to  camp.  That  afternoon  the  three  trap- 
pers went  to  the  battle  ground  and  found  four  dead  Indians 
which  they  placed  in  a  larg-e  hole  made  by  the  uprooting  of  a 
tree  that  had  blown  down,  piling  brush,  dirt  and  rocks  on 
them.  The  Indians  were  greatly  alarmed  and  Mr.  Severns 
could  not  induce  them  to  stay  longer,  so  they  went  down  the 
river  to  Severns'  home  and  then  took -their  traps  and  went 
north. 

The  only  certain  location  of  this  battle  ground  is  the 
Patoka  river  and  Severns'  home  but  the  distance  and  out  crop- 
ping of  the  coal  makes  it  certain  to  my  mind  that  it  was  Mas- 
sey's  Bridge  where  the  trappers'  camp  was  and  that  the  Ken- 
tuckians  crossed  at  Martin's  Ford  about  a  mile  up  the  river 
from  the  bridge  and  the  place  where  the  battle  was  fought 
and.  the  women  rescued  was  at  Martin  Springs.  The  hill  the 
men  laid  on  when  planning  to  charge  on  the  Indians,  was  I 
believe,  where  the  Martin  cemetery  i    now  located. 

The  data  for  the  bear  fight  which  follows  was  given  me  by 
Mr.  Otho  Harrison  in  1854. 

During  the  summer  and  fall  of  1807  there  had  been  great 
excitement  in  all  the  settlements  so  recently  made  in  this 
part  of  the  Indiana  Territory.  The  people  had  to  leave  their 
homes  several  times  and  were  huddled  together  in  forts. 
There  were  man)"  roving  bands  of  Indians  prowling  around. 
A  family  by  the  name  of  Larkins  had  been  captured  and  Mr. 
Larkins  was  killed  near  what  is  now  the  east  line  of  Pike 
county,  as  they  were  camped  for  the  night  near  the  old  Indian 
trace.  Several  emigrants  had  been  stopped  and  turned  back 
by  our  rangers  until  a  sufficient  escort  could  be  sent  with 
them  to  their  destination 

B^nds  of  young  Indians  would  start  on  a  hunting  expedi- 
tion but  as  soon  as  the}'  were  away  from  the  influence  of  the 
older  ones,  would  shape  their  course  so  as  to  be  on  the  usual 
lines  followed  b}'  the  earl}'  settlers  coming  to  this  section  and 
at  night,  while  they  were  in  camp,  would  fall  on  these  help- 
less people,  generally  killing  the  men  and  taking  the  women 
and  children  prisoners.     They  would  then  gather  up  what 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA.  181 

articles  of  value  the  settlers  might  have  had  and  go  to  the 
northern  Indians  near  the  g:reat  lakes  who  were  under  the  in- 
fluence of  the  British  commander  of  that  section.  Here  they 
sold  their  prisoners  for  servants  and  received  a  reward  for 
their  scalps. 

There  is  no  doubt  but  that  all  the  older  Indians  as  well 
as  Tecumseh,  looked  with  apprehension  on  all  these  maraud- 
ing: campaigns  of  their  young  men.  Tecumseh,  his  brother 
and  a  small  band  of  Shawnee  Indians  lived  for  several  years 
before  1806  in  a  Delaware  town  on  White  river.  In  the  sum- 
mer of  that  year  they  moved  to  Greenville,  in  the  state  of 
Ohio.  Interpreter  La  Verne  met  Tecumseh  one  day  after  he 
left  that  section  and  asked  him  why  he  didn't  remain  near  the 
Wabash  as  most  of  his  people  were  in  that  section.  He  told 
La  Verne  that  the  White  river  Indians  were  very  hot-headed, 
that  they  wanted  to  kill  and  murder  and  that  they  were  great 
thieves  and  that  some  time  soon  they  would  bring  great  trou- 
ble on  all  the  Indian  race.  He  also  said  that  Indians  who 
hunt  for  scalps  would  not  make  good  fighters,  that  they  would 
shoot  a  little  and  run  away. 

Woolsey  Pride's  fort  near  Petersburg  had  been  the  home 
of  many  of  the  new  comers  to  that  section  for  some  time  and 
the  provision  had  run  low.  There  were  vast  numbers  of  bear, 
deer  and  turkeys  in  the  woods  and  if  it  were  safe  to  hunt 
them,  a  day  or  so  would  have  replenished  their  larders,  so  it 
was  decided  that  three  men  would  go  out  and  kill  some  game. 
Paul  Tislow,  Henry  Miley  and  Woolsey  Pride  got  everything 
in  readiness  and  early  the  next  morning  started,  Tislow  and 
Miley  taking  a  bear  trap  with  them  as  they  knew  of  a  place 
on  Pride's  creek  where  there  ^as  always  plenty  of  bear  signs. 
They  intended  to  set  the  trap  and  go  back  the  next  morning. 
They  were  fairly  successful,  having  killed  three  deer  and  a 
half  dozen  turkeys.  Hanging  up  two  deer  in  the  woods,  they 
took  one  deer  and  the  turkeys  home  with  them,  after  having 
set  their  bear  trap  and  baited  it. 

Early  the  next  morning  the  three  men  went  out  again. 
Pride  took  his  horse  to  bring  the  deer  back  on,  while  Tislow 
and  Miley  went  to  the  bear  trap.     W^hen  near  it  they  saw  a 


I 


182  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 

large  bear  run  away  and  a  small  one  was  in  the  trap  fast  by 
its  hind  foot.  They  concluded,  as  it  was  only  a  cub  weighing* 
not  more  than  one  hundred  pounds,  they  would  take  it  with 
them  to  the  fort  alive  to  show  to  the  women  and  children. 
They  were  making  preparations  to  tie  it  when  it  made  a  great 
out-cry  and  the  old  mother  bear  came  rushing  out  after  their 
dog  and  at  them  full  drive.  They  had  no  time  to  get  their 
guns  or  in  any  way  defend  themselves  before  she  was  on 
them,  knocking  Tislow  down  and  attempting  to  tear  him  to 
pieces.  Miley  struck  at  the  bear's  head  with  his  tomahawk, 
but  hit  a  glancing  blow,  not  severely  disabling  it  but  some- 
what addling  it  so  that  it  turned  partly  around  and  off  of 
Tislow,  who  did  not  need  any  invitation  but  in  a  momeut  was 
up,  and  running  to  a  tree,  climbed  it  to  a  safe  distance.  This 
left  Miley  and  the  dog  with  the  infuriated  bear  that  kept 
turning  around  to  get  hold  of  him.  He  followed  its  motions 
by  holding  to  its  shaggy  coat.  He  made  several  passes  at  it 
with  his  hatchet  but  hadn't  hurt  the  animal  much.  The  dog 
was  doing  all  that  it  could  to  help  him  but  if  it  hadn't  been 
for  the  hold  he  had  on  the  long  hair  on  the  hind  quarters  of 
the  bear  it  would  have  torn  him  to  pieces,  but  having  hold  of 
it  he  could  govern  himself  by  the  bear's  motions.  When  he 
had  time  to  do  anything  he  would  halloo  to  Tislow  to  come 
down  and  help  him  but  Tislow  had  been  there  before  and  was 
badly  bitten,  his  clothing  torn  into  shreds  and  he  didn't  want 
any  more  of  it.  When  Miley  was  almost  worn  out  two  large 
dogs  that  had  followed  Pride  came  rushing  into  the  conflict, 
thus  releasing  him  from  his  perilous  position.  As  soon  as 
Miley  loosed  his  hold  he  ran  to  a  tree  and  climbed  it,  leaving 
the  dogs  and  bear  to  fight  it  oul.  The  great  noise  made  by 
the  men  and  dogs  was  heard  by  Pride  and  he  was  seen  com- 
ing at  full  speed  on  his  horse,  but  when  he  got  near  the  bat- 
tle there  was  such  a  mix-up  of  dogs  and  bear  that  he  could 
not  shoot  without  danger  of  killing  a  dog.  Finally  he  got  a 
chance  and  shot  the  bear  through  the  middle  of  the  shoulder, 
disabling  both  its  fore  legs,  then  jumping  from  his  horse  he 
finished  it  with  his  tomahawk. 

Settling  a  new  country,  remote  from  settled  neighbor- 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA.  18S 

hoods,  as  southern  Indiana  was,  is  always  attended  with  great 
liardships  and  privations  which  none  but  the  brave  will  en- 
dure. The  main  object  in  coming:  to  this  wild  region  was  to 
•secure  free  land  for  homes.  A  large  majority  of  the  pioneers 
settled  on  land  bought  with  land  warrants  for  military  ser- 
vice in  the  Revolutionary  or  Indian  wars.  The  spirit  of  ad- 
venture which  is  so  fascinating  caused  a  few  to  come  but  as  a 
whole  the  people  who  were  the  pioneers  of  this  state  were 
from  the  best  families  of  the  countries  from  which  they 
moved;  intelligent,  brave,  hearty,  and  honest,  willing  to  en- 
dure the  many  trials  and  privations  they  were  compelled  to,  to 
sustain  themselves,  and  to  face  the  great  dangers,  incident  to 
driving  out  the  red  barbarian  from  this  favored  land,  where 
they  had  cast  their  lots  and  intended  to  make  their  homes. 
The)*^  went  to  work  to  improve  their  surroundings,  always  on 
the  look-out  for  dangers  and  the  everlasting  calm  only  broken 
by  the  croaking  of  the  crows  by  day  and  the  lonesome  hoot  of 
the  owl  by  night. 

The  venturesome  hunter  sought  for  signs  that  he  could 
read  to  determine  his  chances  for  a  successful  hunt  and  for 
his  own  safety.  He  could  read  the  sky,  morning  and  evening 
ivhich  gave  him  the  information  of  what  the  weather  would 
be  for  twenty-four  hours.  Nearly  all  men  who  exposed  them- 
-selves,  then  as  now,  had  some  kind  of  a  pain  or  ache  that  told 
them  of  damp  weather.  They  were  ever  on  the  lookout  for 
signs  and  listening  for  sounds  that  told  them  whether  they 
were  to  have  good  or  bad  luck  in  their  undertaking.  The 
lonesome  howling  of  a  dog  was  a  sure  sign  that  trouble  would 
would  come  to  a  family  and  a  dog  that  was  given  to  such 
howling  did  not  live  very  long.  These  old  hunters  were 
learned  in  wood  lore;  if  they  were  lost  they  had  only  to  find 
the  moss  which  was  always  thickest  on  the  north  side  of  the 
tree  to  tell  them  the  way  out  and  if  they  were  uncertain  as  to 
the  direction  the  wind  came  from,  they  stuck  a  finger  into 
th6  mouth  until  it  was  warm,  then  held  it  up  and  the 
iRrind  was  blowing  from  would  feel  cool.  The  wood  craft 
•education  was  necessary  for  these  pioneers.  Their  business 
i^as  to  hunt  game  to  feed  themselves  and  families:  all  kind  of 


184  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 

animals  were  in  abundance  and  it  was  not  hard  to  kill  the 
deer  and  turkey,  the  principal  game  that  they  used  for  food. 
For  seasoning:  Johnny  cake  or  ash  cakes  and  other  food  the 
fat  of  the  bear  was  the  best  and  was  almost  indispensable.  It 
was  often  attended  with  g^reat  danger  to  kill  them.  The 
bear  was  always  ready  for  a  fair  fight,  rearing  up  on  his  hind 
feet  ready  either  to  box  his  antagonist  to  a  finish  or  to  hug 
the  life  out  of  him;  and  it  is  yet  to  be  recorded  where  any 
man  went  into  battle  with  a  bear  without  the  use  of  a  gun 
and  came  out  without  being  severely  hurt. 

Wolves  were  plentiful  but  they  were  never  regarded  as 
dangerous  to  man.  They  were  the  slyest,  most  sneaking  an- 
imal of  all  and  did  make  havoc  among  the  young  hogs  and 
sheep  when  they  could  get  a  chance.  People  who  raised 
sheep  had  to  put  them  every  night  into  secure  pens. 

The  early  settlers,  as  a  rule  married  when  they  were 
young;  there  was  no  inequality  in  the  way  for  all  were  on  the 
same  level.  If  the  young  man  was  a  good  hunter  and  a  good 
soldier  if  need  be,  that  was  all  the  requirements  needed.  The 
young  girl  had  no  bad  habits  and  was  industrious  and  healthy. 
She  had  learned  from  her  mother  the  simple  forms  of 
housekeeping.  Probably  they  did  not  have  a  cent  of  money 
between  them.  In  many  cases  it  was  hard  for  the  father  of 
the  sons,  who  were  first  married  in  the  wilds  of  this  country 
to  get  the  needed  means  for  the  legal  part  of  the  ceremony. 

When  it  first  became  known  that  there  was  to  be  a  wed- 
ding, everybody  old  and  young,  were  in  great  glee  in  antici- 
pation of  the  coming  feast  and  the  continued  frolic  which 
would  follow  and  which  generally  lasted  until  two  days  after 
the  infare,  the  wedding  reception  at  the  groom's  father,  and 
until  their  house  was  built  and  properly  warmed  by  an  all 
night's  dancing.  Then  it  was  turned  over  to  the  young  peo- 
ple wdo  assumed  their  position  in  society  as  one  more  family 
added  to  the  sparsely  settled  region.  Everybody  in  the  whole  * 
neighborhood  knew  that  he  would  be  invited  in  fact  the  cus- 
tom on  such  an  occasion  was  that  no  invitation  was  needed 
and  the  latch  string  was  out  to  all  comers  and  especially  to 
the  neighbors.     The  custom  of  the  celebration  at  the  home 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OP  INDIANA.  185. 

of  the  bride  has  been  in  vogfue  as  long  as  the  United  States 
has  been  settled  by  the  white  people. 

It  is  not  to  be  wondered  at  that  ever3'body  was  on  the 
qui  vive  when  a  wedding  was  on  hand,  for  there  was  no  other 
gathering  where  all  could  go.  On  the  day  of  the  wedding 
the  candidate  and  his  best  fellows,  probably  as  many  as  ten, 
who  had  been  his  friends  in  the  chase  and  on  the  scout, 
gathered  at  his  father's  home.  The  first  thing  to  do  was  to 
select  two  of  the  best  mounted  who  were  to  run  for  the  bottle 
which  took  place  when  they  arrived  within  one-half  mile  of 
the  bride-elect.  They  timed  their  march  so  as  to  arrive  about 
noon,  the  wedding  usually  taking  place  just  before  the  noon 
meal.  When  they  got  to  the  point  near  the  home,  the  word 
was  given  and  the  two  young  men  started  at  bread-neck  speed 
trying  their  best  to  win.  A  bottle  of  corn  whiskey  was  given 
to  the  young  man  who  first  passed  a  given  point.  He  then 
turned  his  horse  and,  riding  at  the  top  of  his  speed,  carried  the 
bottle  to  the  approaching  p^rty  and  treated  them  all  to  its  con- 
tents. I  well  rdmember  a  tree  shown  to  me  some  years  ago 
on  the  Jackson  Martin  farm  near  Littles  in  Pike  county, 
where  a  Mr.  Martin  was  killed  while  running  for  the  hot  lie: 
the  horse  became  scared  at  something  and  ran  against  the 
tree  fracturing  the  young  man's  skull. 

After  the  return  of  the  racing  party  the  company  con- 
tinued to  the  house  where  they  found  all  the  people  of  the 
neighborhood  assembled.  Nearly  every  section  had  some  one 
with  ministerial  license  who  would  solemnize  the  wedding; 
there  was  no  legal  light  nearer  than  the  county  seat,  which 
was  often  fifty  miles  away. 

After  the  ceremony  was  over  the  feast  began,  which  was 
a  feast  indeed  of  the  best  things  lo  be  obtained  in  ihe  country; 
all  sorts  of  meats  and  bread  made  from  meal,  pounded  in  a 
mortar  and  baked  on  a  hoe  or  Johnny-cake  board.  Wild 
honey  was  there  in  abundance  as  a  bee  tree  could  be  found 
on  any  forty  acres,  often  as  many  as  a  dozen  of  them.  Pos- 
sibly the  dinner  was  served  on  a  table  or  platform,  covered 
with  three  foot  boards  seventy-five  or  one  hundred  feet  long, 
and  over  this  was  laid  a  piece  of  linen  cloth  that  had  been 


186  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 

lying:  in  the  gfarden  for  weeks  to  bleach.  This  cloth  was 
made  entirel)'  by  the  bride.  All  the  dishes  in  the  neighborhood 
liad  been  borrowed  as  the  supply  was  very  scant,  only  a  few 
pewter  plates,  a  few  pewter  spoons,  but  horn  and  wooden  ones 
filled  the  need  and  the  party  were  jovial  and  happy;  everyone 
enjoying  themselves. 

After  the  dinner  was  over  the  old  folks  started  for  their 
homes,  the  younger  people  making  preparations  for  a  dance 
that  was  to  last  until  broad  daylight.  They  did  not  under- 
stand the  fancy  dancing  of  this  day  but  the  figures  were  four 
lianded  reels  and  what  they  called  square  sets.  Some  of  the 
people  from  Virginia  understood  dancing  a  reel  that  was  cal- 
led in  old  Virginia — **hoedown."  The  musician  was  usually 
a  middle  aged  man  who  was  an  expert  with  the  violin  before 
leaving  the  older  settled  sections. 

The  infare  was  the  same  as  the  wedding;  two  young  men 
raced  for  the  bottle  and  the  gathering  was  the  same  people  as 
on  the  day  before.  The  feast  of  good  things  was  enjoyed  by  all. 
After  the  dinner  was  over  and  the  old  folks  had  gone  to  their 
homes  the  young  folks  started  the  dance  in  which  everyone 
took  part.  Their  dress  was  all  of  home  manufacture,  bride's 
and  all,  they  were  of  the  most  comfortable  sort. 

The  honeymoon  of  the  young  people  was  not  extensive 
in  travel.  They  did  not  have  the  worry  of  packing  large 
traveling  trunks  nor  were  there  any  old  shoes  thrown  after 
them  for  their  were  none  to  throw. 

The  first  thing  to  do  after  the  infare  was  to  build  a  house 
to  live  in,  but  before  they  could  have  charge  of  their  new 
home  there  must  be  the  regulation  house  warming.  In  a  for- 
mer chapter  the  author  has  described  a  cabin  built  by  the 
first  pioneers  and  following  is  given  a  description  of.one  of  a 
little  later  day. 

After  a  favorable  site  had  been  selected  all  the  neighbors 
helped  in  cutting  and  hauling  the  logs.  The  first  thing  to 
do  was  to  cut  three  large  logs  the  length  the  building  was 
wanted  and  scutch  one  side  and  lay  them  so  they  were  level, 
on  a  range  with  each  other.  On  this  the  first  two  end  logs 
were  placed,  then  the  puncheons  laid,  meeting  on  the  middle 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA.  187 

log  for  the  foundation.  The  puncheons  were  first  faced  with 
an  ax  to  cause  them  to  lie  level.  Then  the  foot  adz  came  in- 
to play,  making:  the  floor  level  and  smooth.  The  side  and 
end  logs  were  laid  on  and  notched  down  so  as  to  make  the 
■cracks  as  small  as  they  could  and  the  walls  strong.  Usually 
the  comer  men  scored  the  logs,  each  way  half  the  length,  un- 
til they  met  the  other  corner  men.  The  scores  were  scutched 
•off,  making  the  walls  look  much  better  than  round  logs  with 
bark  on.  At  the  square  of  the  house  usually  about  eight  feet 
above  the  floor,  two  end  logs  projected  about  fifteen  inches 
beyond  the  wall  and  usually  other  logs  were  laid  across  the 
building  projecting  the  same  as  the  end  log  and  the  proper 
■distance  apart  to  receive  four  foot  boards  for  the  loft.  The 
butting  logs,  as  they  were  called,  were  laid  up  notched  to  fit 
and  pinned  to  the  cross  logs.  Against  the  butting  logs  the 
first  course  of  boards  for  the  roof  rested.  The  slope  for  the 
roof  was  made  by  cutting  the  end  logs  above  the  square  two 
and  one-half  feet  shorter.  The  next  side  log  was  laid  some 
two  feet  from  the  wall,  projecting  over  at  each  end  two  feet. 
This  was  called  a  ridge  pole  or  log  for  the  boards  to  lie  on. 
The  same  was  continued  until  the  top  log  was  in  place  where 
the  boards  of  both  sides  of  the  roof  met,  forming  the  comb. 
Small  logs  were  split  open  the  length  of  the  ridge  pole  for 
the  purpose  of  weighting  the  roof  so  the  boards  would  be 
level  and  stay  in  place.  The  weight  poles  were  tied  at  each 
end  with  hickory  withs  to  the  end  of  the  ridge  poles.  The 
door  was  made  by  cutting  out  the  logs  on  one  side  the  width 
wanted  and  pinning  heavy  pieces  of  upright  timbers  lo  the 
end  of  the  logs  by  boring  a  hole  through  the  timber  and  into 
the  end  of  the  logs,  which  made  it  very  solid.  A  similar 
opening  was  made  at  the  end,  only  wider,  for  a  chimney.  A 
three  sided  crib  of  logs  joined  to  the  end  logs  of  the  house 
was  made  high  enough  above  where  the  back  wall  came  to 
form  the  foundation  for  the  chimney.  Timber  was  driven 
down  to  form  a  place  so  that  clay  could  be  pounded  in  to  make 
the  hearth  and  raise  the  fire  place  even  with  the  floor.  After 
this  mud  mixed  with  grass  was  made  and  large  cats  or  lumps 
were  pounded  in  between  the  boards  placed  to  shape  the  fire 


188  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 

place  and  the  logs,  until  it  was  as  high  as  needed  and  then^ 
the  chimney  was  started  b)'  drawing  it  in  like  a  partridge 
trap  until  it  was  of  ihe  proper  size  to  draw  welU  then  built 
with  siticks  and  clay  until  above  the  roof.  /The  cracks  be- 
tween the  logs  of  the  house  were  filled  with  chinking  of  lim- 
ber and  plastered  with  mud.  The  door  shutter  was  made  by 
riving  thick  boards  the  length  wanted,  then  putting  heavy 
pieces  across  called  battens  then  pinning  them  fast.  Heavy 
wooden  hinges  were  put  on  by  pinning  two  pieces  across  the 
door  and  auger  holes  bored  through  them  where  they  extend- 
ed over  the  door's  edge,  then  two  butts  for  the  hinges  were 
pinned  on  the  logs  inside  to  a  piece  called  facing  with  round 
tenon  made  on  them.  The  door  was  then  hung  by  fitting  the 
auger  holes  over  the  round  tenons.  A  heav/  latch  was  made 
that  when  fastened  on  the  inside  could  not  be  opened,  with- 
out the  proverbial  latch  string  of  buck  skin  through  a  hole 
in  the  door  and  hanging  on  the  outside  was  used  in  lifting 
the  latch.  When  completed  the  door  could  not  be  opened 
without  great  power  being  used.  On  each  side  and  on  the 
ends  of  the  room  a  peep  hole  was  left  so  that  what  went  on 
on  the  outside  could  be  seen  and  if  need  be  could  be  used  for  a 
port  hole  to  shoot  from.  A  heavy  piece  of  timber  fitted  into* 
these  peep  holes,  windows  they  could  not  have  as  long  as 
there  was  any  danger  from  Indians. 

The  gun  rack  over  the  door  was  usually  made  by  fasten^ 
ing  the  prongs  of  deer  horns  in  an  auger  hole.  A  good  lamp 
was  made  by  forming  a  cup  out  of  clay  and  burning  it  hard* 
When  this  was  filled  with  bear's  oil,  and  fitted  with  a  cotton 
wick,  it  made  a  very  good  light. 

Hunting  for  game  through  the  long  days  was  the  most 
laborious  work  that  could  be  done.  Often  when  the  snow 
was  melting  and  the  creeks  and  branches  overflowing,  the 
hunter  waded  through  the  wet  all  day,  at  night  returning  to 
his  humble  home  all  worn  out,  many  times,  however,  with 
three  to  six  turkeys  tied  to  his  back  and  again  witk  two  to 
four  pairs  of  venison  hams  and  the  hides  of  the  deer.  While 
all  were  fond  of  the  chase  and  of  necessity  had  to  follow  it. 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA.  189 

yet  no  labor  ever  performed  by  man  was  more  trying  on  the 
-constitution. 
^  When  the  spring  season  came  on  the  deer  were  poor  and 

they  were  let  alone  until  the  crop  was  put  in.  Before  plant- 
ing the  crop  more  acres  of  ground  had  to  be  cleared  and  the 
brush  and  logs  burned,  the  Tails  made  and  the  fence  put 
around  it.  This  required  great  labor.  Besides  his  own  work 
the  farmer  had  to  assist  his  few  neighbors  in  rolling  their 
logs  so  that  they  would  help  him  in  return.  Often  new  com- 
ers had  to  have  houses  raised.  With  all  his  labor  he  put  in 
his  crop  in  good  season  and  the  virgin  soil,  with  little  stir- 
ring, produced  bountifully  supplies  of  corn  and  vegetables 
for  his  stock  and  table.  If  the  family  had  boys  they  aided 
their  father  in  the  crops  from  the  time  they  were  eight  years 
•old.  If  the  mother's  side  of  the  house  had  the  most  help  then 
the  strong  healthy  girls  helped  their  father  in  putting  in  his 
•corn  and  in  tending  it.  Industry  was  a  virtue  that  was  al- 
ways in  force  for  there  were  no  idlers.  When  the  older  peo- 
ple thought  their  children  were  a  little  slack  in  their  work, 
they  would  remind  them  that  they  were  in  danger  of  being 
•caught  by  the  Laurences,  meaning  the  little  heat  waves  caus- 
ed by  the  heat  from  the  earth  on  a  very  hot  day.  Such  days 
would  add  much  to  the  child's  disposition  to  rest. 

Anyone  who'Was  given  to  idelness  was  called  a  lazy  hound 
and  was  looked  upon  with  contempt.  In  fact  it  was  such  an 
odium  to  be  called  an  indolent,  laz}^  body  that  the  ones  so  in- 
clined were  soon  frozen  out  or  talked  out  and  moved  awa)\ 
I  well  remember  an  old  story  that  I  have  heard  the  old  people 
repeat  whed  I  was  a  small  boy.  They  always  told  it  as  hap- 
pening in  old  North  or  South  Carolina  or  in  Tennessee.  In 
the  section  they  would  name  there  lived  a  strong  healthy 
young  man  who  wouldn't  work  under  any  circumstances  and 
his  family  was  not  cared  for  as  it  should  have  been.  A  neigh- 
bor filed  a  complaint  and  the  law  took  charge  of  him  and  as 
he  was  being  taken  to  the  county  seat  to  be  bound  out  or  his 
labor  for  a  certain  period  sold  to  the  highest  bidder  and  the 
proceeds  to  be  used  to  maintain  his  family,  they  passed  by 
the  house  of  a  well-to-do  farmer  who  asked  the  driver  what 


X 


190  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 

he  was  going  to  do  with  that  man  and  upon  being  informed 
said  it  was  a  shame  for  such  a  big,  good-looking  fellow  like 
that  to  be  sold  and  asked  **What  does  his  family  need?  I^ 
am  willing  to  help  them."  The  driver  said  that  if  they  had 
two  bushels  of  corn  it  would  last  them  until  roasting  ears 
came  and  then  they  could  live  through  the  summer.  "If  that 
i«  all  that  is  needed  I  will  give  him  two  bushels  of  corn.  You 
drive  down  to  the  corn  pen  and  get  it."  Whereupon  the  lazy 
man  rolled  over  in  the  wagon  and  asked — "Say  Mister,  is  the 
corn  shelled?"  **Why  no,  but  3'ou  can  shell  it,"  was  the 
answer.  He  rolled  back  into  his  easy  position  and  said — 
*'Drive  on  driver,  to  the  county  seat."  Then  turning  to  the 
farmer — *'I  can't  shell  corn." 

This  stor)'  was  often  told  as  I  now  recall  the  circum- 
stances I  remember  it  was  always  in  the  presence  of  some  one 
who  was  a  little  slack  in  the  twist  about  work.  Many  times 
since  I  have  become  older  I  have  wondered  if  it  were  not  told 
to  fix  more  firmly  the  habits  of  industry  in  my  mind  as  well 
as  in  others. 

Our  mother  worked  from  early  morning  until  late  at  night 
preparing  the  needed  clothing  for  the  family  and  doing  her 
household  work.  The  daughters  stood  nobly  by  their  mother, 
helping  her  in  every  way  they  could.  As  the  mother  grew 
older  they  relieved  her  of  the  care  and  weariness  of  the 
household  duties  and  went  forward  in  all  the  needed  prepara- 
tion for  the  home.  The  boy,  were  ever  in  the  fields  with  their 
father  at  work,  and  when  the  corn  was  cribbed  they  followed 
him  in  the  chase,  killing  bear,  deer  and  turkeys  for  the  needs 
of  the  family.  When  winter  had  come  the}'  would  go  three  . 
or  four  miles  away  to  some  neighbor's  house  where  subscrip- 
tion school  was  being  taught  for  a  month  or  so,  thus  gather- 
ing the  first  principles  of  an  education. 

When  these  healthy  boys  and  girls  came  home  from 
school  and  the  daily  duties  were  gone  ihrotigh  with,  the  girls 
preparing  the  evening  meal,  milking  the  cows  and  caring  for 
all  the  household  work,  the  boys  attending  to  their  stock  and 
cutting  wood  for  the  fire,  preparing  large  back  logs  to  be 
placed  against  the  back  wall  of  the  chimney.    ^After  supper 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA.  191 

was  over  and  the  dishes  cleared  away  one  of  the  girls  would 
bring  her  cards  and  wool  to  make  the  rolls  for  another  who 
had  the  large  spinning-  wheel  making  the  rolls  into  thread. 
The  old  people  and  the  rest  of  the  family  sal  around  the  fire 
talking  of  the  events  of  the  day.  They  had  no  books*  but  the 
bible  and  possibly  an  old  English  reader — newspapers  ihey 
had  never  seen.  After  awhile  one  marries  and  leaver  ihe  old 
home  and  then  another,  until  they  all  have  homes  of  their 
own  clustering  around  the  old  homestead  which  usually  fell 
to  the  youngest. 

This  is  the  way  this  country  has  been  peopled.  True, 
many  have  moved  to  other  parts  of  the  councry,  but  in  every 
part  of  Indiana,  second  and  third  generations  fro  n  the  old 
pioneers  3'et  occupy  and  control  ihe  country  outside  the 
towns. 

The  dress  of  these  people  was  suitable  for  the  life  they 
had  to  lead.  The  hunting  shirt  was  worn  by  all  the  men  and 
was  made  of  various  sorts  of  material.  Ii  was  a  loose  frock 
coat  coming  down  below  the  middle  of  the  thighs.  The 
sleeves  were  ver}-  large.  The  froiit  part  of  the  garment 
was  made  ver}'  full,  so  much  so  thai  it  would  lap  over  more 
than  a  foot  on  each  side,  when  it  was  beKed.  The  cape  was 
very  large  and  full,  much  like  the  comforiable  long  capes 
worn  by  our  cavalry  soldiers  during  the  war  of  the  Rebellion. 
The}'  were  ornamented  with  a  heavy  fringe  around  the  bot- 
tom and  down  tae  shoulder  seams  and  a  row  on  the  cape  about 
half  way  from  the  bottom  to  the  collar.  The  bosom  of  these 
hunting  shirts  when  the  belt  was  fastened  was  always  used 
by  the  hunter  to  carry  the  things  needed  for  his  convenience 
and  comfort.  On  one  side  the  tomahawk  and  on  the  other 
the  hunting  knife  were  each  fastened  to  a  loop  made  in  the 
belt.  These  two  weapons  were  indispensable  and  every  hunter 
carried  them.  The  hunting  shirt  was  mostly  made  out  of 
linsey  cloth,  some  were  made  out  of  linen,  the  cloth  made 
thick  bv  filling  made  from  tow  which  was  gathered  from  the 
last  hackling  of  the  flax.  There  were  many  made  out  of 
dressed  deer  skins  for  summer  and  fall  wear  but  thev  were 
verv  cold  in  the  winter  time.     The  skin  coats  were  fantastic- 


192  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 

all)'  ornamented  in  the  fashion  of  the  Indians.  The  hunting: 
shirts  was  of  any  color  to  suit  the  fancy  of  the  owner.  Some 
•of  them  were  very  gay  but  those  intended  for  the  chase  or 
scout  were  usually  a  dull  color  so  as  not  to  be  easily  distin- 
g^uished.  The  undershirts,  or  vests  as  we  now  call  them, 
were  made  of  any  material  they  could  get.  The  breeches 
were  njade  close  fitting  and  over  them  a  pair  of  buckskin  leg- 
gins  were  worn  fringed  down  the  outside  seams  like  the  In- 
dians. A  pair  of  moccasions  for  their  foot  covering  and  pro- 
tection were  much  Jbetter  for  the  purpose  of  hunting  and 
scouting  than  shoes,  which  they  could  not  get,  as  no  noise 
was  made  in  walking.  They  were  made  of  buckskin  in  one 
piece,  with  a  gathered  seam  along  the  top  of  the  foot  and 
from  the  bottom  of  the  heel  to  the  ankle  joint.  Flaps  were 
left  on  each  side  so  as  to  reach  some  distance  up  the  leg  to 
•be  covered  over  with  the  lower  part  of  the  leggins,  and  all 
held  in  place  by  strong  thongs  of  buckskin  tied  around 
just  above  the  ankle  joint,  to  keep  the  snow  and  dirt  out  of 
the  moccasins. 

It  required  only  a  little  time  to  make  a  pair  of  moccasins. 
For  this  purpose  and  for  mending  the  holes  worn  in  them  an 
awl  made  out  of  any  kind  of  iron  was  an  indispensable  tool, 
and  with  a  ball  of  thongs  or  strings  cut  from  a  dressed  deer 
skin,  was  in  the  shot  pouch  or  hunting  shirt  pocket  of  ever}" 
hunter.  In  the  winter  the  moccasins  were  ver)'  cold  and  dr)' 
deer  hair  was  stuffed  into  them  to  keep  the  feet  warm.  If 
the  wearer  owned  an)'  red  pepper  pods  a  liberal  supply  of  it 
was  put  in  with  the  hair.  I  have  heard  my  father  say  that 
in  cold  wet  weather  the  moccasin  was  only  a  little  better  than 
going  barefooted. 

The  head  dress  of  the  men  was  as  varied  as  there  were 
kinds  of  animals.  Bear,  beaver,  fox,  raccoon  and  even  the 
sullen  opposum  furnished  material  for  headwear.  In  the 
summer  time  they  had  hats  made  from  the  wild  oat  straw 
and  from  the  flag  that  grew  in  ponds.  Even  the  inside  bark 
of  the  mulberry  roots  was  cleaned  and  worked  into  very  light 
durable  hats  for  summer  wear.  Gloves  were  made  out  of  the 
skins  of  small  animals  with  the  fur  on  the  inside. 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA.  193 

The  women  did  not  have  as  elaborate  costumes  as  the 
men,  but  they  dressed  at  all  times  to  suit  their  work  and  the 
weather  if  they  had  the  material  to  make  their  clothing 
from.  The  linsey  skirt  or  petticoat  as  it  was  termed  then, 
worn  over  some  sort  of  dress  of  linen  or  cotton,  made  much 
like  ladies  wear  now  for  night  gowns,  was  the  usual  costume. 
If  worn  in  cold  weather  a  waist  or  jacket  was  added  to  the 
skirt.  Their  clothing  was  warm  and  comfortable.  In  warm 
weather  they  invariably  went  barefooted,  but  during  the  cold 
weather  they  had  moccasins  or  shoe  pacs,  a  sort  of  half  moc- 
casin. They  made  shawls  of  flannel  the  same  as  they  made 
blankets  of  any  color  that  suited  their  fancy  with  bright  col- 
ored stripes  at  each  end  and  a  heavy  fringe  sewed  on  all 
around  it.  Later  when  they  got  to  raising  cotton  in  sufficient 
quantities,  they  made  a  very  pretty  and  serviceable  cotton 
dress  with  stripes  of  many  colors.  For  head  dress  they  al- 
ways wore  caps  night  and  day  with  a  frill  on  the  front  edge 
often  out  of  the  same  goods,  very  old  ladies  often  wore  dark 
colored  caps  made  of  some  fine  goods  brought  from  their  early 
childhood  home.  They  wore  the  regulation  sun  bonnet  of 
that  period  which  differed  but  little  from  that  worn  by  many 
at  this  time.  The  heiad  piece  or  crown  was  made  with  cas- 
ings for  splits  of  wood  to  keep  it  in  shape  with  a  gathered 
curtain  sewed  around  the  lower  edge.  These  hooded  bonnets 
were  good  shades  from  the  sun  and  when  taken  in  connection 
with  the  other  dress  of  that  day  were  very  becoming  to  the 
wearer.  For  handkerchiefs  they  had  small  home-made 
squares  of  white  cotton  cloth  of  their  own  spinning  and  weav- 
ing. For  gloves  leather  made  out  of  squirrel  hides  dressed, 
was  used  and  they  were  as  soft  as  the  best  kid  and  lasted  for 
all  time. 

Often  it  was  very  difficult  to  secure  the  raw  material  to 
make  this  clothing.  The  flax  crop  at  times  failed  as  the  land 
was  too  loose  for  it  to  do  well  in.  The  flax  roots  are  very  short 
and  the  new  soil  of  that  date  was  a  very  loose  loam  and  in  dry 
weather  the  flax  would  die  out  and  the  crop  fail.  At  such 
time,  when  the  flax  failed,  some  one  would  go  to  the  rich  creek 
bottoms  where  nettles  grew  in   abundance  and  secure  loads 


194  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 

of  the  stalks.  After  it  was  dried  and  rotted  they  broke  and 
workedfit  the  same  as  they  did  the  flax.  A  strong  thread  could 
be  spun|from  the  fiber  covering  the  stems  and  this  thread  was 
woven  into  cloth  and  made  into  clothing.  When  they  had  wool 
and  linen  thread  they  wove  linsey  cloth,  the  best  that  could  be 
had  for  [comfort  and  durability.  Every  woman  was  her  own 
weaver.  The  girls  who  were  fourteen  years  old  could  spin 
and  weave  and  make  their  own  clothing.  Their  clothing 
was  such  as  they  could  make  by  hand.  These  early  pioneers 
tanned  their  own  leather.  A  large  trough  for  a  tanning  vat 
back  of  the  smoke  house  or  in  it  as  was  often  the  case,  was 
an  indispensable  piece  of  property.  The  bark  of  the  black 
oak,  carefully  secured  in  the  spring  when  the  sap  was  up, 
was  dried  to  be  used  later  for  tanning  their  leather.  The 
skins  of  deer,  wolves  and  later  on  of  bears  and  cows  that  had 
died  or  had  been  killed  by  the  panthers  were  saved  and  dried 
until  such  times  as  they  were  wanted  to  be  put  into  the  vat. 
They  were  first  put  in  a  trough  with  strong  ashes  and  kept 
there  until  the  hair  became  loose  and  could  be  scraped  off. 
Then  they  were  put  into  the  vat  and  the  oak  bark  was 
pounded  up  as  finely  as  needed  and  put  in  layer  after  layer  as 
the  skins  were  placed  in  the  trough.  When  the  oak  liquor 
or  ooze  had  been  used  until  it  commenced  to  lose  its  strength 
it  was  drawn  off  and  a  new  supply  of  bark  put  into  the  vat. 
After  being  in  the  vat  for  several  months  the  hides  were 
taken  out.  A  board  or  slab  was  driven  into  the  ground  and 
the  top  end  was  shaved  to  an  edge.  Then  the  hides  were 
scraped  back  and  forth  over  the  edge  of  the  slab  until  they 
became  pliable;  then  bear's  oil  was  put  on  and  worked  in 
until  every  part  of  the  skin  was  soft.  Our  people  learned 
from  the  Indians  that  the  brains  of  the  deer  was  the  best  of 
all  material  to  make  the  tanned  leather  soft  and  pliable  and 
to  keep  it  so.  It  took  nearly  three  large  dressed  buckskins 
to  make  a  leather  suit,  including  a  hunting  shirt,  leggings 
and  two  pairs  of  moccasins. 

After  they  had  raised  the  corn  the  meal  made  out  of  it 
for  their  bread  was  prepared  by  pounding  the  corn  in  hominy 
blocks   and    by    grinding    the  corn  in  hand  mills.     Hominy 


PIONEER  HISORY  OF  INDIANA.  195 

blocks  were  made  in  the  end  of  a  largfe  log:  standing  on  end 
and  about  three  feet  high.  The  hopper  for  holding  the  corn 
was  made  by  burning  a  hole  in  the  end  of  the  log.  Then  a 
hickory  pestle  was  used*  to  pound  the  corn.  This  labor  was 
often  made  lighter  and  more  effective  by  placing  a  pole  on  a 
fork  driven  into  the  ground  the  proper  distance  from  the  meal 
block.  One  end  of  the  pole  was  held  down  by  a  heavy  log 
and  to  the  other  end  was  attached  a  heavy  pestle  by  a  strong 
leather  cord.  A  hole  was  bored  through  the  pestle  the  pro- 
per distance  from  the  lower  end  and  a  hickery  pin  put  into  it 
extending  two  feet  on  each  side.  Then  two  people  could 
work  at  the  pounding  process.  The  spring  of  the  pole  lifted 
the  pestle  as  high  as  wanted  and  the  stroke  was  made  by 
pulling  down  on  the  pin.  In  this  way  meal  could  be  made 
much  faster  than  by  the  single  hand  process.  After  beating 
the  corn  awhile  it  was  put  in  a  skin  sieve  made  by  stretching 
a  raw  deer  skin  over  a  hickory  hoop  and  when  it  had  dried, 
burning  small  holes  through  it  with  the  tines  of  an  iron  fork, 
thus  making  a  very  good  sieve.  The  meal  was  shaken  through 
this  and  the  coarse  parts  put  back  in  the  hopper  to  be  pound- 
ed until  it  was  fine  enough  to  go  through  the  sieve.  When 
the  corn  was  just  beginning  to  harden  in  the  fall  a  much 
more  simple  device  was  made  for  making  meal,  called  a 
**grater."  A  piece  of  tin  or  sheet  iron  with  many  holes 
punched  through  it  was  put  on  a  board  and  nailed  by  its 
edges  to  the  board,  forming  a  half  circle.  The  corn  was  rub- 
bed over  the  rough  side  of  this  grater,  the  meal  going  through 
the  perforations  and  falling  into  a  pan.  There  are  many  old 
people  yet  living  who  have  had  the  backache  from  bending 
over  one  of  these  crude  meal-making  machines  and  the  writer 
is  one  of  them.  A  little  later  a  small  mill  was  made,  which 
was  called  a  hand  mill,  that  was  much  superior  to  the  two 
meal-making  processes  above  described.  The  hand  mill  was 
ma<:le  of  two  small  round  stones.  The  under  one  was  station- 
ary and  the  upper  one  was  turned  around.  These  stones 
placed  in  a  hoop  made  for  the  purpose.  At  one  edge  a  little 
spout  was  made  for  the  meal  to  run  out  and  a  hole  was  made 
in  the  outside  edge  of  the  top  stone  and  a  staff  fitted  into  it. 


196  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 

The  upper  end  of  the  staff  went  into  a  hole  made  throug^h  a 
board  that  was  fastened  to  some  timbers  over  head.  The 
hoop,  the  stones  were  in,  was  about  the  size  of  a  dish  pan.  A 
little  hopper  was  made  around  the  center  stafF  or  post  that 
the  top  stone  ran  around  with  holes  made  in  it  to  let  the  com 
throug^h  as  fast  as  wanted.  Two  persons  could  hold  the  up- 
right staff  one  on  either  side  of  the  hoop,  and  keep  the  top 
stone  turning  around  at  a  lively  rate.  There  could  be  four 
bushels  of  com  ground  on  this  small  mill  in  a  day.  This  was 
considered  at  that  time  to  be  quite  an  advance  in  the  mill- 
ing industry. 


CHAPTER  IX. 


Land  Claims  and  Territorial  Affairs — Indian  Depreda- 
TioNS— Letters  of  Instruction  and  Orders  to  Gap- 
tain  William  Hargrove — Burning  of  an  Indian  Town 
Near  Owensville — Division  of  Indiana  Territory — 
Elections — Land  Offices. 


The  uncertainty  of  the  title  of  the  lands  held  by  the  in- 
habitants of  the  territory,  caused  so  much  trouble  that  Con- 
gress in  1804  created  a  board  of  Commissioners  who  were 
empowered  to  inquire  into  the  validity  of  the  titles  and  decide 
on  the  title  of  each  claim  to  which  title  there  was  any  ques- 
tion. This  decision  was  to  be  reported  to  Congress  and  in 
this  way  most  of  the  uncertain  titles  were  confirmed. 

Many  of  the  laws  that  had  been  adopted  for  the  govern- 
ment of  the  Northwest  Territory  by  Governor  St.  Clair  and 
the  judges,  and  a  part  of  the  statutes  adopted  and  published 
by  Governor  Harrison  were  revised  and  re-enacted  by  the 
General  Assembly  of  the  Territory  of  Indiana  and  were  pub- 
lished by  Stout  and  Smoot  at  Vincennes,  by  authority  of  the 
Legislature.  They  were  bound  in  a  thin  volume  that  con- 
tained the  laws  of  the  Northwest  Territory  and  those  of  Ind- 
iana Territory  which  had  not  been  repealed,  as  they  were 
revised  by  the  Honorable  John  Rice  Jones  and  John  Johnson. 
The  latter  laws  passed  by  the  Legislature  referred  to  many 
things  among  which  were  the  incorporation  of  the  Vincennes 
Univeristy,  Vincennes  Library,  the  Borough  of  Vincennes 
and  the  town  of  Jeflfersonville. 

By  an  act  of  Congress  approved  the  11th  of  January,  1805, 
before  the  organization  of  the  legislative  council,  Indiana 


198  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 

Territor}'  was  divided  and  the  Territory  of  Michigan  was 
established  to  take  effect  the  last  day  of  June,  1806.  Mich- 
igan Territory  was  formed  of  that  part  of  Indiana  Territory 
which  lies  north  of  a  line  drawn  east  from  a  point  on  Lake 
Michigan  ten  miles  north  of  its  southern  extremity  until  said 
line  intersects  Lake  Erie,  ihence  north  through  Lake  Erie  to 
the  northern  boundary  of  the  United  States.  This  division 
included  the  land  office  at  Letroit. 

The  Legislature  of  1807  passed  some  very  drastic  measures, 
among  them  being  penalties  for  the  crime  of  treason,  murder, 
arson,  and  horse-stealing.  All  of  them  were  punishable  by 
death.  The  crime  of  man-slaughter  was  not  such  an  import- 
ant affair  and  was  punishable  under  the  code  of  common  laws. 
The  crime  of  burglar)^  and  robbery  were  punishable  by  whip- 
ping. Rioting  was  punishable  by  fine  and  imprisonment. 
Hog  stealing  was  punishable  by  whipping. 

After  Wayne's  victory  up  to  1802  and  1803  there  was 
quiet  in  all  the  section  of  country  in  Indiana  Territory.  The 
object  lesson  the  Indians  received  there  was  so  forcibly  im- 
pressed on  them  that  they  were  glad  to  be  quiet  for  a  while. 
This  quiet  gave  an  impetus  to  emigration  to  the  new  country, 
but  in  a  short  time  the  temptation  was  so  great  that  small 
bands  of  Indians  would  roam  over  the  country  hunting  for  a 
chance  to  retaliate  and  murder  the  defenseless  people.  There 
were  a  dumber  of  boat  fights  on  the  Ohio  and  in  some  of  them 
the  unfortunate  occupants  were  captured  and  murdered. 

A  family  named  McClure  was  floating  down  the  Ohio, 
about  ten  miles  west  of  the  mouth  of  Lochry  Creek  in  what  is 
now  Ohio  county,  Indiana.  The}^  were  prevailed  upon  to 
land  their  boats  by  the  cries  and  gestures  of  a  white  woman 
who  besought  them  to  take  her  on  board,  saying  that  she  had 
escaped  from  the  Indians.  As  soon  as  the  boat  touched  shore 
it  was  captured  by  a  band  of  Indians  who  were  in  conceal- 
ment in  a  large  crevice  in  the  bank.  All  of  the  family  except 
one  grown  daughter  were  killed.  She  was  carried  into  cap- 
tivity and  sold  to  the  British  at  Maiden  and  was  recaptured 
at  the  battle  of  the  Thames.  It  was  never  known  whether 
the  white  woman  who  decoyed  the  boat  was  a  prisoner  or  was» 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA.  199 

like  Simon  Girt}- ,  a  traitor  to  the  white  race,  who  became 
more  fiendish  and  brutal  toward  the  Americans  than  the  most 
savage  Indians. 

At  Diamond  Island,  Posey  county,  Indiana,  in  the  sum- 
mer of  1803  a  boat  containing^  six  people  from  Virginia  was  cap- 
tured, but  before, the  capture  was  accomplished  three  Indians 
were  dead  and  another  had  one  of  his  ears  and  more  than 
half  his  nose  cut  off.  The  boat  had  landed  to  take  on  a  deer 
killed  by  young  James  Barnard  who  was  a  son  of  the  owner 
of  the  boat.  As  the  two  men,  father  and  son,  were  carrying 
the  deer  they  saw  eight  or  ten  Indians  rushing  to  the  boat. 
The  mother,  with  an  ax,  killed  one  of  the  Indians.  The 
three  small  children  in  the  party  were  unable  to  make  any 
defense.  The  father  had  his  gun  with  him  but  the  son  had 
only  a  corn  knife,  made  of  a  brier-scythe,  which  he  had  car- 
ried out  to  cut  a  pole  on  which  to  hang  the  deer.  The 
father,  actuated  by  the  first  impulse,  rushed  to  the  boat,  shot 
two  Indians  down  at  one  shot  and  was  himself  immediately 
killed.  The  son,  having  no  gun,  attempted  to  get  away  by 
running.  Two  Indians  followed  him  and  as  he  dodged  from 
tree  to  tree  they  both  fired,  but  missed.  One  of  the  Indians 
was  fleet  of  foot  and  followed  on  after  the  young  man  who 
was  very  fast  in  a  foot  race  but  he  soon  found  that  the  In- 
dians would  overtake  him.  Coming  to  a  very  large  tree  he 
dodged  behind  it  and  as  the  Indian  came  up,  dealt  him  such 
a  blow  with  the  corn  knife  that  it  cut  off  a  large  part  of  his 
nose.  At  the  second  blow  he  cut  off  his  left  ear  which  fell 
at  his  feet.  The  Indian  uttered  a  loud  yell  and  ran  back  the 
way  he  had  come.  Young  Barnard  picked  up  the  ear  and 
went  into  the  forest  where  he  hid  and  waited  for  night  to 
come,  when  he  wandered  back  to  the  river,  hoping  to  find 
some  trace  of  the  family.  He  found  the  dead  bodies  of  his 
mother  and  father,  both  scalped,  but  could  see  no  trace  of  his 
brother  and  sisters.  The  young  man,  with  his  corn  knife,  in 
the  stillness  of  the  night,  and  in  the  wilderness  of  Posey 
count)%  dug  out  a  shallow  grave  in  which  he  placed  the  bodies 
of  his  parents  and  then  he  wandered  through  the  woods. 
Coming  to  the  Wabash,  he  swam  it  and  found  his  way  to- 


200  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 

Vincennes  where  he  enlisted  in  the  army.  The  next  year 
after  this,  an  expedition  was  made  by  soldiers  into  the  Illi- 
nois country  after  some  horse-thief  Indians  who  had  stolen  a 
number  of  horses  which  were  grdizing  on  the  common  pasture 
near  Post  Vincennes,  and  young:  Barnard  was  one  of  the  com- 
pany. Late  in  the  evening:  of  the  second  day  out,  more  than 
thirty  miles  iq  the  southwest  of  Vincennes,  they  came  to  a 
lone  wigwam  near  a  largfe  spring  of  water.  On  coming  up 
to  it  they  found  an  Indian  who  was  dressed  in  skins  and  had 
covering  over  his  face  except  places  made  in  the  covering 
that  he  could  see  out  of.  This  strangely  dressed  creature 
did  not  offer  any  opposition  to  the  soldiers.  One  of  the  sol- 
diers understood  the  Kickapoo  language  and  told  the  Indian 
that  they  did  not  intend  to  do  him  any  harm  but  that  he  must 
take  that  covering  off  of  his  head.  At  this  he  became  frantic 
and  said  he  would  die  first.  They  caught  him  and  held  him 
and  removed  the  buckskin  from  over  his  head  when  they  be- 
held an  awfully  mutilated  face  that  looked  as  though  it  had 
been  in  that  condition  some  time.  His  nose  was  nearly  all 
gone,  one  of  his  eyes  was  out  and  one  ear  cut  off.  Barnard 
looked  at  the  Indian  and  told  the  interpretier  what  he  had 
done  at  Diamond  Island  and  that  he  had  the  ear  in  his  tent 
at  camp.  This  was  told  the  Indian,  whereupon  he  became  a 
raging  fury  and  tried  to  break  loose  to  get  at  Barnard.  When 
he  found  that  he  could  not  throw  off  the  two  stalwart  soldiers 
who  held  him,  he  commenced  to  insult  and  abuse  Barnard  by 
saying  that  he  had  killed  his  father  and  that  after  he  got 
back  to  the  boat  he  killed  his  mother.  When  this  was  trans- 
lated to  him  Barnard  mashed  his  head  with  a  club. 

The  Indians  are  very  superstitious  and  when  any  of  them 
is  mutilated  or  disfigured  as  the  one  referred  to  above,  he 
goes  into  seclusion  and  no  one  is  ever  allowed  to  see  his  face 
again. 

After  the  treaties  of  1804  were  made  which  ceded  all  the 
country  on  the  Wabash  and  Ohio  rivers,  south  of  the  old 
Vincennes  and  Clarksville  trace  up  to  the  Ohio  Falls,  to  the 
United  States  from  the  Indians,  many  emigrants  moved  into 
that  section.     Many  of  them  before  that  had  been  in  Kentucky 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA.  201 

near  the  Ohio  river,  waiting:  for  the  gfovemment  to  acquite 
that  territory.  Notwithstanding  the  number  of  men  who 
came  into  the  territory,  there  was  much  trouble  with  the  In- 
dians, growing:  out  of  the  influence  of  the  Prophet.  Along  in 
1805  and  up  to  the  last  of  1806  the  Indians  in  all  their  stat- 
ions in  Indiana  Territory  were  loud  in  their  declaration  that 
the  Ohio  river  should  be  the  boundary  line  between  them  and 
the  whites.  Bands  of  young  hunters  were  continually  roving 
through  the  country  all  along  the  territory  between  the  Ohia 
and  White  rivers.  The  only  posts  the  whites  had  for  pro- 
tection at  that  time  were  Vincennes,  the  station  at  White 
Oak  Springs  on  the  old  trace  and  a  good  fort  in  Lawrence- 
burg  in  Dearborn  county;  also  a  good  fort  at  Clarksville. 
There  is  no  doubt  that  many  people  were  captured  and  des-^ 
troyed  while  attempting  to  move  into  that  section  whom  no 
one  ever  heard  of. 

In  the  early  spring  of  1807  a  band  of  Delaware  Indians 
on  the  Vincennes  and  Clarksville  trace,  west  of  the  Mudholes^ 
(near  where  Otwell,  Pike  county,  Indiana,  is  located)  cap- 
tured a  family  named  Larkins  who  were  moving  lo  a  section 
near  Vincennes.  Night  having  overtaken  them  they  had 
made  a  camp  a  little  way  from  the  trace  and  during  the  night 
were  captured  by  ten  Indians.  They  killed  Larkins  and  car- 
ried Mrs.  Larkins  and  five  children  into  captivity.  A  large 
boy  who  was  coming  with  the  family,  in  the  confusion,  made 
his  escape  and  the  next  day  met  two  of  General  Harrison's 
scouts  near  White  river.  He  related  the  terrible  occurence  to 
them  and  together  they  went  back  to  the  place  where  he  had 
been  encamped  the  night  before  and  where  they  foand  the 
body  of  Larkins  which  they  buried  the  best  they  could.  One 
of  the  scouts  then  hurried  into  Vincennes  to  notify  the 
authorities  of  the  depredation.  A  troop  of  cavalry  was  sent 
to  the  scene  but  failed  to  find  any  trace  of  the  captured  fam- 
ily, but  during  the  time  they  were  scouting  they  came  upon 
a  band  of  Indians  who  were  loaded  down  with  provision  and 
ammunition  and  headed  for  the  south.  These  Indians  no 
doubt  were  preparing  for  a  raid  on  some  of  the  outlying  set- 
tlements hoping  to  capture  unprotected  emigrants. 


1202  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 

In  the  running  fight  with  the  cavalry  two  of  the  Indians 
were  killed  and  the  rest  of  the  band  lost  their  heavy  packs 
and  some  of  them  their  guns  in  getting  back  across  White 
river.  ^  This  fortunate  meeting  of  these  marauders  no  doubt 
saved  some  boat  crew  or  some  settlement  from  being  murdered. 

Mrs.  Larkins  was  the  daughter  of  Colonel  Greenup,  of 
Kentucky;  the  boy  who  was  with  the  band,  named  Joel  Davis, 
was  a  relative  of  the  colonel's  and  he  hurried  back  to  Ken- 
tucky with  the  sad  news  of  the  destruction  of  the  family. 

There  was  so  much  trouble  in  diiferent  parts  of  the  ter- 
ritory, especially  in  the  southern  part,  that  Governor  Har- 
rison determined  to  organize  several  detachments  of  scouts 
and  rangers  hoping  in  that  wa}-  to  check  the  numerous  raids 
of  the  Indians.  There  were  already  fifteen  or  twenty  regular 
scouts  constantly  on  duty,  who  reported  at  headquarters  at 
Vincennes.  There  were  also  a  number  of  friendly  Indians 
belonging  to  the  Piankashaws,  Weas  and  Delawares  who 
were  used  as  messengers. 

It  was  decided  to  organize  the  rangers  of  the  Territory'  of 
Indiana  into  three  divisions.  The  first  division  patrolled  the 
territory  from  the  Wabash  river  to  some  place  near  the 
French  Lick  Springs;  the  second  from  that  point  to  the  Falls 
of  the  Ohio  river,  the  main  camp  of  these  two  divisions  was 
to  be  on  or  near  the  Clarksville  trace.  The  third  division  was 
to  patrol  the  section  of  the  country  from  the  Ohio  Falls  to 
the  neighborhood  of  Lawrenceburg  with  their  main  camp 
near  Armstrong  Station.  These  three  divisions  went  on 
duly  some  time  in  the  early  spring  of  18U7.  This  information 
was  obtained  from  a  small  memorandum  book  kept  by  Cap- 
tain William  Hargrove  who  was  the  commander  of  the  first 
division.  Who  the  other  commanders  were  is  not  known  to 
the  author.  The  only  reference  to  their  names  was  on  a 
small  scrap  of  paper  found  in  Col.  Hargrove's  desk  on  which 
a  receipt  was  written  out  in  these  words: — 

"Received  from  Captain  Hargrove,  sixteen 
pounds  of  powder,  twenty  pounds  of  lead  at  stock- 
ade near  Blue  river,  October  16,  1807. 

John  Tipton,  Com.  Sec.  div.  of  Rangers." 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA.  .  203 

Governor  William  Henry  Harrison's  letters  of  instruction 
and  orders  by  Ihe  Secretary  of  Indiana  Territory,  General 
John  Gibson  to  Captain  William  Hargrove  commanding  a 
detachment  of  Rangers  in  1807. 

Colonel  William  Hargrove  was  born  in  South  Carolina  in 
1775.  When  a  j^oung  man  he  moved  to  Kentucky  where  he 
married  and  then  moved  to  the  neighborhood  of  Princeton, 
Indiana  in  1803.  While  living  in  Kentucky  he  was  three 
years  in  the  Indian  service  and  proved  to  be  a  brave,  skillful 
soldier,  making  a  dangerous  foe  for  the  red  man.  After  com- 
ing to  Indiana  Territory  he  was  twice  in  the  Ranger  service, 
first  in  1807  and  again  in  1812.  He  was  promoted  through 
all  the  intermediate  grades  from  captain  to  the  rank  of  col- 
onel. In  1811  he  was  the  first  man  in  Indiana  Territory  to 
raise  a  company  for  service  in  the  Tippecanoe  Campaign. 
Colonel  Hargrove  and  family  were  so  closely  identified  with 
the  settling  of  the  southern  part  of  the  state  and  with  its  his- 
tory since  that  in  future  chapters  they  may  be  referred  to 
often.  In  connection  with  the  colonel's  service  with  the 
Rangers  in  1807  and  1812  are  published  here  orders  and  let- 
ters of  instruction  to  him  by  William  Henry  Harrison  and 
signed  by  General  John  Gibson  Secretarj'  of  Indiana  Territory. 
These  papers  have  never  been  in  print  before  as  they  were  in 
the  colonel's  desk  with  many  other  papers  all  in  neat  bundles, 
tied  with  buckskin  strings.  After  the  colonel's  death  in  1843 
they  were  taken  care  of  by  his  son,  Jacob  W.  Hargrove,  who 
permitted  the  author  to  copy  them  in  1852  when  he  first  de- 
termined to  write  this  Pioneer  History. 


it- 


Vincennes,  Indiana  Territory, 

April  16,  1807. 

* 'Captain  William  Hargrove: 

**This  will  be  handed  to  you  by  Ell  Ernest,  one 
of  our  scouts.  Since  you  were  here  on  last  Friday 
the  10th  inst.,  two  of  our  scouts  are  in  and  report 
that  last  Sunda /  night,  the  12th  inst.,  a  band  of 
rovingjndians  captured  a  white  family  on  the  old 
Indian  road  from  this  place  to  Clarksville  this  side 
of  the  mudhole  (near  where   Otwell,  Indiana,  now 


204  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 

stands)  killed  the  the  man  and  took  into  captivity 
the  woman  and  her  five  children.  Governor  Har-^ 
rison  and  Adjutant  General  John  Small  are  both 
away.  The  Governor  before  starting  instructed 
me  to  write  you  that  if  it  was  possible  without  tak- 
ing  too  many  men  out  of  your  settlement,  that  you 
enlist  at  least  twenty  men  for  Rangier  service  giv- 
ing a  preference  at  all  times  to  men  who  have  been 
on  Indian  campaigns,  but  not  to  leave  any  family 
without  some  able-bodied  man  to  protect  them,  un- 
less they  are  in  block-houses.  This  should  be  done 
at  once  so  that  the  men  can  be  on  duty  in  five  days. 
Send  in  two  days  from  the  time  you  receive  this  by 
the  same  hand  an  answer.  I  will  then  send  you 
instructions  as  to  your  duties. 

By  the  order  of  the  Governor. . 

John  Gibson, 
Sec'y*  Indiana  Territory." 


**Vincennes,  Indiana  Territory, 

April  20,  1807. 
**Captain  William  Hargrove: 

"Your  report  by  the  hand  of  scout  Ernest  has 
been  received.  The  Governor  is  very  much  pleased 
at  your  promptness.  The  supplies  for  the  families 
of  those  who  will  serve  as  Rangers  will  be  sent  as 
often  as  needed. 

**I  have  ordered  sent  you  today,  one  sack  of 
salt,  ten  bags  of  meal,  for  you  to  distribute  before 
you  leave  home.  Also  twenty-five  pounds  of  pow- 
der, twenty-five  pounds  of  lead,  two  hundred  gun- 
flints,  one  bundle  of  tow.  You  will  divide  your 
force  and  form  a  squad  of  six  men  under  a  reliable 
man  who  will  act  as  Sergeant  to  patrol  the  main 
travelled  way  from  your  settlement  south  to  the 
Ohio  river,  at  Red  Banks.  Instruct  the  Sergeant 
to  make  two  trips  each  way  every  ten  days.  I  will 
send  a  scout  who  will  come  with  the  men  and  carts 
that  bring  the  supplies.  He  will  go  on  duty  with 
the  squad  patrolling  to  the  south.  The  other  thir- 
teen men  will  be  with  you;  also  one  scout  and  two 
friendly  Indians.  You  are  to  patrol  the  old  Indian 
trace  tnat  leads  from  this  place  to  Clarksville  on 
the  Ohio  river,  from  a  point  where  this  old  road 
crosses  White  river  and  going  as  far  as  thirty-five 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OP  INDIANA.  205 

miles  east  of  the  mudhole.  The  two  Indians  to  be 
directly  under  the  orders  of  the  scout  who  will 
keep  you  informed  of  the  orders  he  gives  them. 
Once  every  week  send  a  report  of  your  work  to  this 
office.  It  has  been  ordered  that  movers  coming 
over  the  old  trace  shall  be  held  on  the  other  end 
until  a  number  of  them  are  together.  Then  they 
will  travel  with  the  rangers  as  they  are  coming 
west  on  the  trace.  Any  coming  into  your  territory 
will  be  sent  to  a  point  out  of  danger  by  you,  if 
coming  to  the  older  settlements.  If  they  intend  to 
form  a  new  settlement,  they  must  build  a  fort  and 
stay  in  it  until  the  season  for  raids  has  past.  They 
can  prepare  houses  where  they  intend  to  locate  but 
they  must  remain  in  the  blockhouses  at  night.  If 
there  should  be  extra  men  with  the  movers  who 
have  had  experience  as  hunters  or  in  Indian  fight- 
ing enlist  them  if  you  can.  I  hope  that  your  ex- 
perience in  Indian  warfare  will  help  you  protect 
your  men.  The  roving  bands  of  Indians  prowling 
over  this  unprotected  country  in  the  warm  season 
aim  to  murder  helpless  people  for  their  scalps  and 
the  capturing  of  prisoners  for  what  they  can  realize 
from  the  sale  of  them  for  servants  to  the  British 
posts  on  the  lakes.  They  are  not  hunting  for  arm- 
ed soldiers.  A  careful  and  vigilant  scouting  ser- 
vice will  in  a  great  measure  do  away  with  these 
prowling  bands  of  Indians. 

By  order  of  the  Governor, 
John  Gibson,  Sec'y.  Indiana  Territory." 


Vincennes,  Indiana  Territory, 

April  29,  1807, 
Captain  William  Hargrove,  in  the  Ranger  Ser- 
vice of  Indiana  Territory: — 

''Your  report  by  the  half-breed  Twenney  came 
to  hand  this  evening.  The  Governor  wi^hes  to  say 
that  he  is  well  pleased  with  your  work  and  fully 
agrees  wiih  you  that  the  route  from  the  forks  of 
White  river,  south  to  the  Yellow  Banks  on  the  Ohio 
river  (now  Rockport.  Indiana)  should  be  patrolled 
at  least  once  each  week.  The  three  men  you  have 
recruited  can  take  the  place  of  some  of  your  best 
men  that  you  are  acquainted  with.  You  will  send 
them  over  the  route  in  company  with  one  of  the 


206  PIONEER  HISORY  OF  INDIANA. 

scouts.  The  Governor  suggests  that  )^ou  send  scout 
FuQuay  with  them,  as  he  is  familiar  with  the  coun- 
try south  of  you  on  the  Ohio  river.  In  your  next 
report  fully  describe  what  was  found  on  the  Yellow 
Bank  route  and  if  any  Indian  sign  has  been  seen 
near  the  Ohio  river. 

**It  is  utterly  impossible  at  this  time  to  furnish 
anything  like  a  company  of  men  to  assist  the  father 
of  Mrs.  Larkins  in  releasing  her  from  captivity. 
The  Governor  directs  that  you  say  to  Colonel 
.Greenup  that  if  he  can  bring  the  aid  from  Kentucky 
that  he  thinks  he  can,  that  scouts  and  guides  will 
be  furnished  them  from  this  post  and  that  he  is 
truly  sorrj"  that  he  has  not  the  men  to  furnish  all 
the  help  needed. 

John  Gibson,  Sec'y.  of  Indiana  Territory. 

By  order  Wm.  H.  Hakrison, 
Governor,  Indiana  Territor3\'' 


tt- 


ik' 


'Vincennes,  Indiana  Territory, 

May  10,  1807. 
''Captain  Wm.  Hargrove, 

In  the  Indian  Ranger  Service. 
'Your  report  with  enclosures  have  been  re- 
ceived. The  Governor  feels  very  sorry  that  Colo- 
nel Greenup  feels  as  he  expresses  himself.  He 
ought  to  know  and  if  reasonable  would  understand 
that  to  govern  this  wild  territory  and  furnish  half 
protection  to  the  scattered  settlers  in  this  wilder- 
ness, that  we  have  all  we  can  do  with  the  limited 
number  of  men  that  is  at  our  command.  It  wculd 
be  a  very  pleasing  thing  to  aid  your  old  soldier 
mate  and  recapture  Mrs.  Larkins  and  her  children. 
It  is  but  '.atural  that  her  father  should  feel  very 
anxious  about  her  release  but  he  could  do  nothing 
with  the  few  men  we  could  send  him  on  such  an  ex- 
pedition. After  leaving  the  old  Indian  road  that 
you  are  on  there  is  no  settlement  north  and  it 
would  take  an  army  to  invade  the  country  north  of 
White  river.  You  will  please  convey  to  him  the 
Governor's  compliments  and  inform  him  of  the  con- 
tents of  this  letter.  As  soon  as  it  is  possible,  we 
will  give  him  all  the  aid  we  can,  but  it  would  do 
him  no  good  to  make  the  attempt  with  a  few  men 
as  they  would  all  be  destroyed. 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA.  207 

'*The  report  of  the  three  men  on  the  trace 
south  to  the  Yellow  Banks  is  noted.  There  is 
most  likely  but  little  travel  on  that  route.  The 
one  family  which  your  men  escorted  to  safety  is  a 
sufficient  answer  as  to  the  usefulness  of  the  patrol. 
They  will  be  continued  at  least  until  the  warm 
weather  is  over.  William  H.  Harrison, 

Governor  of  Indiana  Territory.. 

By  John  Gibson, 

Secretary  of  Indiana  Territory." 


Vincennes,  Indiana  Territory. 

May  22,  1807. 

'*Captain  William     Hargrove,   Commanding  a 
detachment  of  Rang^ers: 

'*EU  Ernest  is  in  with  your  report.  Will  send 
you  a  Cree  Indian  for  the  one  you  say  is  too  lazy  ta 
hunt.  This  Indian  has  been  here  for  a  long:  time 
and  has  the  reputation  of  being:  a  g^reat  hunter. 
He  can  keep  your  Rangers  in  meat.  I  have  had  an 
interview  with  him  and  he  is  delighted  with  the 
prospect  of  going  as  a  scout.  Ernest  is  acquainted 
with  him  and  can  make  him  understand  what  is  to 
be  done.  Ernest  said  that  he  saw  a  number  of  In- 
dians in  bathing  on  the  south  bank  of  the  White 
river  and  a  number  of  them  were  fishing.  They 
did  not  see  him.  As  they  were  near  here  a  platoon 
of  cavalry  has  been  sent  with,  several  scouts  to 
look  after  them.  These  troops  before  they  return 
may  report  to  you  and  will  inform  you  what  these 
Indians  were  up  to.  There  are  always  some  con- 
trary people  in  all  walks  of  life  who  are  hard  to 
manage.  The  ones  you  report  are  not  all  who 
have  been  troublesome.  There  is  no  deviating 
from  the  rule.  Anyone  who  refuses  to  stay  in  the 
fort  when  ordered,  arrest  them  and  send  them  to 
this  post,  under  guard.  When  the  Gov^ernment 
does  all  that  it  can  to  protect  its  people  the)'  must 
and  shall  obey  the  rules.  This  territory  is  under 
no  law  that  can  force  obedience  but  the  Military 
and  all  of  its  subjects  must  obey  the  governing 
rule  or  be  sent  out  of  it. 

By  the  order  of  the  Governor. 

By  John  Gibson, 

Secretary  of  Indiana  Territory. 


208  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 


44- 


4  • 


Vincennes,  Indiana  Territory, 

June  7, 1807. 
Captain  Wm.  Hargrove,  In  the  Ranger  Service. 
The  requisition  for  provision  has  been  filled 
and  forwarded  under  escort.  One  of  our  scouts  re- 
ports that  Indians  were  seen  passing^  to  the  west 
on  the  south  side  of  White  river  a  little  way  west 
of  the  place  where  the  Indian  trace  to  Louisville 
crosses  that  river.  Whether  they  are  a  roving^ 
band  of  friendly  Indians  or  hostile  ones  has  not 
been  found  out  at  these  headquarters.  There  was 
a  runner  sent  to  David  Robb's  notifying  him  about 
the  Indians.  When  you  receive  this  you  had  better 
return  to  this  end  of  your  route  and  leave  one-half 
of  your  men  under  your  ranking  non  commissioned 
officer.  With  the  rest  you  had  better  examine  the 
country  to  the  west  on  the  south  side  of  the  river 
as  far  as  two  or  three  miles  west  of  David*  Robb's 
place  and  see  if  you  can  find  the  cause  of  these 
Indians  prowling  over  that  section.  If  the  fort  at 
White  Oak  Springs  is  too  small  to  hold  the  new 
comers,  have  them  build  another  block  house 
near  it  and  have  them  both  enclosed  inside  the 
same  stocksfde  with  only  two  gates  for  the  two 
forts.  If  you  can  enlist  of  the  new  arrivals  as 
many  as  twenty-five  men  for  service  at  this  post, 
your  effort  will  be  duly  appreciated.  The  time  of 
enlistment  of  quite  a  number  of  our  troops  expires 
next  month  and  at  least  twenty-five  Kentuckians 
-will  not  re-enlist.  . 

By  the  Direction  of  Wm.  H.  Harrison, 

Governor  of  Indiana  Territory. 
John  Gibson,  Sec'y  of  Indiana  Territory." 


"Headquarters,  Post  Vincennes, 
Indiana  Territory,  June  20,  1807. 

"'Captain  William  Hargrove,  Commanding  a  De- 
tachment of  Rangers,  Indiana  Territory. 

*'Your  report  by  the  hand  of  Ranger  Hogue 
shows  that  it  is  best  to  be  determined  and  firm  in 
dealing  with  our  friends  as  well  as  foes.  You  will 
not  have  to  arrest  any  more  for  refusing  to  obey 
th«  orders  for  their  own  protection.  Ernest  can  re- 
main two  months  longer.  The  service  that  he  was 
Tvanted  for  was  in  a  section  where  he  had  done 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA.  209 

scouting  service  some  years  ag^o.  Mr.  David  Robb 
visited  the  Governor  last  Saturday  the  13th  inst. 
and  remained  over  until  Sunday.  He  says  that 
everything  is  quiet  in  your  home  neighborhood.  If 
you  can  make  the  exchange  without  weakening 
your  force  it  would  be  well.  Men  of  families  are 
more  liable  to  yearn  for  home  than  single  ones. 
Do  not  make  the  exchange  until  the  young  men 
are  at  the  post  of  duty.  Under  no  circumstances 
weaken  your  force,  as  you  have  a  ver^^  important 
district  to  guard.  Computation  for  rations  are 
paid  for  as  the  regular  wages  of  the  soldier,  but 
not  when  they  are  in  active  service  and  living  from 
supplies  furnished  by  the  hunters  or  by  the  comis- 
saries.  Computation  for  rations  is  intended  for 
those  Vho  are  on  detached  duty  and  paying  for 
their  provision.  The  laws  of  the  United  States 
govern  land  warrants  or  land  script  and  each  man 
who  serves  the  required  time  is  entitled  to  it  and 
can  claim  any  land  that  is  surveyed  and  not  allotted 
on  his  warrant.  You  are  correct  when  you  say  that 
in  these  troublesome  times  that  soldiers  who  are 
serving  to  protect  their  homes  and  country  are 
much  better  troops  than  those  who  are  serving 
with  the  hope  of  securing  large  pay.  This  country 
must  depend  on  its  soldiers  and  must  pay  them  but 
the  loyalty  and  patriotism  of  those  enlisted  should 
be  well  looked  after.  In  giving  these  certificates 
whose  time  of  enlistment  is  up,  be  sure  to  note  on 
their  discharge,  the  amount  they  have  been  paid 
and  whether  they  prefer  all  in  land  or  part  in  land 
and  part  in  Treasury  notes. 

By  order  of  the  Governor. 
John  Gibson,  Sec'y  of  Indiana  Territory." 


«»^ 


'Headquarters  Indiana  Territory, 

Vincennes,  July  6,  1807. 

* 'Captain  William  Hargrove, 

Commanding  a  Detachment  of  Rangers. 

**Last  Saturday,  th€  4th  inst.  a  number  of 
friendly  Indians  were  in  to  see  the  celebration  of 
Independence  Day.  A  half-breed  Delaware  Indian 
named  * 'Swimming  Otter"  reported  that  there 
was  likely  to  be  a  raid  made  by  young  Indian  hunt- 


o 


210  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 

ers  on  boats  loaded  with  people  and  their  plunder 
coming:  to  this  section  by  the*  Wabash  or  g^oing 
down  the  Ohio*river.  He  said  that  the  band  would 
be  led  by  an  Indian  who  lost  his  father  in  a  battle 
with  a  boat  crew  near  the  Red  Banks  (now  Hen- 
derson, Ky.)  The  scouts  thoroughly  interrogated 
the  Indian  and  he  has  promised  to  let  them  know 
the  time  they  are  to  start  and  the  route  they  will 
follow.  The  raiders  will  not  get  started,  so  the 
half-breed  says,  in  less  than  ten  days  and  that  he 
will  be  here  two  or  three  days  before  they  go.  You 
will  then  be  informed  by  a  runner  so  that  you  can 
thwart  their  designs  if  they  attempt  to  cross  your 
territory.  It  is  reported  here  by  friendly  Indians 
that  a  band  of  Miami  Indians  captured  a  boat  on 
the  Ohio  river  some  forty  miles  below  Clarksville 
and  captured  the  crew,  killing  two  men  and  carry- 
ing two  women  and  four  children  into  captivity. 
You  can  do  no  better  than  you  have.  Thoroughly 
patrol  the  three  traveled  ways.  You  could  not  do 
any  good  by  roaming  over  the  wilderness  unless  it 
was  to  make  a  short  cut  to  reach  a  point  on  one  of 
the  other  routes.  The  white  people  coming  to  this 
section  are  on  the  three  traces  or  down  the  Ohio 
and  up  the  Wabash  river. 

For  the  Governor. 
By  John  Gibson, 

Secretary  of  the  Indiana  Territory." 


'Headquarters  Post  Vincennes, 
July  12th,  Sunday,  1807. 

''Captain  Wm.  Hargrove,  Indian  Territory  Ran- 
ger Service: 

This  will  be  handed  you  by  a  Piankashaw  In- 
dian who  is  thoroughly  reliable.  He  will  remain 
with  you  until  you  send  your  next  report.  The 
half-breed,  Swimming  Otter,  came  in  this  noon  and 
reported  there  were  twelve  in  the  band  of  Indians 
hunters  and  they  will  start  Tuesday  night,  aiming 
to  cross  White  river  above  White  Oak  Springs 
(now  Petersburg,  Indiana)  and  go  in  a  direction 
that  will  place  them  on  the  Ohio  at  the  mouth  of 
Green  river.  It  is  hard  to  determine  where  they 
will  cross  the  old  Indian  road  that  you  are  on,  but. 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA.  211 

some  place  between  the  mudhole  and  the  White 
Oak  Springs  fort.  The  people  at  that  Fort  must 
be  advised.  You  have  the  authority  to  secure 
as  man)^  men  for  temporary  service  from  the  White 
Oak  Spring  fort  as  they  can  spare.  You  must  have 
the  section  all  along  for  fifteen  miles  to  the  east 
thoroi^ghly  patrolled.  There  will  be  thirty  mount- 
ed men  from  this  Post  sent  to  the  south  of  )'ou  who 
will  patrol  along  and  near  to  the  Patoka  river  with 
scouts  at  the  different  fords  on  that  river.  With 
all  this  vigilance  I  feel  sure  that  the  Indian  band 
will  be  destroyed  or  turned  Back. 

By  the  direct  order  of  Wm.  H.  Harrison, 

Governor  of  Indiana  Territory. 
John  Gibson,  Sec'y-  of  Indiana  Territory. 
'*Post  Script: 

**Have  the  scouts  with  the  Indians  on  duty 
near  White  river  send  the  Piankashaw  Indian  to  a 
point  near  the  forks  of  White  river  to  report  to  you 
ever}'  morning.  He  is  thoroughly  acquainted  with 
that  section.  By  the  Governor." 

* 'Headquarters  Post  Vincennes, 

July  17,  1807. 
'*Captain  Wm.  H.  Hargrove,  Commanding  a  De- 
tachment of  Rangers: 
Your  report  by  the  Piankashaw  Indian  is  to 
hand.  The  service  rendered  by  your  scouts  is  of 
such  value  to  the  country  that  the  nation  should 
substantially  reward  you  and  your  commands.  The 
Piankashaw  Indian  is  well  acquainted  with  the 
White  river  for  many  mi^es  ea^t  of  the  fork.  The 
chastisement  given  this  band  of  robbers  and  cut- 
throats will  have  a  good  effect  on  them  and  others 
who  would  have  followed  ihem  if  they  had  been 
successful.  The  Indian  only  lea  ns  as  it  is  shot 
into  him.  There  will  be  no  more  raids  from  that 
direction  this  season  but  it  is  only  safe  when  we 
are  prepared  to  meet  them,  if  they  should  attempt 
to  come  again.  Say  to  young  Hogue  that  the 
Governor  will  write  him  a  pergonal  letter  compli- 
menting him  for  the  good  shot  he  proved  to  be. 

By  order  of  Wm.  H.  Harrison, 
Governor  of  Indiana  Territory. 
John  Gibson,  Sec'y-  of  Indiana  Territory." 


ii- 


212  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 


Vincennes,  Indiana  Territory,  July  23,  1807. 

Captain  Wm.  Hargrove,  in  the  Ranger  Service: 

Your  report  is  to  hand.  The  salt,  meal  and 
other  supplies  were  sent  by  cart  two  days  ago. 
The  receipt  paper  I  enclose  to  you.  Also  fifty 
pounds  of  lead,  fifty  pounds  of  powder,  two  hun- 
dred gun-flints,  one  bail  of  tow  sent  to  White  Oak 
Springs  Fort  in  care  of  Woolsey  Pride.  The  ten 
men  you  enlisted  for  extra  service  should  have  a 
certificate  something  like  the  following: 

**  *  James  Blank  served  ten  days  on  extra  mili- 
tary duty  with  the  Rangers  under  Captain  William 
Hargrove,  commanding,  dated  and  signed.' 

*The  rangers  on  the  traveled  way  to  the  south 
need  not  make  more  than  one  trip  each  way  every 
ten  days.  The  danger  does  not  exist  on  that  route 
that  did  some  months  ago  but  they  will  patrol  to 
the  east,  south  of  the*  Patoka  river  a  distance  of 
forty  miles  as  the  river  runs,  to  a  trace  that  crosses 
that  river  coming  north  from  the  Yellow  Banks. 
There  is  no  regular  traveled  way.  John  Severn  will 
guide  them  over  a  blind  trace  which  runs  on  a  line 
on  which  formerly  there  was  a  chain  of  small  Indian 
towns  running  m^ny  miles  to  the  east.  They  can 
go  over  this  route  as  often  as  once  each  ten  days 
until  further  orders.  Mr.  Severns  has  been  seen 
and  will  go  as  soon  as  yon  can  make  the  necessary 
arrangements.  You  will  want  good  axemen  to 
mark  the  traces  plain  by  making  blazes  on  the 
sides  of  the  trees  near  the  road  so  that  it  can  be 
easil}'  followed  without  a  guide. 

By  order  of  the  Governor. 
John  Gibson,  Sec'y*  of  Indiana  Territory.'' 


**\^A 


'Headquarters  Indiana  Territdi'y, 

August  13,  1807. 

Captain  Wm.  Hargrove,  Commanding  Rangers: 

Scout  FuQuay  with  your  report  is  here.  This 
ofl&ce  is  well  pleased  to  learn  that  everything  is  so 
quiet  in  your  district.  It  often  happens  that  the 
lull  in  Indian  warfare  is  only  temporary  and  that 
they  are  preparing  to  make  a  much  larger  raid  at 
a  point  where  you  don't  expect  them.  Indian  war- 
fare as  I  have  learned,  after  thirty  years  of  experi- 


\ 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA.  213 

ence  is  like  no  other  eampaignins:.  Their  approach 
is  so  sly  and  stealthy  that  you  can  never  tell  where 
or  when  they  will  come.  They  are  the  slyest  and 
most  treacherous  enemy  that  any  civilized  troops 
ever  had  to  contend  with  and  the  only  security  on 
the  border  is  continual  vigilance.  The  camp  of 
white  people  that  Scout  FuQuay  found  east  of  the 
trace  to  the  Yellow  Bank  are  no  doubt  a  part  of 
the  misguided  people  who  have  scattered  over  the 
country  as  fugitives. from  justice  that  had  assembled 
at  an  island  up  the  Ohio  river  as  followers  of  that 
arch  traitor  and  murder,  Aaron  Burr.  The  Gov- 
ernor has  closely  interrogated  FuQuay  and  this  is 
his  opinion.  The  people  are  guilty  of  no  more 
wrong  than  that  of  being  duped  by  one  of  the 
smartest  villain  in  the  country.  They  only  acted 
as  was  dictated  to  them  by  those  who  held  and  had 
held  high  positions  in  the  Government.  It  is 
broadly  hinted  that  a  man  high  in  military  com- 
mand in  the  American  army  was  strongly  tinctured 
with  Burr's  chimerical  conspiracy  that  saved  him- 
self from  disgrace  by  turning  a  traitor  to  Burr. 
The  thing  to  do  is  for  you  to  have  these  four  mis- 
guided, men  with  their  wives  and  helpless  children, 
prepare  a  fort  some  place  where  you  think  best  in 
your  military  territory  so  that  you  can  give  them 
your  protection.  Your  good  judgment  is  depended 
upon  to  keep  this  matter  close  and  so  instruct  the 
refugees.  FuQuay  has  been  obligated  to  secrecy. 
These  people  are  no  doubt  worthy  and  will  grow 
up  among  the  other  pioneers  and  be  useful  to  our 
country.  You  will  find  out  from  them  if  they  know 
of  any  other  bands  in  hiding.  This  territory  needs 
more  people  and  these  misguided,  duped  men  and 
women  will  make  as  good  citizens  as  any.  Your 
requisition  for  provision  and  ammunition  has  been 
sent  to  you  at  White  Oak  Springs  in  care  of 
Woolsey  Pride  who  was  at  this  Post  yesterday. 

By  the  authority  of  the  Governor. 
John  Gibson,  Sec'y*  of  Indiana  Territory." 


44 


Vincennes,  Indiana  Territory,   August   20,  1807. 
Captain  William  Hargrove,  Commanding  scouts 
and  Rangers: 
**Your  report  by  the  Crea  Indian.     He  was  de» 


214  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 

tained  here  to  carry  you  this  letter  of  instruction. 
The  four  young  men  you  sent  with  him  have  en- 
listed and  look  like  good  material  to  make  soldiers. 
The  Governor  is  well  pleased  with  your  success  in 
having  the  four  families  located  in  your  district. 
The  young  men  you  sent  were  interrogated  separa- 
tely. They  all  agree  in  iheir  siaiemenisihal  ihere 
are  several  other  bands  scattered  over  the  territory 
some  distance  north  of  the  Ohio  river  from  ten  to 
fifteen  miles  east  of  the  yellow  bank  trace  to  some- 
thing like  the  same  distance  west  of  the  same 
trace.  They  claim  that  there  is  one  band  of  these 
refugees  west  of  the  Yellow  Bank  trace  about  ten 
miles.  They  were  camped  near  a  large  creek.  It 
is  thought  best  for  you  to  send  FuQuay  with  two 
other  men  to  find  these  people  and  have  them  locate 
in  a  place  that  they  can  be  given  protection  and 
that  they  can  aid  in  giving  protection  to  others. 
Young  Bailey,  one  of  the  men  you  sent  in  some 
time  ago  has  orders  to  report  to  you  to  go  with 
FuQua}'.  He  is  acquainted  with  the  people  and  has 
been  at  their  camp.  He  says  that  there  are  six 
men,  three  women  and  five  children  in  the  band. 
Instruct  FuQuay  to  inform  the  refugees  that  they 
must  move  near  some  of  the  settled  sections  and 
build  ablock  house  for  their  protection  and  there 
will  be  no  questions  asked.  That  as  soon  as  the 
dangerous  season  for  Indian  raids  has  passed,  they 
can  go  to  work  preparing  homes.  If  you  can  enlist 
the  men  without  families,  do  so.  If  you  don't  need 
them  send  them  to  his  Post.  If  these  people  should 
refuse  to  settle  as  has  been  suggested,  after  you 
have  plainly  informed  them  it  must  be  done,  then 
you  send  such  a  number  of  men  as  will  be  required 
to  arrest  and  bring  them  and  their  belongings  to 
this  Post.  The  wounded  old  soldier  and  his  wife 
you  can  put  in  charge  of  one  of  your  stockade 
camps.  The  man  to  look  well  for  Indians  that  may 
be  prowling  around,  the  woman  to  oversee  the  cul- 
inary affairs  of  the  camp. 

*'John  Severns  was  here  toda}^  and  had  an  in- 
terview with  the  Governor  about  opening  a  trace 
from  the  one  that  runs  south  from  3  our  neighbor- 
hood to  the  Red  Banks,  to  commence  fifteen  miles 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA.  215 

north  of  the  Ohio  river  on  that  trace,  running 
thence  east  parallel  with  the  riv^er  from  forty  to 
lift}*  miles.  If  it  should  become  necessar^^  to  rein- 
force the  Rangers  on  either  of  the  traces  running 
to  the  south  or  the  main  one  running  to  the  east,  it 
would  be  almost  impossible  to  do  it  as  the  country 
between  the  traces  is  one  vast  unbroken  wilderness. 
Severns  says  that  many  large  creeks  will  have  to  be 
crossed  that  empty  their  waters  into  the  Ohio. 
The  trace  just  south  of  the  Patoka  river  opened 
some  time  ago,  will  be  extended  from  the  Yellow 
Banks  trace,  thirty  or  forty  miles  east.  You  ha'd 
better  have  the  same  men  go  over  this  route  as 
soon  as  Severns  is  through  with  the  new  survey 
farther  south.  Mr.  Severns  says  that  in  going 
near  the  Patoka  river  many  abrupt  banks  and  deep 
gorges  are  met  with.  Inform  him  that  it  is  not 
necessary  to  make  a  straight  line  but  to  so  blaze 
and  mark  it  that  it  can  be  easily  traced.  It  is  not 
intended  for  wheeled  vehicles  or  sleds  to  pass  over 
but  for  foot  soldiers  mostly.  The  logs  need  not 
be  moved  out  the  brush  had  better  be  cut  seven  or 
eight  feet  wide. 

By  order  of  the  Governor. 
John  Gibson,  Sec'y-  of  Indiana  Territory." 


'  Vincennes,  Indiana  Territory. 

September  1,  1807. 

"William  Hargrove,  Commanding  first  division 
of  Rangers,  east  of  the  Wabash  river: 

"There  has  been  a  trace  cut  from  the  Clarks- 
vill^  and  Vincennes  road  that  leaves  that  route  at 
a  point  about  forty  miles  east  of  the  Mudhole  and 
running  to  the  south,  coming  to  the  Ohio  river  at 
the  west  end  of  a  large  bend  at>out  three  miles 
west  of  the  mouth  of  Blue  river.  There  is  a 
traveled  way  that  comes  to  the  south  bank  of  the 
'  Ohio  opposite  this  point  that  runs  to  the  south  and 
far  into  Kentucky  and  people  coming  to  this  and 
other  sections  of  Indiana  Territory  are  crossing  the 
river  at  that  point  and  following  Blue  river  to  the 
old  Indian  road  before  mentioned.  The  two  traces 
to  the  east  which  are  now  being  opened  should  go 
into  this  Blue  river  trace.     You  are  instructed  to 


216  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 

have  a  patrol  of  three  men  go  over  the  new  route 
nearest  the  Ohio  river  to  the  east  as  often  as  once, 
both  ways,  each  week.  Also  a  patrol  of  two  men» 
one  scout,  to  go  over  the  trace  to  the  east  just 
south  of  the  Patoka  river  as  often  as  both  ways 
once  each  week.  If  you  do  not  have  men  enough 
and  cannot  enlist  them,  they  will  be  furnished  from 
this  Post.  It  will  be  the  best  to  send  men  who 
have  seen  service  over  these  new  routes  and  keep 
the  newly  enlisted  men  with  you. 

By  order  Wm.  H.  Harrison, 

Gov.  Indiana  Territory* 
John  Gibson,  Sec'y." 


**i 


Headquarters  Indiana  Territory. 

Vincennes,  Sept.  12,  1807^ 

* 'Captain  Wm.  Hargrove,  Commanding  Rangers, 
east  of  the  Wabash  river: 

**There  has  long  been  an  old  traveled  way  fro;n 
this  Post  that  crosses  the  White  river  near  David 
Robb's  place  and  the  Patoka  river  at  JohnSevem$', 
thence  in  a  southwest  direction  to  the  Wabash  river 
neaf  the  point  where  the  Little  Wabash  empties 
into  the  main  river,  thence  across  the  main  Wabash 
at  that  place  which  can  only  be  crossed  by  canoes 
or  check  boats.  This  route  is  known  by  some  as 
the  Salt  Route.  Salt  has  become  so  scarce  and 
high  priced  that  a  number  of  settlers  south  of 
White  river  have  petitioned  the  Governor  for  aa 
escort  of  soldiers  to  protect  them  whilst  on  the  trail 
and  at  the  salt  works  west  of  the  Wabash  river. 
This  petition  has  been  under  consideration  for  sev- 
eral days.  The  Governor  sent  for  Mr.  Robb  about 
thid  matter  and  it  has  been  arranged  that  a  meet- 
ing with  the  petitioners  and  other  citizens  would 
be  held  at  Mr.  Kimbles  who  lives  on  the  site  of  the 
old  Delaware  Indian  town  eignteen  or  twenty  miles 
southwest  of  Mr.  Severns',  on  Thursday  the  seven- 
teenth day  of  September,  1807.  You  will  tempor- 
orarily  place  your  command  in  the  hands  of  your 
Ranking  Sergeant  and  attend  that  meeting,  taking 
two  men  and  one  scout  with  you.  After  due  de- 
liberation and  consultation  with  the  people  present^ 
if  you  think  it  best  you  can  place  two  men  on  duty 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA.  217 

on  the  trail  west  of  the  river  but  their  main  camp 
must  be  on  the  east  side  of  the  Wabash  when  there 
are  no  parties  to  guard  at  the  salt  works.  The 
scouts  will  remain  with  the  two  soldiers  doing  reg- 
ular scouting  duties.  Instruct  him  to  go  for  miles 
on  every  side  of  the  salt  works  and  learn  the  lay  of 
the  country  and  at  night  to  be  near  the  works  or 
with  the  soldiers  at  their  camp  east  of  the  river. 
The  salt  makers  are  to  be  instructed  to  have  cer- 
tain days  to  make  salt  and  that  they  must  go  to 
the  works  in  a  body  of  not  less  than  fifteen  men, 
one-half  of  that  number  to  be  at  all  time  ready  for 
military  duly,  subject  to  the  orders  of  the  Sergeant 
which  you  place  in  command,  to  protect  the  others^ 
while  the  work  is  in  progress.  That  from  this  re- 
lief the  camp  guards  must  be  furnished  day  and 
night.  The  two  soldiers  are  to  remain  on  duty  as 
long  as  you  shall  think  it  will  be  necessary  to  have 
a  guard.  After  the  first  of  December  there  is  but 
little  danger  of  Indian  raids.  This  side  of  the 
Wabash  is  considered  sufficiently  safe  for  so  large 
a  number  of  cautious  men  to  travel  at  any  time. 
After  the  meeting  you  will  send  a  report  of  the 
proceeding  to  this  office. 

By  directions  of  the  Governor. 
John  Gibson,  Sec'y*  of  Indiana  Territory." 


Post  Vincennes,  Sept.  27,  1807. 
''Captain  William  Hargrove,  Ranger  Service: 

"Your  report  of  the  19th  inst.  by  your  hunter, 
the  Cree  Indian,  came  in  two  days  ago.  He  was 
retained  to  carry  messages  to  parties  on  the  old 
Salt  trace.  That  information  was  wanted  from  us 
before  this  was  sent  so  you.  David  Robb,  John 
Severns,  Sr.  and  Isaac  Montgomery  were  here  last 
night.  The  matter  of  a  guard  at  the  salt  works 
was  gone  over  carefully.  They  all  agree  with  your 
report  that  there  is  no  need  of  guards  on  the  east 
side  of  the  Wabash  and  if  it  were  not  for  a  lot  of 
foolhardy,  careless  people  who  would  insist  on  go- 
ing there  in  small  parties,  there  would  be  no  need 
of  guards  on  the  west  side  of  the  rivei.  The  two 
men  and  the  scout  which  you  have  there  will  re- 
main on  duty.  The  most  probable  trouble,  if  any 
comes,  will  be  from  south  of  the  Ohio  river.     You 


/ 


218  PIONEER  HISORY  OF  INDIANA. 

can  have  your  scout  informed  of  this  and  have  him 
keep  a  close  lookout  in  that  direction.  Youngf 
Bailey  returned  several  days  agfo  with  your  report 
about  the  refugfees.  Retain  the  three  youngf  men 
which  you  enlisted  if  you  need  them.  If  the  three 
families  will  come  to  a  point  within  two  miles  of 
the  Yellow  Banks  road  it  will  do.  If  they  prefer, 
they  can  move  on  to  the  new  road  that  is  being 
located  to  the  east  not  far  from  where  they  are  now 
camped.  It  is  thougfht  best  for  you  to  have  Bailey 
look  after  this  matter.  These  people  must  be  near 
one  of  these  routes  and  must  prepare  themselves  a 
strong  blockhouse  with  a  stockade  around  it. 

By  order  W.  H.  Harrisonn. 
Gov.  of  Indiana  Territory. 
John  Gibsox,  Secretary." 


**Headquarters,  Indiana  Territory, 
Vincennes,  Sunday,  October  4,  1807. 

Captain  Wm.  Hargrove,  in  command  t)f  Rangers: 
The  Governor  wishes  to  assure  3'ou  of  his  ap- 
preciation of  your  successful  work  in  gathering  so 
many  of  the  unfortunate  refugees  at  points  near 
the  Yellow  Banks  and  other  traces  and  the  large 
colon}'  which  you  h^ve  gathered  on  the  new  trace 
crossing  the  Yellow  Banks  road.  This  is  a  very 
desirable  place  to  have  a  strong  fort.  In  making 
the  building  be  sure  that  it  is  strongly  put  to- 
gether, made  out  of  large  logs  and  that  a  stockade 
ten  feet  high  be  built  that  will  enclose  one  acre  of 
ground.  In  this  enclosure  can  be  erected  a  number 
of  strong  buildings  that  will  safely  protect  fifty 
people.  This  will  be  a  rallying  point  for  all  who 
may  come  later  to  that  section.  The  times  are  very 
unsettled.  The  Indians  are  continually  grumbling 
because  the  white  people  are  in  this  country  and 
threatening  that  unless  their  lands  are  restored  they 
will  drive  them  back  across  the  Ohio  river.  North 
of  the  White  river  they  could  easily  concentrate  in 
such  numbers  that  should  they  find  our  people  un- 
prepared could  overrun  the  most  of  your  territory. 
It  is  hard  to  tell  anything  about  what  an  Indian 
will  do  when  he  has  the  advantage.  They  are  the 
most  treacherous,  cunning  rascals  on  earth  and  the 


PIONEEk  HISORY  OF  INDIANA.  219 

most  brutal  as  well.  The  only  safe  way  is  to  keep 
the  advantage  on  our  side  and  put  the  Indians  on 
the  defense.  When  they  know  that  your  position 
makes  one  white  man  equal  to  ten  Indians  there  is 
no  danger  of  an  attack.  The  two  men  coming  into 
your  lines  east  of  the  Mud-hole  have  certainly  re- 
pented of  all  the  wrong  which  they  have  done  by 
following  after  Traitor  Burr.  It  is.  best  for  you  to 
see  all  these  people  who  are  connected  with  that 
unfortunate  affair  and  instruct  them  under  no  cir- 
cumstances to  let  any  one  know  that  they  were  in 
the  Burr  conspiracy.  If  they  do  in  after  years  they 
will  be  accused  of  being  traitors  by  people  not  half 
so  worthy  as  they  are. 

By  William  H.  Harrison, 

Governor  of  Indiana  Territory. 

Per  John  Gibson,  Secretary. 


Headquarters,  Indiana  Territory, 

Vincennes,  Oct.  12,  1807. 

William  Hargrove, 

Captain  Commanding  in  Ranger  Service: 
Your  report  and  the  man  )^ou-sent  in  under 
guard,  are  here.  You  did  the  right  thing  in  ar- 
resting this  man.  All  such  suspicious  cases  as 
this  should  be  investigated.  What  this  man  is  has 
not  yet  been  found  out  and  it  is  doubtful  if  it  ever 
is.  If  this  country  were  at  war  with  a  white  race 
it  would  evidently  be  determined  that  he  was  a  spy 
locating  the  military  strength  and  positions  of  our 
army.  It  may  be  that  he  is  doing  that  work  for 
the  British.  He  evidently  is  not  what  he  claims  to 
be.  A  prisoner  for  two  years  among  the  Indians 
would  not  have  such  clean  underwear  beneath  his 
buckskin  suit.  Then  his  hair  has  been  recently 
<:ut  by  a  barber.  He  will  be  retained  for  the  pres- 
ent. This  is  Sunday  and  the  cart  drivers  are  all 
at  a  gathering  down  the  river  somewa)'.  Will  for- 
^ward  the  supplies  tomorrow. 

By  order  of  the  Governor. 

John  Gibson,  Sect,  of  Indiana  Territory. 


220  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 

Headquarters,  Indiana  Territory, 

Sunday,  Oct.  18,  1807.. 

Captain  William  Hargrove, 

Commanding  Rangers:  • 

Your  report  by  FuQuay  is  received.  The  flints 
were  of  a  new  lot.  Since  your  statement  has  come 
they  have  been  examined  and  found  to  be  of  shelly 
material  and  are  of  no  value.  Others  will  be  sent 
you  as  soon  as  possible.  Have  your  men  save  the 
old  ones  until  the  others  come. 

The  statement  of  the  Delaware  Indian  that  he 
has  seen  the  prisoner  whom  we  are  holding  as  a 
spy  at  Clarksville,  two  moons  ago,  is  noted. 

The  old  trace  that  runs  near  the  Ohio  river 
crossing  the  Wabash  and  on  the  saline  regions  of 
the  Illinois  has  been  a  regular  pass  way  for  Indians 
from  time  when  none  know.     The  Shawiiees  under 
chief  Setteedown  have,  as  you  know,  a  straggling 
settlement  along  this  trail  and  extending  to  about 
ten  miles  oflF  the  Yellow  Banks  trace  that  you  pa-- 
trolled.      Our  scouts   from  this  place  have  often 
been  over  the  route  and  visited  some  white  people - 
located  on  the  north  bank  of  the  Ohio.   Major  John 
Sprinkles,  who  lives  on  the  north  bank  some  six  miles- 
up  the  river  from  the  mouth  of  Green  river  was  to 
see  the  Governor  yesterday  and  informed  him  that 
detached  bands  of  Indians  had  been  passing  east  for 
eight  or  ten  days  and  appeared  to  be  carrying  their* 
luggage   with  them.     Bailey  Anderson,  who  lives, 
in  the  neighborhood  of  a  few  of  the  Shawnee  wig- 
wams, informed  Mr.  Sprinkles  that  some  of  these- 
visiting  Indians  were  preparing  a  camp  not  more 
than  one  mile  from  his  cabin.     This  may  be  nothing 
but  hunting  parties  from  over  the  Wabash.     Any 
unusual   gathering  of  Indians  on  the  Ohio  river  at 
this  time  of  the  year  is  looked  on  with    suspicion. 
They  may  intend  to  remain  during  the  winter  and 
if   a  chance  comes,  attempt  to  capture  boats  and 
movers  descending  the  river  as  soon  as  the  water  is 
in   sufficient  stage.       You   will  temporarily  leave 
your  command  in  charge  of  Sergeant  Hogue,  tak- 
ing two  reliable  men  with  you  and  at  your  settle- 
ment secure  mounts  for  your  parties.       Then  go- 
south  along  the  Red  Banks  route  and  up  to  Major 
Sprinkles'  cabin,   who   is  aware   of   your  coming.. 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA.  221 

Bailey  Anderson  will  fall  in  with  your  party  as 
you  go  east  from  the  Major's.  You  are  to  make  an 
official  visit  to  chief  Setteedown.  Bailey  Anderson 
understands  their  language  and  will  act  as  inter- 
preter. Before  leaving  the  old  Chief  invite  him  to 
bring,  some  of  his  young  men  and  visit  Grovernor 
Harrison  at  this  Post.  Have  him  set  the  day  as 
early  as  he  will.  You  will  then  proceed  east  on  the 
trace  until  you  come  to  where  it  crosses  the  road 
running  to  the  north  that  comes  to  the  Ohio  river 
just  west  of  the  mouth  of  Blue  river.  Thoroughly 
familiarize  yourself  with  the  route.  In  returning, 
note  well  the  topography  of  the  country.  Return 
the  two  men  to  their  station  and  you  report  in  per- 
vson  to  this  post. 

By  the  direction  of  Wm.  H.  Harrison, 

Governor  of  Indiana  Territory. 
John  Gibson,  Secretary." 


(ii 


i( 


V'incennes,  Indiana  Territory. 

October  20,  1807. 
Captain   William  Hargrove,  Commanding  the 

Western  Division  of  Rangers  east  of  the 

Wabash  river: 
**Last  Sunday  night  the  18th  inst.  two  of  our 
scouts  returning  from  a  long  trip  found  themselves 
at  White  Oak  Spring  fort  a  little  after  seven  o'clock 
in  the  evening.  On  going  to  the  gate  asked  per- 
mission to  stay  over  night  in  the  stockade,  which 
was  denied  them.  They  were  informed  that  when 
the  gates  were  closed  for  the  night  that  they  would 
not  be  opened  for  anyone.  The  scouts  showed 
their  passes  signed  by  Governor  Harrison,  yet  thej^ 
were  refused  admittance  saying  that  Governor  Har- 
rison nor  any  of  his  men  could  get  in  after  night. 
The  Governor  directs  that  you  investigate  this 
matter.  Scout  Ell  Ernest,  the  bearer  of  this  order, 
will  be  permitted  to  be  present  while  the  investi- 
gation is  being  made  as  he  was  one  of  the  scouts 
who  was  refused  permission  to  stay  in  the  stockade. 
Go  fully  into  the  details.  The  Military  authorities 
are  doing  everything  possible  with  the  few  men  at 
their  command  to  protect  the  settlers  who  are  scat- 
tered on  the  southern  borders  of  this  Territory  and 
cheerfully   do   this   hard   service,    imperilling  the 


222  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 

lives  of  the  best  men  of  the  country,  trying  to  give 
protection  to  those  who  are  exposed  to  danger;  but 
when  it  comes  to  such  actions  as  is  above  related 
of  men  who  were  being  guarded,  insulting  and  deny- 
ing the  common  courtesies  to  those  guarding  them 
that  is  so  fully  extended  by  all  decent  pioneer  set- 
tlers to  all  who  come  to  their  cabins.  Some  par- 
ties at  that  fort  are  guilty  of  indignities  that  will 
not  be  silently  passed  over.  Find,  if  you  can  if  the 
owner  of  that  fort  was  at  home  that  night.  Secure 
the  names  of  the  men  who  were  there  and  if  pos- 
sible the  one  who  was  spokesman.  When  you  have 
made  this  investigation  send  the  report  to  this 
office  by  Ell  Ernest. 

Ordered  by  W.  H.  Harrison, 
Governor  of  Indiana  Territory. 
By  John  Gibson,  Sec'y.  of  I.  T." 


**Vincennes,  Indiana  Territory, 

Oct.  23,  1807. 
''Captain  Wm.  Hargrove: 

'*The  Governor  directs  me  to  send  his  compli- 
ments and  inform  you  that  he  appreciates  the 
prompt  and  thorough  manner  in  which  you  made 
the  investigation  wanted.  Woolsey  Pride  is  here 
and  is  fully  exonerated  and  commended  for  so 
summarily  punishing  the  parties  who  were  guilty 
of  the  petty  meanness. 

"Your  obedient  servant, 

John  Gibson,  Sec'y  of  I.  T." 


'Headquarters,  Indiana  Territory, 

October  28,  1807. 
"Wm.  Hargrove.  Captain  Commanding  Rangers: 

**Chief  Settedown  and  his  young  men  have  re- 
turned to  their  homes.  He  assured  the  Governor 
that  the  Indians  gathering  in  his  neigborhood 
were  very  peaeably  inclined  toward  the  white  peo- 
ple and  gave  as  a  reason  for  their  being  there  that 
game  was  more  plentiful  than  across  the  Wabash 
and  that  they  intended  to  stay  only  a  short  while. 
In  answering  the  inquiry  why  he  did  not  want  to 
keep  all  the  game  for  himself  and  people,  said^ 
that  there  was  much  more  than  he  wanted.   Finally 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA.  223^ 

said  that  in  less  than  one  moon  they  would  all  go 
back  over  the  Wabash.  It  is  hoped  that  this  will 
be  true,  but  the  only  security  with  the  Indians  is 
to  be  always  prepared  and  watch  them.  FuQuay 
is  better  acquainted  with  that  section  than  any  one 
else  we  have  in  the  service.  He  and  Ben  Page 
have  orders  to  report  to  you  at  your  east  stockade 
camp,  on  the  Clarksville  trace  and  will  hand  you 
this  letter.  It  is  thought  best  for  3^ou  to  go  with 
the  two  scouts  to  the  Yellow  Banks  and  have  them 
make  such  disposition  of  their  time  during  the  next 
thirty  days  as  will  secure  the  best  information  of 
the  movements  of  the  strange  Indians.  This  sug- 
gestion is  made  for  your  consideration  in  this  mat- 
ter. You  are  on  the  ground  and  will  understand 
the  situation  better  than  can  be  understood  at  this 
distance.  The  two  scouts  have  each  a  new  ax  be- 
sides their  rifles  and  ammunition.  This  is  the 
equipment  that  most  of  the  newcomers  biing  to  the 
Territory.  Have  them  go  into  the  section  a  few 
miles  east  of  Bailey  Anderson's  and  build  a  small 
cabin  and  put  in  their  time  hunting  and  roving 
over  as  large  a  territory  around  their  cabin  as  they 
can.  In  doing  this  they  will  have  a  pretty  good 
idea  of  what  the  Indians  are  doing  around  them^ 
If  there  is  any  design  other  than  friendship  by  the 
newcomers,  the  Shawneesknow  it.  Of  all  this  you 
are  in  the  best  position  to  find  out  the  truth.  The 
two  scouts  will  send  or  bring  you  a  report  as  often 
as  you  think  best  to  require  it.  You  are  safe  in 
giving  FuQuay  your  confidence  as  he  is  one  of  the 
most  trusted  men  that  is  in  the  employ  of  these 
head-quarters. 

By  order  of  the  (Governor. 
John  Gibson,  Secretary  of  Indiana  Territory. '" 


44 


Post  Vincennes,  November  4,  1807. 
Captain  Wm.  Hargrove,  Commanding  a  Detach^ 
ment  of  Rangers: 
"The  location  for  the  refugees  is^no  doubt  a 
good  one.  Plenty  of  water  is  very  desirable.  The 
Governor  is  favorable  to  your  suggestion.  It  cer- 
tainly would  be  to  the  advantage  of  the  new 
emigrants  for  them  to  prepare  a  little  cabin  inside 
of  the  stockades  and  to  remain  in  it  during    the 


224  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 

winter.  If  they  prefer  to  go  to  some  other  place 
in  the  spring  they  can  do  so.  The  advantage  of 
being  with  a  number  of  people  during  the  cold 
season  in  hunting  and  the  social  advantages  is 
recompense  enough  for  all  the  trouble  tbey  would 
be  at  to  erect  the  little  cabin. 

"Your  opinion  of  FuQuay  is  correct.  He  has 
been  closely  indentified  with  the  work  in  this  part 
of  the  Territory  since  1801.  The  Governor  would 
gladly  comply  with  your  request  but  his  services  as 
scout  is  of  such  importance  that  it  is  not  thought 
best  to  take  him  out  of  that  position.  Sergeant 
Hogue  would  fill  the  place  you  wanted  FuQuay  for 
with  a  little  training. 

*'The  supposed  spy  has  been  sent  to  Fort  Wash- 
ington with  a  statement  of  the  evidence  and  the 
affidavit  against  him.  There  will  be  no  further 
need  of  hunting  evidence  in  that  case.  Without  a 
doubt  he  is  a  spy  for  the  British  and  will  be  held 
as  such  for  an  indefinite  time  unless  direct  evidence 
of  his  guilt  should  be  secured.  Then  he  will  be 
summarily  dealt  with. 

'*You  now  have  four  roads  or  traces  running  to 
the  east  that  can  be  easily  found  and  traveled  over, 
dividing  your  territory  into  sections  between  the 
Ohio  and  White  rivers.  Also  you  hav6  four  roads 
or  traces  running  north  and  south  dividing  yo\iT 
territory  in  that  direction  from  near  the  Wabash  on 
the  west  to  Blue  river  on  the  east,  thus  enabling 
you  to  give  much  better  protection  to  settlers  now 
there  and  to  the  emigrants  coming  into  your  ter- 
ritory. This  condition  makes  that  section  of  this 
territory  very  desirable  for  settlers.  The  most  im- 
portant thing  that  you  can  do  is  to  see  that  the 
blockhouses  are  so  located  that  they  will  be  acces- 
sible to  those  in  the  surrounding  country  if  danger 
should  come.  There  is  no  certainty  that  we  will 
have  a  continuation  of  the  quiet  that  now  exists. 
The  English  on  the  north  are  doing  all  that  they 
can  to  cause  trouble  between  the  Indians  and  the 
pioneers,  using  the  treaties  which  have  been  made 
as  a  pretext,  claiming  that  it  was  f raudently  ob- 
tained. 

'*It  is  thought  best  that  )^ou  make  a  personal 
inspection  of  all  the  blockhouses  that  are  now  built 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA.  225 

an4  the  several  that  are  being  constructed  at  the 
different  stations  in  your  territory  and  see  that 
the)'  are  securely  built  and  good,  strong,  durable 
stockades  surrounding  them  that  will  have  suffi- 
cient room  for  the  construction  of  from  six  to  ten 
small  cabins.  Some  one  who  is  most  competent  in 
€ach  fort  must  be-placed  in  command  and  it  must 
be  understood  that  he  is  to  be  obeyed  by  all  of 
those  who  will  use  that  fort  as  a  place  of  refuge. 

'*Have  them  select  by  lot  the  man  they  want, 
but  advisfe  those  interested  that  the  most  efficient 
men  they  have  should  be  chosen.  You  will  make 
a  careful  inspection  of  their  artns  and  ammunition 
and  should  you  find  them  deficient  in  eiiher  you 
can  make  a  requisition  on  the  ordinance  office  at 
this  place  through  these  head-quariers  for  the 
needed  supplies.  That  needed  for  ihe  eastern  forts 
will  be  forwarded  to  you  ai  White  Oak  Springs 
fort.  That  for  the  western  division  will  be  sent  to 
David  Robb's  fort.  You  will  have  the  proper  par- 
ties meet  you  at  a  stated  period  at  these  places  and 
give  out  the  guns  and  ammunition  to  them  taking 
.their  receipts  for  the  same.  This  will  simplify  the 
work  and  as  soon  as  you  can  have  a  sufficient  num- 
ber of  forts  so  that  they  will  be  reasonably  accessi- 
ble in  all  the  Territory,  which  you  command,  the 
need  of  the  Rangers  continually  marching  over  the 
traces  will  be  done  away  with.  Carefully  read  this 
letter  of  suggestions  and  when  you  send  in  your 
next  report  any  suggestions  you  may  have  to  make 
will  receive  careful  consideration. 

By  direction  of  W.  H.  Harrison. 

Gov.  of  Indiana  Territory. 
John  Gibson,  Secretary." 


*'Vincennes,  Indiana  Territory. 

November  12,'  1807. 
^'Capt.  Wm.  Hargrove,  Commanding  first  division 
of  Rangers,  east  of  the  Wabash  river: 

*'Your  report  enclosing  a  letter  from  PuQuay. 
The  contents  of  that  letter  were  fully  considered 
by  the  Governor.  That  there  would  be  some  ex- 
cuse made  for  the  Indians  to  remain  during  the 
winter  months  has  been  suspect.  The  fact  that 
they  are  building  such  secure  tepees  warrants  that 


226  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 

suspicion,  but  their  attempt  to  be  adopted  into  the 
tribe  of  the  Shawnees  was  unlooked  for.  The 
Governor  directs  that  you  have  a  vigilant  watch 
kept  on  their  actions  until  about  the  26th  inst.  the 
time  Chief  Setteedown  set  for  their  return  will 
then  be  up.  Better  have  Bailey  Anderson  inter- 
view  the  old  Chief  and  in  theif  talk  remind  him  of 
his  promise  to  the  Governor  that  they  would  be 
gone  in  one  moon.  PuQuay  and  Anderson  it  seems 
found  out  that  the  Illinois  Indians  on  the  visit  are 
Kickapoos  and  that  they  have  one  of  their  sub- 
chiefs  in  command  of  them.  This  looks  suspicious. 
You  can  do  nothing  as  yet,  only  have  FuQuay  and 
Ben  Page  keep  a  vigilant  watch  on  the  Indians 
and  instruct  them  to  send  one  of  your  runners,  who 
you  will  keep  near  them,  to  you  with  any  informa- 
tion that  they  may  secure.  If  you  should  learn 
any  new  dangerous  developments,  send  immediately 
to  this  head-quarters  a  report  of  it.  If  it  should 
become  necessary,  one  hundred  men  can  be  sent 
from  this  Post  to  any  point  which  you  may  think 
best  to  place  them.  The  Governor  thinks  it  best 
to  make  a  camp  on  the  Yellow  Banks  trace  at  the 
point  where  the  large  fort  is  located  (formerly  cal- 
led Taylorsville,  nowSelvin,  Warrick  county,  Ind.) 
If  the  stockade  is  not  as  large  as  is  needed,  it  can 
be  enlarged  and  in  a  short  time  the  soldiers  can  put 
up  such  barracks  as  will  make  them  comfortable 
for  the  short  time  that  they  will  likely  stay. 

**The  Piankashaw  Indian,  named  Yellow  Bird^ 
has  just  returned  from  a  visit  to  Indian  friends  on 
the  west  fork  of  White  river.  He  said  to  one  of 
our  friendly  Indians  that  the  Indians  on  White 
river  were  grumbling  about  the  treaties  and  threat- 
ening to  drive  the  Americans  back  over  the  Ohio* 
That  there  is  a  great  unrest  among  the  Indians  is 
not  doubted  by  those  whose  business  it  is  to  know 
what  is  going  on  outside  of  the  settlements.  What 
it  may  terminate  in  is  uncertain.  It  is  best  for  our 
people  to  be  well  on  their  guard  and  be  ready  in  the 
event  war  should  come. 

By  order  of  the  Grovernor. 
John  Gibson,  Sec'y.  of  Indiana  Territory." 

**Post  Script:  The  Governor  directs  that  you 
ascertain  how  many  able-bodied  men  you  have  in 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA.  227 

your  district  that  would  be  able  to  bear  arms. 
This  duty  can  be  done  by  some  of  your  active 
young  men. 

For  the  Governor. 

John  Gibson,  Secretary. 


((' 


Vincennes,  Indiana  Territory, 

November  18,  1807. 

* 'Captain  Wm.  Hargrove,  in  the  Ranger  Service: 

"The  men  will  be  sent  in  two  hours  from  the 
time  your  runner  arrives  if  they  wiTl  be  needed.  If 
you  think  that  fifty  men  will  be  sufficient,  that 
number  will  be  sent.  It  is  best  to  have  all  that 
will  be  needed. 

*'At  a  point  some  miles  below  the  mouth  of 
White  river,  there  has  been  some  trouble  between 
the  settlers  and  the  Indians  who  had  a  few  wigwams 
some  distance  to  the  east  of  the  Wabash  river. 
Two  Piankashaw  Indians  are  here  today.  They 
say  that  their  people  were  driven  away  across  the 
Wabash  river  and  their  tepees,  skins  and  plunder 
burned. 

"It  is  directed  that  you  go  and  investigate 
this  matter  and  see  what  can  be  done  about  ob- 
taining a  satisfactory  adjustment  with  the  Indians. 
Everything  has  been  done  here  to  allay  the  ill  feel- 
irgs  of  ihe  two  Indians.  The  Governor  ordered 
some  tents,  blankets  and  kettles  to  be  sent  to  those 
who  lost  their  property.  If  you  can  find  out  who 
the  whi.e  people  were  you  will  remi  .d  them  that 
such  conduct  as  this  must  not  occur  again.  This 
Territoi*y  is  in  i  o  shape  for  a  race  war  with  the 
Indians,  which  they  would  be  only  too  glad  for  an 
excuse  to  engage  in.  It  might  be  best  that  you 
take  David  Robb  and  some  other  of  your  best  in- 
formed citizens  with  you  when  you  make  the  in- 
vesiigation.  The  Indians  who  were  driven  away 
are  with  another  band  of  Piankashaw  Indians. west 
of  the  Wabash  several  miles  below  the  mouth  of 
the  White  river. 

By  order  of  Wm.  Henry  Harrison, 

Governor  of  Indiana  Territory. 
John  Gibson,  Secretary." 


228  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 


(i- 


Headquarters  Indiana  Territory, 

Vincennes,  Nov.  23,  1807. 

Captain  Hargrove,  Commanding  Rangers: 

You  will  personally  invite  Bailey  Anderson 
to  visit  these  Headquarters.  The  Governor  wishes 
to  properly  recognize  his  services  in  persuading  old 
Chief  Setteedown  to  force  the  Kickapoo  Indians 
back  to  their  homes  west  of  the  Wabash.  There 
will  be  no  further  trouble  in  that  direction.  Your 
estimate  of  the  number  of  men  in  your  Territory 
able  to  bear  arms  shows  a  very  gratifying  condi- 
tion. A  little  more  work  in  locating  forts  and 
stockades  at  two  or  three  exposed  places,  will  place 
you  in  good  condition  to  repel  any  attack  that  may 
be  made  on  the  settlements. 

By  order  of  the  Governor. 

John  Gibson,  Secretary." 


i(' 


(( 


Vincennes,  Indiana  Territory. 

November  27,  1807. 

William  Hargrove,  Commanding  the  Western 
Division  of  Rangers  east  of  the  Wabash 
river: 

'*The  Governor  directs  that  you  discharge  the 
men  who  are  on  patrol  duty  except  those  who  are 
on  duty  on  the  trace  east  of  While  Oak  Springs 
Fort.  The  patrol  over  that  route  need  not  go  over 
that  trace  but  once  in  every  eight  days.  The  scout 
and  the  two  friendly  Indians  will  patrol  the  sec- 
tion of  White  river  from  the  forks  up  t^o  as  far  as 
twenty-five  miles  east  of  the  Mudholes.  There  is 
more  danger  arising  from  stray  bands  of  Indians 
attempting  to  come  into  the  settlement  for  "the  pur- 
pose of  stealing  horses  than  there  is  of  an  attack 
on  the  settlers, 

**In  discharging  the  men,  any  whom  you  find 
who  wish  to  remain  in  the  service,  you  will  enlist 
for  regular  soldiers  and  order  them  to  report  to 
these  head-quarters  with  a  copy  of  their  enlistment 
papers.  When  you  have  finished  this  work,  hav^e 
scouts,  FuQuay  and  Page  remain  with  you  and 
with  them  visit  every  portion  of  your  Territory  and 
notify  the  people  at  the  blockhouses  and  the  set" 
tlements  that   they  must  keep  a  vigilant  lookout. 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA.  229 

as  the  Rangfers  will  be  withdrawn.  After  having: 
visited  all  the  stations,  return  to  White  Oak  Springs 
and  discharge  all  but  two  of  the  men  and  Sergeant 
Hogue  who  you  will  place  in  command  with  in- 
structions to  carefully  watch  the  section  east  of  the 
Mudholes  on  his  patrol;  and  for  him  to  report  by  , 
the  hand  of  one  of  the  friendly  Indians  to  these 
head-quarters  once  every  two  weeks.  When  you 
have  finished  this  work  you  will  report  to  this  Post, 
bringing  FuQuay  and  Ben  Page  with  you. 

By  order  of  the  Governor. 
John  Gibson,  Sec'y.  of  Indiana  Territory." 


The  Burning  of  an  Indian  Town  Near  Owensville. 

The  last  village  inhabited  by  the  Indians  in  the  south- 
western part  of  Gibson  county  was  located  in  the  northeast 
corner  of  section  9,  township  3,  range  12  and  in  section  4, 
•township  3,  range  12,  two  miles  west  of  Owensville. 

It  was  a  straggling  village  extending  westward  from  the 
northeast  corner  of  section  9,  for  about  a  mile,  composed  of 
wigwams  and  built  along  the  springs  coming  out  of  the  foot 
of  the  sand  hills. 

The  Indians  were  driven  away  late  in  the  summer  or 
early  in  the  fall  of  1807,  and  the  wigwams  burned  all  except 
a  few  which  were  still  there  in  1809.  The  village  was  de- 
stroyed by  Captain  Jacob  Warrick  and  others.  If  there  was 
any  fighting  done  or  Indians  killed  it  was  never  known  except 
by  those  engaged  in  it.  There  were  very  good  reasons  for 
their  silence  as  the  Government  did  not  allow  such  acts  when 
at  peace  with  the  Indians. 

Captain  Warrick  settled  on  the  northwest  quarter  of  sec- 
tion 11,  east  of  the  village.  Purty  Old  Tom  Montgomery, 
Capt.  Warrick's  father-in-law,  settled  on  the  southwest  quar- 
ter of  section  12,  Robert  Anderson  and  sons  settled  northeast 
of  Owensville  and  others  living  in  the  vicinity  of  Owensville 
ten  years  before  the  town  was  laid  out.  The  men  who  assist- 
ed Captain  Warrick  in  driving  the  Indians  away  and  destroy- 
ing their  town  were  men  who  had  settled  west  and  southwest 
of  Anderson's  creek,  now  Marsh  creek,  in  the  neighborhood 


230  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA, 

of  Owensville  and  probabl}*  others  from  the  neigfhborhood  of 
Princeton,  seven  years  before  Princeton  was  laid  oat.  The 
village  belonged  to  the  Piankashaws,  and  the  Indians  who 
got  away  crossed  the  Wabash  river  in  to  southern  Illinois, 
which  was  flien  Indiana  Territor}'. 

The  destruction  of  the  village  made  the  Indians  hostile 
and  it  came  near  bringing  on  war  and  no  doubt  would  had  it 
not  been  for  the  second  raid  across  the  Wabash  river. 

After  the  destruction  of  the  village,  the  settlers  found 
the  Indians  were  coming  back  and  prowling  around  in  the 
neighborhood  of  nights.  They  also  found  that  ihey  were  go- 
ing back  along  the  old  Indian  trace  from  the  bluff  to  the 
island  their  crossing. 

The  settlers  becoming  very  uneasy  for  fear  they  would 
be  attacked  and  massacred,  hastily  organized  a  company 
about  the  1st  of  October,  1807  all  well  mounted  and  armed. 
They  took  the  old  Indian  trace  early  one  morning  for  Coffee" 
Island  ford  on  ihe  Wabash  river.  They  rode  across  the  ford 
to  the  west  bank  of  the  river  and  there  held  a  council  and  laid 
plans  for  advancing.  Captain  Warrick  was  to  follow  the  In- 
dian trace  and  the  others  to  deploy  on  each  side  of  him  within 
hearing  distance.  The  old  Indian  fighters  were  placed  on 
the  extreme  right  and  left  flanks.  Robert  Anderson  and  his 
son,  Watt,  were  on  the  right  and  Purty  Old  Tom  Mont- 
gomery was  on  the  left  of  the  line  and  the  younger  men  were 
between  Montgomery  and  Warrick  and  Anderson  and  Warrick. 
The  orders  were  for  Warrick  to  ride  down  the  trace  slowly 
and  cautiously.  Young  Sam  Anderson  with  Warrick  was 
carrying  a  large  cow's  horn  instead  of  a  bugle.  The  signal 
to  retreat  if  too  man}-  Indians  were  found,  was  to  be  two  long 
blasts  on  the  horn  and  a  shot  from  a  rifle.  The  objective 
point  was  the  Piankashaw  Indian  village  located  on  a  small 
stream  running  in  a  westerly  direction  into  Bumpas. 

They  followed  the  trace  to  the  east  end  of  a  small  prairie. 
Captain  Warrick  and  others  rode  into  the  edge  of  the  prairie 
and  discovered  fifty  or  sixty  Indian  warriors  advancing  east 
to  meet  them  but  out  of  reach  of  their  guns.  They  rode 
back  into  the  timber.     Captain  Warrick  ordered  Anderson  to 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA.  231 

^ive  the  retreat  sigfnal  on  the  horn,  and  thej^  retreated  to  the 
ford  as  rapidly  as  possible,  all  reaching:  there  about  the  same 
time  except  Purty  Old  Tom  Montg^omery.  Captain  Warrick 
ordered  them  to  cross  the  ford  in  haste  but  four  or  five  old 
Indian  fighters, — Old  Bob  Anderson,  his  son.  Watt,  and  a 
few  others  stayed  with  Warrick  to  wait  for  Montgomery. 
They  waited  long  as  they  dared  and  then  crossed  the  river  to 
the  rest  of  the  company.  They  hadn't  been  across  long  when 
twenty-five  or  thirty  Indians  came  upon  the  other  side  of  the 
river,  then  Bob  Anderson  said  to  Captain  Warrick— * 'Tom's 
gone  this  time,"  but  he  was  wrong;  a  man  who  had  fought 
Indians  over  half  of  old  Virgina,  all  of  Kentucky  and  south- 
ern Indiana  could  not  be  captured  by  Piankashaw  Indians. 
In  advancing  Montgomery  had  got  too  far  to  the  left  and 
away  in  advance  of  the  line.  When  he  heard  the  signal  to 
retreat  he  turned  his  horse  and  rode  into  the  south  edge  of 
the  prairie  when  he  saw  that  the  Indians  were  going  into  the 
forest  from  the  east  end  of  the  prairie  and  that  he  was  cut  off 
from  the  others.  He  rode  back  into  the  timber  and  rode  for 
the  river  as  fast  as  his  horse  would  carry  him.  When  he 
reached  the  river  he  swam  his  horse  to  the  Indiana  side  and 
rode  up  on  the  bank  where  he  could  see  over  the  brush  at  the 
point  where  he  crossed  the  river,  knowing  the  Indians  would 
come  on  the  trail  of  his  horse. 

Eight  or  ten  Indians  had  followed  him  to  the«edge  of  the 
water,  and  he  shot  at  them  across  the  river.  When  the  com- 
pany at  the  Island  heard  the  shot,  old  Robert  Anderson  said 
— *'Boys,  that's  Tom's  gun"  and  they  answered  him  from  the 
Island.  They  did  not  have  to  wait  long  until  Purty^Old  Tom 
came  riding  up  to  the  company  as  unconcernedly  as  if  he  had 
been  on  a  deer  hunt. 

The  little  creek  that  the  Piankashaw  village  was  on, 
drained  a  low,  wet  prairie,  that  since  that  time  was  named 
Village  creek  and  the  prairie  named  Compton  Prairie. 

The  Montgomery  referred  to  in  this  story  was  the  first 
•of  the  family  to  locate  in  southwestern  Indiana.  From  him 
has  decended  the  large  influential  family  of  Montgomerys 
.and  their  descendants  in  southwestern  Indiana  and  Illinois. 


232  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 

DivisoN  OF  Indiana  Territory. 

There  was  a  strong  party  in  the  Indiana  Territory  dur- 
ing: the  period  from  1806,  '07  and  '08  that  was  continually 
petitioning:  Cong^ress  for  a  division  of  the  Territory.  The 
reason  mostly  assigned  were  the  vast  extent  of  the  Territory 
and  the  small  population  that  was  in  any  portion  of  it,  except 
that  bordering:  on  the  Wabash,  Mississippi,  and  Ohio  rivers. 
The  Illinois  country  at  that  time  only  had  settlements  border- 
ing: on  the  Mississippi  river  and  very  distant  from  the  head- 
quarters of  the  Territory.  It  was  almost  impossible  at  cer- 
tain seasons  of  the  year  to  reach  these  remote  sections  and  at 
all  times  dang:erous  from  the  attacks  of  the  Indians.  The 
subject  was  disposed  of  by  Cong:ress  on  the  3d  of  February, 
1809.  The  said  act  declared  that  after  the  1st  day  of  March, 
1809,  all  that  part  of  Indiana  Territory  lying-  west  of  the  Wa- 
bash river  in  a  direct  line  drawn  from  the  said  Wabash  river 
and  Post  Vincennes,  due  north,  to  the  territorial  line  between 
the  United  States  and  Canada,  should  constitute  a  separate 
Territory  and  be  called  Illinois.  This  reduced  Indiana  to  its 
present  limits. 

The  Territorial  Legislature  of  1808  elected  their  Speaker 
of  the  House  of  Representatives,  Jesse  B.  Thomas  to  the 
office  of  delegate  in  Congress  in  place  of  Benjamin  Park, 
who  was  appointed  to  the  Supreme  Bench  in  the  Territorial 
Court. 

There  was  mucn  difficulty  about  the  organization  of  the 
first  legislature  after  the  division  of  Indiana  Territory.  In 
1809  a  petition  for  the  General  Assembly  of  the  Territory  was 
laid  before  Congress.  This  petition  contained  the  state- 
ment— '*In  the  year  1805  there  was  a  legislature  organized 
under  a  law  dividing  the  Territory  northwest  of  the  River 
Ohio;  that  on  the  26th  day  of  October,  1808,  the  Governor 
dissolved  the  said  legislature.  On  the  3d  day  of  February, 
1809,  the  law  of  Congress  passed  dividing  the  Indiana  Ter- 
ritory and  on  the  4th  of  April,  1809,  the  Gk)vernor  of  this 
Territory  issued  his  proclamation  for  the  election  of  the  ad- 
ditional members  of  the  House  of  Repiesentatives.     Also  on 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA.  233 

the  27th  of  February,  1809,  the  law  passed  extending  the 
right  of  suffrage  to  the  citizens  of  Indiana,  declaring  how 
the  legislature  shall  be  formed.  After  the  passage  of  said 
law  the  General  Assembly  should  apportion  the  members  of 
the  House  of  Representatives  to  consist  of  not  less  than  nine 
nor  more  than  twelve.  This  law  was  predicated  on  the  prin- 
nciple  that  there  was  a  legislature  at  the  time  of  its  passage 
or  that  the  legislature  might  convene  by  the  authority  of  the 
Governor,  but  the  truth  was,  the  old  legislature  was  dissolved 
by  the  Governor,  as  before  stated  and  at  the  division  of  the 
Territory  lessened  the  number  of  members  by  three  in  the 
House  of  Representatives  and  two  in  the  couucil.  The  fact 
was,  there  was  no  legislature  in  existence.  The  principal 
thing  that  existed  in  the  minds  of  the  petitioners  were  how 
the  old  legislature  could  be  brought  into  life  so  that  it  could 
organize  a  new  legislature,  in  accordance  with  the  acts  of 
Congress.  On  the  firs't  Monday  in  April,  1809,  the  Governor, 
by  proclamation,  directed  that  an  election  be  held  for  mem- 
bers of  the  House  of  Representatives.  At  this  election  there 
were  four  members  elected;  two  from  Knox  county,  one  from 
Dearborn  and  one  from  Clark.  Oh  the  4th  of  April,  1809, 
(six  days  before  the  above  laws  of  Congress  arrived  here) 
the  Grovernor  issued  a  proclamation  for  election  to  be  held  on 
the  22d  of  May,  for  five  councilmen  and  four  more  represen- 
tatives; one  for  Knox  county,  one  for  Dearbonr,  one  for  Clark 
and  one  for  Harrison. 

"Notwithstanding  the  uncertainty  of  the  proceedings,  the 
governor  issued  a  proclamation  convening  the  Legislative 
Council  above  elected  and  the  members  of  the  E[ouse  of  Rep- 
resentatives to  meet  on  the  Ihth  of  June,  1809.  The  repre- 
sentatives of  the  Legislative  Council  convened  and  the  Leg- 
islature, doubting  the  legality  of  its  actions,  agreed  to  post- 
pone any  action  of  a  Legislative  capacity,  except  apportion- 
ing one  other  member  to  make  up  the  nine,  agreeable  to  the 
act  of  Congress,  extending  the  right  of  suffrage  to  the  cit- 
izens of  this  Territory." 

On  the  21st  of  October,  1809,  at  the  request  of  the  two 
Houses,  the  Legislature  was  dissolved  by  Governor  Harrison. 


234  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 

The  members  of  the  Legislative  Council  thus  disolved  were 
Solomon  Man  waring:,  of  Dearborn  count}-;  Thomas  Down,  of 
Clark  count)';  Harvey  Heath,  of  Harrison  county;  William 
Prince  and  Luke  Decker,  of  Knox  count)'.  The  members  of 
the  House  of  Representatives  were  Richard  Rue,  Ephriam 
Overman,  Dearborn  county,  James  Beggs  and  John  Work, 
of  Clark  county;  Moses  Hoggit,  of  Harrison  county;  General 
W.  Johnson,  John  Johnson  and  John  Hadden,  of  Knox 
county. 

On  the  22d  of  May,  1809,  an  election  for  delegates  to  Con- 
:gress  was  held  in  the  Territory  of  Indiana.  At  this  time  the 
only  counties  were  Knox,  Dearborn,  Clark  and  Harrison.  At 
this  election  Johnathan  Jennings  received  four  hundred  and  . 
twenty-eigfht  votes;  Thomas  Randolph  received  four  hundred 
and  two  votes;  John  Johnson  received  eig:hty-one  votes;  Jen- 
nings received  a  pluraity  and  was  declared  elected. 

During  the  year  of  1810  a  great  many  settlers  came  into 
the  Territory.  Tne  militia  throughout  the  Territory  was 
organized,  properly  officered  and  thoroughly  drilled.  On  ac- 
count of  the  conunued  disturbance  raised  by  Tecumseh  and 
the  Prophet  and  a  large  band  of  discontented  Indians  they 
had  gathered  about  them,  it  was  feared  there  would  be  an 
ou  I  break  as  it  was  continually  asserted  by  Indians,  who  were 
known  to  be  in  constant  communication  with  the  British, 
that  the  Americans  would  be  driven  south  of  the  Ohio  river; 
Wi  inamac,  a  Pottawattamie  chief,  told  two  of  Harrison's 
friendly  Indians,  that  in  less  than  twenty  tnoons  there  would 
be  no  Long  Knives  this  side  of  the  great  River  Ohio  and  that 
they  intended  to  maintain  that  line  as  a  division  between  the 
two  races  or  leave  their  bodies  on  the  northern  shore. 

The  land  ofi&ces,  by  an  act  of  Congress  in  1804  were 
opened  for  the  sale  of  lands  in  Indiana  Territory  at  Detroit, 
Vincennes,  Kaskaskia  and  in  1807  there  was  a  land  office 
opened  at  Jeffersonville.  The  one  at  Vincennes  did  more 
business  than  the  one  at  Jeffersonville,  for  several  years. 
The  land  situated  in  Clark's  grant  was  located  and  set  off  by 
a  commission  appointed  for  that  purpose.  In  this  country 
Ihere  was  but  little  money,  as  most  of  the  emigrants  coming 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA.  235 

here  had  passed  through  the  scourg^e  of  the  Revolution  and 
the  only  means  of  g-etting:  money  at  that  time  was  by  hunt- 
ing and  trapping.  Venison  hams,  and  the  skins  of  far  bear- 
ing animals  were  all  that  the  early  settlers  of  this  country 
could  realize  monej"  for  and  those  at  verj'  low  prices.  It  was 
considered  a  good  price  if  one  got  twenty-five  cents  a  pair  for 
venison  hams,  and  fifteen  to  twenty  cents  for  large  deer  skin; 
coon  skins  fifteen  and  twenty  cents  and  other  skins  at  about 
the  same  proportion  Notwithstanding  the  difficulty  of  secur- 
ing money  at  these  low  prices,  many  thousands  of  acres  of 
the  rich  lands  of  Indiana  were  purchased  by  the  money  se- 
cured in  this  way. 

These  early  settlers  had  made  but  few  improvements  as 
they  had  but  little  time  for  any  work  outside  of  the  chase. 
On  this,  their  very  existence  depended.  The  small  fields 
that  were  planted  in  corn  were  very  hard  to  protect  from  the 
depredations  of  the  wild  animals  so  numerous  in  the  country 
at  that  time.  When  the  corn  was  in  the  milk,  there  was 
nothing  except  honey  that  the  bears  so  dearly  loved,  and  it 
has  been  known  that  ten  acres  of  corn  were  ruined  in  a  ver}^ 
few  nights  by  a  number  of  bears  congregating  there  and  rid- 
ing the  corn  down  to  secure  the  milk  from  the  ears.  The  coons 
were  another  great  cause  of  destruction  of  corn.  Squirrels 
were  as  plentiful  then  as  birds  and  when  the  corn  was  suitable 
for  /'roasting  ears"  the  squirrels  would  destroy  acres  of  it. 
Many  kinds  of  birds  in  that  day  were  very  destructive  to 
corn  fields  and  it  was  impossible  to  raise  hogs  as  the  bears 
and  panthers  would  destroy  ihem. 

At  the  time  that  Harrison  was  having  so  much  trouble 
to  keep  the  Indians  in  subjection  and  planning  for  the  defense 
of  the  territory,  there  were  those  who  were  continually  find- 
ing fault  with  his  administration,  claiming  that  his  persist- 
ency in  securing  land  concessions  was  the  cause  of  the  Ind- 
ians' continual  grumbling  and  threatening  to  drive  the  Amer- 
icans away.  This  was,  as  it  always  has  been,  the  outgrowth 
of  political  venom  and  envy.  No  doubt  the  continued  loud 
mouthing  of  the  disgruntled  aspirants  was  understood  by  the 
Indians  who  had  spies,  pretended   friendly   Indians,  all   the 


236  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 

time  at  Post  Vincennes.  A  chief,  Waytheah  or  Longr  Shark, 
said  to  Captain  Wilson  at  one  time  when  he  was  among:  the 
Shawnees,  that  the  Indians  did  not  need  to  fight  the  Amer- 
icans; if  let  alone  they  (the  Americans)  would  fight  and  de- 
stroy each  other;  that  Governor  Harrison  was  more  deter- 
minedly hated  by  half  of  his  own  people  than  he  was  by  the 
Indians.  With  this  continual  opposition  from  his  own  peo- 
ple and  the  threatening  attitude  of  Tecumseh  and  the  Proph- 
et, Harrison  was  perplexed  how  best  to  manage  to  steer  clear 
of  the  political  caldron  at  home  and  keep  the  Indians  in  sub- 
jection. 

Fortunately  the  Cmigress  of  the  United  States  made  no- 
mistake  when  it  elected  William  Henry  Harriscm  Governor 
and  Commander-in-Chief  of  Indiana  Territory,  for  he  was 
wise,  patient,  and  far-seeing  and  had  good  grit  all  the  way 
through.  When  it^  became  evident  that  the  Indians  on  the 
Wabash  had  to  be  chastised,  he  soon  put  himself  in  position, 
to  be  thoroughly  prepared  for  the  fray.  He  selected  some  of 
the  most  outspoken  of  those  who  so  bitterly  opposed  him  as 
members  of  his  staff  and  gave  them  important  positions  re- 
quiring skill  and  accomplishment;  he  even  surrounded  his 
person  with  two  of  the  most  bitter  ones  as  his  personal  aids 
and  in  this  way  stopped  their  mutterings  and  made  them 
efficient  and  loyal  supporters  of  the  government.  One  of 
these  men  was  mortally  wounded  in  the  battle  of  Tippecanoe 
and  breathed  his  last  in  Harrison's  arms. 


CHAPTER  X, 


'The  Battle  of  Tippecanoe — Importance  of  the  Victory 
Cause  of  Battle — The  Principal  Contestants  — 
Negotiations  For  Peace — Collecting  Army  at  Vin- 
CENNES^  Movement  OF  Army  From  Vincennes — Fort 
Harrison  Established — Advance  on  Prophet's  Town 
— Encampmei^t — The  Battle — Governor  Harrison's 
Report  of  the  Battle-- Incidents  of  the  Battle — 
Resolutions  Adopted  by  Territorial  Legislature — 
Roll  of  the  Army  That  Fought  at  Tippecanoe. 


In  this  chapter  commences  a  history  of  the  trouble  be- 
tween Harrison  and  the  two  great  Indian  leaders,  Tecumseh 
and  the  Prophet. 

There  has  been  so  much  recrimination  and  controversy 
about  the  battle  of  Tippecanoe,  the  action  of  General  Harri- 
son in  that  battle  and  so  many  statements  of  political  oppon- 
ents that  were  at  variance  with  the.truth  that  it  is  thought 
best  as  an  introduction  to  this  chapter  to  give  a  full  explana- 
tion of  the  cause  of  that  battle  being  fought  on  the  morning 
of  the  7th  of  November,  when  the  evening  before  the  Indian 
Chiefs  had  so  solemnly  arranged  for  a  treaty  of  peace  to  be 
held  on  the  morning  the  battle  was  fought.  After  this  a 
short  sketch  of  the  birth  and  nativity  of  Harrison  and  the 
two  Indian  chiefs  will  be  given. 

The  battle  of  Tippecanoe  was  the  only  battle  fought  on 
Indiana  soil  in  which  the  militia  of  Indiana  in  any  great 
number  took  part  and  thej^  acquitted  themselves  so  creditably 
in  that  engagement  that  it  is  a  great  pleasure  to  note  their 
heroism. 


238  PIONEER  HISORY  OF  INDIANA. 

It  is  not  too  much  to  say  with  only  the  fringe  of  settle- 
ments that  was  on  the  southern  borders  of  Indiana  in  1811, 
that  had  General  Harrison  been  defeated  at  that  battle,  most 
terrible  and  distressing  results  would  have  followed.  The 
Indians  who  had  been  held  in  subjection  and  who  were  ap- 
parently friendly  would  nearly  all  have  joined  Tecumseh  and 
the  Prophet's  confederation  and  turned  against  the  defeated 
whites;  just  as  the  pretended  friendly  Indians  on  the  northern 
borders  of  Illinois,  Indiana  and  Ohio  did,  when  Hull  so  cow- 
ardly surrendered  the  army  at  Detroit  in  1812.  The  perman- 
ent settlement  of  this  country  would  have  been  retarded  for 
several  years  and  the  military  career  of  one  of  the  most  use- 
ful men  of  this  nation  would  have  come  to  an  end  and  in- 
stead of  the  War  of  1812,  commencing  on  the  northern  bord- 
ers of  the  Northwest  Territory,  as  it  did,  it  would  have  com- 
menced on  or  near  the  Ohio  river,  with  results  that  are  hard 
to  guess  at  owing  to  the  incompetency  that  was  shown  by  so 
many  of  the  leaders  in  that  war. 

In  the  make-up  of  an  army  there  are  some  who  are  al- 
ways ready  to  run  unnecessary  risks  if  they  are  not  held  in 
subjection.  This  was  the  case  at  Tippecanoe  when  the  army 
arrived  at  the  Prophet's  town  in  the  afternoon  of  the  sixth  of 
November,  1811.  Some  of  the  subordinate  commanders  who 
were  panting  for  a  chance  to  distinguish  themselves  and  to 
receive  military  renown,  were  very  loud  in  their  declaration 
that  Governor  Harrison  should  attack  the  Indians  at  once. 
Long  years  after  the  battle  was  fought  many  military  critics 
were  severe  in  their  denunciation  of  the  want  of  military  tact 
shown  by  the  Governor,  but  this  was  all  uncalled  for  and 
came  from  those  who  would  not  have  been  able  to  command 
properly  a  corporal's  guard. 

Governor  Harrison's  orders,  from  Secretary  of  War  was 
to  break  up  the  confederation  of  Indians  and  to  have  those  that 
belonged  to  other  tribes,  go  back  to  their  homes;  to  have  the 
Prophet  make  proper  restitution  for  the  annuity  salt  that  he 
had  taken  from  a  boat  that  was  being  conveyed  to  other  In- 
dians; to  restore  a  lot  of  stolen  horses  and  to  deliver  up  a 
number  of  murderers  who  were  being  harbored  in  his  town* 


PIONEER  HISORY  OP  INDIANA.  239 

To  accomplish  this,  he  was  directed  to  use  peaceful  means. 

The  Indians  met  him  with  overtures  of  peace  and  the  ar- 
rangements were  made  to  have  the  meeting  the  next  morn- 
ing. The  army  went  into  camp  and  arranged  themselves  as 
comfortably  as  men  could  who  were  situated  as  they  were. 
No  one  in  camp  expected  a  battle  that  night,  though  every 
precaution  was  taken  to  prepare  the  army  for  battle  if  it 
should  come.  Those  who  have  studied  the  history  of  that 
battle  nearly  all  agree  that  on  the  evening  of  the  sixth  of 
November,  when  Harrison  and  the  chiefs  were  making  ar- 
rangements for  a  camp  and  for  the  conference  to  be  held  the 
next  morning,  the  Indians  had  no  intention  of  bringing  on 
the  battle  that  night. 

Tradition  has  it  that  White  Loon,  one  of  the  three 
chiefs  in  the  immediate  command  of  the  Indians  in  the  battle^ 
said  to  a  party  of  white  prisoners  who  had  been  in  the  bat- 
tle of  Tippecanoe  and  were  afterward  captured  at  Hull's  sur- 
render at  Detroit,  that  the  Prophet  and  the  chiefs  in  town 
had  no  thought  of  bringing  on  the  battle,  but  during  the 
first  part  of  the  night,  Winnamac,  a  Pottawattamie  chiefs 
arrived  in  town  and  as  soon  as  he  learned  the  condition  of 
things,  went  to  the  Prophet  and  told  him  that  it  was  now  or 
never;  that  if  he  would  have  the  forces  organized  and  ready 
for  battle  by  the  early  hours  of  the  morning,  they  would  slip 
up  on  the  Americans  and  murder  them  in  their  camp.  A 
council  was  convened  and  afier  a  long  conference  at  which 
most  of  the  chiefs  were  assembled,  it  was  found  that  a  large 
majority  of  them  opposed  the  attack.  At  this,  Winnamac, 
who  was  a  fearless  dare-devil,  called  them  cowards  and  said 
that  if  they  were  going  to  submit  like  whipped  dogs  to  the 
Americans  he  would  take  his  people  (who  formed  one-third 
of  the  town)  and  go  back  to  his  nation.  This  had  the  de- 
sired effect  and  it  was  agreed  that  the  attack  should  be  made. 
The  night  was  spent  in  organizing  the  forces  (something 
less.  White  Loon  claimed,  than  nine  hundred  and  fifty  war- 
riors). Several  Indians  were  sent  to  locate  particularly  the 
position  of  the  troops.  Stone  Eater,  White  Loon  and  Win- 
namac  were    put    in    immediate    command    of    the  Indians. 


240  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 

The  Prophet,  after  it  was  agfreed  to  bring  on  the  fight,  made 
a  speech  that  roused  the  Indians  to  a  high  pitch.  He  made 
them  believe  that  they  would  have  as  easy  a  victory  as  the 
Indians  did  over  Braddock  and  St.  Clair  and  that  all  the 
whites  would  be  driven  back  across  the  Ohio  river.  He  as- 
sured them  that  the  bullets  of  the  Americans  would  not  huit 
them. 

Governor  Wm.  H.  Harrison,  Tecumseh  and  the  Prophet. 

In  the  state  of  Ohio,  near  where  the  city  of  Springfield 
now  stands,  Tecumseh,  his  brother,  the  Prophet,  and  another 
brother  were  all  born  at  one  birth.  If  tradition  is  right  this 
was  in  1769.  Tecumseh,  at  Taladega,  September  1811,  in  a 
speech  before  an  assembl}'  of  Creek  Indians  and  their  great 
chief  Rutherford,  in  part  said — **I  have  seen  twice  twenty 
and  two  springs  come  and  go  again,  and  during  all  that  time, 
the  want  of  confederation  has  brought  disaster  and  ruin  to 
many  Indian  tribes."  Their  father  was  a  Shawnee  warrior 
of  prominence.  Their  mother  was  a  Creek  woman  named 
Methataska,  who  had  been  captured  by  the  Shawnees.  The 
name  ''Tecumseh"  stood  for  wild  cat  springing  on  its  prey; 
the  Prophet's  name  '*Elkswatawa,"  for  ''loud  voice."  There 
is  no  historical  or  traditional  record  of  the  third  brother  ex- 
cept his  name  which  was  '^Kamskaka." 

William  Henry  Harrison  was  born  in  Charles  county, 
Virginia,  February#9,  1773.  His  father,  Benjmian  Harrison, 
was  one  of  the  signers  of  the  Declaration  of  Independence. 
Young  Harrison,  on  coming  to  manhood,  joined  the  regular 
army  with  the  rank  of  an  Ensign,  and  was  soon  promoted  to 
a  Lieutenant.  He  served  with  General  Anthony  Wayne  in 
his  campaign  against  the  Indians  in  1794  and  was  with  him 
in  the  battle  of  Maumee.  Tradition  has  it  that  Tecumseh 
was  a  very  active  partisan  in  the  campaign  that  terminated 
in  the  defeat  of  the  Confederate  bands  of  Indians  at  the  bat- 
tle of  Maumee.  William  Henry  Harrison  was  in  1797  pro- 
moted to  the  rank  of  Captain.  Soon  thereafter  he  resigned 
and  was  appointed  Secretary  of  the  North-west  Territory. 


PIONEER  HI3TORY  OF  INDIANA.  241 

The  two  Indians,  Tecumseh  and  the  Prophet,  were  so 
directly  linked  with  the  name  of  William  Henry  Harrison  in 
the  history  of  the  Northwest  and  Indiana  Territor}'  and  its 
records,  that  in  writing  of  the  events  that  become  history 
from  1808  to  1811,  they  must  appear  in  all  the  records. 

In  1800  the  Indiana  Territory  was  formed,  then  includ- 
ing the  present  states  of  Indiana,  Illinois,  Wisconsin,  Michi- 
gan, and  that  part  of  Minnesota  east  of  the  Mississippi  river, 
leaving  the  state  of  Ohio  out  as  it  was  then  preparing  to 
form  a  state  government.  That  same  year  William  Henry 
Harrison  was  made  Governor  and  General  John  Gibson  was 
made  Secretary  of  the  Territor}',  while  the  seat  of  govern- 
ment was  moved  to  Vincennes.  Governor  Harrison  was  very 
active.  Through  his  influence  various  treaties  were  made, 
namely:  that  of  August  18th  and  24th,  1804,  by  which  all 
the  territory  of  southern  Indiana,  south  of  the  old  Vincennes 
and  Clarksville  trace  was  ceded  to  the  United  States;  the 
treaty  of  Grousland,  August  21st,  1805;  the  treaty  of  Ft. 
Wayne,  June  7,  1803,  and  the  treaty  of  Ft.  Wayne,  September 
30th,  1809;  and  the  treaty  of  Vincennes,  September  26th, 
1811.  These  various  treaties  together  with  the  small  strip 
acquired  by  the  treaty  at  Greenville,  August  3rd,  1795,  covered 
a  little  more  than  one  third  of  the  State  of  Indiana. 

For  many  centuries  before  the  coming  of  the  white  man, 
the  great  Miami  nation  of  Indians  owned  and  controlled  all 
the  territory  that  is  now  the  State  of  Indiana  and  a  large  ter- 
ritory on  the  east  and  west  of  it.  In  the  middle  of  the  eight- 
eenth century,  the  Miami  confederation  was  composed  of 
four  tribes — the  Twughtwees,  who  were  the  Miamis  proper, 
the  Weas,  the  Shockeys,  and  the  Piankashaws.  These  In- 
dians were  all  of  the  Algonquin  nation.  It  is  claimed  that 
at  Ft.  Wayne,  near  where  the  St.  Mary's  and  St.  Joseph's 
rivers  formed  the  Mauraee  river,  these  Indians  had  their  nat- 
ional capital.  This  powerful  nation  owned  the  largest  and 
best  hunting  grounds  of  any  Indians  who  ever  inhabited  the 
United  States.  The  Piankashaws  were  located  in  southern 
Indiana  on  the  Wabash  and  in  southern  Illinois.  The  Weas 
were  located   in  Central  Indiana  on  the  Wabash  river  to  the 


242 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 


INDIANA  IN  1611 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA.  243 

north  and  on  its  many  tributaries  and  on  the  Illinois  river. 
The  Miamis  proper  were  in  the  central,  northern  and  north- 
eastern Indiana  and  on  the  Scioto  river  in  the  state  of  Ohio. 
The  Shockeys  were  scattered  over  southeastern  Indiana  and 
along  the  Miami  river,  far  into  Ohio.  Other  Indian  tribes 
asked  the  Miamis  for  permission  to  settle  in  this  vast  ter- 
ritory. This  privilege  was  given  to  the  Pottawattamies, 
Shawnees,  Delawares  and  Kickapoos.  These  tribes  left  their 
former  homes  and  made  many  settlements  and  towns  over  the 
territory  that  is  now  Indiana.  The  Delawares  made  their  set- 
tlements on  the  waters  of  the  White  rivers  and  their  tributaries 
and  the  Pottawattamies  in  the  northern  and  northwestern 
Indiana.  The  Shawnees  were  located  in  many  places  in 
southern  and  western  Indiana  and  near  the  Ohio  river  in  the 
state  of  Ohio.  The  Kickapoos  were  located  at  many  points 
and  were  neighbors  to  all  the  other  tribes  who  had  been 
granted  concessions.  These  Indians  were  at  peace  with  each 
other  for  a  long  period.  The  tribes  that  had  been  permitted 
to  have  homes  in  the  favored  land  had  prospered  and  multi- 
plied and  after  a  generation  or  two  had  passed,  they  felt  as 
if  they  were  the  owners  of  the  land  they  lived  on  and  were 
ever  ready  to  object  to  anything  the  real  owners  did  that 
would  in  any  way  affect  them. 

In  1804  the  Delawares  ceded  all  the  territory  south  of  the 
old  Vincennes  and  Clarksville  trace  on  the  Ohio  river  to  the 
United  States.  This  immense  territory  was  very  desirable 
but  Governor  Harrison  knew  that  they  were  not  the  owners 
so  he  got  the  Piankashaw  chiefs  who  were  the  real  owners, 
to  ratify  that  treaty.  Tecumseh  and  his  brother,  the  Pro- 
phet, were  not  born  to  an  official  station  but  Tecumseh  soon 
arose  to  the  most  influential  position  by  his  great  talents. 
These  two  brothers  lived  for  a  time  among  the  Delaware  In- 
dians on  the  waters  of  the  White  river  in  what  is  now  Dela- 
ware county,  Indiana. 

Along  about  1806  they  moved  to  Greenville,  Ohio.  There 
Elksawatawa  took  on  the  role  of  Prophet,  claiming  that  a 
gift  from  the  Great  Spirit  had  been  bestowed  upon  him  so 
that  he  could  tell  things  which  would  come  to  pass.     He  was 


i 


244  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 

a  very  smart  one-e3'ed  rascal.  The  other  e^ve  was  put  out 
while  shooting  with  a  bow,  the  arrow  splitting  on  the  bow 
string.  The  Prophet  was  not  an  ordinary  medicine  man  but 
a  moral  reformer,  making  prophecies  on  many  subjects,  being 
his  strongest  point.  He  had  man}'  disciples  who  believed  in 
him  but  there  were  also  many  *'Doubting  Thomases."  He 
met  with  a  band  of  surveyors  at  Greenville  and  one  of  them 
in  an  argument  attempted  to  belittle  his  pretensionji  by  ask- 
ing him  if  he  had  any  foreknowledge  of  the  great  coming 
eclipse  which  was  to  take  place  at  a  certain  time,  giving  the 
day  and  hour.  The  Pxophet  told  him  that  of  course  he  did 
but  refused  to  talk  further  with  the  surveyor.  After  the  sur- 
veyor 'had  gone  he  sent  his  messenger  to  the  Indians  in  all 
the  surrounding  country  and  invited  them  to  come  and  see 
him  at  the  time  when  the  eclipse  of  the  sun  was  due.  When 
the  time  came  there  was  an  immense  concourse  of  Indians  to 
hear  the  wil}'  savage  tell  about  the  heavenly  visions  which 
he  had  seen  and  the  revelation  of  things  which  were  to  be. 
He  kept  up  the  harangue  until  just  before  the  time  the  eclipse 
was  to  come  when  he  said  there  were  some  who  were  un- 
believers in  his  teaching  and  he  had  called  them  together  to 
convince  them  that  he  had  Divine  power  to  reveal  things 
that  were  unknown  to  them.  He  said  that  he  intended  to 
ast  the  Great  Father  to  put  his  hand  before  the  sun  and 
make  the  earth  dark.  When  the  eclipse  commenced  to  come 
on  the  Prophet  went  into  a  trance  and  called  on  the  Great 
Father  saying  there  was  those  who  refused  to  believe  his 
teachings  and  to  convince  them  that  he  was  not  an  impostor, 
he  asked  the  Great  Father  to  put  his  hand  over  the  sun. 
When  it  began  to  get  dark  there  was  great  excitement  among 
the  Indians  and  when  the  eclipse  became  total  they  became 
wild  and  implored  the  Great  Father  to  lake  his  hand  from 
over  the  sun  and  restore  them  to  his  favor.  The  Prophet 
called  aloud  asking  that  brightness  might  be  restored. 
Tecumseh  and  the  Prophet  made  all  that  was  possible  out  of 
this  incident.  It  was  told  far  and  near  that  the  Prophet  was 
the  greatest  of  all  Medicine  men — that  he  could  heal  the  sick, 
destrov  witches  and  have  the  Great  Father  darken  the  sun. 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA.  245 

Sometime  in  1808  the  Prophet  located  a  town  at  the 
junction  of  the  Tippecanoe  river  with  the  Wabash,  about  one 
hundred  and  fifty  miles  up  stream  from  Vincennes.  This 
town  contained  several  hundred  of  the  Prophet's  followers 
who  claimed  to  be  tillers  of  the  soil  and  total  abstainers  from 
the  use  of  whiskey. 

Tecuraseh  in  every  way  was  far  above  his  brother.  He 
was  a  brave,  far-seeing,  eloquent  man  and  rose  to  a  high 
position  equal  to  Pontiac  in  the  northwestern  United  States. 
The  policy  of  the  United  States  government  had  for  some 
years  been  to  extinguish  by  treaties  the  claim  the  Indians 
had  to  land  lying  in  Indiana  Territory.  Those  made  by  the 
long  and  tedious  negoiations  brought  the  Indians  a  great 
variety  of  articles  that  were  of  great  value  to  them. 

In  conformity  with  instructions  of  the  President,  James 
Madison,  Governor  Harrison  at  Ft.  Wayne,  September  30, 
1809,  concluded  a  treaty  with  the  head  men  and  chiefs  of  the 
Delawares,  Pottawattamies,  Miamis,  Eel  River,  Kickapoos 
and  Wea  Indians,  by  which  in  consideration  of  eight  thous- 
and and  two  hundred  dollars  paid  down  and  annuities  amount- 
ing in  aggregate  to  two  thousand,  three  hundred  and  fifty 
dollars,  he  obtained  the  cession  of  nearly  three  million  acres 
of  land  extending  up  the  Wabash  beyond  Terre  Haute,  below 
the  mouth  of  Raccoon  creek,  including  the  middle  waters  of 
the  White  rivers. 

Neither  Tecumseh,  the  Prophet  nor  any  of  the  other  In- 
dians  who  had  gathered  around  their  standard,  owned  or  had 
any  claim  to  the  land  which  had  been  ceded  to  the  United 
States,  yet  they  denounced  the  Indians,  who  owned  the  land, 
for  selling  it,  threatened  them  with  death  and  did  kill  several 
of  the  parties  to  the  treaty,  declaring  that  the  treaty  was 
void  unless  all  the  tribes  should  agree  to  it,  and  that  the  land 
did  not  belong  to  any  one  tribe  but  to  all  of  them  jointly. 
Tecumseh  used  this  argument  in  his  attempts  to  form  a  con- 
federation of  all  the  Indians  (which,  without  doubt  was  in- 
tended to  become  a  great  military  organization.)  In  this  he 
was  encouraged  by  the  British  at  Maiden  who  were  then  pre- 
paring a  way  to  have  all  the  Indians  for  allies  in  the  coming^ 


246  PIONEER  HISORY  OF  INDIANA. 

war  which  was  certain  to  occur  between  Great  Britain  and 
the  United  States.  Tecumseh  knew  that  if  the  land  which 
had  been  ceded  was  open  for  settlement,  b}^  the  whites,  the 
gfame  would  be  destroyed  and  the  Indians  compelled  to  move 
to  more  distant  hunting  grfounds.  Tecumseh's  determined 
and  threatening  opposition  to  the  treaties  brought  all  the 
trouble  on  between  Harrison  and  the  Indians. 

In  obedience  to  the  conditions  of  the  Ft.  Wayne  treaty, 
made  September  30,  1809,  the  annuity  was  to  be  paid  annu- 
ally. In  the  spring  of  1810,  the  Indians  in  the  Prophet's 
town  refused  to  receive  the  annuity  salt  sent  them  in  com- 
pliance with  that  treaty,  insulting  the  men  who  had  brought 
the  salt,  calling  them  "American  dogs."  This,  with  many 
other  hostile  demonstrations,  caused  Governor  Harrison  to 
send  several  messages  to  Tecumseh  and  the  Prophet.  The 
Governor  understood  that  there  was  danger  of  an  outbreak 
and  made  every  effort  to  thwart  it.  Tecumseh  sent  word  by 
one  of  the  Governor's  messengers  that  he  intended  to  visit 
him  and  in  August  arrived  in  the  vicinity  of  Vincennes  with 
four  hundred  warriors  fully  armed.  They  went  into  camp 
near  the  town  and  there  was  much  uneasiness  felt  at  so  many 
Indians  being  in  such  close  proximity.  The  Governor  man- 
age(f  the  affairs  so  as  to  prevent  a  collision  between  the  two 
races  but  soon  after  the  close  of  this  conference  a  small  de- 
tachment of  United  States  troops  under  the  command  of  Cap- 
tain Cross  was  ordered  from  Newport,  Kentucky,  to  Vincen- 
nes.  These  troops,  together  with  three  companies  of  Indiana 
Militia  Infantry  and  a  company  of  Dragoons  constituted  such 
a  force  that  those  living  in  the  neighborhood  of  Vincennes 
would  not  be  in  any  danger  from  an  Indian  outbreak.  The 
Prophet  and  his  adherents  were  holding  secret  conferences 
with  the  British  from  their  stations  on  Lake  Erie  and  at  Mai- 
den. 

During  the  winter  of  1810-11,  thefe  were  no  serious  out- 
breaks but  there  were  many  small  raids  by  the  Indians  and 
counter-raids  by  the  white  settlers.  General  William  Clark, 
writing  to  the  war  department  from  St.  Louis,  on  July  3, 
1811,  made   the  following  report — "All  information  received 


PIONEER  HISTORY. OF  INDIANA.  247 

from  the  Indian  country  confirms  the  rooted  enmity  of  the 
Prophet  to  the  United  States  and  his  determination  to  com- 
mence hostilities  as  soon  as  he  thinks  himself  sufficiently 
-strong.  His  party  is  increasing  and  from  the  insolence  he 
and  his  party  have  lately  manifested  and  the  violence  which 
has  lately  been  committed  by  his  neighbors,  the  Pottawat- 
tamies  on  our  frontiers,  I  am  inclined  to  believe  that  the 
crisis  is  fast  approaching." 

Governor  Harrison  sent  a  half-breed  Piankashaw  Indian, 
whom  he  regarded  as  thoroughly  reliable  to  the  Prophet's 
town,  where  he  (the  Indian)  had  a  brother.  On  his  return 
he  reported  that  the  Prophet  was  very  bitter  toward  the 
Americans  and  said  that  they  had  to  abandon  the  Wabash 
lands  ceded  by  the  Ft.  Waj^ne  treaty  or  they  would  kill  them 
•or  drive  them  out  of  the  country.  This  spy  reported  that 
Winamac,  a  Pottawattamie  Chief,  was  the  right  hand  man 
of  the  Prophet  and  that  he  was  very  bitter  in  his  denuncia- 
tions of  the  white  people.  From  another  source  the  Grover- 
nor  learned  that  all  the  Wabash  Indians  were  on  a  visit  to 
the  Indian  agent  at  Maiden;  that  this  agent  had  given  all  the 
Indians  presents  and  that  he  had  never  known  of  one-fourth 
of  as  many  presents  being  given  at  any  one  time  before. 
The  same  informant  examined  the  share  of  one  warrior  and 
found  that  he  had  a  fine  rifle,  twenty-five  pounds  of  powder, 
fifty  pounds  of  lead,  three  blankets,  three  strouds  of  cloth, 
ten  shirts,  and  many  other  articles.  From  another  source  he 
learned  that  every  Indian  had  been  given  a  good  rifle  and  an 
:abundance  of  ammunition. 

In  July,  1811,  Gk)vernor  Harrison  wrote  the  war  depart- 
ment that  the  best  means  of  preventing  war  would  be  to 
move  a  considerable  force  up  the  Wabasli  and  disperse  the 
bandits  the  Prophet  had  collected  around  him.  During  the 
•summer  of  1811,  the  war  department  received  many  letters 
from  all  over  the  settled  portions  of  the  Northwest  Territory, 
telling  of  the  operations  of  the  British  in  urging  the  Indians 
on  to  hostilities.  In  June  1811,  Gk)vemor  Harrison  sent  Cap» 
tain  Walter  Wilson  to  the  Prophet's  town  with  the  foUowing^ 
letter,  addressed  to  Tecumseh  and  the  Prophet: — 


248  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 

**Brothers,  listen  to  me,  I  speak  to  3'ou  about 
matters  of  importance,  both  to  the  white  people 
and  to  yourselves.  Open  your  ears,  therefore,  and 
attend  to  what  I  say.  Brothers,  this  is  the  third 
year  that  all  the  white  people  in  the  country  have 
been  alarmed  at  j'our  proceedings.  You  threaten  us 
with  war;3'ou  invite  all  tribes  to  the  north  and  west 
of  3^ou  to  join  agfainstus.  Brothers — j^our  warriors 
who  have  lately  been  here  deny  this  but  I  have  re- 
ceived information  that  you  intend  to  murder  me 
and  then  commence  a  war  upon  our  people.  I  have 
also  received  the  speech  j'ou  sent  to  the  Pottawat- 
tamies  and  others,  to  join  you  for  that  purpose, 
but  if  I  had  no  other  evidence  of  your  hostilit}*^  to 
us  your  seizing  the  salt  I  recentl}'  sent  up  the  Wa- 
bash, is  sufficient.  Brothers — our  citizens  are  al- 
armed and  my  warriors  are  preparing  themselves, 
not  to  strike  you,  but  to  defend  themselves  and 
their  women  and  children.  You  shall  not  surprise 
us  as  you  expect  to  do.  You  are  about  to  under- 
take a*  very  rash  act.  As  a  friend,  1  advise  you  to 
consider  well  of  it.  A  little  reflection  may  save  a 
great  deal  of  trouble  and  prevent  much  mischief. 
It  is  not  yet  too  late.  Brothers — what  can  be  the 
inducement  for  you  to  undertake  an  enterprise  when 
there  is  so  little  probability  of  success?  Do  you 
really  think  the  handful  of  men  you  have  about 
you  are  able  to  contend  with  the  seventeen  fires  or 
even  that  (the  whole  of)  all  the  tribes  united  could, 
contend  against  the  Kentucky  fire  alone?  Broth- 
ers, 1  am  myself  of  the  Long  Knife  fire.  As  soon 
as  they  hear  my  voice,  you  will  see  them  pouring 
forth  their  swarms  of  hunting  shirt  men  as  numer- 
ous as  the  mosquitoes  on  the  shores  of  the  Wabash.. 
Brothers — take  care  of  their  stings. 

Brothers — it  is  not  our  wish  to  hurt  you.  If 
it  were  we  certainly  have  the  power  to  do  it.  Look 
at  the  number  of  our  warriors-  to  the  east  of  j^ou, 
above  and  below  the  great  Miami;  to  the  south,  on 
both  sides  of  the  Ohio  and  below  you  also.  You 
are  brave  men,  but  what  could  you  do  against  such 
a  multitude?  We  wish  you  to  live  in  peace  and 
happiness. 

Brothers — the  citizens  of  this  country  are  al- 
armed.    They  must  be  satisfied  that  you  have  no  de- 


PIONEER  HISORY  OF  INDIANA.  249> 

sign  to  do  them  mischief  or  the)'  will  not  lay  aside 
their  arms.  You  have  also  insulted  the  Govern- 
ment by  seizing  the  salt  that  was  intended  for 
other  tribes.  Satisfaction  must  be  given  for  this 
also.  Brothers — you  talk  of  coming  to  see  me  at- 
tended by  all  your  young  men.  This  must  not  be. 
If  your  intentions  are  good  you  have  no  need  to 
bring  more  than  a  few  of  your  young  men  with 
you.  I  must  be  plain  with  you.  1  will  not  suffer 
you  to  come  into  our  settlement  with  such  a  force. 

Brothers — if  you  wish  to  satisfy  us  that  your  in- 
tentions are  good,  follow  the  advice  I  have  given 
you  before,  that  is,  that  one  or  both  of  you  should 
visit  the  President  of  the  United  States  and  lay  your 
grievance  before  him.  He  will  treat  you  well, 
listen  to  what  you  say  and  if  you  can  show  him 
that  you  have  been  injured  you  will  receive  justice. 
If  you  will  follow  my  advice  in  this  respect  it  will 
convince  the  citizens  of  this  country  and  myself 
that  you  have  no  design  to  attack  them. 

Brothers — with  respect  to  the  land  which  was 
purchased  last  fall,  I  can  enter  into  no  negotiation 
with  you  on  that  subject,  the  affair  is  in  the  hands 
of  the  President.  If  you  wish  to  go  and  see  him  I 
will  supply  you  with  the  means.  Brothers  the  per- 
son who  delivers  you  this  is  one  of  my  war  officers. 
He  is  a  man  in  whom  I  have  entire  confidence. 
What  he  says  to  you,  although  it  may  not  be  con- 
tained in  this  paper,  you  may  believe  comes  from 
me.  My  friend,  Tecumseh — the  bearer,  is  a  good 
and  a  brave  warrior.  I  hope  you  will  treat  him 
well.  You  are  yourself  a  warrior  and  all  such 
should  have  an  esteem  for  each  other." 

Captain  Wilson,  who  bore  this  message  to  the  Prophet's, 
town,  was  received  in  a  friendly  manner  at  that  place  and 
was  treated  with  particular  friendship  by  Tecumseh,  who* 
sent  by  him  the  following  reply  to  the  letter  by  tne  Gover- 
nor— "Brother,  I  give  you  a  few  words  until  I  will  be  with 
you  myself,  Tecumseh.  Brother  at  Vincennes,  I  wish  you  to 
listen  to  me  while  I  send  you  a  few  words  and  I  hope  they 
will  ease  your  heart.  I  know  you  look  on  your  young  men 
and  your  young  women  and  children  with  pity  to  see  them  so 
much  alarmed.     Brother,  I  wish  you  to  examine  whart  yoit 


250  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 

have  from  me.  I  hope  it  will  be  a  satisfaction  to  you  if  your 
intentions  are  like  mine,  to  wash  away  all  these  bad  stories 
that  have  been  circulated.  I  will  be  with  you  myself  in  eig^h- 
teen  days  from  this  day.  Brother,  we  cannot  say  what  will 
become  of  us,  as  the  Great  Spirit  has  the  management  of  us 
at  his  will.  I  may  be  there  before  the  time  and  may  not  be 
there  until  the  day.  I  hope  that  when  we  come  together  all 
these  bad  tales  will  be  settled.  By  this,  I  hope  your  young 
men,  women  and  children  will  be  easy.  I  wish  you.  Brother, 
to  let  them  know  when  I  come  to  Vincennes  and  see  you  all 
will  be  settled  in  peace  and  happiness.  Brother,  these  are 
only  a  few  words  to  let  you  know  that  I  will  be  with  you  my- 
self and  when  I  am  with  you,  I  can  inform  you  better.  Broth- 
er, if  I  find  I  can  be  with  you  in  less  time  than  eighteen  days, 
I  will  send  one  of  my  young  men  before  me  to  let  you  know 
what  time  I  will  be  with  you." 

On  the  twenty-seventh  of  July,  1811,  Tecumseh  arrived 
:at  Vincennes.  The  number  of  his  attendants  was  about  three 
hundred,  of  whom  twenty  or  thirty  were  women  and  children. 
When  he  was  met  about  twentj'  miles  from  Vincennes  by  Cap- 
tain Wilson,  who  delivered  a  message  from  the  Governor, 
expressing  disapprobation  of  the  large  number  of  Indians  ap- 
proaching the  town,  Tecumseh,  after  some  hesitation,  said 
he  had  with  him  but  twenty-four  men,  and  the  rest  had  come 
of  their  own  accord;  but  that  everything  should  be  settled 
to  the  satisfaction  of  the  Governor  on  his  arrival  at  Vincen- 
nes. The  approach  of  this  large  force  of  Indians  cieated 
considerable  alarm  among  the  inhabitants  of  Vincennes  and 
on  the  day  of  the  arrival  of  Tecumseh,  Grovernor  Harrison, 
in  adopting  various  precautionary  measures,  reviewed  the 
militia  of  the  county,  composed  of  about  seven  hundred  and 
fifty  men,  who  were  well  armed  and  he  stationed  two  com- 
panies of  militia  infantry  and  a  detachment  of  dragoons  on 
the  borders  of  the  town.  In  the  course  of  the  interview 
which  took  place  at  this  time  between  the  Gk)vernor  and 
Tecumseh,  the  latter  declared  that  it  was  not  his  intention 
to  make  war  against  the  United  States;  that  he  would  send 
messengers  among  the  Indians  to  prevent  murders  and  depre- 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA.  251 

Nations  on  the  white  settlers;  that  the  Indians  as  well  as  the 
i^rhites,  who  had  committed  murder,  ou^ht  to  be  forgiven; 
that  he  had  s^t  the  whites  an  example  of  forgiveness  which 
they  ought  to  follow;  that  it  was  his  wish  to  establish  a  anion 
among  all  the  Indian  tribes;  that  the  Northern  tribes  were 
united;  that  he  was  going  to  visit  the  southern  Indians  and 
that  he  would  return  to  the  Prophet's  town.  He  said  that 
he  would  on  his  return  from  the  south,  the  next  spring,  visit 
the  President  of  the  United  States  and  settle  all  causes  of 
difficulty  between  the  Indians  and  himself.  He  said  further 
that  he  hoped  that  no  attempt  would  be  made  to  make  set- 
tlement on  the  lands  which  had  been  sold  to  the  United 
States  at  the  treaty  of  Ft.  Wayne  because  the  Indians  wanted 
to  keep  those  lands  for  hunting  grounds.  Soon  after  the 
conference  with  Governor  Harrison  had  closed,  Tecumseh, 
attended  by  twenty  Indians,  suddenly  took  his  departure  from 
Vincennes,  down  the  Wabash  river  on  his  way  to  the  South- 
•ern  Indians  for  the  purpose  of  disseminating  his  views  for  a 
great  Indian  confederation  among  the  Creeks,  the  Chickasaws, 
and  Choctaw  Indians. 

After  Tecumseh  departed,  the  remainder  of  his  followers 
returned  to  the  Prophets's  town  deeply  impressed  with  the 
martial  display  of  military^  strength  of  Harrison's  command. 
It  cannot  be  told  with  a  certainty  of  its  correctness,  what 
<:ould  have  induced  Tecumseh  to  go  so  far  from  home  for  so 
long  a  time.  He  certainly  had  more  faith  in  Governor  Har- 
rison's pacific  intentions  than  Harrison  was  warranted  in 
having  in  him  or  the  Prophet  or  he  would  not  have  made 
such  a  fatal  mistake. 

The  Prophet  kept  up  his  incantations,  charms  and  jug- 
glery, thus  increasing  his  importance  and  his  influence  with 
his  deluded  followers.  There  was  a  constant  increase  in  his 
numbers.  It  was  said  by  spies  of  friendly  Indians,  which  the 
i^rhites  had  that  by  the  first  of  September,  1811,  the  Prophet's 
toYfn  had  more  than  twenty-five  hundred  Indians  in  it. 

The  restless  young  men  among  his  bands,  bent  on  plun- 
der, crossed  into  the  white  settlement  in  many  places,  killing 
the  settlers  or  running  off  their  stock.     This  became  so  fre- 


252  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 

quent  that  the  whole  territory  was  in  a  constant  state  of  ex- 
citeraent. 

On  the  thirt3^-first  of  July,  1811,  a  public  meeting:  of  cit- 
izens was  held  at  Vincennes  for  the  purpose  of  declaring:  by 
resolution  the  dangler  to  which  the  white  inhabitants  of  the 
Territory  of  Indiana  were  exposed  on  account  of  the  hostil- 
ities  of  the  Indians  at  the  Prophet's  town  and  for  requesting" 
the  President  of  the  United  States  to  issue  orders  for  the 
forcible  dispersion  of  the  hostile  Indians  settled  at  that  place^ 
By  resolution  the  following:  committee  was  selected  to  make 
this  request — Samuel  T.  Scott,  Alexander  Devin,  Luke  Deck- 
er,  Ephriam  Jordon,  Daniel  McClure,  Walter  Wilson  and 
Francis  Vigo. 

In  a  letter  dated  August  third,  1811,  addressed  to  the 
President  of  the  United  States,  this  committee,  after  makings 
the  request  above  referred  to,  said: 

'*In  this  part  of  the  country,  we  have  not  as  yet 
lost  any  of  our  fellow  citizens  by  the  Indians,  but 
depredations  upon  the  property  of  those  who  live 
upon  the  frontiers  and  insults  to  the  families  that 
are  left  unprotected,  almost  daily  occur." 

The  President  as  early  as  the  seventeenth  day  of  July  had 
instructed  the  Secretary  of  War  to  authorize  Governor  Harri- 
son to  call  out  the  militia  of  the  Territory  and  to  attack  the 
Prophet  and  his  followers  in  case  circumstances  should 
occur  which  might  render  such  a  course  necessary  or  expe- 
dient. The  Governor  was  further  authorized  at  his  discre- 
tion,  to  call  into  his  services  the  Fourth  Regiment  of  United 
States  Infantry,  under  the  command  of  Colonel  John  P.  Boyd. 

The  ofl&cial  instructions  which  were  sent  from  the  Secre- 
tary of  War  to  Governor  Harrison  at  this  period  were  strong- 
ly in  favor  of  preserving  pacific  relations  with  the  North- 
western Indian  tribes  by  the  use  of  all  means  consistent  with 
the  protection  of  the  citizens  of  the  Territory  and  the  main- 
tenance of  the  rights  of  the  general  government  of  the  United 
States. 

Governor  Harrison,  having  determined  to  erect  a  hew  fort 
on  the  Wabash  river,  and  to  break  up  the  assemblage  of  hos- 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA.  253 

tile  Indians  at  the  Prophet's  town,  ordered  Colonel  Boyd's 
regfiment  of  infantry  to  move  from  the  falls  of  the  Ohio  to 
Vincennes.  at  which  place  the  reg^iment  of  regulars  was  to 
be  re-inforced  by  the  militia  of  the  Territory. 

Upon  receiving  from  the  Secretary  of  War  the  instruc- 
tions which  have  been  mentioned,  the  governor  sent  by 
special  messengers,  written  speeches,  addressed  to  the  several 
Indian  tribes  of  the  Indiana  Territory,  requesting  these 
tribes  to  fulfill  the  conditions  of  their  treaties  with  the 
United  States,  to  avoid  all  acts  of  hostility  toward  the  white 
settlers  and  to  make  an  absolute  disavowal  of  union  or  con- 
nection with  the  Shawnee  Prophet. 

About  the  twenty-fifth  of  September,  1811,  when  the  mil- 
itary expedition  that  had  been  organized  by  Governor  Harri- 
son was  nearly  ready  to  move  on  its  way  toward  the  Proph- 
et's town,  a  deputation  of  Indians  from  that  town  arrived  at 
Vincennes.  These  deputies  made  strong  professions  of  peace 
and  declared  that  the  Indians  would  comply  with  the  de- 
mands of  the  Governor.  A  few  days  after  these  messengers 
arrived  at  Vincennes,  six  horses  were  stolen  from  white  peo- 
ple by  small  bands  of  Indians.  Three  men  following  the 
trail  of  the  horses  to  an  Indian  camp  reported  that  after  they 
had  obtained  possession  of  the  horses  they  were  pursued  by 
the  Indians,  fired  upon  and  compelled  to  abandon  their 
horses  and  run  for  their  lives. 


MILITARY    ORDERS. 

'^Headquarters  of  the  Army  of 
Indiana  Territory, 

Vincennes,  Sept.  16,  1811.  , 
*'The  governor  of  Indiana  Territory  and  com- 
mander-in  chief  of  the  militia,  being  charged  by 
the  President  of  the  United  States  with  a  military 
expedition,  takes  command  to  the  troops  assigned, 
viz:  The  detachment  of  regular  troops  under  the 
command  of  Col.  John  P.  Boyd,  consisting  of  the 
Fourth  U.  S.  Regiment  of  Infantry  and  a  company 
of  the  Rifle  Regiment,  the  present  garrison  at  Ft. 
Knox  and   the   various  detachments  of  Militia,  In- 


254  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 

fantry  and  Dragoons  which  have  been  ordered  for 
the  service.  As  the  present  garrison  of  Ft.  Knox 
is  to  form  a  part  of  Colonel  Boyd's  command,  the 
officers  commanding  that  post  will  receive  the  Col- 
onel's orders.  Capt.  Piatt  of  the  Second  U.  S.  Reg- 
iment has  been  appointed  Quartermaster  for  all  the 
troops  on  the  expedition  and  is  to  be  obeyed  and 
respected  as  such.  Captain  Robert  Bun  tin  has 
been  appointed  quartermaster  for  the  militia  and  is 
to  be  respected  and  obeyed  accordingly.  Henry 
Hurst,  Esq.  and  the  Honorable  Waller  Taylor,  Esq. 
have  been  appointed  aide-de-camps  to  the  Com- 
mander in  Chief,  having  the  rank  of  Majors  and 
are  announced  as  such.  All  orders'  coming  from 
them  in  his  name,  whether  in  writing  or  verbally, 
are  to  be  respected  and  obeyed  as  if  delivered  by 
the  Commander  in  Chief  in  person.  Captain  Piatt 
is  to  have  the  superin tendency  of  persons  apper- 
taining to  the  quartermasters  or  military  agents 
department  and  the  direction  of  all  stores  for  the 
use  of  the  expedition." 


''Headquarters,  Vincennes,  September  22, 1811. 

'*A11  of  the  infantry  regulars  and  militia  are 
to  be  considered  as  one  brigade  under  the  command 
of  Col.  John  P.  Boyd,  acting  Brigadier  General. 
Lieutenant  Colonel  Miller  will  command  the  first 
line,  composed  of  the  regular  troops;  Lieutenant 
Colonel  Barthalemew  the  second  line,  composed  of 
Militia  Infantry.  These  two  officers  will  report  to 
and  receive  their  orders  from  Acting  General  John 
P.  Boyd.  The  Cavalry  will  be  under  the  com- 
mand of  Major  Joseph  H.  Davis,  who  will  report 
to  and  receive  orders  from  the  Commander  in  Chief. 
Captain  Spire  Spencer  s  company  of  mounted  vol- 
unteers will  act  as  a  detached  corps  and  report  to 
and  receive  orders  from  the  Commander  in  Chief. 
The  whole  army  will  parade  tomorrow  at  one 
o'clock.  The  troops  of  infantry  in  two  columns. 
The  regular  troops  will  form  the  leading  battalion 
of  each  column;  the  militia  infantry  the  rear  col- 
umn. Major  Davis  will  place  his  largest  troop  of 
dragoons  in  squadron  at  open  order,  one  hundred 
and  fifty  yards  in  rear  of  the  columns.  The  third 
troop  will  be  placed  in  a  single  line  on  the  right 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA.  2SS 

flank  at  one  hundred  and  fifty  yards  from  the  In- 
fantry and  parallel  thereto.  Captain  Spire  Spencer's 
company  will  be  formed  on  the  left  flank  in  single 
rank  and  in  line  parallel  to  the  Infantry  at  a  dis- 
tance of  one  hundred  and  fifty  yards  from  the  col- 
umn. The  army  thus  formed  will  be  in  marching- 
order.  The  columns  will  take  care  to  keep  their 
distances  and  their  head  dressed.  When  in  the 
woods  the  movements  will  be  regulated  by  signal 
from  the  drums.  When  in  open  they  will  T>e  gov-^ 
erned  by  sight.  This  is  to  be  the  order  in  the  line 
of  march."  

'^Headquarters,  Vincennes, 

September  22,  1811. 
'* After  Orders: 

*'The  army  being  formed  in  the  order  of  march 
prescribed  by  general  order  of  this  date,  if  an  at- 
tack should  be  made  on  the  right  flank,  the  whole 
will  face  to  the  right  and  it  will  then  be  in  two 
lines  parallel  to  the  line  of  march,  the  right  col* 
umn  forming  the  front  line  and  the  left  the  rear.. 
Should  the  attack  be  made  on  the  left  flank,  the 
reverse  to  what  is  here  directed  will  take  place; 
the  whole  army  will  face  to  the  left,  the  left  column 
acting  as  a  front  line,  the  right  column  as  a  rear 
line.  If  an  attack  is  made  on  both  flanks  at  the 
same  time,  both  columns  will  face  outward.  To 
resist  an  attack  in  the  rear,  the  same  maneuver 
will  be  performed  as  is  directed  for  an  attack  in 
front  with  this  difference  only,  that  the  leading 
grand  division  of  each  battalion  will  form  by  the 
filing  up  of  each  man  in  succession  and  the  second 
grand  division  by  doubling  around  its  front  guide 
and  displaying  to  the  left.  To  resist  an  attack  in 
front  and  rear,  the  two  leading  battalions  will  per- 
form the  maneuvre  directed  for  the  front  attack 
and  the  two  others  that  which  has  been  last  des- 
cribed. 

'*In  all  cases  where  there  is  an  attack,  other 
than  a  front  one,  the  dragoons  and  riflemen  will 
consider  themselves  as  front,  rear,  or  flank  guards 
according  to  the  situation  they  may  be  placed  in 
relative  to  the  rest  of  the  army  and  will  perform 
the  duties  which  those  situations*  respectively  re- 
quire as  heretofore  directed." 


256  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 

* 

The  Army  Starts  for  the  Prophet's  Town. 

The  army  under  the  command  of  Governor  Harrison 
moved  from  Vincennes  on  the  26th  of  September,  1811  and 
on  the  third  of  October,  without  having  encountered  any  ma- 
terial difficulties  on  its  march,  encamped  at  a  point  where 
they  erected  Ft.  Harrison.  This  place  of  encampment  was  on 
the  eastern  bank  of  the  Wabash  river,  about  two  miles  above 
an  old  Wea  Indian  villag^e  which  stood  about  two  miles  above 
where  the  city  of  Terre  Haute  now  stands.  According  to 
Indian  tradition  a  desperate  battle  was  fought  at  that  place  a 
long  time  ago,  between  three  hundred  Illinois  warriors  and 
an  equal  number  of  a  tribe  belonging  to  the  Iroquois  Confed- 
eracy. 

While  the  army  was  engage'd  in  building  the  fort.  Gov- 
ernor Harrison  received  from  friendly  Indians  of  the  Dela- 
ware and  Miami  tribes,  several  accounts  of  the  increasing 
hostility  of  the  Shawnee  Prophet  and  his  confederates. 
Four  Delawares  attended  by  Mr.  Conner  as  interpreter,  vis- 
ited the  Governor  and  reported  that  a  war  speech  had  been 
sent  from  the  Prophet  to  some  of  the  Delaware  chiefs  who 
were  on  their  way  to  meet  Governor  Harrison,  in  compliance 
with  a  request  which  they  had  received  from  one  of  his  mes- 
sengers. In  this  speech,  according  to  reports  of  the  Delaware 
chiefs,  the  Prophet  declared  that  his  tomahawk  was  up 
against  the  whites  and  nothing  should  induce  him  to  take  it 
down  unless  the  wrongs  of  the  Indians  were  redressed — the 
Delawares  might  do  as  they  pleased.  Some  of  the  Delaware 
chiefs  visited  the  Prophet  to  endeavor  to  dissuade  him  from 
adopting  such  measures  of  active  hostility  against  the  people 
of  the  United  States. 

On  the  night  of  October  the  tenth,  a  few  Indians  fired  on 
the  Sentinels  and  wounded  one.  The  arni}^  was  drawn  up 
in  line  of  battle  and  detachments  were  sent  out  in  all  direc- 
tions but  the  darkness  of  the  night  enabled  the  Indians  to 
to  get  away.  The  new  fort  was  finished  on  the  twenty- 
eighth  of  October  and  by  unanimous  petition  of  the  officers  it 
was  named  Ft.  Harrison.       The  fort  was  garrisoned  with  a 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA.  257 

•small  number  of  men  under  the  command  of  Lieutenant  Col- 
onel James  Miller,  who  afterward  at  the  battle  of  Niagara, 
ivon  great  renown.  (The  British  artillery  had  taken  a  posi- 
tion on  a  commanding  eminence  at  the  head  of  Lundy's  Lane, 
supported  by  a  line  of  Infantrj'  out  of  reach  of  the  American 
batteries.  This  was  the  key  to  the  whole  position  and  thence 
the}"  poured  a  most  deadly  fire  on  the  American  ranks.  It 
became  necessary  either  to  leave  the  ground  or  to  carry  this 
position  and  seize  the  height.  The  latter  desperate  task  was 
assigned  to  Colonel  Miller.  On  receiving  the  order  from 
■General  Brown  he  calmly  surveyed  the  position  and  answered 
— '*I  will  try,  Sir."  He  did  try  and  captured  the  battery  and 
position  and  his  expression  "I  will  try,  Sir''  afterward  be- 
came the  motto  of  his  Regiment.) 

Everything  being  in  readiness,  Gk)vernor  Harrison's  army 
moved  from  the  new  fort  on  October  the  twenty-ninth,  to- 
ward the  Prophet's  town.  On  the  thirty-first  of  October, 
soon  after  passing  Big  Raccoon  creek,  the  army  crossed  the 
Wabash  river  at  a  point  near  the  place  where  the  town  of 
Montezuma  in  Park  county,  now  stands.  At  this  time  the 
force  of  the  expedition  amounted  to  nine  hundred  men,  com- 
posed of  two  hundred  and  fifty  regular  troops,  about  one 
hundred  volunteers  from  Kentucky  and  six  hundred  citizens 
of  the  Indiana  Territory.  The  troops  on  horse  back  consist- 
ed of  light  dragoons,  amounting  to  two  hundred  and  seventy- 
five  men;  but  few  of  the  men  had  ever  been  in  battle. 

On  the  second  of  November  the  army  was  encamped  at  a 
point  about  two  miles  below  the  mouth  of  the  Big  Vermilion 
river.  A  block  house  twenty-five  feet  square  was  built  on 
the  western  bank  of  the  Wabash  on  a  small  prairie.  A  Ser- 
geant and  eight  men  were  stationed  in  the  block  house  to 
protect  the  boats,  which  up  to  this  point  nad  been  used  in  the 
transportation  of  supplies  for  the  expedition.  The  Delaware 
■chiefs  which  Harrison  had  sent  to  the  Prophet's  town  came 
into  this  camp  and  reported  that  they  were  badly  treated  and 
insulted  and  finally  dismissed  with  the  most  contemptuous 
remarks  upon  them  and  the  white  people.  The  party  that 
fired  on  the  sentinels  arrived  at  the  Prophet's  town  while  the 


258 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 


Map  of  Viciiuly  of  Tippecanoe  Battle  Field  Showing  Line  of   March  on 

November  6b  1611. 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA.  259 

Delaware  chiefs  were  there — they  were  Shawnees  and  the 
Prophet's  nearest  friends. 

On  the  third  of  Nove  nber  the  army  resumed  its  march 
and  keeping  its  course  through  the  prairie  at  some  distance 
from  the  Wabash  river  it  came  in  view  of  the  Prophet's  town 
on  the  afternoon  of  the  sixth  of  November.  During  the 
march  all  this  day  small  parties  of  Indians  were  seen  hover- 
ing about  the  array  and  the  interpreters  made  several  unsuc- 
cessful attempts  to  have  a  conference  with  them.  On  reach- 
ing a  point  about  one  mile  and  a  half  from  the  town,  the 
army  halied.  Governor  Harrison  directed  Captain  Dubois  of 
the  spies  to  go  forward  with  an  interpreter  and  request  a  con- 
ference wiih  ihe  Prophet. 

As  Capiain  Dubois  proceeded  to  execute  his  orders,  he 
met  several  Indians  to  whom  he  spoke  in  a  friendly  manner* 
They  refused  to  speak  lo  him  but  by  motion  urged  him  to  go 
forward  and  seemed  lo  be  endeavoring  to  cut  him  off  from 
the  main  army. 

On  being  informed  of  this  apparentl}'  hostile  manifesta- 
tion on  the  part  of  the  Indians,  Governor  Harrison  dispatch- 
ed a  messenger  to  recall  Captain  ijubois.  Soon  after  the  re- 
turn of  that  officer  the  whole  army  in  order  of  battle  began 
to  move  toward  the  town,  the  interpreters  having  been  placed 
in  front  with  orders  to  invite  a  conference  with  the  Indians. 
The  following  particulars  concerning  the  actions  of  the  In- 
dians as  the  army  was  approaching  the  Prophei's  lown  are 
taken  from  a  leiter  Governor  iiai-rison  wruie  to  the  Secretary 
of  \\ar,  November  18,  1811: 


k  k  ' 


We  had  not  advanced  more  than  four  hun- 
dred yards  wnen  1  was  Mform.^d  thai  chree  i.idians 
had  approached  tno  adv^ance  guards  and  had  ex- 
pressed a  wish  lo  speak  lo  me.  1  found  upon  their 
arrival  that  one  ol  them  was  a  man  in  great  esti-  . 
maiion  wiih  the  Prophet.  He  informed  me  that 
the  chiels  were  much  surprised  at  my  advance  upon 
them  so  rapidly;  that  they  were  given  to  under- 
siand  by  ihe  ueiawares  and  Miamis,  whom  1  had 
sent  to  ihtrm  a  te%v  days  beture  ihac  1  would  not 
advance  to  their  town  until  I  had  received  an  ans- 


260  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 

wer  to  my  demands  made  through  them;  that  this 
answer  had  been  dispatched  by  the  Pottawattamie 
chief,  Winamac,  who  had  accompanied  the  Miamis 
and  Delawares  on  their  return;  that  they  had  left 
the  Prophet's  town  two  days  before  with  a  design 
to  meet  me  but  unfortunately  they  had  taken  the 
road  on  the  southeastern  side  of  the  Wabash. 

"I  answered  that  1  had  no  intention  of  attack- 
ing them  until  I  discovered  they  would  not  comply 
with  the  demands  which  I  had  made;  that  1  would 
go  on  and  encamp  at  the  Wabash  and  in  the  morn- 
ing would  have  an  interview  with  the  Prophet  and 
his  chiefs  and  explain  to  them  the  determination 
of  the  President  and  that  in  the  meantime  no  hos- 
tilities should  be  committed.  He  seemed  much 
pleased  with  this  and  promised  that  it  should  be 
observed  on  their  part.     I  then  resumed  my  march. 

*'We  struck  the  cultivated  grounds  about  five 
hundred  yards  above  the  town  but  as  this  extended 
to  the  bank  of  the  Wabash  there  was  no  possibility 
of  getting  an  encampment  which  was  provided 
with  both  water  and  wood.  My  guides  and  inter- 
preters being  still  wiih  the  advance  guard  and  tak- 
ing the  directions  of  the  town,  the  army  followed 
and  had  advanced  within  about  one  hundred  and 
fifty  yards,  when  fifty  or  sixiy  Indians  sallied  out 
and  with  loud  exclamations,  called  to  the  cavalry 
and  to  the  militia  Infantry  which  were  on  the  right 
flank,  to  halt. 

**I  immediately  advanced  to  the  front,  caused 
the  army  to  halt  and  directed  an  interpreter  to  re- 
quest some  of  the  chiefs  to  come  to  me.  In  a  few 
moments  the  man  who  had  been  with  me  before 
made  his  appearance.  I  informed  him  that  my 
object  for  the  present  was  to  procure  a  good  piece 
of  ground  to  camp  on.  where  we  could  get  wood 
and  water.  He  informed  me  that  there  was  a 
creek  to  the  northwest  which  he  thought  would 
suit  our  purpose.  I  immediate!}'  dispatched  two 
officers,  Major  Maston  G.  Glark  and  Major  Waller 
Taylor  to  examine  it.  They  reported  the  situation 
as  excellent.  I  then  took  leave  of  the  chief  and 
mutual  promises  were  again  made  for  the  suspen- 
sion of  hostilities  until  we  could  have  an  interview 
on  the  following  day. 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA.  261 

**I  found  the  gfround  destined  for  the  encamp- 
ment not  altogfether  such  as  I  could  wish  it.  It 
was  indeed  admirably  calculated  for  the  encamp- 
ment of  regfular  troops  that  were  opposed  to  regfu-' 
lars  but  it  afforded  a  gfreat  facility  to  the  approach 
of  Savages.  It  was  a  piece  of  dry  oak  land,  rising: 
about  ten  feet  above  the  level  of  a  marshy  prairie 
in  front  toward  the  Prophet's  town  and  nearly  twice 
that  high  above  a  similar  prairie  in  the  rear,  througfh 
which  and  near  to  this  bank  ran  a  small  stream, 
clothed  with  willows  and  other  brushwood.  Toward 
the  left  flank  this  bench  of  land  widened  consider- 
ably but  became  g^radually  narrower  in  the  opposite 
direction  and  at  a  distance  of  one  hundred  and  fifty 
yards  from  the  rigfht  flank  terminated  in  an  abrupt 
point. 

* 'Owing:  to  the  conditions  surrounding:  this  en- 
campment it  was  possibly  not  as  suitable  as  desired 
but  in  all  the  regfions  surrounding:  it  there  was  no 
other  place  so  gfood.  The  nigfhts  at  that  season  of 
the  year  were  cold  and  only  the  Regfulars  had  tents. 
Largfe  fires  had  to  be  made  to  procure  any  degree  of 
comfort.  These  fires  were  built  in  front  of  the  line 
occupied  by  each  portion  of  the  command,  as  it  lay 
in  camp.  The  ligfht  of  the  fires,  at  the  outbreak  of 
the  battle,  caused  some  loss  among  the  soldiers  but 
this  risk  had  to  be  taken  for  without  the  fires  there 
would  have  been  much  suffering.  They  were  ex- 
tinguished at  the  first  onset." 


Some  military  writers  want  to  criticize  Governor  Harri- 
son for  not  having  breast-works.  He  meets  this  charge  by 
the  statement  that  he  had  all  the  axes  it  was  possible  to  get 
in  the  Territory,  and  then  had  less  than  enough  for  the  men. 
to  prepare  wood  for  the  fires  that  evening.  The  army  en- 
camped in  order  of  battle.  The  men  were  instructed  to  sleep 
with  their  clothes  and  accountrements  on,  with  their  fire 
arms  loaded  and  bayonets  fixed  and  each  company  that  form- 
ed the  interior  line  of  the  encampment  was  ordered,  in  case 
of  an  attack,  to  hold  its  own  ground  until  relieved. 

Two  columns  of  infantry  occupied  the  front  and  rear  of 
the  encampment  ground,  at  the  distance  of  about  one  hun- 


262  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 


■•V-.--.  J- 

' '^liAl  III*  d-^ 


—    -V^^^J's^r^     ~— 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA.  263 

-dred  and  fifty  yards  from  each  other  on  the  left  flank  and 
something:  more  than  half  that  distance  on  the  right  flank. 
The  left  flank  was  filled  up  with  two  companies  of  mounted 
riflemen  amounting:  to  about  one  hundred  and  twenty  men 
under  the  command  of  Major  General  Wells  of  the  Kentucky 
Militia.  The  right  flank  was  filled  up  by  Captain  Spire 
Spencer's  company  of  mounted  riflemen  consisting  of  about 
eighty  men.  The  front  line  was  composed  of  one  battalion 
of  U.  S.  Infantry  under  the  command  of  Major  Floyd  flanked 
on  the  right  by  two  companies  of  Militia  and  on  the  left  by 
one  company.  The  rear  line  was  composed  of  a  battalion  of 
United  States  troops  under  the  command  of  Captain  Bean, 
acting  as  Major  and  four  companies  of  Militia  Infantry  un- 
der the  command  of  Lieutenant  Colonel  Decker. 

The  regular  troops  on  the  rear  line  joined  the  mounted 
riflemen  under  General  Wells  on  the  left  flank  and  Colonel 
Decker's  Battalion  formed  an  angle  with  Captain  Spire 
Spencer's  company  on  the  right  flank.  Two  troops  of 
dragoons  amounting  to  about  sixty  men,  were  encamped  in 
the  rear  of  the  left  flank  and  Captain  Park's  troop  of  dragoons, 
which  was  larger  than  the  other  two,  was  encamped  in  rear 
of  the  front  line.  The  Dragoons  were  directed,  in  case  of  an 
attack,  to  parade  dismounted  with  their  pistols  in  their  belts 
and  act  as  a  corps-de-reserve. 

^  THE  BATTLE   OF  TIPPECANOE.. 

Gk)vernor  Harrison  was  perfectly  convined  of  the  hostility 
of  the  Prophet.  He  believed  that  the  Indians  intended  to 
.attack  him  by  treachery  after  first  lulling  his  suspicions  by 
a  pretended  treaty,  which  had  indeed  been  the  original  inten- 
tion. No  one  anticipated  an  attack  that  night,  yet  every 
precaution  was  taken  to  resist  one  if  made.  All  the  guards 
that  could  be  used  in  such  a  situation  and  such  precautions 
as  was  used  by  General  Wayne  were  employed  on  this  occa- 
sion; that  is,  camp  guards  furnishing  a  chain  of  sentinels 
around  the  whole  camp,  were  placed  at  such  distances  as  to 
give  notice  of  the  approach  of  an  enemy  in  time  for  the  troops 
to  take  their  position  and  yet  not  far  enough  away  to  prevent 


264  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 

the  sentinels  from  retreating  to  the  main  body  if  overpower- 
ed. The  usual  mode  of  civilized  warfare  of  stationing:  picket 
gfuards  at  a  considerable  distance  in  advance  of  the  army^ 
would  be  useless  in  Indian  warfare  as  they  did  not  require 
roads  to  march  upon  and  such  gfuards  would  always  have 
been  cut  off.  Orders  were  given  in  the  event  of  an  attack  for 
each  corps  to  maintain  its  position  at  all  hazards  until  re- 
Heved  or  further  orders  were  g^iven  to  it.  The  whole  army 
was  kept  during  the  night  **lying  on  their  arms."  The  re- 
gular troops  lay  in  their  tents  with  their  accoutrements  and 
their  arms  by  their  side.  The  militia  had  no  tents  but  slept 
with  their  clothes  and  pouches  on  and  their  guns  under  them 
to  keep  them  dry. 

The  order  of  the  encampment  was  the  order  of  battle  for 
a  night  attack  and  as  every  man  slept  opposite  his  post  in 
the  line  there  was  nothing  for  the  troops  to  do  in  case  of  an 
assault,  but  rise  and  take  position  a  few  steps  in  rear  of  the 
line  of  fire,  around  which  they  had  reposed.  The  guards  of 
the  night  consisted  of  two  Captain's  commands  of  forty-two 
men  and  four  non-commissioned  officers  each  and  two  subalt- 
ern guards  of  twenty  men  and  non-commissioned  officers  each; 
the  whole  amounting  to  about  one  hundred  and  thirty  men 
under  the  commaud  of  a  field  officer  of  the  day. 

The  night  was  dark  and  cloudy  and  after  midnight  there 
was  a  drizzling  rain.  At  four  o'clock  in  the  morning  of  the 
seventh,  Governor  Harrison,  according:  to  practice  had  risen 
preparatory  to  the  calling  up  of  the  troops  and  was  engaged^ 
while  drawing  on  his  boots  by  the  fire,  in  conversation  with 
General  Wells,  Col.  Owen  and  Majors  Taylor  and  Hurst. 
The  orderly  drummer  had  been  roused  for  the  purpose  of 
giving  the  signal  for  the  troops  to  turn  out,  when  the  attack 
of  the  Indians  suddenly  commenced  upon  the  left  flank  of  the 
camp.  The  whole  army  was  instantly  on  its  feet  and  the 
camp  fires  extinguished.  The  Governor  mounted  his  horse 
and  proceeded  to  the  point  of  attack.  Several  of  the  com- 
panies had  taken  their  places  in  line  within  forty  seconds 
from  the  report  of  the  first  gun  and  the  entire  army  was  pre- 
pared for  action  in  less  than  two  minutes,  a  fact  as  creditable 


PIONEER  HISORY  OF  INDIANA.  265 

to  their  own  activity  and  bravery  as  to  the  skill  and  energy 
of  their  officers.  The  battle  soon  became  gfeneral  and  was 
maintained  on  both  sides  with  bravery  and  even  desperate 
valor.  The  Indians  advanced  and  retreated  by  the  aid  of  a 
rattling:  noise  made  with  dried  deer  hoofs  and  preserved  in 
their  treacherous  attack  an  apparent  determination  to  con- 
quer or  die  upon  the  spot.  The  battle  ragged  with  unabat- 
ing:  fury  and  mutual  slaughter  until  daylight  when  a  gallant 
and  successful  charge  of  the  troops  drove  the  Indians  into 
the  swamp  and  put  an  end  to  the  conflict. 


'*LrO 


Governor  Harrison  says  in  his  official  report — 

In  the  course  of  a  few  minutes  after  the  com- 
mencement of  the  attack,  the  fire  extended  along 
the  left  flank,  the  whole  of  the  front,  the  right 
flank  and  the  rear  line. 

Upon  Spencer's  mounted  riflemen  and  the  right 
of  Warrick's  company  which  was  posted  on  the 
right  of  the  rear  line  it  was  excessively  severe, 
jCaptain  Spire  Spencer  and  his  first  and  second 
Lieutenants  were  killed  and  Captain  Warrick  mort- 
ally wounded.  These  companies,  however,  bravely 
maintained  their  post,  but  Spencer  having  suffered 
so  severely  and  having  originally  too  much  ground 
to  K)ccupy,  I  reinforced  them  with  Captain  Robb's 
company  of  riflemen  which  had  been  ordered  by 
mistake  from  their  position  in  the  left  flank  and 
filled  the  vacancy  which  had  been  occupied  by 
Robb,  with  Prescott's  company  of  the  Fourth  U.  S. 
Regiment.  My  great  object  was  to  keep  the  lines 
entire  to  prevent  the  enemy  from  breaking  into 
camp  until  daylight  should  enable  me  to  make  a 
general  and  effectual  charge.  With  this  view  I 
had  reinforced  every  part  of  the  line  that  had  suf- 
fered much  and  as  soon  as  the  approach  of  morn- 
ing discovered  itself,  I  withdrew  from  the  front 
line  Snelling's,  Posey's  (under  Lieut.  Albright)  and 
Scott's  companies  and  from  the  rear  line  Wilson's 
companies  and  drew  them  up  on  the  left  flank.  At 
the  same  time  I  ordered  Cook  and  Bean's  companies, 
the  former  from  the  rear  line  and  the  latter  from 
the  front  line,  to  reinforce  the  right  flank,  foresee- 


366  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 

ing:  that  at  this  point  the  enemy  would  make  their 
last  stand. 

Major  Wells,  who  commanded  on  the  left  flank, 
not  knowing:  my  intentions  had  taken  command  of 
these  companies  and  charged  the  enemy  before  I 
had  formed  the  body  of  Dragfoons  with  which  I 
meant  to  support  the  Infantry.  A  small  detach- 
ment of  these  were  ready,  however,  and  proved 
amply  sufficient  for  the  purpose.  The  Indians  were 
driven  by  the  Infantry  at  the  point  of  the  bayonet 
and  the  Dragfoons  pursued  and  forced  them  into  a 
marsh  where  they  could  not  follow.  Captain  Cook 
and  Lieutenant  Larrabee  had,  agfreeable  to  my 
orders,  marched  their  companies  by  the  rigfht  flank 
and  formed  them  under  the  fire  of  the  enemy  and 
being  then  joined  by  the  riflemen  of  that  flank,  had 
charged  the  Indians,  killed  a  number,  and  put  the 
rest  to  precipitate  flight. 

All  of  ihe  Infantry  formed  a  small  brigade  un- 
der the  immediate  orders  of  Colonel  Boyd.  The 
Colonel  throughout  the  action,  manifested  equal 
zeal  and  bravery  in  carrying  into  execution  my 
orders;  in  keeping  the  men  to  their  post  and  ex- 
horting them  to  fight  with  valor.  His  Brigade 
Major,  Clark  and  his  aide-de-camp  George  Croghan 
were  also  very  serviceably  employed. 

Colonel  Joseph  Bartholomew  a  very  valuable 
officer,  commanded  under  Colonel  Boyd,  the  Militia 
Infantry.  He  was  wounded  early  in  the  action  and 
his  service  was  lost  to  me.  Major  G.  R.  C.  Floyd 
^he  senior  officer  of  the  Fourth  U.  S.  Regiment, 
•commanded  immediately  the  batt;ilion  of  the  regi- 
ment which  was  in  the  front  line.  His  conduct 
during  the  action  was  entirely  to  my  satisfaction. 
Lieutenant  Colonel  Decker,  who  commanded  the  bat- 
talion of  Militia  on  the  right  of  the  rear  line,  pre- 
served his  command  in  good  order.  I  have  before 
mentioned  to  you  that  Major  General  Wells  of  the 
fourth  division  of  Kentucky  Militia,  acted  under 
my  command  as  Major  at  the  head  of  two  com- 
panies of  mounted  volunteers.  The  General  main- 
tained the  fame  which  he  had  already  acquired  in 
almost  every  campaign  and  in  almost  every  battle 
which  had  been  fought  with  the  Indians  since  the 
.settlement  of  Kentucky. 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA.  267 

Of  the  several  corps,  the  Fourth  U.  S.  Regi- 
ment and  the  two  small  companies  attached  to  it, 
were  very  conspicuous  for  undaunted  valor. 

The  companies  commanded  by  Captains  Cook, 
Snelling:  and  Barton,  Lieutenants  Larrabee,  Peters 
and  Hawkins  were  placed  in  situations  where  they 
could  render  eminent  service  and  encounter  great 
danger  and  these  officers  greatly  distinguished 
themselves. 

Captains  Prescott  and  Brown  performed  their 
duty  entirely  to  my  satisfaction  as  did  Posey's  com- 
pany of  the  Seventh  Regiment  headed  by  Lieuten- 
ant Albright.  In  short,  Sir,  ihey  supported  the 
fame  of  the  American  soldier  and  I  have  never 
found  that  a  single  individual  was  out  of  the  line 
of  duty.  Several  of  the  Militia  companies  were  in 
no  way  inferior  to  the  Regulars.  Spencer's, 
Guiger's,  and  Warrick's  maintained  their  post 
amidst  a  monstrous  carnage  as  also  did  Robb's 
which  was  posted  on  the  left  flank,  and  had  seven- 
teen men  killed  and  wounded.  Wilson's  and  Scott's 
<:ompanies  charged  with  the  regular  troops  and  pro- 
ved themselves  worthy  of  doing  so.  Norris'  com- 
pany also  behaved  well.  Hargrove's  and  Wilkins' 
companiefs  were  placed  in  a  situation  where  they 
had  no  opportunities  of  distinguishing  themselves 
or  I  am  satisfied  they  would  have  done  so.  This 
was  also  the  case  of  the  squadron  of  Dragoons. 

After  Major  J.  H.  Davis  had  received  his  wound, 
knowing  it  to  be  fatal,  I  prortioted  to  the  Majority, 
Captain  Park,  than  whom  there  is  no  better  officer. 

My  aide-de-camps.  Majors  Hurst  and  Taylor, 
with  Lieutenant  Adams  of  the  Fourth  Regiment, 
and  the  Adjutant  of  the  tioops  afforded  me  the 
most  essential  aid  as  well  in  action  as  throughout 
the  campaign.  The  arrangements  of  Captain 
Piatt,  in  the  Quartermaster's  department  were 
highly  judicious  and  his  exertions  on  all  occasions, 
particularly  in  bringing  off  the  wounded,  deserves 
my  warmest  thanks. 

But  in  giving  praise  to  the  living,  let  me  not 
forget  the  gallant  dead.  Colonel  Abraham  Owens 
joined  me  a  few  days  before  the  action  as  a  private 
in  Captain  Guiger's  company.  He  accepted  the  ap- 
pointment of  volunteer  aide-de-camp  to   me.     He 


268  PIONEER  HISORY  OF  INDIANA. 

fell  early  in  the  action.  The  representatives  of  his 
state  will  inform  you  that  she  possessed  not  a  bet- 
ter citizen  nor  a  braver  man. 

Major  Joseph  H.  Davis  was  well  known  as  an 
able  lawyer  and  a  gfreat  orator.  He  joined  me  as  a. 
private  volunteer,  and*  on  the  recommendations  of 
the  oflBcers  of  that  corps,  was  appointed  to  com- 
mand the  three  troops  of  Dragoons.  His  conduct 
in  that  capacity  justified  their  choice.  Never  was 
there  an  officer  possessed  of  more  ardor  and  zeal  to 
discharge  his  duties  with  propriety  and  never  one 
who  would  encounter  more  danger  to  purchase  mil- 
itary fame. 

Captain  Bean  of  the  Fourth  U.  S.  Regiment  was 
killed  early  in  the  action — he  was  unquestionably 
a  good  officer  and  a  valiant  soldier. 

Captains  Spencer  and  Warrick  and  Lieutenants 
McMahan  and  Berry  were  all  my  particular  friends. 
I  have  always  had  the  utmost  confidence  in  their 
valor  and  was  not  deceived.  Captain  Spencer  was 
wounded  in  the  head.  He  exhorted  his  men  to 
fight  valiantly.  He  was  shot  through  both  thighs 
and  fell  still  continuing  to  encourage  them.  He  was 
raised  up  and  received  a  ball  through  his  body 
which  put  an  immediate  end  to  his  existence.  Cap- 
tain Warrick  was  shot  immediately  through  the 
body  and  taken  to  the  surgery  to  be  dressed.  As 
soon  as  it  was  over,  being  a  man  of  great  bodily 
vigor  and  able  to  walk,  he  insisted  on  going  back 
to  the  head  of  his  company,  although  it  was  evi- 
dent that  he  had  but  a  few  hours  to  live." 


The  loss  of  the  army  under  Gk)vernor  Harrison  was 
thirty-seven  killed  in  action  and  one  hundred  and  fifty-one 
wounded.  Twenty-five  of  this  number  died  afterward  of 
their  wounds.  The  loss  of  the  Indians  was  serious  but  as 
they  carried  all  their  wounded  from  the  field  during  the  bat- 
tle and  their  women  and  old  men  were  burying  their  dead  dur- 
ing the  battle  it  was  hard  to  ascertain.  According  to  one  re- 
port they  left  thirty-eight  dead  on  the  field  and  six  more  dead 
were  found  when  their  town  was  burned  the  next  day.  Major 
General  Wells  of  Kentucky  who  took  such  a  leading  part  in 
that  fight  said  to  a  friend  that  after  the  battle  he  counted 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA.  269 

forty-five  new  gfraves  near  the  town  and  that  there  were  fifty- 
four  dead  Indians  left  on  the  g^round.  An  Indian  woman  cap- 
tured said  that  one  hundred  and  ninety-seven  Indians  were 
missing:.  From  the  reckless  exposure  of  their  persons  during: 
the  battle,  they  must  have  met  with  a  heavy  loss. 

The  Indians  were  under  the  immediate  command  of  three 
daring  chiefs — White  Loon,  Stone  Eater,  and  Winamac,  a 
Pottawattamie  who  was  killed  the  next  November  by  Logfan 
the  Shawnee  scout. 

The  Prophet  had  given  assurance  to  his  deluded  follow- 
ers that  the  bullets  of  the  Americans  would  fall  to  the 
ground,  that  their  powder  would  turn  to  sand.  Taking  his 
position  as  Commander  in  Chief  on  an  eminence,  some  dis- 
tance away,  (perhaps  not  willing  to  risk  his  own  person  to 
the  protection  of  his  prophecies  against  the  real  American 
bullets,)  he  commenced  the  performance  of  mystic  rites  at  the 
same  time  singing  in  his  clear,  loud  voice  a  war  song.  Dur- 
ing the  battle  the  Indians  told  him  their  people  were  being 
killed.  He  urged  them  to  fight  on  saying  it  would  soon  be 
over  and  no  more  would  be  hurt. 

After  the  battle,  the  fleeing  Indians  upbraided  him  for 
his  duplicity.  He,  as  of  old,  laid  it  on  the  women,  saying 
that  his  wife  must  have  touched  his  charms. 

It  has  never  been  definitely  known  how  many  Indians 
there  were  in  the  battle  but  after  gathering  from  all  sources 
the  best  information  that  could  be  secured,  it  was  thought 
the  two  armies  had  about  the  same  number  of  men  on  the 
field.  The  Prophet's  forces  were  gathered  from  the  Shawnees, 
Ottawas,  Chippewas,  Pottawattamies,  Wyandots,  Kickapoos, 
Winnebago^s  and  Sacs.  Immediately  after  their  defeat  the 
surviving  Indians  went  back  to  their  various  tribes,  denounc- 
ing the  Prophet.  His  town  which,  contained  a  large  amount 
of  corn,  was  found  and  this  with  other  provisions  was  des- 
troyed. Evidence  of  the  British  duplicity  was  also  found. 
Several  rifles  which  had  been  sent  from  Maiden  were  found 
that  had  not  been  unwrapped. 

Governor  Harrison,  on  the  eighth  buried  his  dead  and 
burned  log   heaps  over  their  graves,  but   the  Indians  after- 


270  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 

ward  dug:  them  up  hunting:  for  trinkets  and  stripped  them  of 
their  clothing:. 

On  the  ninth  of  November  the  army  moved  from  their 
encampment  over  the  route  they  had  marched  to  the  Prophet's 
town.  The  wounded  were  hauled  in  wag:ons,  drawn  by  oxen. 
The  oflBcers'  camp  chests,  tents,  and  everything:  that  could  be 
spared  will  burned  so  that  room  could  be  made  for  them. 
There  was  much  suflFering:  until  they  arrived  at  the  blockhouse 
below  the  Vermilion  river.  The  wounded  were  then  put  on 
boats  and  conveyed  to  Vincennes.  Leaving:  Captain  Snelling: 
with  his  company  of  reg:ulars  at  Ft.  Harrison,  the  army  con- 
tinued its  march  toward  Vincennes  where  it  arrived  on  the 
eig:hteenth  of  November,  1811.  The  troops  from  Kentucky 
and  those  from  the  south-eastern  part  of  Indiana  Territory 
were  discharg:ed  on  the  nineteenth  of  November. 

Governor  Harrison  was  continually  exposed  during:  the 
action  but  escaped  without  injury.  A  bullet  passed  throug:h 
his  stock  or  cravat  and  g:razed  his  neck.  The  enemies  of 
Harrison  afterward  charg:ed  that  Colonel  Abraham  Owens 
was  killed  throug:h  Harrison's  fault.  They  claimed  that  at  the 
beg:innin^  of  the  action.  Owens,  on  a  larg:e  white  horse,  rode 
with  Harrison  to  the  point  of  attack  and  soon  afterward  was 
killed  and  they  charg:ed  that  he  changed  horses  with  Owens. 
The  fact  was  the  Governor  took  a  dark  colored  horse,  the 
first  one  he  could  lay  his  hands  on  after  his  own  white  horse 
had  broken  loose  and  run  away  and  the  horse  that  Colonel 
Owens  rode  on  was  broug:ht  from  Kentucky  with  him. 

Another  charge  was  that  the  Governor  was  responsible 
for  the  death  of  Colonel  Joseph  H.  Davis,  it  being:  claimed 
that  he  had  ordered  him  into  the  charg:e  before  his  men  were 
in  shape  to  make  it.  This  was  not  true  in  any  sense.  Colo- 
nel Davis  was  a  very  resolute  man  and  when  he  obtained  per- 
mission he  rushed  forward  leading:  his  men  without  having:  a 
sufficient  force  to  protect  his  flanks.  The  Indians  attacked 
him  on  the  flank  and  Colonel  Davis  was  killed,  being:  a  very 
conspicuous  mark  as  he  wore  a  white  wool  overcoat.  Another 
very  foolish  charge  agfainst  the  Governor  was  that  the  In- 
dians selected   his  camp  for  him.     The  truth  was  that  the 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA.  271 

camp  he  occupied  was  the  only  place  suitable  for  an  encamp*   ^ 
ment  of  his  forces  for  several  miles   around.     Fortunately 
these  chargfes  were  only  believed  by  a  few. 

The  Territorial  Leg^islature  was  in  session  when  the 
army  returned  to  Vincennes.  There  was  gfreat  rejoicing: 
among:  the  citizens  that  the  Indians  had  been  defeated  and 
that  the  Prophet's  town  and  provisions  had  been  burned  and 
destroyed.  His  confederated  bands  of  Indians,  having:  lost 
faith  in  the  Prophet's  fallacies,  went  back  to  their  different 
tribes.  The  Prophet,  a  fugitive,  took  up  his  residence  among: 
the  Hurons. 

The  Territorial   Leg:islature  adopted  the  following:  pre- 
amble and  resolutions  on  the  eig:hteenth  of  November: 

''Whereas,  The  services  of  His  Excellency, 
Governor  Harrison,  in  conducting:  the  army,  the 
gallant  defeniie  made  by  the  heroes  under  his  im- 
mediate command  and  the  fortunate  result  of  the 
battle  fought  with  the  Confederacy  of  the  Shawnee 
Prophet  near  Tippecanoe '  on  the  morning  of 
the  seventh  of  November,  highly  deserves  the 
congratulations  of  every  true  friend  to  the  interest 
of  this  Territory  and  the  cause  of  humanity — 

"Resolved  Therefore,  that  the  members  of 
Legislative  Council  and  House  of  Representatives 
will  wait  upon  His  Excellency  the  Governor,  as  he 
returns  to  Vincennes,  and  in  their  own  name  and 
of  those  of  their  constituents,  welcome  him  home. 

'*And  that  General  W.  Johnson  be,  and  is  here- 
py  appointed  a  committee  to  make  the  same  known 
to  the  Governor,  at  the  head  of  the  army,  should 
not  unforeseen  causes  prevent." 


At  this  period  there  were  a  few  members  of  the  Ter- 
ritorial Legislature  and  quite  a  number  of  the  citizens  who- 
were  inclined  to  award  Colonel  Boyd  and  his  small  regiment 
of  regular  troops  the  honor  of  saving  the  army  from  defeat 
and  destruction  at  the  battle  of  Tippecanoe.  Among  this 
class  of  citizens  were  some  who  were  known  as  the  avowed 
enemies  of  Governor  Harrison  and  who  steadily  opposed  his 
administration  of  Territorial  government,  especially  his  pol- 


272  PIONEER  HISTORY  OP  INDIANA. 

icy  in  making  Indian  treaties.  Colonel  Boyd  could  not  help  but 
feel  indig^nant  that  malice  and  envy  would  lead  people  to  such 
lengths  in  their  opposition  to  successful  rivals.  The  action  of 
these  people  dwarfed  the  great  achievements  that  had  been 
accomplished  by  the  small  heroic  army.  His  regiment  did  its 
full  duty  and  was  ably  seconded  by  three  times  its  number 
of  militia  of  Indiana  and  Kentucky.  He  knew  that  there 
were  no  shirks — that  every  man  of  that  army  acquitted  him- 
self honorably.  The  Legislature,  in  its  attempt  to  ignore 
the  militia  and  give  the  regular  troops  the  praise  for  the  vic- 
tory, belittled  themselves  and  placed  a  cloud  over  the  regular 
troops  by  attempting  to  award  them  an  unmerited  compli- 
ment. 

The  following  joint  address  of  the  two  Houses  of  the 
Territorial  Legislature  was  delivered  to  (Governor  Harrison 
on  the  fifth  of  December,  1811.  This  address  which  was  pre- 
pared by  the  Legislative  Council  was  adopted  in  the  House 
of  Representatives  by  a  vote  of  four  to  three. 

To  His  Excellency,  William  Henry  Harrison, 

Governor   and   Commander-in-Chief   in   and   over   the 

Indiana  Territory. 

When  in  the  course  of  human  events,  it  be- 
comes necessary  for  a  nation  to  unsheath  the  sword 
in  defense  of  any  portion  of  its  citizen  and  any  in- 
dividual of  society  becomes  intrusted  with  the  im- 
portant charge  of  leading  the  army  of  his  country 
into  the  field,  to  scourge  the  assailants  of  its  rights 
and  it  is  proved  by  the  success  of  their  arms  that 
the  individual  possesses  superior  capacity  accom- 
panied by  integrity  and  other  qualities  of  the  mind 
ivhich  adorn  the  human  character  in  a  superlative 
degree,  it  has  the  tendency  to  draw  out  the  affec- 
tions of  the  people  in  a  way  that  must  be  grateful 
to  the  soldier  and  the  man. 

Such  is  the  light.  Sir,  in  which  you  have  the 
honor  to  be  viewed  by  your  country  and  one  which 
the  Legislative  Council  and  House  of  Representa- 
tives of  this  Territory  think  you  are  justly  entitled 
to.      And,  Sir,  in  duly  appreciating  your   service, 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA.  273 

we  are  perfectly  sensible  of  the  ^reat  benefit  and 
important  service  rendered  by  the  officers  and  sol- 
diers of  the  United  States  Infantry  under  your 
command  and  it  is  with  pleasure  we  learn  that  the 
officers  and  Militia  men  of  our  country  acted  with 
a  heroism  more  than  could  be  reasonably  calculat- 
ed upon  from  men  such  as  they  were,  undisciplined 
and  unaccustomed  to  war." 


On  the  ninth  of  December,  Grovemor  Harrison  transmit- 
ted the  following"  reply  to  the  foregoing  address: 

TO   THE    LEGISLATIVE    COUNCIL    AND   THE  HOUSE  OF 

REPRESENTATIVES. 

Fellow  Citizens: 

*'The  joint  address  of  the  two  houses  which 
was  delivered  to  me  on  the  fifteenth  inst.  by  your 
committee,  was  received  with  feelings  which  are 
more  easy  for  you  to  conceive  than  for  me  to  de- 
scribe. Be  pleased  to  accept  my  sincerest  thanks 
for  the  favorable  sentiment  you  have  been  pleased 
to  express  of  my  conduct  as  Commander-in-Chief  of 
the  expedition  and  be  assured  that  the  good  opinion 
of  the  people  of  Indiana  and  their  representatives 
will  ever  constitute  no  small  portion  of  my  Happi- 
ness. If  anything  could  add  to  my  gratitude  to 
you.  Gentlemen,  it  is  the  interest  you  take  in  the 
welfare  of  those,  brave  fellows  who  fought  under 
my  command.  Your  memorial  in  their  favor  to  the 
Congress  of  the  United  States  does  equal  honor  to 
the  heads  and  hearts  of  those  in  whose  name  it  was 
sent  and  is  worthy  of  the  Legislature  of  the  Ind- 
iana Territory." 


On  the  twenty-fifth  of  November  the  Territorial  House 
of  Representatives  passed  some  joint  resolutions  which,  on 
account  of  the  strong,  special  and  somewhat  exclusive  praise, 
which  they  bestowed  on  Colonel  Boyd  and  his  regiment,  were 
disagreed   upon    in   the  Legislative  Council  on  the  twenty- 


274  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA, 

seventh  of  the  same  month.  The  same  resolutions  were^ 
however,  adopted  by  the  House  of  Representatives  on  the 
fourth  of  December. 

**Rksolved  by  the  House  of  Representatives  of 
the  Indiana  Territory  that  the  thanks  of  this  house 
be  given  Colonel  John  P.  Boyd  the  second  in  com- 
mand, to  the  officers,  non-commissioned  officers, 
and  private  soldiers,  comprising:  the  Fourth  U.  9. 
Regfiment  of  Infantry  together  with  all  the  United 
States  troops  under  his  command,  for  the  disting- 
uished regularity,  discipline,  coolness  and  imdaunt- 
ed  valor  so  eminently  displayed  by  them  in  the  late 
brilliant  and  glorious  battle  fought  with  the  Shaw- 
nee Prophet  and  his  confederates  on  the  morning 
of  the  seventh  of  November,  1811,  by  the  army  un- 
der the  command  of  His  Excellency,  William 
Henry  Harrison. 

"Resolved,  that  the  said  Colonel  John  P. 
Boyd  be  requested  to  communicate  the  foregoing 
to  the  officers  and  non-commissioned  officers  and 
private  belonging  to  the  said  Fourth  Regiment  and 
that  a  copy  of  these  resolutions  signed  by  the 
speaker  of  this  house  be  presented  to  the  said  Col- 
onel Boyd  by  a  committee  of  this  house. 

'^Resolved  by  the  House  of  Representatives, 
of  the  Indiana  Territory  that  the  thanks  of  this 
house  be  presented  to  Col.  Luke  Decker  and  Col- 
onel Joseph  Barthelomew,  the  officers,  non-com- 
missioned officers  and  men  composing  the  militia, 
corps  under  their  command,  together  with  the  of- 
ficers, non-commissioned  officers  and  soldiers  com- 
posing the  volunteer  militia  corps  from  the  State 
of  Kentucky,  for  the  distinguished  valor,  heroism 
and  bravery  displayed  by  them  in  the  brilliant  bat- 
tle fought  with  the  Shawnee  Prophet  and  his  con- 
federates on  the  morning  of  the  seventh  of  Nov- 
ember, 1811,  by  the  army  under  the  command  of 
His  Excellency,  William  Henry  Harrison." 


The  following  reply  to  these  resolutions  was  sent  to  the 
House  of  Representatives  by  Colonel  Boyd: 


PIONEER  HISORY  OF  INDIANA.  275 

* 'United  States  Troops  Main  Quarters, 

Vincennes,  December  4,  1811. 

**To  the  Honorable  House  of  Representatives,  Ind- 
iana Territory. 

Gentlemen: 

**I  have  the  honor  for  myself,  the  officers,  and 
soldiers  comprising:  the  fourth  reg^iment,  the  rifle 
company  attached,  and  the  small  detachment  of 
Posey's  company,  to  return  you  thanks  for  the  dis-  ^ 
ting^uished  notice  you  have  been  pleased  to  take  of 
our  conduct  in  the  battle  with  the  Shawnee  Pro- 
phet and  his  confederates  on  the  morning:  of  the 
seventh  of  November,  1811,  by  your  resolution  of 
this  day.  If  our  efforts  in  the  discharge  of  our 
duties  shall  have  resulted  in  advancing:  the  public 
g:ood  we  are  g:ratified  and  to  believe  that  we  have 
merited  this  tribute  of  applause  from  the  assembl- 
ed representatives  of  this  very  respectable  portion  of 
our  country,  renders  it  peculiarly  flattering:  to  our 
honor  and  our  pride." 


Five  days  after  the  passag:e  of  the  resolutions  to  which 
Colonel  Boyd  made  the  foregoing:  reply,  Governor  Harrison 
seat  the  following  message  to  the  House  of  Representatives. 


**ljre 

44 


Gentlemen  of  the  Hous^  of  Representatives: 

Your  speaker  has  transmitted  to  me  two  re- 
solutions of  your  house,  expressive  of  your  thanks 
to  Colonel  John  P.  Loyd  and  the  officers  and  sol- 
diers of  the  Founh  13.  S.  Regiment,  to  Colonels 
Bartholomew  and  Decker  and  the  officers  and  pri- 
vates of  the  militia  under  their  command;  also  the 
Kentucky  volunteers  for  their  bravery  and  good 
conduct  in  the  action  of  the  seventh  of  November 
at  the  battle  of  Tippecanoe. 

*'It  has  excited  my  astonishment  and  deep  re- 
gret to  find  that  ihe  mounted  rifleiren  of  the  Ter- 
ritory, who  so  eminently  distinguished  themselves 
and  the  squadron  of  Dragoons  whose  conduct 
was  also  so  highly  ireriiorious  have,  on  this  occa- 
sion, been  totally  neglected. 


i 


276  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 


((' 


I  cannot  for  a  moment  suppose  g-entlemen, 
that  3'ou  have  any  other  wish  than  that  of  render- 
ing impartial  justice  to  all  the  corps.  I  cannot  be- 
lieve that  you  have  the  smallest  tincture  of  that 
disposition  which  certainly  elsewhere  prevails  to 
disparag^e  the  conduct  of  the  militia  and  to  deprive 
them  of  their  share  of  the  laurels  which  have  been 
so  dearly  purchased  by  the  blood  of  some  of  our 
best  and  bravest  citizens. 

*No!  I  can  never  suppose  that  it  was  your  in- 
tention to  insult  the  shades  of  Spencer,  McMahan, 
and  Berry  by  treating:  with  contempt  the  corps 
which  their  deaths  have  contributed  to  immortalize, 
nor  will  I  believe  that  a  Davis,  a  White,  a  Ran- 
dolph and  a  McMahan  have  been  so  soon  forgotten, 
nor  that  the  corps  to  which  they  belonged  and 
which  faithfully  performed  its  duty  was  deemed 
unworthy  of  3'our  notice. 

'*The  omission  was  certainly  occasioned  by  a 
mistake  but  it  was  a  mistake  by  which,  if  it  is  not 
rectified,  the  feelings  of  a  whole  county  and  part 
of  another,  now  abounding  with  widows  and  or- 
phans the  uii happy  consequece  of  the  late  action, 
will  be  wounded  and  insulted. 

'*The  victory  of  the  seventh  of  November, 
Gentlemen,  was  not  gained  by  any  one  corps  but  by 
the  efforts  of  all.  Some  of  them  indeed,  more  par- 
ticularl)'  distinguished  themselves  and  of  this  num- 
ber was  the  U.  S.  Regiment.  In  my  oflScial  report 
to  the  Secretary  of  War  I  -have  mentioned  them  in 
such  terms  of  approbation  that  if  stronger  are  to 
be  found  in  the  English  language,  I  am  unacquaint- 
ed with  them,  but  I  have  not  given  them  all  the 
honors  of  victory.  To  have  done  so  I  should  have 
been  guilty  of  a  violence  of  truth,  of  injustice  and 
of  a  species  of  treason  against  our  Republic  itself 
whose  peculiar  and  appropriate  force  is  its  militia. 

**With  equal  pride  and  pleasure,  then  do  I  pro- 
nounce that,  notwithstanding  the  regular  troops 
behaved  as  well  as  men  ever  did,  many  of  the  mil- 
itia companies  were  in  no  wise  inferior  to  them. 
Of  this  number  were  the  mounted  rillemen,  com- 
manded by  Captain  Spencer.  To  them  was  com- 
mitted the  charge  of  defending  the  right  flank  of 
the  army.     That  it  could  not  have  been  committed 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA.  277 

to  better  hands,  their  keeping  their  grounds,  (in- 
deed gaining  upon  the  enemy)  for  an  hour  and  a 
half  with  unequalled  arms,  against  superior  num- 
bers, and  amid  a  carnage  that  might  have  made 
veterans  tremble,  is  sufficient  evidence.  Nor  can  I 
say  that  Captain  Robb's  company  after  it  was 
placed  by  the  side  of  Spencer's  was  at  all  inferior 
to  it.  It  is  certain  that  they,  kept  their  post  and 
their  great  loss  shows  that  it  was  a  post  of  danger. 
The  dragoons  also  did  everything  that  could  have 
been  expected  from  them  in  the  situation  in  which 
they  were  placed.  Before  they  were  mounted,  they 
certainly  kept  the  enemy  for  a  considerable  time 
from  penetrating  the  camp  by  the  left  flank  and 
when  mounted,  they  remained  firm  at  their  post 
although  exposed  to  the  tire  of  the  enemy  at  a  time 
when  they  were  necessarily  inactive  and  con- 
sequently placed  ia  a  position  most  trying  to 
troops. 

''The  failure  of  the  charge  made  by  Major 
Davis  was  owing  to  his  having  emyloyed  too  small 
a  number,  but  even  with  these,  it  is  more  than  prob- 
able that  he  would  have  been  successful  if  he  had 
not  unfortunately  mistaken  the  direction  in  which 
the  principal  part  of  the  enemy  lay.  A  successful 
.charge  was  made,  by  a  detachment  of  the  dragoons 
at  the  close  of  the  action  and  the  enemy  was  driven 
into  a  swamp  into  which  they  could  not  be  fol- 
lowed. 

*'You  may  perhaps.  Gentlemen,  suppose  that  I 
ought  to  have  given  you  the  information  necerssary 
to  your  forming  a  correct  opinion  of  the  merits  of 
each  corps.  Military  etiquette  however  and  the 
custom  of  our  country  forbade  this.  It  is  to  the 
Government  of  the  United  States  alone  that  a  de- 
tailed account  of  an  action  is  made.  In  this  com- 
munication I  have  given  you  such  information  only 
as  was  necessary  to  enable  you  to  correct  mistakes 
which,  I  am  sure,  were  unintentional  on  your  part. 

*'My  sense  of  the  merits  of  the  other  corps  of 
the  army  will  be  known  when  my  official  account  is 
published." 

William  Henry  Harrison, 
Governor  of  Indiana  Territory. 


278  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 

In  the  Terriorial  House  of  Representatives  the  commit- 
tee to  whom  the  forg^oing:  message  was  referred  reported  the 
following  answer  to  the  Governor  which  was  adopted  by  the 
House  on  the  seventeenth  day  of  December,  1811. 

"His  Excellency,  William  Henry  Harrison, 

Governor  and  Commander-in-Chief  of  Indiana 
Territory. 

Sir: 

'*When  this  house  addressed  that  portion  of 
the  troops  to  whicll  you  refer  in  your  communica- 
tion of  the  ninth  inst.  it  was  not  the  intention  of 
this  body  to  cast  a  shade  over  any  portion  of  the 
troops  which  were  under  the  command  of  Your 
Excellency  in  the  late  engagement  nor  to  take  from 
the  Commander-inChief,  any  of  that  honor  which 
he  so  nobly  acquired  in  the  late  victory. 

In  the  joint  addres  of  both  houses  to  you  theit 
notice  of  the  militia  in  general  terms  was  thought 
suflScient  as  it  was  out  of  their  power  to  notice 
every  man  who  distinguished  himself  therefore  it 
was  considered  that  any  evidence  of  respect  paid  to 
the  Commander-in-Chief  was  an  evidence  of  appro- 
bation to  all.  It  is  not  to  be  supposed  that  those 
gentlemen  to  whom  particular  respect  has  been 
paid,  have  done  any  more  than  their  duty,  or  that 
they  distinguished  themselves  any  more  than  many 
private  soldiers.  Those  gentlemen  who  fell,  some 
of  them  did  well  and  some  others  had  not  the  op- 
portunity, being  killed  to  early  in  the  battle,  but 
there  is  not  an  individual  in  this  body  but  acknow- 
ledges that  it  was  a  well  fought  battle  and  that 
praises  are  due;  but  they  generally  agree  that  the 
laurels  won  principally,  ought  to  be  the  property 
of  the  Commander-in-Chief. 


ROLL  OF  THE  ARMY  THAT  FOUGHT  THE  BATTLE 

OF  TIPPECANOE,  NOV.  7,  1811. 

♦Governor  William  Henry  Harrison,  Commander-in-Chief 

General  Staff. 

William  McFarland,  Lieut.  Col.  and  Adjutand  General. 
Abraham   Owen,   Col.    and   Aide-de-camp,     (killed   Nov.   7, 

1811.) 
Henry  Hurst,  Major  and  Aide-de-camp. 
Waller  Taylor,  Major  and  Aide-de-camp. 
Marston  G.  Clark,  Major  and  Aide-de-camp. 
Thomas   Randolph,  Acting:   Aide-de-camp-     (killed   Nov.  7, 

1811.) 
'Captain  Piatt,  Second  U.  S.  Infantry  Chief  Quartermaster. 
Captain   Robert   Buntin,  Indiana  Militia,  Quartermaster  of 

the  Militia. 
Dr.  Josiah  D.  Foster,  Chief  Surg^eon. 
Dr.  Hosea  Blood,  Surgeon's  Mate. 
Sec.  Lieut.  Robert  Bunting:  jr.,  Indiana  Militia  Foragfemaster* 

THE   TROOPS. 

'Colonel  John  Park  Boyd,  Fourth  U.  S.  Infantry,  Commander 

of  the  Brigade  with  rank  of  Brigadier  General. 
George  Croghan,  of  Kentucky  Volunteers,  Aide-de-camp. 
Nathan  F.  Adams,  Lieut,  and  Adjutant. 


A  Roll  op  a  Detachment  op  Field  and  Stapp  op  Indiana 

Militia. 

From  September  11,  to  November  24,  1811. 

Joseph  Bartholomue,  Lieut.  Col.     (Wounded  in  action   Nov» 
7,  1811.) 


280  .  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 

Regin  Redman,  Major  and  Aide-de-camp. 

Andre^Y  P»  Ha3'es,  Surgeon's  Mate. 

Joseph  Brown,  Adjutant. 

Joseph  Clark,  Quartermaster,  Appointed  Surgeon's  Mate  Oct. 

29,  1811. 
Chapman  Dunslow,  Sergeant  Major. 
James  Curry,  Quartermaster  Sergeant. 


Roi.L  OF  Field  and  Staff  of  Indiana  Infantry  Militia. 

From  September  18,  to  November  19,  1811. 

Commanded  by  Lieut.  Col.  Luke  Decker. 
Noah  Purcell,  Major. 
Daniel  Sullivan,  Lieut,  and  Adjutant. 
Benjamin  S.  V.  Becker,  Lieut,  and  Quartermaster. 
Edward  Scull,  Assistant  Quartermaster. 

James   Smith,    Quartermaster,  Appointed   Captain   of  War- 
rick's Company  Nov.  9,  1811. 
William  Gamble,  Quartermaster  Sergeant. 
William  Ready,  Sergeant  Major. 


Roll  of  Field  and  Staff  of  Dragoons  of  Indiana  Militia • 

From  September  21,  to  November  19,  1811. 

Major  Joseph  H.  Davis,  commanding   (killed  in  action  Nov. 
7,  1811.) 

Benjamin  Park,  Major,  promoted  Nov.  7,  1811. 
James  Flo3'^d,  Lieutenant  and  Adjutant. 
Charles  Smith,  SieUtenant  and  Quartermaster. 
General   W.  Johnson,   Lieutenant   and   Quartermaster  (pro- 
moted from  ranks.) 
.  William  Prince,  Sergeant  Major. 


Roll  of  Captain  Spier  Spencer's  Company  of  Mounted 

Riflemen  of  the  Indiana  Militia. 

This  company  was  directly  under  the  Commander-in-chief 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA.  281 

reported  to  and  received  orders  from  his  headquarters. 

Spier  Spencer,  Captain  (killed  Nov.  7,  1811.) 
Richard  McMahan,  First  Lieut,  (killed  Nov.  7,  1811.) 
Thomas  Berry,  Second  Lieut.,  (killed  Nov.  7,  1811.) 
Samuel   Flanagan,  Second   Lieut.     Promoted  from  Ensign,. 

Oct.  21,  1811. 
John  Tipton,  Captain  (Promoted  from  private  to  Ensign,  Oct^ 

21,  1811,  to  Captain  Nov.  7,  1811. 
Jacob  Zenor,  Second  Lieut.     Promoted  from  Private  Nov.  7^ 

1811. 
Phillip  Bell,  Ensign,  Promoted  from  Private  Nov.  7,  1811. 
Pearse  Chamberlain,  Sergeant. 
Henry  Bateman,  Sergeant. 
Elijah  Hurst,  Sergeant. 
Benjamin  Beard,  Sergeant. 

Robert  Biggs,  Corporal  (Severely  wounded  Nov.  7,  1811.)/ 
John  Taylor,  Corporal. 
Benjamin  Shields,  Corporal. 
WiHiam  Bennington,  Corporal. 
Daniel  Cline,  Musician. 
Isham  Stroud,  Musician. 

PRIVATES  PRIVATES 

John  Arick  James  Heubbound 

Ignitus  Able  Robert  Jones 

Enos  Best  James  Kelley 

Alpheus  Branham  Thomas  McColley 

Gadow  Branham  Noah  Mathena 

Daniel  Bell  William  Nance 

James  Brown  Thomas  Owen 

Jesse  Butler  Samuel  Pfriner 

Mason  Carter  Edward  Ransdell 

John  Cline  Sanford  Ransdell 
Marshall  Duncan  (killed  Nov.  James  Spencer 

7,  1811.) 
William  Davis  (killed  Nov.  7,  Christover  Shucks. 

1811.; 


282 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 


Thomas  Davidson 

James  Dyce 

Henry  Enlow 
William  Hurst,  jr. 
William  Hurst,  Sr. 
Beverly  Hurst 
James  Harberson 
James  Watts 
Isham  Vest 
Georg^e  Zenor 


Joshua  Shield,  severely  wound- 
ed 

Samuel  Sand,  (killed  Nov.  7, 
1811.) 

George  Spencer 

Jacob  Snider 

John  Right 

James  Wilson 

John  Wheeler 

P.  McMickle 

Levi  Dunn 

William  Fowler 


Roll  of  Spies  and  Guides  of  the  Indiana  Militia. 
From  September  18,  to  November  12. 

This  organization  reported  direct  to  the  Commander-in- 
•chief,  Toussant  Dubois,  Captain  Commanding. 


privates 
Silas  McCulloch 

G.  R.  C.  Sullivan 
William  Polk 
William  Bruce 
Piere  Andre 
Ephriam  Jordan 
William  Show 
David  Miles 
Booker  Childers 


PRIVATES 

William  Hogue  (disc.  Oct.  11, 

1811.) 
David  Wilkins 
John  Hollingsworth 
Thomas  Learneus 
Joseph  Arpin 
Abraham  Decker 
Samuel  James 
Stewart  Cunningham 
Thomas  Jordon 


Roll  of  a  Company  of  Infantry  of  Indiana  Militia. 
From  September  16,  to  November  19,  1811. 
•Captain  Jacob  Warrick,  Commanding  killed  Nov.  7,  1811. 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 


283 


Captain  James  Smith,  Promoted  from  Quartermaster  Nov.  9, 

1811. 
William  Calton,  Lieut.  Dischargfed  September  27,  1811. 
Thomas  Montg^omery,    jr.  Promoted  to  Lieutenant  Sept.  30, 

1811. 
James  Duckworth,  Ensig^n. 

Robert  Montgfomery,  Sergeant 

Robert  McGarry,  Sergeant. 

James  Piercall,  Sergeant. 

Isaac  Woods,  Sergeant. 

Benjamin  Venables,  Corporal 

Thomas  Black,  Corporal. 

Robert  Denney,  Corporal. 


PRIVATES 

James  Alsop 
James  Stewart 
Jesse  Key 

Bennet  Key 
James  Withers 
Jesse  Brewer 
Richard  Davis 
Asa  Music 
Smith  Mounts 
James  Stapleton 
Lewis  Sealy 
James  Bohannon 
Daniel  Duflf 
William  Todd 
John  Gwins 
Burton  Litton 
Peter  Whetstone 
Timothy  Dower 
Benjamin  Stoker 
Miles  Armstrong 
William  Young 
Maxwell  Jolley 


PKIVATES 

Fielding  Lucas  , 

John  McGarry 
Thomas  Montgomery  (65  years 

old) 
John  Montgomery 
Ephriam  Murphy 
Langsdon  Drew 
William  Gwins 
William  Black 
Joshua  Capps 
Andrew  McFaddon 
Squire  McFaddon 
Wilson  Jones 
Jeremiah  Robinson 
Hugh  Todd 
Martin  Laughon 
George  Lynxwiler 
William  Stevens 
John  Coyler 
Thomas  Almon 
William  Almon 
Thomas  Duckworth 
John  Robb 


i 


/ 


284  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 

John  Neel  Randolph  Clark 

William  Black 


Roll  of  Company  of  Mounted  Riflemen  of  the  Indiana 

MlUTIA. 

From  October  25,  to  November  19,  1811. 

David  Robb,  Captain  Commanding^.  ^ 

Joseph  Montgomery,  Lieutenant. 

John  Waller,  Ensig^n. 

Elsbery  Armstrong,  Sergeant. 

William  Maxidon,  Sergeant. 

Ezkial  Kite,  Corporfl. 

George  Anthees,  Corporal. 

Bryant  Harper,  Trumpeter. 

PRIVATES  PRIVATES 

Amb.  Decker  John  Za  Orton 

James  Tweedle  Amstead  Bennett 

William  Peters  Stewart  Cunningham 

Frances  Hall  Booker  Shields 

William  Tweedle  John  Slaven 

John  Severns  jr.  James  Langsdown 

Thomas  Sullivan  Jesse    Music    (killed    Nov.    7.. 

1811.) 

Daniel  Fisher  (killed  Nov.  7, 

1811.)  William  Alsop 

Joseph  Garress  Thomas  C.  Vines 
Edwark  Buttner   (killed  Nov. 

7,  1811.)  Samuel  James 

Thomas  Shouse  Frederick  Rell 

William  Selby  \     John  Black 
James  Robb,  severely  wounded  Jonah  Robinson 

Isaac  Rogers  John  Rogers 

James  Bass  George  Leech  jr. 

David  Mills  Thomas  Givins 

John  Black  William  Carson 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 


285 


George  Litton 
William  Downing 

James  Blanckes  . 
James  Minor 
Peter  Cartright 
Thomas  Garress 

David  Tobin 
John  Rigrgs 
Thadeus  Davis 

Thomas  P.  Vampit 

John  Crawford 

William  Askins 

Alex  Maken,  badly  wounded 

Moses  Sandridge 

John  Dragoo 

Robert  Tenneson 

Joseph  Right 

Thomas  West 


David  Knight 

Thomas  Jordon,  Trans,  to  Du- 
bois Company. 

William  Bass 

Hugh  Shaw 

David  Lilley 

James  Ashbury,  killed  Nov.  7, 
1811. 

Robert  Wilson 

John  Christ 

Kader  Powell,  killed  Nov.  7, 
1811.. 

Thomas  Dunn 

Jacob  Kertner 

Johnathan  Humphrey 

William  Witherhold 

David  Edwards 

Samuel  Hamilton 

Richard  Potts 

George  Robinson,  severely 
wounded 


Roll  of  a  Company  of  the  Indiana  Militia. 

From  September  11,  to  November  24,  1811. 

Captain  John  Norris,  Commanding,  wounded  in  action  Nov. 

7,  1811. 
John  Harrod,  Lieutenant.  • 

Joseph  Carr,  Ensign. 
John  Drummond,  Sergeant. 
William  Combs,  Sergeant. 
Brazil  Prather,  Sergeant. 
David  Smith,  Sergeant. 
Henry  Ward,  Corporal. 
John  Harmon,  Corporal. 
Joel  Combs,  Corporal. 


286 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 


Robert  Combs,  Corporal. 

David  Kelley,  Corporal  Sept.  30,  1811. 

Elisha  Carr,  Drummer. 

Joseph  Perry,  Fifer. 


PRIVATES 

Robert  McNight 
Gasper  Lootes 
Edward  Norris 
Henry  Cussamore 
C.  Fipps 
John  Gray 
Jacob  Daily 


PRIVATES 

William  Stacey 
Samuel  Duke 
James  Chipman 
Peter  Sherwood 
George  Distler 
John  Kelley 
David  Cross 


Thomas  Clendenen,  killed  Nov. 

7,  1811.  Robert  Cunningham 

Abram  Kelley,  killed  Nov.  7, 


1811. 
Henry  Jones,  killed  Nov.  7, 

1811. 
James  Smith 
Jevis  Fordvce 
Cornelius  Kelley 
E.  Wayman 
John  Newland 
Micaja  Peyton 
Adam  Peck 
Benjamin  Thompson 
William  Eakin 
John  D.  Jacobs 
Robert  Tiffin  * 
John  McClintick 
William  Aston 
Josiah  Taylor 
Daniel  McCoy 
Thomas  Highfill 
Henry  Hooke 
James  Taylor 
James  Duncan 


James  Curry 

Samuel  McClung,  Quartermas- 
ter Sergt. 
John  Berry 
Benoni  Wood 
Amos  Goodwin 
William  Harman 
John  Tilfero 
Lloyd  Prather 
Samuel  McClintic 
John  Weathers 
Evain  Arnold 
Hugh  Epsy 
Townly  Ruby 
William  Ray  son 
Ruben  Slead 
George  Hooke 
Jacob  Pearsoll 
Samuel  Neal 
Robert  McClellen 
Joseph  Warnock 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA.  287 

RoLi,  OF  A  'Company  of  Infantry  of  the  Indiana  Militia. 
From  September  19,  to  November  19,  1811. 

4 

Captain  William  Harg^rove,  Commanding. 

Isaac  Montgomery,  Lieutenant. 

Cary  Ashley,  Ensign,  Resigned  Oct.  27,  1811. 

Henry  Hopkins,   Ensign,  promoted   from  Sergeant   October 

27,  1811. 
David  Brumfield,  Lieutenant,  promoted   from  Corporal  Oct^ 

1811.' 
Bolden  Conner,  Sergeant. 
James  Evans,  Sergeant. 
David  Miller,  Sergeant,  promoted  from  Corporal  October  27,, 

1811. 
William  Scales,  Sergeant,  promoted  from  private  October  27,. 

1811. 
David  Johnson,  Corporal. 

PRIVATES  PRIVATES 

Samuel  Anderson  John  Braselton  jr. 

Jer.  Harrison  John  Flener 

Joseph  Ladd  Pinkney  Anderson 

Thomas  Archer  William  Archer 

James  Lemm  Charles  Collins 

Joshua  Day  Charles  Penelton 

William  Pierson  John  Mills 

Robert  Milborn  John  Cockrum 

John  Lout  Nathan  Woodrough 

James  Young  John  Tucker 

Auther  Meeks  John  Conner 
Reuben   Fitzgerald,    slightly 

wounded  Zachary  Skelton 

Jacob  Skelton  Benjamin  Scales 

William  Gk)rdon  Laban  Putnam 

Reding  Putnam  John  May 

Johnson  Fitsgerald  Thomas  Arnett 

James  Skelton  Elias  Barker 

Samuel  Wheeler  Robert  Wheeler 


288 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 


William  Mangrum 
James  McClure 
Benjamin  Conner 
William  Skelton 
Randolph  Owen 
James  Crow 
George  Cunningham 
Joseph  Mixon 
Edward  Whitacer 
Robert     Skelton,       severly 

wounded 
Joseph  English,  Dis.  Sept.  19, 

1811. 
Cabreen  Merry,  Dis.  Sept.  19, 

1811. 


Conrod  LeMasters 

Haz  Putnam 

Joshua  Stapleton 

William  Harrington 

Isaac  Tweedle 

Richard  M.  Kirk 

James  Skidmore 

Samuel  Gaston 

Chas.  Meeks 

David  Larrence,  Dis.%Sept.  19, 

1811. 
Robert  Montgomery,  Dis.  Sept. 

19,  1811. 


Roll  of  a  Company  of  Infantry  of  the  Indiana  Militia. 

From  September  18,  to  November  19,  1811. 

Captain  Thomas  Scott  Commanding. 

John  Purcell,  Lieutenant. 

John  Scott,  Ensign. 

Joshua  Duncan,  Ensign. 

John  Welton,  Ensign. 

Frances  Mallet.  Ensign. 

Lanta  Johnson,  Ensign. 

Samuel  Roquest,  Ensign. 

John  Moore  Corporal. 

Abraham  Westfall,  Corporal. 

Elick  C.  Dushane,  Corporal. 

Charles  Bono,  Corporal. 


privates 
Jesse  Willis 
John  Hornback 
John  McCoy 
Andrew  Westfall 
Walter  Weil 


PRIVATES 

James  McDonald 
Alpheus  Pickard 
Zebulan  Hogue 
William  Watson 
William  A.  Clark 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA.  289 

William  Welton  Henry  Lain 
Abram  Woods  killed  Nov.  7,   John  Collins 

1811 

William  Williams  Samuel  Risley 

William  Collins  Charles  Fisher 

Robert  Johnson  Absolom  Thome 

William  Penny  William  Young 

William  Jones  John  Collin,  jr. 

William  Bailey  Charles  Mail 

Richard  Westrope  Thomas  McClain 

Joseph  Ridley  Henry  O'Neil 

Joseph  Alton  Baptist  Topale 

Antonia  (rerome  Mitchel  Rtisherville 

Charles  Dud  ware  John  Baptist  Bono 

Joseph  Bushby  Henry  Merceam 

Austin  Lature  Louis  A.  Bair 

Charles  Souderiette  Ambrose  Dashney 

Frances  Berno  Frances  Bonah    killed  Nov.  7, 

1811. 
^enro  Bolonga  died  of  wounds  Louis  Lovlett 

Nov.  18,  1811. 

Frances  Borye'an  John  Mominny  dis.  Oct.  1811, 

Pierre  Delura,  sr.  Pierre  Delura,  jr. 

Joseph.  Besam  Louts  Boyeam 

Dominic  Pashy  Antonio  Cornia 

Antonnie  Ravellett  John  Baptist  Cardinal 
Jack  Obiah      killed   Nov.  7,  Tossaint  Deno 

1811. 

Joseph  Reno  Ustice  Seranne 

Nicholas  Valmare  Joseph  Sansusee 

Francis  Arph  Antoine  Shennett 

Mandin  Cardinal  Louis  Lowya 


Roll  of  A  Company  of  Indiana  Militia 
From  September  18  to  November  18,  1811. 
Captain  Walter  Wilson,  Commanding. 


i 


290 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 


Benjamin  Beckes,  Lieutenant. 
Joseph  Nacomb,  Ensig^n. 
Thomas  J.  Withers,  Sergeant. 
John  Decker,  Sergeant. 
Thomas  White,  Sergeant. 
Isaac  Minor,  Sergeant. 
Daniel  Risley,  Corporal. 
William  Shuck,  Corporal. 
John  Gray,  Corporal. 
Peter  Brenton,  Corporal. 

PRIVATES 

William  Gamble 

Batost  Chavalar 

Joseph  Harbour 

James  Jardon 

John  Anthis 

Louis  Reel  died  Oct.  13, 1811. 

Richard  Greentree 

Jacob  Anthis 

Nathan  Baker 

Sinelkey  Almy 

Moses  Decker 

Woolsey  Pride 

Abraham  Pea 

William  Pride 

Jacob  Harboson 

Joab  Chappell 

John  Risley 

Isaac  Walker 

James  Purcell 


PRIVATES 

William  Brenton 
Thomas  Chamers 
Adam  Harness 
John  Chambers 
Louis  Frederick 
Asa  Thorne 
Samuel  Clutter 
James  Walker 
John  Bargor 
Peter  Bargor 
Joseph  Woodry 
Robert  Brenton 
Thomas  Mil  bourn 
Benjamin  Walker 
Sutten  Coleman 
Robert  McClure 
John  Walker 
David  Knight 


Roll  of  a  Company  of  Infantry  of  the  Indiana  Militia. 

From  September  18,  to  November  19,  1811. 

Andrew  Wilkins,  Captain  commanding. 
Adam  Lishman,  Lieutenant. 
Samuel  McClure,  Ensign. 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 


291 


John  Hadden,  Sergfeant. 
Thomas  Black,  Sergeant. 
Samuel  Leman,  Sergeant. 
Charles  Booth,  Sergeant. 
Daniel  Carlin,  Corporal. 
John  Edwards,  Corporal. 
Richard  Engle,  Corporal. 
Abraham  Bogard,  Corporal. 

PRIVATES 

John  Johnston 
Abraham  Johnston 
Robert  Murphy 
William  Ashby 
Edward  Wilkes 
Thomas  Anderson 
James  Calleway 
Isaac  Luzader 
Asa  McCord 
Robert  Lilley 
William  Hollingsworth 
Obadiah  F.  Patrick 
John  Murphy 
James  Harrel 
John  Davis 
Robert  Elsey 
Robert  Brit  ton 
John  Rodarmel 
Joseph  Hobbs 
Thomas  Harrel 
William  Hill 
Henry  Collins 
Thomas  Johnston 
William  Black 
John  Hardin 
Robert  Polk 
George  Gill 
Joseph  McRennels 


PRIVATES 

John  Mills 
Ames  Mitchell 
Jesse  Cox 
Londerick  Earnest 
Rubin  Moore 
Samuel  Middleton 
James  Tims 
Samuel  Carruthers 
Nathan  Adams 
John  Eliott 
William  Francis 
Aaron  Quick 
Ebenezer  Blackstone 
Samuel  Culbertson 
Christopher  Coleman 
Henry  Matney 
William  Filnt 
John  Culbertson 
Albert  Davis 
Joseph  Edwards 
John  Engle 
John  Meeks 
Madison  Collins 
Luke  Matson 
Edward  Bowls 
Charles  Ellison 
James  Graham 
John  Purcell 


i 


292  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 

Georgre  Bricrht  Peter  Lishman 

William  Arnet  Martin  Palmore 

Samuel  Lec:c:erwood 


Roll  of  a  Company  of  Riflemen  of  Indiana  Militia. 
Prom  September  11,  to  November  24,  1811. 
John  Bic:c:eri  Captain  commanding:. 
John  Chunn,  Lieutenant. 
Joseph  Stillwell,  Ensig^n. 
John  Drummons«  Sergeant. 
Isaac  Mailory,  Ser^reant. 
Rice  G.  McCoy,  Serg^eant. 

Thomas  Nicholas,  Ser^reant,  (Dis.  Oct.  16,  1811.) 
Josiah  Thomas,  (Promoted  Ser^reant  Oct.  16,  1811.) 
James  B.  McCollou^^h,  Corporal. 
Johnathan  Hartley,  Corporal. 
Thomas  Chappell,  Corporal. 
David  BiggtTy  Corporal. 
John  Owens,  Drummer. 
Jacob  L.  Stillwell,  Fifer. 

PRIVATES  privates 

James  Robertson  Joseph  Warrick  killed  Nov.  7, 

1811. 

John  Hutcherson  Daniel  Peyton 

Daniel  Williams  James  Garner 

Heekiah  Robertson  Joseph  Daniel 

John  Denney  James  King 

John  Gibson  Amos  Little 

John  Walker  John  Pettitt 

John  Carr  William  Nailor 

Vineyard  Pond  Andrew  Holland 

John  Heartley  Daniel  Kimberlain 

Samuel  Stockwell  David  Owens,  jr. 

Robert  Robertson,  jr.  Absalom  Carr 
Thomas  Gibson,  wounded  Nov.  James  Robertson,  jr. 
7,  1811. 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 


293 


James  Anderson 

William  Hutto 

Charles  Matthews 

William  Wright 

John  Martin 

John  Kelley 

David  Copple 

James  Elliot 

Moses  Stark 

Georjife  Reed 

James  McDonald 

Alexander  Montg^omery 

Leonard    Houston,    wounded 

Nov.  7,  1811. 
Tobias  Miller 
John  Gibson,  jr. 


William  Tisler,  killed  Nov.  7, 

1811. 
Thomas  Burnett 
John  Covert 
John  Finley 
Isaac  Stark 
Wilson  Sergeant 
William  G.  Guberick 
John  Agins 
John  Reed 
Benjamin  Pool 
Isaac  D.  Hoffman 
William  Hooker 
James  Moonej 

Lucius  Kibby 


A  Roll  of  a  Detachment  of  Mounted  Riflemen  of  the 

Indiana  Militia. 

From  September  12,  to  November  23,  1811. 

Commanded  by  Thomas  Berry,  Lieutenant,   killed   Nov.  7, 

1811. 
Zachariah  Linley,  Serg^eant,  severely  wounded  November  7, 

1811. 


privates 
John  Brier 
Frederick  Games 
Thomas  Elliot 
Joseph  EJdwards 

David  Hedrick 

Caleb  Harrison 
William  Lee 


PRIVATES 

John  Beck 

John  Doug^herty 

Griffin  EMwards 

Peter  Hanks,  mortally  wound* 

Nov.  7,  1811. 
Henry  Hickey,  killed  Nov.  7» 

1811. 
Anthony  Taylor 
Jacob  Lutes 


294  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 

Daniel  McMickle,  killed  Nov.  Henry  Moore 

7.  1811. 
Peter  McMickle,   severely        Georg^e  Mahon 

wounded 
Fredrick  Wyman  Samuel  Lockheart 


Roll  ok  a  Company  of  Light  Dragoons  of  Indiana  Militia. 

From  September  18,  to  November  19,  1811. 
Benjamin  Park,  Captain  Commanding-,  Promoted  to  Major. 
Thomas  Emmerson,  Lieutenant. 
John  Bathis,  Cornet. 
George  Wallace,  Junior  Lieutenant. 
Chirstian  Grater,  Sergeant. 
William  Harper,  Sergeant. 
Henry  Rubby,  Sergeant. 
John  McClure,  Sergeant. 
William  H.  Dunnica,  Corporal. 
Levi  Elliot,  Corporal. 
Charles  Allen,  Corporal. 
Reubon  Sal  linger.  Corporal. 
John  Braden,  Saddler. 

PRIVATES  PRIVATES 

Charles  Smith  Peter  Jones 

Joshua  Bond  Permena  Beck 

William  Prince  Jesse  Slawson 

Toussant  Dubois,  jr.  Thomas  Randolph 

John  McDonald  Miles  Dolahan 

John  Elliott  Mathias  Rose,  jr. 

Henry  Dubois  Jesse  Lucas 

William  Berry  William  Purcell 

John  Crosby  Leonard  Crosby 
William  Meham  killed  Nov.  7,  Samuel  Drake 

1811. 

Samuel  Emerson  Samuel  Alton 

Nathan  Harness  Daniel  Decker 

John  Seton  Hawson  Seton 

John  Flint  John  D.  Hay 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 


295 


Hiriam  Decker 

John  I.  Neely 

Pierre  Laptante 

Andrew  Purcell 

Albert  Badolett 

Thomas  Coulter 

Charles  McClure 

Thomas  McClure 

Thomas  Palmer 

William  A.  McClure 

James  McClure 

James  Neal 

Charles  Scott 

Isaac  White,   killed  Nov.  7, 

1811. 
Henry  I.  Mills 
James  Mud 
Abner  Hynes 
John  OTallon 
William  Luckett 
Reuben  Buntin,  jr. 
Robert  Sturgen 


Ebenezer  Hilton 

John  McBain,  Trumpeter 

John  Pea 

James  Steen 

Josiah  L,  Homes 

William  W.  Homes 

Jacque  Andre 

John  Bruce 

G.  W.  Johnston 

Clanton  Steen 

Archibald  McClure 

John  Wyant 

James  S.  Petty 

John  McClure 

Robert  M.  Evans 
G^org-e  Croghlin 
Benjamin  Saunders 
James  Nabb 
Landon  Carter 
John  I.  Smith 
James  Harper 


Roll  of  a  Company  of  Light  Dragoons  of  thk  Indiana 

Militia. 

From  September  11,  to  November  23,  1811. 

Charles  Beggs,  Captain  Commanding^. 

John  Thompson,  Lieutenant. 

Henry  Bottorf,  Lieutenant. 

Mordicia  Sweeny,  Cornet,  Promoted  to  Lieut.,  Sept.  18. 

Davis  Floyd,  Promoted  to  Adjutant  September  1811. 

John  Carr,  Serg-eant. 

James  Sage,  Sergeant. 

John  Fisler,  Sergeant. 

Abraham  Miller,  Sergeant. 

George  Rider,  C-orporal. 

Simon  Prather,  Corporal. 


2%  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 


*v 


Hui^h  Ross,  Corporal. 
Samuel  Battorf,  Corporal. 
John  Deats,  Trumpeter. 

PRIVATES  I*KIVATES 

Jacob  Cresmore  William   Kelley  killed  Nov.  7^ 

1811. 

William  Lewis  Jaipes  Ellison 

Timothy  R.  Rayment  John  Cowan 

John  Gibbons  *  William  Perry 

Edward  Perry  John  (Joodwin 

Jmaes  Hay  John  Newland 

Georg^e  Twilley  Milo  Davis 
Maston  G.  Clark>  Prom.  Bri-    Samuel  Carr 

g^de  Major. 

Joseph  McCormick  Richard  Ward 

John  Ferris  Charles  F.  Ross 


Roll  of  Field  and  Staff  of  a  Battalion  of  Kentucky 

Light  Dragoon. 

Battle  of  Tippecanoe,  October  16  to  November  24,  1811. 

Samuel  Wells,  Major  Commanding*. 
James  Hunter,  Adjutant. 


A  Company  Commanded  by  Peter  Funk,  Captain. 

Lewis  Hite,  Xrieutenant. 
Samuel  Kelley,  Cornet. 
James  Martin,  Ser^^eant. 
Adam  Mills,  Sergeant. 
Henry  Conning:,  Sergeant. 
Lee  White,  Sergeant. 
Elliot  Wilson,  Corporal. 
William  Cooper,  Trumpeter. 
Samuel  Frederick,  Farrier. 

PRIVATES  privates 

William  Dubberly  John  Edlin 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA- 


597 


William  Ferg^uson 
James  Hite 
Joseph  Kenison 
John  Murphy 
Enos  Mackej 
Thomas  Stafford 
John  Smith 
M.  Williamson 


Benjamin  W.  Gath 
I.  Holling^sworth 
William  M.  Luckett 
James  Muckleroy 
Thomas  F.  Mayors 
William  Shaw 
William  T.  Tulley 
Samuel  Willis 


Roll  of  Company  of  Kentucky  Mounted  Riflemen. 

Frederick  Geic^er,  Captain  Commanding:. 

Presley  Ross,  Lieutenant. 

William  EMward,  Ensig^n. 

Daniel  McClellen,  Ser^reant. 

Robert  Mclntire,  Ser^reant. 

Robert  ESdwards,  Serjeant. 

John  Jackson,  Ser^reant. 

Steven  Mars,  Corporal,  (killed  Nov.  7,  1811.) 

John  Hicks,  Corporal. 

John  Nash,  Corporal. 

Henry  Walts,  Corporal. 

Joseph  Paxton,  Trumpeter. 


PRIVATES 

Phillip  Allen 

William  Brown 

Charles  L.  Byrne 

Adam  Berket 

Charles  Barkshire 

Temple  C.  Byrne 

Thomas  Galliway 

John  Dunbar 

Richard  Finley 

Joseph  Funk,  wounded  Nov. 

7,  1811. 
Isaac  Gawthmey 
James  Hanks 


PRIVATES 

Thomas  Beeler 
James  Ballard 
Joseph  Barkshire 
John  Buskirk,  wounded 
Robert  Bamaba 
Georg^e  Beck 
William  Cline 
James  M.  Edwards 
Nicholas  Fleener 
John  Grimes 

Henry  Hawkins 
Zachariah  Incrram 


298 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 


Joshua  Jest 

John  Lock 

John  Maicwell,  killed  Nov.  7, 

1811. 
Daniel  Minor 
Michiel  Plaster 
Johnathan  Pond 
Patrick  Shields 
John  W.  Slaughter 


Elijah  Lane 
Hudson  Martin 
Josh  Maxwell 

John  Ousley  • 

Samuel  Pond 

Peter  Priest 

EMmond  Shipp 

Joseph   Smith,  killed   Nov.  7, 

1811. 
Thomas  Spunks 


Augustus   Springer,     killed 

Nov.  7,  1811. 
James  Somerville,  killed  Nov.  Wilson  Taylor 

7,  1811. 
Thomas  Trigg:  William  Trigg 

Abraham  Walk  George  W.  Weljs 

Samuel  W.  White  Greensbury  Wright 


The  Roll  of  the  Field  and  Staff  of  the  Fourth  Reg- 
ular U.  S.  Infantry  For  November  1811. 

John  P.  Boyd,  Colonel. 

James  Miller,  Lieutenant  Colonel 

Zebulon  M.  Pike,  Lieutenant  Colonel. 

G.  R.  C.  Floyd,  Major. 

Josiah  D.  Foster,  Surgeon. 

Hosea  Blood,  Surgeon*s  Mate. 

John  L.  Eastman,  Assistant  Adjutant 

Josiah  Bacon,  Quartermaster. 

Nathan  F.  Adams,  Paymaster. 

Winthrop  Ayre,  Sergeant  Major. 

William  Kelley,  Quartermaster  Sergeant. 


Roll  of  a  Company  of  Infantry  Under  the  Command  of 
Captain  Josiah  Snelling  of  the  Fourth  Infantry. 

September  30,  to  November  30,  1811. 


PIONEER  HISORY  OF  INDIANA. 


299 


Josiah  Snellin^,  Captain.  > 
Charles  Fuller,  First  Lieutenant. 
John  Smith,  Second  Lieutenant. 
Richard  Fillebrown,  Serg^eant. 
Jacob  B.  Rand,  Serg^eant. 
Daniel  Baldwin,  Serg^eant. 
Ephriam  Churchill,  Serg^eant. 
John  Shay,  Corporal. 
Timothy  Hartt,  Corporal. 
Samuel  Horden,  Corporal. 
Benjamin  Moores,  Corporal. 
Amos  G.  Corey,  Musician. 


PRIVATES 

John  Austin 
James  Bryce 
Michael  Burns 
John  Whitney 
Cephas  Chace 
Jacob  Collins 
Gills  Willcox 
William  Dale 

John  Davis   - 

Daniel  Haskell,  deserted 

25,  1811. 
Samuel  French 
Allanson  Hathaway 
Henry  Indewine 
Abraham  Larabee 
Gideon  Lincoln 
Serfino  Massi 
Vincent  Massi 
Samuel  Prichett 
Samuel  Porter 
Joseph  Petting^all 
Samuel  Pixley 


PRIVATES 

Cyrus  J.  Brown 

Mark  Whalin 

John  Brewer 

Georg^e  Blandin 

John  P.  Webb 

William  Clou^h 

Thomas  *Day 

Thomas  Black,  died  October 

11,  1811. 
Abner  Dutcher 
Sept.  Phillip  Eastman 

Rufus  Goodenou^h 
William  Healey 
William  Jackman 
Asa  Larabee 
EMward  Mag^ary 
Lug^i  Massi 
James  McDonald 
James  Theldon 
Jame«  Palmer 
William  B.  Perkins 
Johnathan  Robinson,  died  Oct. 
6,  1811. 


300 


PIONEER  HJSTORY  OF  INDIANA. 


Greenleaf  Sewey  Elias  Soper 

Wesley  Stone  Seth  Sergreant 

John  Trasher  Phillip  Trasher 

Joseph  Tibbets,  killed  Nov.  7,  David  Wier 
1811. 


RoLi.  OF  A  Company  of  Infantry  Undbr  the  Command  of 
George  W.,  Prbscott  of  the  Fourth  U.  S.  Regiment. 

From  October  3,  to  December  31,  1811. 

Georg^e  W.  Prescott,  Captain. 
Ebcnezer  Way,  First  Lieutenant. 
Benjamin  Hill,  First  Lieutenant. 
John  Miller,  Serg^eant. 
William  Huc:c:ins,  Sergeant. 
Aaron  Tucker,  Ser^reant. 
Robert  Sanborn,  Corporal. 
Ephriam  Dockham,  Corporal. 
John  Silver,  Corporal. 
Samuel  Fowler,  Corporal. 
Moses  Blanchard,  Musician. 
John  Ross,  Musician. 


PRIVATES 

John  Ashton 
George  Bailey 
Benjamin  Burnham 
Almerine  Clark 
Nathan  Colbey 
John  Corsen 
James  Cobby 
John  Forriest 
Henry  Godfrey 
Levi  Griffin 
John  Green 
Benjamin  Hudson 
Amos  Inc:ulls 
William  Kelley 


PRIVATES 

Ira  Bailey 
Able  Brown 
Enoch  Carter 
Stephen  Clay 
Johnathan  Colbey 
William  Corsen 
Abraham  Falson 
Thomas  Glines 
John  Gorrell 
Peter  Griffin 
EMmund  Heard 
Johnathan  Herrick 
David  Ingulls 
William  Knapp 


PrONEER  HISTORY  OP  INDIANA.  301 

Stephen  Knigrht  Peter  Ladd 

Aaron  Ladd  Samuel  Ladd 

Johnson  Levering:  Moses  Mason 

James  Merrill  John  Norman 

Ezra  C.  Peterson  Lemuel  Parker 
John  Sanborn,  killed  Nov.  7,    Barnard  Shields 

1811. 

Nathan  Simpson  Luther  Stevenson 

William  Sharpless  Israel  Pilton 

John  Virg^in  Oliver  Wakefield 

Silas  Wells  Isaac  Wescott. 

Johnathan  Wiley  James  Williams 


Roll  of  Captain  Bban*s  Company  in  the  Fourth  U.  S. 

Rbgimbnt. 

From  October  31,  to  December  31,  1811. 

William  C.  Bean,  Captain,  killed  Nov.  7,  1811. 

Charles  Larabee,  First  Lieutenant. 

Louis  Beckhan;!,  Second  Lieutenant. 

James  Traccy,  First  Serg^eant. 

Bernard  A.  T.  Cormons,^  Second,  Sergeant. 

William  Stony,  Third  Serg^eant. 

Simon  Crum,  First  Corporal. 

Edward  Allen,  Second  Corporal. 

Amos  G.  Carey,  Musician. 

Zebulon  Sanders,  Musician. 

PRIVATES  PRIVATlfe 

George  Bentley,  died  Dec.  16,  Darius  Ballow 

1811. 
Jeremiah  Boner  Ebenezer  Collins 

John  Dohahue  Sylvester  Dean 

Daniel  Delong:  Daniel  Doyers 

John  Davis  Dexter  Earll,  mortally  wound- 

ed Nov.  7,  1811. 
Timothy  Foster  Bryan  Flanac^an 

Russell  Freeman  Andrew  Griffin 


302 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 


John  Glover 
Samuel  Hawkins 
John  D.  Hall 
Titus  Knapp 
John  T.  Mohonnah 
Nathan  Mitchell 
Smith  Nanhrup 
James  Pinel 
Daniel  Rodman 
Nathan  Witherall 
William  Williams 
August  Ballow 


Samuel  Gunnison 
Peter  Harvey 
John  Jones 
Weatherall  Leonard 
John  Miller 
Francis  Nelson 
Benjamin  S.  Peck 
Isaac  Rathbom 
Benjamin  Vandeford 
James  Whipple 
Job  Winslow 
William  Button 


RoL,L  OF  Captain  Joex  Cook's  Company  of  Infantry  in  thr 

Fourth  U.  S.  Regiment. 

From  October  31,  to  December  31,  1811. 

Joel  Cook,  Captain 
Josiah  Bacon,  Second  Lieutenant. 
James  A.  Bennett,  Sergfeant. 
Daniel  Skelton,  Serg^eant. 
Caleb  Betts,  Serg^eant. 
Henry  Munn,  Serg^eant. 
Nathaniel  Heaton,  Corporal. 
John  Anthony,  Corporal. 
David  B,  Kipley,  Corporal. 
Abig^ah  Bradley,  Musician. 
Samuel  Thompson,  Musician. 

PRIVATES 

William  Bird 

Gorden  Beckwith 

William  Barnett 

Denison    Crumby,    mortally 

wounded  Nov.  7,  1811. 
Robert  Coles 


William  Foreman 


PRIVATES 

Alexander  Brown 
George  Brasbridge 
Alfred  Cobourne 
Eliakins  Culver 

Charles  Cog:er,  killed   Nov.  7,. 

1811. 
Joseph  Francis 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA.  30S 

Ezra  Fox  Levi  Gleason 

Benjamin  Holland  Roswell  Heminway    ' 

John  Hutchenson  Michael  Houck 

Abraham  Johnson  David  Kinchbacker 

Georgfe  Kilborn  Daniel   Lee,  killed    November 

7,  1811. 
William  Moore  William  Nervill 

James  Pinkitt  Michael  Pende^rass 

Ansom  Twitchell  Elisha  Pearson 

John  Williams  James  Parker 

Johnathan  Walling^ford  Amos  Royce,  killed  November 

7,  1811. 
John  Pinckley  Jesse  Elam 

Nathan  Snow,  mortally  wound-  Robert  Riley 

ed  Nov.  7,  1811. 
Everett  Shelton  Daniel  Spencer 

Samuel  Smith  William  Sanderson 

Robert  Thompson  John  St.  Clair 


Roll  op  Captain  Return  B.  Brown's  Company  of  Infantry 

Fourth  U.  S.  Regiment. 

From  October  31,  to  December  31,  1811. 

Return  B.  Brown,  Captain. 

John  Smith,  Second  Lieutenant.  ^ 

Oliver  C.  Barton,  First  Lieutenant. 

Ebenezer  Moweer,  Serg^eant. 

David  Robinson,  Sergeant. 

Levi  Jenison,  Serg^eant. 

Daniel  Reed,  Serg^eant. 

Ephri^m  Sillaway,  Corporal. 

J^el  Kimble,  Corporal. 

Samuel  S.  Bing^ham,  Drummer. 

Henry  Hayden,  Fifer. 

privates  privates 

Lewis  Bemmis  Bazalul  Bradford 

Elias  Barrett  Auston  Bradford 


304  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 

Benjamin  Bartlett  Eli  Boyd 

Henry  Beck  Zalmon  Blood 

Caleb  Calton  William  W.  McConnel 

Comadovas  D.  Cass  Rowland  Edwards 

Joseph  Flood  Joseph  Follet 

Ebenezer  P.  Field  Harvey  Geer 

Peter  Greeney  Walter  T.  Hitt 

Samuel  Hillyard  Mood  B.  Lovell 

Bliss  Lovell  William  Morfi^eteroid 

John  Morfi^an  •  David  H.  Miller 

Obediah  Morton  Moses  Pearce 

Jacob  Prouty  James  Roberts 

Mahew  Rolling^s  Jered  Smith 

David  Tuthill  Peter  R.  Stites 

David  Wells  Josiah  Willard 
John  Yeomans,  killed  Nov.  7,  ^ 
1811. 


Roll  of  Captain  Robert  C.  Barton's  Company  op  the 

Fourth  U.  S.  Regiment. 

For  December  and  November,  1811. 

Robert  C.  Barton,  Captain. 

Abraham  Hawkins,  Second  Lieutenant. 

Oranfi^e  Pooler,  Sergeant. 

Marshall  S.  Durkee,  Serfi^eant. 

William  Turner,  Corporal,  wounded  Nov.  7,  1811. 

Horace  Humphrey,  Corporal. 

Daniel  Kellofi:,  Drummer. 

privates  privates 

John  Adrickson  Jesse  C.  Clark 

Phillip  Coats  Robert  Doufi^las,  wounded  Nov. 

7,  1811. 
William  Foster,  wounded  Nov.  Ichabald  Farmer 

7.  1811. 
John  D.  Jones  David  Kervus,  killed  Nov.  7, 

1811. 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 


305 


Isaac  Little  Timothy  McCoon 

John  McArthur  Joseph  Polland 

Silas  Perry  William  Stevenson 
'   Samuel  Souther,  wounded  Nov.  Rowland  Sparrowk 

7,  1811. 

Lewis  Taylor,  killed  Nov.  7,  Leman  E.  Welch,  killed  Nov. 

1811.  7,  1811. 

George  Wilson  Henry  Bates 
Thomas  Clark 


Roll  of  Company  of  Infantry  of  the  Fourth  U.  S.  Regi- 
ment. 

October  31,  to  December  31,  1811. 

Charles  Fuller,  First  Lieutenant,  Commanding. 

Nathan  F.  Adams,  First  Lieutenant  and  Paymaster. 

John  L.  Eastman,  First  Lieutenant. 

(rcorgre  P.  Peters,  Second  Lieutenant. 

Isaac  Ricker,  Serg^eant. 

David  H.  Lewis,  Serg^eant. 

James  Pike,  Sergeant. 

Jedediah  Wentworth,  Corporal. 

Henry  Moore,  Corporal.  ' 

Solomon  Johnson,  Corporal. 

Henry  Tucker,  Corporal. 

Nathan  Brown,  Musician. 

Joel  Durell,  Musician. 

PRIVATES 

John  Adams 
William  Brown 
John  Burns 


Samuel  Cook 
Ivory  Courson 
Elisha  Dyer 
Johnathan  Elkins 
John  S.  Gordon 


PRIVATES 

William  Andrews 

William  Bowles 

Joseph  Burditt,  killed  Nov.  7, 

1811. 
Caleb  Pritchett 
Samuel  Coffin 
Jeremiah  Emmerson 
Noah  Tumwald 
William  Greg^s 


i 


306 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 


Joseph  Farrow 

Solomon  Herthford 

Johnathan  W.  Ham 

Steven  Harris 

Nathan  Harris 

James  Heath 

Amos  Jones 

Willliam  King,  killed  Nov.  7, 

1811. 
Asa  Knight 
William  Layman 
James  McDuffy 
Jerry  Malthup 
Henry  Nutter 
William  Perkins 
Curtis  Pipps 
John  Rice 
John  M.  Rowlins 
Isaac  Tutle 
Ichabold  Wentworth 
Enoch  Werthon 
Silas  Wood 
Timothy  Waldron 
Phillip  Allen 


Robert  Gordon 
William  Ham 
Steven  Hawkins 
John  Hurd 
Joseph  Hunt 
David  Heath 
Samuel  King 
Jacob  Keyser 

Joseph  Layman 

Joseph  Mears 

Robert  Macintosh 

Isaac  Nuts,  killed  Nov.  7,  '11 

Richard  Perry 

Jacob  Pearsey 

John  Rowell 

Steven  Ricker 

Stanton  Smiley 

John  S.  Watson 

Robert  Whitehouse 

John  Welch 

Charles  Wait 

Zadock  Williams 


Roll  of  a  Company  of  Infantry  Under  the  Command  of 
Lieut.  O.  G.  Burton  of  the  Fourth  U.  S.  Regiment. 

From  October  31,  to  December  3,  1811. 

O.  G.  Burton,  First  Lieutenant. 

George  Gooding,  Second  Lieutenant. 

Montgomery  Orr,  Sergeant. 

Knewland  Carrier,  Sergeant. 

Major  Mantor,  Sergeant. 

James  Mitchell,  Corporal,  (killed  in  action  Nov.  7,  1811.) 

David  L.  Thompson,  Corporal. 

Lucius  Sallis,  Corporal. 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 


307 


William  Durnon,  Corporal. 
Ellas  Printice,  Musician. 

PRIVATES  • 

Leonard  Arp 

Amost  Blanchard 

Levi   Carrey,  killel    Nov.  7, 

1811. 
Zenas  Clark 

Issacher  Green 
William  King 
Joseph  Russell 

John  Spergen 
Samuel  B.  Spalding 
Samuel  Tibbets 
Alexander  Bowen 


PRIVATES 

Noyes  Billings 

Caleb  Boston 

Johnathan  Crewell,  killed  Nov* 

7,  1811. 
Daniel  Oilman,  killed  Nov.  7, 

1811. 
Thomas  Harvey 
William  Pomeroy 
James     Stevenson,      mortally 

wounded  Nov.  7,  1811. 
William  Sergeant 
Morton  Thayer 
John  Vickery 


Roll  of  a  Company  of  Riflemen  of  the  Rifle  Regiment 

U.  S.  Army. 

From  October  31,  to  December  31,  1811. 

A.  Hawkins,  Lieutenant,  Commanding. 

Peter  Wrighi,  Sergeant. 

Reuben  Newton.  Sergent 

Aaron  W.  Fashbush.  Sergeant. 

James  Phillips.  Sergeant. 

Henry  Baker,  Corporal. 

Aaron  Melen.  Corporal. 

William  Hunter,  Corporal. 

Henry  Nurchstead,  Ensign. 

Adam  Walker,  Musician. 


privates 
Ebenezer  T.  Andrews 
John  Everin 

Steven  Brown 


PRIVATES 

Otis  Andrews 

William    Brigham,  died    from 

wounds. 
William  Brown 


308  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 

Samuel  Bigfi^s  Robert  Cutter 

Joseph  Datton  Reuben  Durant 

Francis  Ellis  Thomas  Hair 
James  Haskel,  killed  Nov,  7,    Ephraim  Hall 

1811. 

Samuel  Johnson  Silas  Kendle 

Patrick  Norton  Israel  Newhall 

Fredrick  Roads  Marcus  D.  Ransdill 

Thaddeus  B.  Russell  William  Read 

Francis  Rittiere  Edward  R.  Seeck 

Samuel  Hing:  Ira  D.  Trowbridg^e,  killed  Nov. 

7,  1811. 

Neham  Wetherill  Ezra  Wheelock 

The  rollfof  General  Harrison's  army  in  the  Tippecanoe 
campaig^n  was  copiyed  from  the  muster  rolls  in  Washing^ton 
D.  C.  in  1866,  at  that  time  some  of  the  names  were  hard  to 
make  out. 


CHAPTER  XI. 


INDIANA'S  TRIBUTE  TO  KENTUCKY. 


Blood  is  thicker  than  water  and  in  the  veins  of  Indiana^s 
children  flows  the  blood  of  the  brave  Kentucky  emigrants. 
Forgetful  and  thankless  indeed  would  we  be  did  we  not  keep 
the  sacred  fires  of  memory  burning  upon  the  alter  of  our  ap- 
preciation— appreciation  of  those  finer  ties  of  kindship  which 
have  woven  the  experiences  of  these  tvo  magnificent  states 
into  a  common  history.  Amid  the  busy,  absorbing  scenes  of 
the  present  and  the  dawning  visions  of  a  still  greater  future, 
we  need  some  fair  muse  of  history  to  take  us  by  the  hand  and 
lead  us  back  for  a  season  under  the  dark,  dense,  primeval  for- 
ests, and  sitting  down  with  us  on  the  fallen  trunk  of  a  great 
oak,  point  out  and  name  the  heroic  figures  which  pass  by 
with  stealthy  tread,  and  there  tell  us  again  of  the  birth  and 
childhood  of  our  States.  **Great  Gk)d  of  Hosts,  be  with  us 
yet,  lest  we  forget — lest  we  forget." 

Kentucky,  when  thy  brave  children  crossed  the  Ohio  and 
pierced  our  tangled  wilderness,  here  on  the  hills  and  in  the 
valleys  of  Indiana  many  of  thy  sons  poured  out  their  life  blood 
and  many  were  burned  at  the  stake.  Thy  fair  daughters, 
too,  were  led  as  prisoners  by  the  savage  Indians  and  sold  to 
the  unprincipled  British  Officers  of  Canada— doomed  to  slav- 
ery and  a  life  worse  than  death.  A  race  less  noble  would 
have  shrunk  back  at  the  awful  sacrifice.  Not  so  with  thee, 
for  thy  oflfering  was  unceasing  until  from  thy  bosom  thou 
didst  send  us  such  men  as  Boone,  Clark,  Hopkins,  Scott,  and 
Shelbey  to  lead  the  hosts  of  Kentucky's  heroes  in  defense  of 
Indiana's  soil.  Thy  pure  and  noble  Owen  and  thy  gifted 
patriot,  Davis,  bled  for  our  protection  at  Tippecanoe,  when. 


310  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 

they,  with  a  hundred  others,  led  by  Gen.  Wells,  dared  to 
brave  the  terrible  ordeals  of  that  bloody  battle.  No  one  can 
lay  the  charg^e  to  thee  that  thou  hast  been  miserly  even  with 
the  choicest  blood  of  thy  chivalry. 

We  cannot  forgret  that  thou  gravest  the  world  its  match- 
less Clay  and  unto  us  our  Lincoln — gifts  for  which  unending 
tribute  shall  be  laid  at  thy  feet. 

Again  in'  those  daj's  when  the  sons  of  Indiana  were  pre- 
paring to  cross  thy  soil  to  save  the  Union,  true  it  is,  that  for 
a  moment  thou  didst  halt  and  turn  thy  face  to  the  Southland 
with  a  look  of  anxious  solicitude  but  in  the  next  moment  thou 
didst  face  to  the  North,  look  upon  the  starry  emblem  of  the 
Nation's  greatness  and  invite  the  boys  in  blue  to  cross  thy 
borders.  Yea,  when  the  smoke  of  battle  had  lifted  and  we 
walked  among  the  pale  faces  upturned  to  the  stars,  Lol 
among  the  dead  in  blue  were  thousands  of  thine  own  brave 
sons  and  none  had  fallen  nearer  the  ramparts  of  the  foe. 

Yes,  Kentucky,  as  green  as  the  blue  grass  that  tints  thy 
everlasting  hills,  shall  Indiana's  tribute  offering  to  thee  be 
kept,  and  in  her  debt  of  gratitude  shall  she  give  thee  first 
place  for  thy  priceless  gifts  as  yet  unsung  but  not  forgotten. 


CHAPTER    XII. 


FURTHER     fflSTORY    OF    TECUMSEH    AND    THE 

PROPHET, 


In  the  chapter  entitled  the  battle  of  Tippecanoe  an  early 
history  of  the  noted  Indians,  Tecumseh  and  the  Prophet  is 
^iven.  That  history  is  carried  down  to  Aug^ust  the  Sth, 
1811,  when  Tecumseh  started  south  to  lay  his  plans  of  con- 
federation before  the  southern  Indians  and  induce  them  to 
join  the  northern  Indian  Confederation.  Tecumseh 's  whole 
aim  and  ambition  after  the  defeat  of  the  Indians  by  General 
Wayne  at  the  battle  of  the  Maumee,  was  to  bring*  all  the  In- 
dians in  America,  west  of  the  Alleghanj'  Mountains  into  one 
^reat  confederation.  He  contended  that  the  Great  Spirit  had 
given  the  Indian  race  the  hunting  grounds  to  hold  in  common 
for  the  use  of  all  and  that  no  tribe  or.  nation  of  Indians  could 
make  any  cession  or  treaty  of  any  of  the  lands  without  all  the 
tribes  in  council  would  sanction  the  agreement. 

But  little  is  known  of  Tecumseh's  visit  south  more  than 
what  has  come  through  tradition.  At  Taledega  in  1811  in 
the  last  visit  Tecumseh  made  to  the  southern  Indians,  when 
he  was  making  a  speech  before  the  vast  numbers.  Weather- 
ford,  the  great  Chief  of  the  Creek  Nation  asked  him  why  he 
did  not  bring  all  his  young  men  from  the  north,  east  and 
west  and  concentrate  them  at  points  on  the  Ohio  river  and 
drive  the  Long  Knives  back,  Tecumseh  answered — **A11  the 
Indians  must  work  in  the  same  yoke.  They  must  show  the 
white  man  that  they  are  in  earnest,  not  for  booty,  not  for 
scalps — ^Nol   No! — but  for  the  country  they  were  born  in  and 


312  PIONEER.  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 

the  country  the  bones  of  their  fathers  lay  in.  There  has  al- 
ready been  too  much  partisan  warfare.  It  must  be  made 
g^eneral  and  alone  for  the  purpose  stated.  Then  all  just  men 
will  be  our  friends." 

Tecumseh  was  probably  the  most  noted  Indian  that  was 
known  to  the  white  race.  His  great  power  by  his  unequalled 
oratory,  combined  with  an  intelligent  and  a  farseeing  mind 
was  the  reason  for  the  influence  by  which  he  held  such  con- 
trol of  the  different  nations  which  surrounded  him.  Tradi- 
tion holds  that  the  Shawnee  Nation  of  which  he  was  a  dis- 
tinguished member  had  lived  far  to  the  south,  that  the  game 
becoming  scarce  in  the  land  where  they  lived,  the  Nation 
came  up  the  Mississippi  and  Ohio  rivers  and  settled  in  and 
around  that  section  of  southern  Illinois  where  Shawneetown 
is  located.  From  there  they  moved  to  the  Wabash  and  to 
the  waters  of  the  White  river.  This  tribe  of  Indians  was  al- 
ways the  most  determined  enemy  the  whtie  man  had  and  carried 
on  a  relentless  warfare  with  them  and  were  regarded  as  the 
bravest  of  all  the  Indians  in  battle.  The  Shawnee  language 
was  the  most  musical  in  its  articulation  of  any  spoken  by  the 
aboriginal  race  and  the  speeches  made  by  Tecumseh,  had  an 
effect  on  its  hearers  that  was  wonderful.  His  oratory  was  so 
eloquent  in  sound  and  his  gestures  so  forceful  that  any  one 
hearing  him,  if  he  did  not  understand  a  word  he  said,  would 
be  spell  bound.  At  one  of  the  last  visits  that  Tecumseh  made 
to  Vincennes  to  hold  a  conference  with  (Governor  Harrison 
he  was  invited  by  Harrison  to  take  a  seat  with  him  in  a  chair 
which  stood  on  a  low  platform  where  the  Governor,  the  In- 
terpreter and  Secretary  sat.  Tecumseh  hesitated  but  Harri- 
son insisted  saying  that  it  was  the  wish  of  their  Great  Fath- 
er, the  President  that  he  should  do  so.  The  Chief  paused, 
raised  his  strong,  commanding  form  to  its  greatest  height 
and  looking  straight  at  the  (Governor,  and  pointing  toward 
the  skies  with  vehement  gesture,  said  in  a  loud,  musical  voice 
— "The  sun  is  my  father — the  earth  is  my  mother  and  on  her 
bosom  I  win  recline."  Then  he  and  his  warriors  seated 
themselves  on  the  earth.     The  speech  and   actions  were  elec- 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA.  313 

trical  and  every  one  present  felt  the  greatness  of  this  wonder- 
ful barbarian. 

DeLome,  who  was  a  prisoner  for  many  years  and  by  the 
success  of  battle  or  by  purchase  was  connected  with  many 
noted  Indians,  in  his  unpublished  MSS  gives  an  account  of  a 
visit  by  Tecumseh  and  Francis  (The  Prophet)  to  the  Osag-e 
Indians  in  the  west  some  time  in  the  fall  of  1809  or  '10  for 
the  purpose  of  urging  them  to  join  the  great  Indian  confed- 
eration that  they  were  working  on.  There  was  a  very  large 
gathering  to  hear  the  Shawnee  Chief.  The  Council  was  con- 
vened and  listened  to  his  eloquent,  fiery  oratory  for  more  than 
two  hours  and  became  intensely  wrought  up  by  it.  In  fact  so 
great  was  the  effect  produced  by  the  portrayal  of  the  Indians' 
wrongs  and  the  way,  by  cheating,  designing  and  unfair 
mean^,  the  white  man  had  gained  possession  of  so  much  of 
the  Indian  country,  that  the  head  chief,  for  fear  the  Council 
would  unanimously  endorse  Tecumseh  and  join  his  confed- 
eration, as  soon  as  he  had  finished  speaking,  adjourned  the 
Council  and  advised  those  present  to  go  to  their  homes  and 
think  over  what  their  strange  brother  had  so  eloquently  por- 
trayed to  them.  In  the  same  connection  DeLome  says — **The 
occasion  and  subject  were  peculiarly  adapted  to  call  into  ac- 
tion all  the  powers  of  genuine  patriotism  also  the  language, 
gestures,  and  feeling,  contending  for  utterance,  that  were 
exhibited  by  this  untuiored  native  of  the  forest,  in  the  cen- 
tral wilds  of  America.  No  audience  either  in  ancient  or  mod- 
ern times,  ever  before  witnessed  such  an  accasion."  The 
Prophet  the  next  day  made  a  long  speech  and  used  nearly 
the  same  words  Tecumseh  had,  but  did  not  make  the  least 
impression  on  his  audience.  Some  days  after  these  events 
the  Indians  in  Council  decided  to  stand  by  their  treaties  with 
the  Great  Father  and  declined  Tecumseh's  invitation. 

Before  Tecumseh  had  left  on  his  southern  .trip,  he  had  a 
definite  understanding  with  his  brother,  the  Prophet,  and 
the  chiefs  of  the  other  tribes  on  the  Wabash  that  nothing 
was  to  be  done  during  his  absence  to  bring  on  a  collision 
with  the  white  people.  The  great  number  of  Indians  assem- 
bled at  the  Prophet's  town  became   impatient   to    test   the 


314  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 

assured  promises  of  the  Prophet.  They  committed  many- 
petty  offenses  against  the  border  settlements,  stealing  their 
horses  and  killing  their  cattle  and  in  some  cases  killing  and 
scalping  the  unsuspecting  people.  This  became  so  offensive 
that  Harrison  determined  to  put  a  stop  to  it  and  the  battle  of 
Tippecanoe  was  the  result. 

Tecumseh  on  his  return  from  the  south,  learning  what 

had  happened  was  overcome  with  chagrin,  disappointment 
and  anger,  accusing  his  brother  of  duplicity  and  cowardice. 

He  spent  some  time  in  negotiating  through  runners  with 
•Governor  Harrison  to  arrange  for  a  visit  for  himself  and  a 
number  of  chiefs,  to  President  Madison.  Failing  in  this  and 
other  plans  which  he  could  not  perfect,  he  went  to  Maiden 
and  joined  the  British  army. 

At  the  beginning  of  the  war  of  1812,  Tecumseh  was 
ready  for  the  coming  conflict.  Soon  after  he  went  to  Maiden 
there  was  an  assemblage  of  Indians  at  Browhstown  who  were 
in  favor  of  standing  aloof  and  letting  the  British  and  Amer- 
icans fight  it  out.  They  sent  a  runner  to  Maiden  and  invit- 
ed Tecumseh  to  attend  the  gathering.  He  indignantly  re- 
fused to  have  anything  to  do  with  the  meeting,  saying  that 
he  had  taken  sides  with  the  king,  his  father,  and  would  suf- 
fer his  bones  to  bleach  on  that  shore  before  he  would  recross, 
the  stream  to  take  part  in  any  council  of  neutrality.  He  was 
in  the  battle  of  Brownstown  and  commanded  the  Indians  in 
an  action  near  Maguaga  where  he  was  wounded.  For  brav- 
ery in  that  engagement  he  was  made  a  Brigadier  General  in 
the  British  army  and  in  the  protracted  siege  of  Ft.  Meigs  he 
acted  with  great  bravery.  After  the  telling  defeat  of  Gen- 
eral Procter  at  Fort  Stephenson  the  British  troops  returned 
by  water  to  Maiden,  while  Tecumseh,  with  the  Indians 
passed  overland  around  the  head  of  Lake  Erie  and  rejoined 
the  British  at  Maiden.  Tecumseh  became  discouraged  for 
the  want  of  success,  having  lost  all  confidence  in  General 
Procter's  ability  and  seriously  meditated  the  withdrawal  of 
his  Indians  from  the  service.  Commodore  Perry's  victory 
was  witnessed  by  the  Indians  from  a  distant  shore.  On  the 
day  after  the  engagement  Proctor  said  to  Tecumseh — *'My 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA.  315 

:fleet  has  whipped  the  Americans  but  the  vessels  being  much 
injured,  have  g^one  to  Put-in-Bay  to  refit  and  will  be  here  in 
^  few  days."  This  deception  was  not  of  long:  duration. 
Tecumseh  soon  saw  indications  of  a  retreat  from  Maiden  and 
promptly  inquired  into  the  matter.  General  Procter  informed 
him  that  he  was  going  to  send  his  valuable  stores  up  the 
Thames  where  they  would  be  met  with  reinforcements  and  be 
^af e.  Tecumseh  was  not  to  be  fooled  by  such  a  shallow  device 
and  remonstrated  most  earnestly  against  retreating.  He 
finally  demanded  that  the  Indians  in  his  command  be  heard  by 
Procter  and  delivered  to  him  as  the  representative  of  his  Great 
Father,  the  king  the  following  speech:  * 'Father,  listen  to  your 
children.  You  have  them  now  before  you.  The  war  before 
this  you  gave  the  hatchet  to  your  Red  Children.  Then  our 
Oreat  Chiefs  were  alive— now  they  are  dead.  In  that  war  our 
Father  was  thrown  on  his  back  by  the  Americans  and  made  a 
treaty  with  them  of  mutual  friendship  without  consulting  his 
Red  Children  and  we  are  afraid  that  our  Father  will  do 
so  at  this  time.  Summer  before  last,  when  I  came  forward 
wiih  my  red  brethren  and  was  ready  to  take  up  the  hatchet,  in 
favor  of  the  British  Father,  we  were  told  not  to  be  in  a  hurry 
— that  he  had  not  yet  decided  to  fight  the  Americans.  Listen! 
When  war  was  declared  our  Father  stood  up  and  gave  us  the 
tomahawk  and  fold  us  that  he  was  then  ready  to  fight  and 
strike  the  Americans — that  he  wanted  our  assistance  and 
that  we  would  certainly  get  our  land  back  that  the  Amer- 
icans had  taken  from  us.  Listen!  You  told  us  at  that  time 
to  bring  forward  our  families  and  we  did  so  and  you  prom- 
ised to  take  care  of  them,  that  they  should  want  for  nothing 
while  the  men  went  to  fight  the  enemy — that  we  need  not 
trouble  ourselves  about  the  enemy's  garrisons,  that  we  knew 
nothing  about  them  and  that  our  Father  would  attend  to 
that  part  of  the  business.  Listen!  You  also  told  your  Red 
Children  that  you  would  take  good  care  of  your  garrison  here 
which  made  our  hearts  glad.  Listen!  When  we  were  last  at 
the  Rapids  it  is  true  that  we  gave  you  but  little  assistance. 
It  is  hard  to  fight  people  who  live  like  groundhogs.  Father, 
Listen!    Our  fleet  has  gone  out.     We  know  they  fought — we 


316  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 

have  heard  the  grreat  g^uns  but  know  nothing:  of  what  has. 
happened  to  our  Father  with  the  one  arm  (Commodore  Bar- 
clay). Our  ships  have  gone  one  way  and  we  are  much  aston- 
ished to  see  our  Father  tying  up  everything  and  preparing 
to  run  away  the  other  way,  without  letting  his  Red  Children 
know  what  his  intentions  are.  You  always  told  us  to  remain 
here  and  take  care  of  our  land.  It  made  our  hearts  glad  to 
hear  that  was  your  wish.  Our  Great  Father,  the  King,  is. 
the  head  and  you  represent  him.  You  always  told  us  that  you 
would  never  draw  your  foot  off  British  ground  but  now^ 
Father,  we  see  you  are  drawing  back  and  we  are  sorry  to  see 
our  Father  do  so  without  seeing  the  enemy.  We  must  com^ 
pare  our  Father's  conduct  to  a  fat  dog  that  carries  its  tail  on. 
its  back  but  when  frightened  drops  it  between  its  legs  and 
runs  away.  Father,  listen!  The  Americans  have  not  de- 
feated us  yet  by  land  neither  are  we  sure  that  they  have  done 
so  by  water.  We  wish  to  remain  here  and  fight  our  enemy 
should  they  make  their  appearance.  If  they  defeat  us  we 
will  retreat  with  our  father.  Listen!  At  the  battle  of  the 
Rapids  in  the  last  war,  the  Americans  certainly  defeated  us. 
and  when  we  retreated  to  our  Great  Father's  fort,  at  that 
place,  the  gate  was  shut  against  us  and  we  are  afraid  it 
would  now  be  the  same,  but  instead  of  that  we  now  see  our 
British  Father  preparing  to  march  out  of  his  garrison. 
Father,  you  have  the  arms  and  the  amunition  which  our 
Great  Father  sent  for  his  Red  Children.  If  you  have  an 
idea  of  going  away,  give  them  to  us.  You  may  go  and  wel- 
come. Our  lives  are  in  the  hands  of  the  Great  Spirit.  We 
are  determined  to  defend  our  land  and  if  it  be  His  will,  we 
wish  to  leave  our  bones  upon  it." 

When  Tecumseh  went  into  the  battle  of  the  Thames  he 
had  a  strong  presentiment  that  he  would  not  survive  that 
engagement.  He  had  but  little  hope  of  victory  but  resolved 
to  win  or  die.  With  this  determination  he  took  his  stand 
among  his  men,  raised  the  war-cry  and  boldly  met  the  enemy^ 
From  the  commencement  of  the  attack  on  the  Indian  line  his 
voice  was  distinctly  heard  by  his  followers  animating  thenr 
to  deeds  of  valor.     From  the  start  he  was  in  the  thickest  of 


PIONEER  HISORY  OF  INDIANA.  317 

the  figrht,  doing:  everything*  he  could  to  encourage  his  men  to 
stem  the  tide  of  the  encroaching  Americans.  When  his  voice 
was  no  longer  heard  the  battle  ended  as  the  British  had  sur- 
rendered some  time  before.  But  a  little  way  from  the  body 
of  the  great  Tecumseh  was  found  that  of  his  friend  and 
brother-in-lkw,  Wasegoboah.  These  two  heroic  Indians  on 
many  battle  fields  had  fought  side  by  side.  Now,  in  front  of 
their  men  they  closed  their  eventful  lives  at  the  battle  of  the 
Thames,  October  the  5th,  1813. 

The  Prophet,  Elkswatawa,  after  the  defeat  of  6is  mis- 
guided adherents  at  the  battle  of  Tippecanoe,  settled  with  a 
band  of  Wyandotte  Indians  some  distance  south  of  the  Wa- 
bash river.  Remaining  there  for  a  while  he  then  took  up  his 
residence  with  a  small  band  of  Hurons  farther  north  where 
he  remained  until  1812.  He  then  went  to  Maiden  and  was  in 
the  British  service  in  many  capacities.  Probably  the  most 
that  he  did  was  to  organize  raiding  parties  to  murder  the  in- 
habitants on  our  frontiers.  For  this  ignominious  service,  the 
British  Grovernment  felt  so  grateful  that  they  gave  him  a 
pension  from  1813  as  long  as  he  lived.  After  the  war  he 
lived  in  Canada  for  several  years,  then  went  back  to  the 
neiighborhood  of  his  old  haunts.  Here  he  remained  for  a 
short  period  and  moved  to  the  west  of  the  Mississippi,  where 
he  spent  his  old  age  with  a  band  of  the  once  powerful  Shaw- 
nee Indians,  until  1834,  when  he  died. 


CHAPTER  XIII 


PIONEER  INDUSTRIES. 


Crude  Farming  Implements  and  Cooking  Utensels^Mil- 
LING — Flax  Industry — Loom — Whipsaw — Shoe  Mak- 
ing— Rope  Walk^Bee  Hunting — Witchcraft. 


In  the  pioneer  days  there  was  no  wagon  or  blacksmitn 
shop  in  the  country  and  the  early  settlers  had  to  depend  on 
their  own  resources  for  such  farming  tools  as  they  needed. 
They  made  a  very  ^trviceable  plow  with  a  woodenmoldboard. 
The  plowshare,  point  and  bar  were  of  iron  all  in  one  piece. 
Three  short  bolts,  two  for  the  moldboard  and  one  to  fasten 
the  handle  to  the  heel  of  the  bar,  and  one  long  bolt  from  the 
bottom  of  the  share  up  through  the  plow  sheath  to  the  top 
of  the  beam,  was  all  ihe  iron  about  the  plow,  and  that  cost 
more  than  the  best  two  horse  plow  would  cost  now. 

The  wooden  moldboard  was  made  of  the  best  hard  wood 
obtainable.  Whiie  Oak  was  ofien  used.  Post  oak  was  the 
hardest  of  any  and  when  dried  was  the  smoothest.  After 
fashioning  the  moldboard  it  was  dressed  down  to  the  proper 
size  and  shape  and  then  placed  in  the  chimney  above  the  fire 
to  season.  The  stock  was  made  of  the  best  hard  wood  and 
much  after  the  fashion  of  today  only  not  so  smooth  nor  in 
any  way  finished  as  well,  but  it  was  strong  and  serviceable. 

They  had  a  very  serviceable  harrow  made  entirely  of 
wood.  They  secured  a  slippery  elm  or  iron-wood  if  they 
could  find  any  large  enough  and  cut  four  pieces  the  proper 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA.  319 

length  for  an  A  harrow,  first  sloping  the  two  side  pieces  at 
one  end  and  fitting  them  to  the  center  or  tongue  piece,  a  hole 
having  been  bored  through  each  of  the  three  pieces^  and 
securely  pinning  them  together.  A  cross  piece  ;was  then 
placed  about  the  middle  of  the  harrow  and  pinned  to  the  cen- 
ter and  the  two  side  pieces.  Two  inch  auger  holes  were  then 
bored  along  the  two  side  pieces  about  ten  inches  apart  and 
filled  with  dried  hickory  pins  that  extended  about  eight 
inches  below  the  side  timbers,  thus  making  a  harrow  that  did 
good  work  and  required  a  heavy  pull  to  break  in  any  way. 

For  single  and  double  trees  they  made  them  much  after 
the  fashion  of  today,  except  that  the  clips,  devices  and  lap 
rings  were  made  of  hickory  withes,  which  if  properly  made 
would  last  for  a  season.  The  horse  collars  were  made  mostly 
of  corn  shucks  platted  in  large  rope-like  sections  and  sewed 
together  hard  and  fast  with  leather  thongs,  to  make  the 
bulge  or  large  part  of  the  collar,  short  pieces  of  platted 
shucks  were  made  and  fastened  as  high  up  as  needed.  A  roll 
made  by  sewing  two  platted  parts  .together  was  securely 
fastened  on  the  edge  of  the  collar  forming  a  groove  for  the 
hames  to  fit  in.  They  also  made  collars  of  raw  hrde,  cutting 
it  in  the  proper  shape  and  sewing  the  edges  together,  stuff- 
ing the  inside  with  deer  hair  to  make  it  hold  its  shape.  Hoop 
ash  timber  was  pounded  up  fine  and  when  mixed  with  deer 
hair  made  a  better  material  for  the  purpose  than  the  manu- 
factured excelsior  of  today. 

The  bridle  was  made  of  raw  hide.  For  a  bit  they  took  a 
small  hickory  withe,  made  a  securely  fastened  ring  on  both 
ends  of  it,  leaving  enough  of  the  withe  between  the  rings  to 
go  into  the  horse's  mouth  and  wrapping  that  portion  with 
raw  hide  to  keep  the  horse  from  biting  it  in  two.  They  then 
fastened  the  head  stall  and  reins  to  the  rings. 

A  bridle  was  made  very  quickly  by  securing  a  piece  of 
raw  hide  long  enough  for  the  reins,  then  putting  the  leather 
in  the  horse's  mouth  and  looping  it  around  his  lower  jaw  just 
back  of  his  front  teeth,  with  this  a  horse  was  guided  better 
and  with  more  ease  th^n  with  the  bridle  bit. 

Hames  were  made  from  the  lower  part  of  the  tree,  in- 


320  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 

eluding  a  part  of  the  root  for  the  proper  crook.  After  they 
were  dressed  and  made  the  ri^ht  shape  and  size,  holes  for  the 
top  hame  string  were  bored  through  if  they  had  an  au^er,  if 
not,  they  were  burned  through  with  a  small  piece  of  iron. 
For  the  hame  hook  two  small  holes  were  made  and  a  strong 
piece  of  leather  was  fitted  into  the  holes  and  properly  fas- 
tened. To  this  loop  the  tug:s  were  fastened.  The  holes  for 
the  bottom  hame  strings  were  made  in  the  same  way,  as  the 
upper  ones. 

A  wa^on  that  was  termed  a  truck  was  made  by  cutting^ 
four  wheels  from  a  lar^e  tree,  usually  a  black  gum.  A  four- 
inch  hole  was  made  in  the  middle  of  the  wheels  in  which  ax- 
les fitted.  Then  splitting  a  tough  hickory  or  white  oak  pole 
three  or  four  feet  at  the  big  end,  spreading  these  split  pieces 
apart  about  fifteen  inches,  and  boring  two  holes  through  the 
front  axle  and  the  two  ends  of  the  tongue,  they  then  fitted  a 
piece  called  a  sand  board  over  the  ends  of  the  tongue  with 
holes  in  it  to  correspond  with  those  in  the  axle.  Having 
pinned  it  all  securely  together,  they  fastened  the  end  to  the 
front  end  of  the  wagon.  A  coupling  pole  was  fitted  into  the 
center  of  the  two  axles  and  pinned  there.  Heavy  bolsters 
were  put  on  over  the  axles  and  on  them  a  board  bed  was 
made.  Oxen  were  the  usual  teams  that  were  hitched  to 
these  crude  but  serviceable  wagons.  A  heavy  wooden  yoke 
went  on  the  oxen's  neck.  Two  hickory  bows  enclosed  the 
neck  and  up  through  the  top  of  the  yoke,  thus  fastening  the 
two  oxen  together.  There  was  a  hole  made  in  the  middle  of 
the  yoke  and  a  strong  hickory  withe  was  fastened  into  it 
if^ith  a  loop  for  the  end  of  the  tongue.  A  better  ring  was 
made  for  the  tongue  and  fastened  to  the  yoke  by  twisting 
into  a  strong  cord  a  heavy  rope  of  raw  hide.  The  tongue 
was  put  into  this  ring  and  a  pin  of  wood  put  through  the  end 
of  the  tongue  before  and  behind  the  ring;  the  oxen  were  thus 
enabled  to  haul  the  wagon.  These  wagons  were  very  service- 
able for  hauling  wood,  gathering  corn,  and  for  many  other 
purposes  on  the  farm.  They  were  very  musical  as  well,  for 
the   more  grease  one  put  on  the  wooden  axle  tojnake  it  run 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA.  321 

lighter,  the  more  it  would  squeak  and  squeal,  making  a  noise 
that  could  be  heard  a  mile. 

The  pitch  forks  for  all  purposes  on  the  farm  were  made 
of  wood.  A  young  forked  dog:wood  sapling  was  secured,  the 
bark  taken  off  and  the  two  forks  pointed  for  tines  and  this 
made  a  good  fork.  Some  fifty  years  ago  I  saw  an  old  four 
pronged  fork  that  was  made  in  a  circular  head  of  wood  with 
four  prongs  taken  from  the  antlers  of  an  elk,  that  was  useful 
for  many  purposes. 

Wooden  rakes  were  made  of  strong  seasoned  wood,  some 
of  them  being  made  by  fitting  the  head  piece  with  deer  horns 
and  they  made  very  useful  implements.  A  good  spade  was 
made  of  hickory,  fashioning  it  after  the  useful  form  of  a 
spade  and  if  properly  seasoned  and  kept  well  oiled  this  tool 
would  do  good  work  as  long  as  wanted. 

Sleds  were  made  in  many  ways  and  were  universally  used 
by  all  who  had  either  oxen  or  horse  teams. 

In  early  times  the  hickory  withe  and  deer  hides  were 
used  for  all  purposes  on  the  crude  farming  implements  as  is 
the  binder  twine  and  fencing  wire  of  this  period. 

The  pioneer  women  who  came  to  the  wilderness  of  Ind- 
iana had  very  few  utensils  the)*^  could  use  for  cooking.  The 
older  sections  they  had  emigrated  from  were  quite  distant 
from  their  new  homes  and  if  they  had  the  different  dishes 
and  vessels  to  bring  it  was  hard  work  to  bring  them  for  very 
few  of  them  came  in  wagons  or  carts  but  mostly  on  horse- 
back. There  were  many  who  walked  all  the  way  and  had 
only  such  things  as  they  could  carry.  In  fact,  at  the  begin- 
ning of  the  nineteenth  century  in  some  of  the  older  states, 
cooking  utensils  were  not  plentiful  and  they  were  very  high 
priced  and  hard  to  get.  The  reader  must  take  into  consider- 
ation that  this  country  was  just  beginning  to  gather  strength 
after  the  great  war  of  the  Revolution,  when  our  finances 
were  completely  wrecked.  There  was  almost  no  money  and 
the  continental  script  was  worthless.  Mrs.  Nancy  GuUick, 
related  to  me  that  when  she  was  a  grown  woman  in  the 
neighborhood  where  she  lived,  there  was  not  more  than  one 
vessel  for  cooking  in  any  home  and  that  was  nearly  always  a 


322  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 

skillet  and  a  lid.  Often  the  lid  was  broken  and  the  skillet 
nicked.  Many  of  those  who  had  cabins  did  not  have  any  sort 
of  vessel  to  cook  in  unless  it  was  an  earthen  pot  which  had 
been  made  by  the  owner  out  of  clay  and  burned  as  hard  as  it 
could  be.  Since  there  was  no  g^lazing^,  when  boiling  anything 
that  had  g:rease  in  it,  there  was  nearly  as  much  fat  on  the 
outside  as  there  was  inside.  So  much  came  through 
the  pores  that  after  the  first  fire  to  boil  the  pot,  there  was 
not  much  more  needed  for  the  fat  on  the  outside  was  con- 
stantly on  fire.  In  the  skillet,  all  the  meat  had  to  be  cooked 
on  the  hearth  before  a  blazing  fire,  the  cook  having  to  stoop 
hajf  bent  and  attend  to  the  meat.  The  bread  was  baked  in 
the  same  skillet,  if  not  on  a  Johnny-cake  board  that  was  made 
for  this  purpose  about  ten  inches  wide  and  fifteen  inches  long 
and  rounding  at  the  top  end.  The  corn  dough  was  made 
thick  and  put  on  the  board  which  was  placed  against  a  chunk 
of  wood  near  the  fire.  After  one  side  was  baked  to  a  nice 
brown,  it  was  turned  over  and  the  other  side  was  baked  in 
the  same  way.  This  was  called  a  Johnny-cake.  If  a  board 
was  not  at  hand,  a  hoe  without  its  handle  was  cleaned  and 
greased  with  bear's  oil.  Then  the  dough  was  put  on  the  hoe 
blade  the  same  as  on  the  board  and  baked — this  was  called  a 
hoe  cake.  When  they  had  neither  Johnny  cake  board  nor 
hoe,  a  place  was  cleaned  on  the  hearth  under  the  edge  of  the 
fire,  the  dough  wrapped  in  cabbage  leaves  or  fresh  corn 
shucks  and  laid  on  the  hot  hearth  and  covered  with  hot  emb- 
ers. This  was  called  an  ash  cake.  The  bread  from  any  of 
these  ways  of  cooking  was  good,  even  delicious. 

A  little  later  on  more  iron  vessels  were  brought  into  the 
country  and  the  dinner  pot  that  held  about  two  gollons  with 
a  lid  and  three  short  legs  and  an  ear  on  each  side  for  the 
hinged  hooks  to  fit  in,  came  into  use.  It  was  a  great  im- 
provement over  the  old  vessels  and  enabled  them  to  boil  the 
meat  instead  of  alwavs  having  to  fry  or  roast  it.  A  pole  was 
put  above  the  fire  from  jamb  to  jamb  and  a  hook  was  put  on 
it,  sometimes  several  of  them  of  different  lengths.  The 
hooks  which  were  fitted  in  the  ears  of  the  pot  were  hung  on 
these  hooks  holding  the  pot  over  the  fire.     In   this  pot  meat 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA.  323 

and  vegetables  could  be  well  cooked.  While  these  people  had 
only  a  very  primitive  .way  of  preparing  the  food,  they  cooked 
it  well  and  I  doubt  if  any  age  in  this  country's  history  ^will 
see  another  time  when  such  delicious  meats  were  served  or  a 
people  who  so  thoroughly  enjoyed  their  food.  The  country 
was  so  ubundantly  supplied  with  all  sorts  of  game  that  all 
could  have  a  bountiful  supply.  The  usual  dish  for  break- 
fast was  fried  turkey  breast  and  slices  of  venison;  for  dinner 
the  loin  of  a  fat  deer  cooked  with  potatoes;  for  supper  or  the 
evening  meal  usually  the  meats  were  roasted.  These  dishes 
of  food  served  with  Johnny  cake  seasoned  with  the  rich  gravy 
of  these  meats,  were  certainly  a  repast  which  would  satisfy 
the  most  exacting  epicure. 

I  can't  determine  the  date  when  stoves  came  into  general 
use  but  as  late  as  1820  there  were  but  few  stoves  in  use  and  I 
very  much  doubt  if  one  of  every  twenty  families  in  Indiana 
had  any  idea  of  how  to  cook  and  prepare  food  in  any  other  way 
than  I  have  described,  up  to  1835. 

Possibly  they  were  not  so  careful  in  appealing  to  the  eye 
then  as  now  but  I  am  sure  the  dishes  were  prepared  better 
than  they  are  now  and  tasted  just  as  well  and  I  think  better. 
There  were  no  sweets  nor  pastries  and  biscuits  were  a  luxury 
that  were  served  only  on  Sunday  mornings. 

THE    MILLING    INDUSTRY. 

After  the  first  few  years  of  the  early  settlement  of  this 
country,  there  has  been  some  kind  of  mill  that  ground  for 
toll.  In  1808  Judge  Isaac  Montgomery  built  a  horse  mill  on 
his  farm  about  one  mile  southwest  of  the  court  house  in 
.  Princeton,  Indiana.  In  1810  Jesse  Kimball,  the  grandfather 
of  the  Jesse  Kimball,  of  Princeton,  Indiana,  of  today,  built  a 
flutter  wheel  water  mill  on  Black  river  about  six  miles  south 
of  Owensville,  Indiana  and  ground  corn  for  himself  and  few 
neighbors  for  j^everal  years.  Mr.  Kimball  came  to  that  neigh- 
borhood in  1804  from  the  Red  Banks  now  Henderson,  Ken- 
tucky, and  took  the  burrs  with  him  from  Henderson  with  a 
horse  in  shafts  and  a  pole  through  the  stones  for  an  axle. 
One    of    the    stones   is    now,  1905,  in  the  possession  of   Mr. 


324  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 

Edwad  Knowles  who  is  over  eighty  years  old  and  lives  on 
part  or  the  old  Kimball  farm. 

The  Indians  were  very  numerous  when  Mr.  Kimball  first 
settled  there  but  he  g^ot  along:  with  them,  only  at  such  times 
as  he  was  unable  to  meet  their  demands  for  whiskey.  The 
Indians  finally  determined  to  kill  him  and  he  was  decoyed 
away  from  his  cabin  by  what  he  thought  was  the  call  of  a 
wild  turkey  but  which  proved  to  be  an  Indian  and  he  was  en- 
abled to  get  back  only  by  dodging  from  tree  to  tree  in  a  zig- 
zag manner.  However  they  watched  their  opportunity  and 
burned  his  cabin.  While  he  was  in  hiding  he  saw  them  hold 
a  pow-wow,  then  a  war  dance  around  his  little  home,  and 
finally  set  it  on  fire.  In  1813  he  built  a  horse  mill  that  was 
operated  up  to  1838. 

Major  David  Robb  in  1814  built  a  small  overshot  mill  on 
Robb's  Creek  near  where  the  town  of  Hazleton  now  stands. 
It  was  a  very  successful  undertaking  and  a  few  years  later 
he  built  a  much  larger  mill  on  the  same  site,  carrying  two 
burrs.  A  few  years  after  this  he  added  a  department  for 
making  lumber.     These  ventures  were  all  very  successful. 

In  1809  Robert  Falls  built  a  horse  mill  near  the  center  of 
what  is  now  Washington  township,  in  Gibson  county,  that 
did  good  work  and  was  well  patronized. 

In  1820,  Jacob  Bonty  built  a  little  mill  on  the  Smith's 
Fork  of  Pigeon  creek  in  Barton  township,  Gibson  Co.  This^ 
mill  was  operated  for  thirty  years  and  was  a  great  help  to 
the  surrounding  country. 

In  1824  Henry  Miley  built  a  horse  mill  near  Petersburg, 
Pike  county,  Indiana.  In  1830,  Jacob  Stuckey  built  a  grist 
and  saw  mill  at  Petersburg,  and  there  were  many  little  horse 
mills  built  in  the  settled  sections  of  the  state  from  1820  up  to 
1830,  but  they  were  of  only  local  importance. 

The  tub  mills  consisted  of  an  upright  post  with  a  row  of 
cogs  around  the  lower  end.  The  top  end  carried  the  top 
stone.  There  was  a  large  wheel  that  was  made  with  cogs  to 
fit  into  those  of  the  post.  Buckets  or  boxes  were  made  all 
around  the  outside  of  the  tub.  The  water  was  let  in  from  a 
wicket  in  the  dam  about  three  feet  below  the  water  level  of 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OP  INDIANA.  32S 

the  dam,  and  ran  against  the  buckets  on  the  outside  of  the 
tub,  thus  putting:  the  wheel  in  motion.  These  mills  were 
very  easily  made.  An  overshot  mill  was  made  with  a  per- 
pendicular shaft  that  carried  the  mill  stone  on  the  upper  end. 
There  was  a  larjf  e  horizontal  wheel  run  by  the  side  of  the  up- 
rigfht  shaft  that  had  slanting:  cog:s  that  fitted  into  those 
around  the  main  shaft.  The  water  ran  over  the  dam  and 
fell  on  the  buckets  and  boxes  made  on  the  outside  of  the 
wheel  thus  putting  it  in  motion  and  it  ran  the  upright  post 
at  a  good  rate  of  speed.  An  undershot  mill  was  made  the 
same  way,  only  the  water  was  run  against  the  drum  wheel 
from  below  the  water  level  and  turned  the  wheel  the  opposite 
way  from  the  overshot. 

A  flutter  mill  was  made  by  the  water  falling  against  the 
paddles  which  put  the  main  shaft  in  motion  by  cogs  the  same 
as  the  last  two  described.  Horse  mills  were  made  in  many- 
ways.  The  only  one  I  ever  saw  was  constructed  in  a  very 
simple  manner.  The  main  shaft  which  was  an  upright  post 
had  a  small  wooden  pully  on  it'about  six  feet  from  the  ground. 
The  post  that  was  turned  by  the  horse  had  a  large  wooden 
pulley  or  hoop  about  six  feet  from  the  ground.  A  band  or 
belt  of  a  raw  hide  was  put  around  both  of  the  posts  on  the 
pulleys.  The  horse  was  hitched  to  an  arm  which  was  fasten- 
ed into  the  post  with  the  large  pulley  and  as  he  went  around^ 
the  main  shaft  ran  v  ery  fast.  The  grinding  was  done  on  a 
floor  just  above  the  belt. 

Usually  the  miller  measured  the  grain  and  poured  it  into 
the  hopper,  then  with  the  toll  box  took  out  the  toll  for  grind- 
ing. At  water  mills  where  permission  to  build  was  granted 
under  territory  or  state  laws,  I  think  the  toll  was  one^sixth 
but  the  toll  at  horse  mills  and  afterwards  at  steam  mills  was 
fixed  by  the  owners,  about  one-fourth  usually.  There  were 
then  as  there  always  have  been  people  who  claimed  that  the 
miller  took  too  much  toll  and  most  of  those  who  owned  mills 
were  on  the  black  list  for  honesty. 

After  there  was  a  steam  mill  at  Princeton,  Ind.,  an  old 
fellow  living  near  there  had  to  have  milling  done.  He  was  so 
situated  that  he  could  not  go  so  he  prepared  his  corn  and  sent 


326  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 

his  boy  a  good  sized  lad  and  told  him  to  watch  the  miller,  for 
if  he  didn't  he  would  steal  all  his  corn.  When  the  lad  got  to 
the  mill  he  had  to  wait  a  good  while  foe  his  turn  to  come. 
During  that  time  he  never  lost  sight  of  his  sack.  Finally 
the  miller  poured  the  corn  into  the  hopper  and  laid  the  sack 
down.  The  boy  watched  him  and  as  soon  as  the  sack  was 
laid  down  he  snatched  it  up  and  ran  to  his  horse  and  home  as 
fast  as  he  could  go.  His  father  seeing  him  coming  in  such  a 
hurry  went  out  and  said — ^'Johnny,  where  is  your  meal  and 
why  are  3*ou  riding  so  fast?"  He  told  his  father — **The  old 
rascal  stole  every  grain  of  the  corn  and  aimed  to  keep  the 
sack  but  I  watched  him  and  as  soon  as  he  laid  it  down  I  got 
it  and  ran  home." 

The  doggerel  verses  below  are  something  like  I  used  to 
hear  when  I  was  a  mill  boy: 

The  miller  must  have  a  peri  of  hogs 

And  they  were  always  very  fat. 
It  was  uncertain,  says  the  song. 

Whose  corn  they  always  ate. 

The  miller  was  an  important  man, 
He'd  make  the  meal  that  fed  them  all 

If  you  objected  to  his  plan 

He'd  even  up  if  it  took  all  fall. 

His  toll  box  bottom  was  very  thin. 
They  always  heaping  measures  took 

You  couldn't  always  be  in  time 

And  if  you  were  you  hardly  dared  to  look. 

Some  time  after  this  there  were  three  mills  built  on  the 
Patoka  river,  one  at  Columbia  now  Patoka,  one  at  Kirksville, 
built  by  Mason  Kirk  and  one  at  Winslow,  built  by  John 
Hathaway.  These  mills  were  a  great  improvement  on  the 
ones  I  have  been  describing.  They  all  ground  wheat  as  well 
as  corn  but  they  ground  very  slowly  when  compared  with 
the  mills  of  this  date.  It  often  took  two  full  days  to  get 
one's  grinding  done  as  one  had  to  wait  one's  turn.     In  grind- 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA.  327 

ing  wheat  the  bran  and  flour  all  fell  into  the  chest  together 
and  they  had  an  arrangement  for  bolting  much  the  same 
as  is  now  used  for  screening  wheat  and  it  turned  in  the  same 
way.  The  machine  was  covered  with  bolting  cloth,  but  one 
had  to  bolt  one's  own  flour.  This  was  not  hard  work  but  it 
was  not  necessary  to  ask  a  person  who  had  been  turning  that 
bolting  machine  where  he  had  been  for  his  clothes  had  enough 
of  flour  on  them  to  make  a  pone  of  bread. 

THE   FLAX   INDUSTRY. 

The  flax  industry  was  very  important  to  the  early  set- 
tlers as  it  formed  the  chain  for  all  the  fabrics  woven  and 
often  the  chain  and  filling  until  later  on  when  cotton  was 
raised.  When  the  flax  harvest  was  ready  it  was  pulled  and 
tied  into  bundles.  These  bundles  were  taken  to  a  suitable 
place  and  spread  in  a  thin  swath  on  the  ground  and  left  theire 
until  the  sun  and  the  rain  made  the  wood  in  the  stem  brittle, 
then  it  was  taken  to  the  flax  brake  and  thoroughly  broken  on 
that  machine,  until  the  woody  parts  had  all  been  loosened 
and  most  of  it  had  fallen  through  the. brake.  It  was  then 
taken  to  the  scutching  board  and  with  the  aid  of  the  scutch- 
ing knife  was  thoroughly  swingled  and  cleaned  of  everything 
but  the  flax  fiber.  It  was  then  well  hatcheled  when  it  wa.s 
ready  for  the  distaff  and  to  be  spun  into  thread  on  the  little 
wheel. 

A  flax  brake  was  made  by  using  two  thick  blocks  of 
wood  about  eignteen  inches  long  with  two  posts  in  each  block, 
two  feet  and  a  half  long  for  legs,  then  four  bars  or  slats  six 
inches  wide  and  one  inch  thick  shaved  smooth  with  a  draw- 
ing knife.  These  slats  were  about  six  feet  long  and  fitted 
into  mortises  made  in  each  block  leaving  an  opening  between 
them  of  about  one  inch  and  a  quarter.  Then  another  frame 
was  made  the  same  way,  only  the  three  slates  that  were  in  it 
came  below  the  blocks  some  two  inches  and  fitted  in  the  open 
space  between  the  slats  of  the  first  set  made.  One  end  of 
this  was  fastened  to  the  under  machine  by  some  kind  of  a 
hinge  often  made  out  of  raw  hide.  The  front  end  had  a  hole 
made  in  the  middle  slat  that  was  made  wider  than  its  two 


328  PIONEER  HISTORY  OP  INDIANA. 

mates,  and  this  was  used  for  a  hand  hold  to  lift  the  top  brake 
by.  The  flax  was  put  on  top  of  the  lower  brake  and  was 
broken  by  the  upper  three  slats  and  the  work  was  well  done. 

To  work  with  a  flax  brake  was  hard  labor  but  it  was  fast 
work  only  requiring  a  little  time  to  break  all  the  flax  needed 
for  one  family. 

The  scutching  board  was  a  slab  about  four  feet  high 
driven  into  the  ground.  It  was  made  perfectly  smooth  with 
the  drawing  knife,  the  top  end  being  brought  into  a  thin 
edge.  In  taking  the  flax  from  the  brake  it  was  thrashed  over 
the  end  and  around  the  post  to  free  it  from  any  of  the  woody 
stems  left  and  finally  finished  with  a  scutching  or  swingling 
knife  made  of  hickory  about  eighteen  inches  long,  drawn  to 
an  edge  on  both  sides. 

The  hatchel  was  made  by  driving  long  spikes  of  steel 
through  holes  made  in  a  heavy  piece  of  plank  about  one  foot 
long  and  eight  inches  wide.  There  were  forty  or  fifty  of 
these  spikes  in  a  hatchel. 

The  distaff  was  fastened  into  an  arm  of  the  little  wheel 
that  went  from  the  wheel  bench  and  it  stood  about  two  feet 
away  from  the  head  of  the  wheel.  The  distaff  was  made  out  of 
a  small  dogwood  bush,  using  the  part  where  four  small  forks 
branch  out  from  the  main  stem,  which  is  the  usual  way  this 
bush  grows.  The  bush  was  cut  two  feet  below  the  fork  then 
all  the  prongs  were  cut  off  about  fifteen  inches  long.  The 
ends  were  then  gathered  to  the  middle  stem  and  securely  tied 
thus  making  a  frame  on  which  the  flax  was  wrapped,  ready 
for  the  spinning  to  commence. 

The  one  running  the  wheel  with  her  foot  on  the  treadle 
used  both  hands  to  size  the  flax  so  that  it  would  make  an 
even  thread.  The  machinery  of  this  little  wheel  ran  very 
fast.  I  have  spent  hours  when  I  was  a  little  boy  watching 
my  mother  (God  bless  her  memory)  with  both  her  hands  full 
of  flax,  making  it  even  for  the  spinning. 

The  next  machine  was  the  reel.  There  were  from  four 
to  eight  arms  or  spokes  to  this  machine  and  on  the  end  of 
each  spoke  there  was  a  small  head  something  like  a  crutch 
head  on  which  the  thread  was  wound.     The  arms  or  spokes 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA.  329 

were  fastened  into  a  small  hub  which  was  fastened  on  a 
spindle  on  the  side  of  the  upright  stock  of  the  reel.  Attach- 
ed to  the  spindle  was  a  counting  machine  that  counted  the 
number  of  revolutions  made.  When  it  had  turned  over  sa 
many  times  it  would  strike  and  every  time  it  struck,  it  had 
reeled  a  cut.  Four  of  these  cuts  made  a  hank  which  was 
taken  off  and  twisted  to  keep  it  from  becoming-  tangled  and 
put  away  for  the  winding  blades,  to  run  on  to  spools  for  the 
warping  bars  or  run  on  to  little  brooches  or  quills  to  be  placed 
in  the  shuttles  for  filling. 

The  pioneer  women  from  the  two  Carolinas  and  Tennes- 
see who  came  in  early  times  to  Indiana  brought  cotton  seed 
with  them  and  planted  them.  Cotton  would  not  bloom  as 
well  as  it  would  where  the  seasons  were  warmer  and  longer 
but  it  made  enough  to  aid  them  in  making  clothing.  It  was 
planted  as  early  as  it  was  safe  to  be  free  from  frost  and  ten- 
ded well.  It  made  a  splended  stalk  but  was  lacking  in  bloom 
consequently  not  many  bolls  or  pods  were  formed.  The  cot- 
ton was  gathered  and  when  dry  was  seeded  and  was  then 
ready  for  the  cards  to  be  made  into  rolls  and  spun  into  threads 
When  they  had  a  sufficient  quantity  of  cotton  thread  it  made 
the  chain  for  their  linsey  cloth. 

THE   LeOM    AND  WHIP   SAW. 

The  first  looms  in  use  in  this  counry  were  very  crude 
affairs.  For  the  foundation  of  the  loom  and  to  thoroughly 
brace  it,  two  smooth  poles  were  secured  about  six  inches 
through  at  the  top  an4  put  up  slanting,  usually  in  a  shed 
room  or  a  smoke  house  adjoining  the  cabin,  one  end  resting 
on  the  ground  about  eight  feet  from  the  wall,  the  other  end 
pinned  to  the  wall  about  seven  feet  up.  These  poles  were 
set  wide  apart  as  wanted,  usually  about  four  and  one-half 
feet.  There  were  two  other  timbers  placed  in  the  ground 
about  two  feet  from  the  lower  end  of  the  two  slanting  timb- 
ers and  pinned  to  them,  extending  up  as  high  as  wanted  for 
the  top  of  the  loom.  Two  split  pieces  about  two  by  six  inches 
were  pinned  to  these  poles  and  extending  back  to  the  two 
slanting  poles  were  pinned  to  them,  thus  forming  the  top  of 


330  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 

the  loom.  The  roller  for  the  g^ears  and  the  two  upright 
pieces  for  the  cloth  batten  were  fastened  to  the  top  pieces. 
The  thread  beam  was  fastened  to  the  two  pieces  of  timber 
that  extended  from  the  side  timbers  to  the  ground  and  the 
same  was  true  of  the  cloth  beam.  The  seat  and  the  break 
beam  were  fastened  to  the  two  front  upright  posts.  To  the 
lower  end  of  the  timbers  that  held  the  thread  beam  in  place,  a 
small  roller  was  attached  and  to  this  roller  the  treadles  were 
fastened.  This  made  a  very  strong  loom  and  it  required 
very  little  time  to  make  it.  It  was  a  very  simple  piece  of  ma- 
chinery yet  it  did  its  work  well  for  its  time  and  millions  of  yards 
of  cloth  were  woven  on  such  looms;  but  the  coming  of  the 
square  framed  loom  was  a  great  blessing  to  all  who  had  to 
depend  on  the  loom  for  clothing.  This  machine  is,  to  this 
day,  made  very  oearly  as  it  was  seventy-five  years  ago  and  as 
there  are  several  such  looms  in  every  neighborhood  I  shall 
not  attempt  to  describe  it. 

The  dyeing  of  the  chain  and  filling  was  a  part  of  the 
cloth  manufacturing  that  added  very  much  to  the  looks  of 
the  clothing.  In  those  early  times  all  the  coloring  was  done 
with  different  sorts  of  bark.  The  walnut  bark  and  the  hulls 
of  the  walnut  made  a  very  serviceable  brown,  often  very 
nearly  the  color  of  the  wool  from  a  black  sheep.  Maple  bark 
mixed  with  copperas  made  a  very  dark  color  almost  black. 
Later  the  proverbial  "old  blue  dye  pot  with  a  niche  in  the 
top"  came.  Indigo  and  madder  combined  made  a  very  pretty 
blue  that  would  hold  as  long  as  any  of  the  cloth  was  left. 
Still  later  logwood  and  many  other  kinds  of  dye  were  used, 
up  to  the  time  when  the  clothing  or  the  cloth  was  purchased 
from  stores.  These  old  days  with  the  stained  hands  of  our 
mothers  have  gone  never  to  return  and  there  will  never  be  a 
time  when  such  a  noble,  self-sacrificing  band  of  women  will 
live,  as  those  who  trained  the  generation  that  has  made  this 
country  the  Eden  of  the  world. 

When  the  whip  saw  was  introduced  and  put  to  work  it 
was  a  great  help  to  the  new  comer  in  securing  material  to 
finish  his  log  house  more  comfortably  and  in  supplying  lum- 
ber for  the  outbuildings.     Timber  of  all  kinds  was  of  the 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA.  ?.?.l 

best  and  the  yellow  poplar  the  one  used  most  was  very  easy 
to  saw. 

The  whip  saw  was  a  ven^  simple  device.  In  shape  and 
in  the  handles  it  was  much  the  same  as»the  common  cross  cut 
saw  of  today.  The  teeth  were  so  constructed  and  filed  that 
it  would  cut  the  timber  the  long:  way,  the  log:  being  placed 
on  a  scaffold.  To  keep  from  having:  the  scaffold  too  hig:h  a 
pit  was  dug:  two  or  three  feet  deep  for  the  under  sawyer  to 
stand  in,  the  top  sawyer  standing:  on  top  of  the  log:.  The  log: 
was  first  divided  into  slabs  the  thickness  wanted  for  the 
width  of  the  planks.  The  slabs  were  then  turned  on  their 
sides  and  after  the  first  one  was  taken  off,  a  g:aug:e  was  used  to 
g:overn  the  thickness  of  the  plank,  which  was  usually  an  inch 
and  a  quarter  thick  and  any  width  required  for  their  work. 
This  was  very  slow  work  but  as  no  one  ever  wanted  a  very 
large  amount  of  lumber,  two  men  could  soon  saw  from  the 
soft  timber. a  sufficient  amount  for  all  needs. 

The  top  sawyer  was  free  from  the  dust  and  he  had  to 
look  after  the  g:aug:e  used  to  make  the  plank  the  same  thick- 
ness all  along:.  The  under  sawyer  was  under  the  saw  and 
all  the  saw  dust  fell  on  him  and  aside  from  holding:  the  saw 
he  had  to  keep  his  eyes  and  nose  free  from  the  dust.  As  the 
country  was  settled  these  saws  were  in  g:reat  demand  and  a 
g:ood  saw  pit  scaffold  was  in  constant  use. 

The  whip  saw  was  broug:ht  into  use  when  Abraham 
Lincoln's  mother  died  in  1818,  to  rip  planks  from  a  black 
cherry  log:  to  make  her  coffin.  It  is  a  traditionally  recorded 
that  5'oung:  Lincoln,  then  a  lad  only  ten  years  old,  sat  on  the 
door  steps  of  their  humble  home,  watching:  his  father  make 
the  coffin  out  of  the  g:reen  lumber  to  bury  his  mother  in,  sad 
and  g:rievously  lamenting:  their  poor  and  helpless  condition 
to  have  to  bury  his  noble  mother  so  meanly.  In  after  years 
when  he  was  ^he  g:reatest  President  the  United  States  has 
ever  had,  he  said  to  a  friend  "All  I  am  or  ever  hope  to  be  I 
owe  to  my  ang:el  mother." 

SHOE-MAKING. 

It  was  a  long:  time  after  the  country  commenced  to  be 


332  PIONEER  HISTORY  OP  INDIANA. 

settled  before  there  was  any  attempt  to  make  any  other  kind 
of  shoes  than  moccasins  and  shoe  pacs.  This  soft  easy  foot 
covering:  was  the  best  suited  for  the  times  and  the  business  of 
those  living:  here.  After  a  while  they  had  leather  of  their 
own  tanning:  other  than  deer  and  wolf  hides. 

Nearly  every  man  was  an  expert  at  making:  moccasins  as 
the  only  thing:  to  do  was  to  have  a  pattern  of  the  rig:ht  size. 
There  were  only  two  seams  to  sew  up,  but  to  make  shoes  that 
would  have  the  rig:ht  shape  and  be  comfortable  was  another 
thing:.  But  as  in  every  thing:  else  they  had  the  will  and  of 
course  there  is  always  a  way.  They  cut  blocks  of  soft  tim- 
ber and  fashioned  a  last  the  size  they  wanted  for  the  feet, 
then  secured  a  maple  rail  and  cut  blocks  the  rig:ht  leng:th  for 
shoe  peg:s,  made  a  supply  of  patterns  and  went  to  work  at 
their  new  industry.  They  took  the  thick  part  of  the  cattle 
hides  that  they  had  tanned  and  cut  soles  and  heel  taps  out  of 
them.  Then  by  the  patterns  cut  the  uppers,  and  sewed  the 
back  quarters  and  vamp  tog:ether,  then  lasted  the  shoe  and 
peg:gfed  the  soles  and  heels  on. 

Mr.  David  Johnson  at  one  time  told  me  his  experience 
with  a  pair  of  these  newly  tanned  shoes  which  I  will  relate. 
He  said  that  with  the  help  of  a  man  who  had  done  some  cob- 
bling: before  he  came  to  this  section,  he  made  a  pair  of  shoes 
and  was  very  proud  of  them  as  he  felt  that  he  was  g:etting: 
away  from  the  savag:e  ag:e  of  the  country.  In  dry  weather 
the  shoes  were  all  rig:ht  and  very  comfortable.  Unfortunately 
he  went  on  a  hunt  that  took  him  some  distance  from  home 
where  he  intended  to  g:o  into  camp  expecting:  to  kill  a  lot  of 
g:ame.  Before  he  reached  the  place  he  wanted  to  locate  the 
camp,  a  heavy  rain  set  in  and  it  rained  all  that  day,  every- 
thing: becoming:  very  wet.  He  kept  on  for  several  miles  in 
the  rain  but  had  not  g:one  far  until  he  felt  his  feet  slipping: 
about  in  the  shoes  as  if  there  were  room  enoug:h  for  a  half 
dozen  feet  inside.  He  stood  it  as  long:  ^s  he  could  and  select- 
ing: a  place  to  make  a  temporary  camp,  made  a  fire  and  pulled 
off  his  enlarg:ed  shoes,  intending:  to  dry  them;  but  it  kept  up 
such  a  torrent  of  rain  that  he  could  keep  but  little  fire.  Next 
morning   he   determined   to   g:o  home   and  putting:  as  many 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OP  INDIANA.  333 

leaves  in  his  shoes  as  he  could,  walked  three  or  four  miles, 
when  he  found  he  could  go  no  farther;  so  he  stopped  and  re- 
solved to  cut  off  the  uppers  and  make  a  pair  of  moccasins. 
His  foot  he  said  looked  like  the  end  of  an  overturned  canoe. 
He  pulled  them  off,  cut  the  uppers  away  from  the  sole  and 
founli  that  the  uppers  of  one  shoe  would  make  a  pair  of  moc- 
casins with  some  to  spare.  Getting:  out  his  whang  leather 
he  made  the  string^sand  in  a  little  while  had  a  pair  of  mocca- 
sins made,  put  them  on,  and  taking  the  odd  shoe,  started. 

Being  tired  when  he  reached  home  he  made  a  pallet  of 
skins  and  lay  down  before  the  fire  as  all  hunters  did  when 
they  had  wet  feet.  (It  was  believed  that  the  heat  bath  that 
all  hunters  gave  their  feet  was  the  only  thing  that  kept  them 
from  becoming  hopelessly  crippled  with  rheumatism.)  After 
thoroughly  baking  his  feet  at  the  fire,  he  thought  he  would 
put  on  his  new  moccasins  and  dry  them  on  his  feet,  for  he 
knew  if  they  dried  without  something  to  hold  them  in  shape 
they  would  shrink  until  they  would  be  ruined.  He  was 
awakened  from  his  sleep  by  his  feet  cramping  as  if  in  a  vice 
and  had  to  cut  the  moccasins  off  of  his  feet. 

A  little  later  sole  leather  was  brought  from  New  Orleans 
and  Philadelphia  that  sold  for  a  very  high  price.  The  leather 
had  been  pressed  and  would  hold  its  shape  fairly  well.  The 
children  and  most  of  the  women  went  barefooted  as  long  as 
they  could,  usually  until  frost.  There  were  men  who  went 
around  from  house  to  house  making  shoes  and  many  a  half 
grown  boy,  as  well  as  others,  has  been  made  glad  by  his  com- 
ing. I  can  well  remember  when  I  have  set  for  hours  with  my 
new  wool  socks  on,  when  it  was  too  cold  to  be  out  of  doors, 
watching  the  old  shoemaker,  make  shoes  for  the  family. 
Commencing  with  the  eldest,  and  going  down  according  to 
the  age,  as  I  was  near  the  foot  of  the  line,  I  had  to  wait  for 
some  time  for  my  turn  to  come;  but  as  I  now  recall  those  days 
and  how  I  felt  on  getting  my  new  shoes,  I  think  that  nothing 
in  the  way  of  clothing  in  all  my  life  was  so  thoroughly  en- 
joyed as  were  the  new,  warm  shoes.  The  best  of  care  was 
taken  of  the  shoes  as  it  was  certain  that  one  pair  would  have 
to  lost  until  spring  came.     They  were  greased  with  coon  and 


334  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 

opossum  oil  to  make  them  soft  and  with  tallow  to  fill  the 
pores  to  keep  the  water  out.  In  the  early  thirties,  pot  metal 
boots,  as  they  were  called  because  of  their  being  so  hard, 
were  brought  on  by  the  merchants  and  sold  at  eight  and  ten 
dollars  a  pair.  One  day's  walking  in  a  pair  of  these  boots 
would  tire  any  man.  When  these  heav^',  clumsy  boots  are 
put  in  contrast  with  the  elegantly  shaped  and  made  boots  and 
shoes  of  this  day,  the  great  improvement  is  very  apparent. 
There  is  no  business  in  which  there  has  been  more  improve- 
ments during  the  last  seventy-five  3'ears  than  in  the  boot  and 
shoe  business. 

ROPE   WALK. 

The  first  generation  after  settling  in  this  country  de- 
pended on  the  skins  of  animals  and  hickory  withes  to  tie  and 
bind  with.  Later  on  there  was  plenty  of  flax  and  hemp  rais- 
ed and  when  long  ropes  or  twine  were  wanted  a  rope  walk 
had  to  be  constructed  which  was  very  easily  done  in  a  crude 
manner,  but  it  was  all  sufficient  for  making  any  sort  of  twine, 
cording,  and  strong  heavy  ropes.  A  level  piece  of  ground 
was  selected  about  two  hundred  feet  long.  A  heavy  slab  was 
put  in  the  ground  at  each  end  of  the  place  selected,  about 
five  feet  in  height  and  twelve  inches  broad.  A  two  inch 
auger  hole  was  made  in  the  center  of  each  slab  about  three 
feet  from  ihe  botiom.  Into  these  holes  were  put  pins  with  a 
shoulder  on  the  outside  end  and  a  key  to  hold  them  in  place 
on  the  inside.  To  this  pin  a  round  wheel  about  eight  inches 
broad  was  fastened  with  a  pin  for  a  handle  placed  in  a  hole 
made  for  the  purpose  on  the  ouisideedgeof  the  wheel.  Along 
the  walk  about  twenty  feet  apart,  smooth  posts  were  set  on 
each  side  about  four  feet  from  the  center  with  a  number  of 
pegs  driven  on  the  side  facing  the  walk.  Along  the  center 
of  the  walk  every  twenty-five  or  thirty-five  feet  a  slab  was 
driven  into  the  ground,  standing  about  three  feet  high  with 
a  notch  cut  in  the  top  end  and  made  perfectly  smooth. 

Whether  made  of  hemp  or  flax,  or  of  both,  as  was  often 
the  case,  the  bunch  of  tow  or  a  draw-out  end  of  it  was  fast- 
ened  to  the  pin  that   the  wheel  was  on   and  the  wheel  was 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA.  33S 

turned.  One  held  the  bunch  of  tow  under  his  arm,  using: 
both  hands  to  even  the  string  as  it  was  twisted,  and  as  he 
passed  the  low  post,  put  the  cord  in  the  notch  on  top  of  it, 
and  when  he  had  gone  the  length  of  the  walk  he  tied  the 
string  to  the  end  of  the  other  wheel  and  turned  it  until  the 
string  or  cord  was  twisted  as  hard  as  wanted.  Then  it  was 
taken  off  and  tied  to  a  peg  on  the  sidepost  at  each  end  of  the 
walk  and  lifted  onto  the  pegs  all  along  the  line  until  there 
was  enough  strings  to  make  a  strand  for  a  cord  or  rope,  us- 
ually from  three  to  five.  Then  all  the  strings  were  fastened 
to  the  ends  of  the  wheels  and  twisted  hard  and  tied  back  to 
the  side  stakes  until  three  or  five  strands  had  been  made. 
After  tliis  all  the  strands  were  tied  to  the  wheels  and  twisted 
as  hard  as  was  wanted.  The  small  cords  were  used  for  bed 
cords.  The)^  were  either  put  through  holes  made  in  the  end 
and  side  rail  of  the  bed  or  put  around  pegs  with  heads  driven 
into  the  rails  to  receive  the  cords.  In  making  large  ropes 
such  as  were  used  for  check  ropes  or  cables,  eight 
strings  were  used  for  a  strand  and  six  strands  for  a  rope. 
When  made,  this  was  strong  enough  to  hold  anN^thing  rea- 
sonable. When  first  made,  the  new  rope  was  inclined  to  un- 
twist, but  it  was  kept  in  a  coil  when  not  in  use  so  that  it 
would  hold  its  twist.  After  it  had  been  used  a  fe>v  times  and 
thoroughly  wet,  there  was  no  further  trouble  with  it. 

When  I  was  about  ten  years  old  I  helped  make  a  check 
rope  for  my  father  that  he  used  on  three  or  four  trips  for  a 
check  rope  and  cable  on  flatboats  loaded  with  produce,  pork, 
wheat,  corn  and  venison  hams  that  he  loaded  and  ran  from 
the  place  where  the  old  town  of  Dongola  stood  on  the  Patoka 
river,  to- New  Orleans.  We  made  the  rope  on  a  walk  that 
ran  about  two  hundred  feet  south  of  the  place  where  the  Mis- 
sionary Baptist  church  now  stands  in  Oakland  Cit)'.  We 
used  the  same  walk  for  many  years  after  that  to  make  all 
sorts  of  ropes  or  cords  needed  for  our  home  use,  mostly  for  bed 
cords.  One  evening  while  at  the  World's  Fair  in  St.  Louis, 
as  I  was  passing  through  the  Philippine  reservation  looking 
at  their  primitive  style  of  living  and  the  sort  of  tools  and  im- 
plements they  had  to  do  with,  I  was    very  forcibly  reminded 


336  PIONEER  HISTORY  OP  INDIANA. 

that  they  were  in  the  same  road  we  had  passed  over.  Many 
•of  their  implements,  tools  and  vessels  for  household  work 
were  about  what  were  in  use  in  this  country  a  hundred  years^ 
ago.  In  my  ramble  over  their  grounds  I  came  to  a  rope  walk. 
I  felt  at  home,  and  being  interested  at  once  in  giving  it  a 
<:areful  investigation,  I  found  that  it  was  the  same  in  every 
particular  as  the  one  I  had  worked  with  more  than  fifty 
years  ago.  I  then  came  to  the  conclusion  that  in  their  man- 
ner of  living  possibly  they  were  not  so  far  behind  our  people 
as  I  had  thought  them.  I  went  over  their  exhibition  pretty 
carefully  and  found  many  things  that  were  used  in  this  coun- 
try at  an  early  date.  One  of  them  was  a  truck  wagon  they 
used  with  the  water  buffalo,  but  it  was  a  very  crude  wagon, 
not  nearly  so  good  as  the  one  I  have  described  in  this  work. 
After  getting  home  I  looked  up  the  history  of  the  Philip- 
pine islands  and  found  that  for  several  hundred  years  they 
had  made  but  little  advance  in  any  way  except  where  they 
came  in  contact  with  the  white  race,  and  one  display  they 
made  I  was  forcibly  struck  with — their  display  of  sisal  twine. 
I  never  saw  anything  to  equal  it. 

BEE    HUNTING. 

Bee  hunting  was  a  very  important  part  of  the  hunter's 
business  and  generally  was  very  successfully  carried  on  and 
usually  quite  profitable.  A  bee  tree  marked  was  worth  one 
dollar  in  most  sections  of  this  country.  The  hunter  would 
catch  a  bee  and  keep  it  a  prisoner  for  a  while  and  then  it 
would  fly  away  and  nearly  every  time  it  flew  to  the  tree  it 
made  its  home  in.  Another  way  was  to  make  up  a  bee  bait 
^f  anything  sweet,  often  a  piece  of  honey  comb  with  sweeten- 
ed water  in  it.  They  then  made  a  little  trough  and  put  the 
bait  in  it  and  set  it  on  a  stump.  The  bees  would  find  it  in  a 
little  while  and  when  loaded  with  the  sweets  would  fly  away 
to  their  tree  which  was  some  times  a  considerable  distance 
away,  but  usually  not  more  than  two  or  three  hundred  yards. 
Still  another  way  was  to  find  a  tree  that  they  thought  was 
probably  a  bee  tree  and  then  get  in  a  position  to  view  every 
part  of  it  between  the  person  hunting  and  the  sun.     If  there 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA.  337 

were  bees  in  it,  the^'  could  be  seen  flying  to  and  from  the 
tree.  When  a  bee  tree  was  found,  the  next  thing  was  to  de- 
termine  whether  it  was  a  strong  colony  or  a  weak  one.  If  a 
strong  colony  the  tree  would  be  cut  as  soon  as  the  bee  food 
commenced  to  be  scarce.  If  it  was  thought  to  be  a  weak 
swarm  it  was  let  alone  another  year.  The  bee  hunter's  mark 
was  as  sacredly  respected  as  was  his  mark  on  hogs  or  cattle. 
The  honey  was  gathered  and  was  a  very  helpful  portion  of 
the  food.  All  that  was  over  their  needs  was.  sold  and  the 
same  was  true  of  the  bees  wax  after  the  honey  was  extracted. 

In  the  History  of  Gibson  county,  published  by  James  T. 
Tartt  &  Co.,  I  saw  a  statement  that  the  honey  bee  was  the 
fore-runner  of  civilization.  It  says — '*The  approach  of  the 
honey  bee  was  always  a  sad  harbinger  for  the  Indians  for 
they  knew  that  the  pale  face  was  not  far  behind."  I  think 
that  the  author  was  misinformed  of  the  facts  in  the  case  and 
instead  of  the  honey  bee  being  here  only  a  little  while  before 
the  white  man  came,  they  have  been  here  ever  since  the 
country  was  suitable  for  their  occupation,  perhaps  for  a  thous- 
and ages.  M.  Joliet,  an  agent  for  the  French  Colonial  Gov- 
ernment and  James  Marquette  a  missionary  and  explorer  in 
1670,  as  they  were  on  an  expedition  to  the  Mississippi  river 
and  up  and  down  that  and  other  rivers,  found  the  honey  bee 
in  many  localities  and  used  the  hone}^  for  food.  Again  in  a 
history  given  by  Hunter  DeMot  of  his  captivity  by  the  Indians 
and  his  life  among  them  in  1725,  he  says  that  the  many  years 
he  traveled  all  over  the  north  and  from  Pennsylvania  to  the 
Rocky  mountains,  the  wild  hone}^  bee  made  its  home  in  the 
hollow  of  the  trees  and  that  near  the  great  prairies  where 
such  an  abundance  of  flowers  were,  the  bees  filled  the  open- 
ings in  trees  on  the  border  of  the  creeks  and  rivers  in  such 
localities  with  most  delicious  honey  and  where  no  trees  were 
near  he  had  seen  the  honey  hanging  under  shelvmg  rocks  at 
cliffs  and  bluff  banks  along  the  rivers  and  creeks. 

About  1630  Miles  Standish  who  was  so  busy  hunting  In- 
dians that  he  had  no  time  to  court  the  beautiful  Priscilla,  had 
two  of  his  men  court  martialed  for  being  absent.  The  evid- 
ence showed  the)'  had  found  a  bee  tree  and  there  was  so  much 


338  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 

honey  in  it  they  were  making  a  trough  to  put  it  in. 

The  bear  was  the  greatest  lover  of  honey  and  would  risk 
his  life  for  it.  An  old  hunter  by  the  name  of  Caleb  Spear 
gives  his  experience  in  many  hunting  expiditions  which  are 
published  in  a  small  volume  in  the  colonial  days.  Spear  says 
that  one  evening  while  passing  near  a  little  lake  of  water 
he  saw  a  bear  jump  in  and  roll  over  and  over  several  times,  then 
wading  out  and  climbing  up  a  tree  for  about  thirty  feet  he  went 
tearing  away  with  his  claws  at  a  hole  in  a  large  limb,  every 
now  and  then  snorting  and  shaking  his  head.  There 
•  were  a  number  of  bees  flying  around  his  head,  and  in  a  little 
while  Mr.  Bear  let  all  holds  go,  fell  down  all  in  a  ball  and 
ran  to  the  water,  going  through  the  same  performance,  re- 
peating it  half  a  dozen  times  and  no  doubt  drowning  half  of 
the  bees  for  they  were  not  nearly  so  plentiful  flying  around 
his  head.  Finally  he  climbed  up  the  tree  and  remained  there 
until  he  had  made  a  hole  large  enough  to  put  his  paw  in 
when  he  scooped  out  the  honey  which  he  gulped  down  with 
great  satisfaction. 

Soon  after  my  father  was  married  he  had  a  pet  bear  that 
was  very  tame — so  much  so  that  he  could  handle  it.  He 
lived  at  that  time  on  his  farm  near  Francisco,  Indiana,  now 
owned  by  Capt.  C.  C.  Whiting.  There  were  great  quantities 
of  honey  in  all  the  woods  and  he  gathered  several  tubs  full 
of  it  preparatory  to  taking  it  to  Princeton  to  market  and  left 
the  tubs  in  a  lean-to  back  of  the  main  cabin.  One  Sunday 
they  went  to  visit  some  neighbors  and  were  gone  until  late  in 
the  day.  The  cabin  had  two  beds  in  it  with  nice  old  South 
Carolina  white  counterpanes  over  them.  The  bear  got  loose 
and  ate  all  the  honey  he  could  hold  and  then  wallowed  in  it* 
Later  he  got  into  the  cabin  and  proceeded  to  make  himself  at 
home  by  rolling  all  over  both  the  beds  and  when  the  family 
got  home  he  was  fast  asleep  in  the  middle  of  one  of  them. 

WITCHCRAFT   AND  WITCHES. 

To  the  educated  and  cultured  people  of  this  date  it 
sounds  strange  indeed  that  there  ever  was  a  period  in  this  or 
any  other   country's   history  when   such    foolish   fallacy  as 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA.  339 

witchcraft  was  believed  in,  but  such  was  the  fact.  Witch- 
craft and  witches  were  the  bane  of  the  lives  of  very  respect- 
able people. 

New  Engfland  had  overdone  the  witch  business  so  much 
in  an  early  day  that  those  believing  such  foolery  at  a  later 
period  were  content  to  silently  suffer  the  imaginary  wrongs 
from  those,  they  thought  were  witches  without  resorting  to 
drastic  measures  to  punish  them. 

In  fact,  the  conduct  of  the  Puritans  had  such  a  reaction 
on  themselves  for  brutally  murdering  innocent  men  and 
women  on  spectral  evidence,  that  ever  since  there  has  been 
such  an  odium  attached  to  believers  in  witchcraft  that  none 
were  willing  to  own  any  connection  with  it. 

The  early  settlers  in  Indiana  were  mostly  from  the  south 
and  but  few  of  them  ever  heard  of  Salem  and  the  witch 
trials.  Some  of  them  believed  in  witchcraft  in  a  mild  form* 
If  a  gun  did  not  shoot  well,  it  was  often  said  to  be  bewitched. 
If  the  butter  refused  to  gather,  some  said  a  witch  had  put  a 
spell  on  the  churn.  If  the  soap  wouldn't  thicken,  it  was  said 
that  some  old  witch  was  the  cause.  If  a  hen  failed  to  hatch 
well  or  a  cow  should  give  bloody  milk,  it  was  attributed  by 
some  to  witches.  This  belief  was  confined  to  a  very  few  in 
this  section. 

Early  in  the  thirties  a  band  of  nomads  named  Grififys  lo- 
cated in  eastern  Gibson  county,  about  one  and  one-half  miles 
northwest  of  Oakland  City.  They  built  floorless  huts  in  a  clus- 
ter around  a  large  spring  on  land  that  recently  belonged  to 
William  M.  Thompson.  There  were  thirty  or  forty  people 
in  the  colony,  all  of  whom  were  superstitious  and  believed  in 
witches  and  ghosts.  They  were  looked  upon  as  an  indolent, 
lazy  set,  but  had  one  feature  about  their  manner  of  living 
which  was  certainly  commendable;  they  had  several  very  Old 
people  with  them,  men  and  women,  whom  they  cared  for  and 
who  were  not  related  to  them  or  had  any  claim  on  them,  but 
had  been  gathered  into  this  colony  for  no  other  reason  than 
sympathy  for  their  helpless  and  forlorn  condition. 

At  one  time  Jonas  and  Casway  Griffy  came  to  see  my 
father  and  wanted  small  change  in   bits  and  quarters  for  a 


340  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 

silver  dollar.  One  of  them  wanted  to  know  if  silver  would 
melt  in  a  ladle  with  lead.  My  father  at  once  concluded  that 
the}'  wanted  to  make  counterfeit  coin  and  told  them  he  was 
surprised  to  think  the}*  would  undertake  such  business.  They 
were  much  alarmed  at  what  father  said  to  them  and  said  they 
had  no  thought  of  doing  wrong;  that  they  had  had  a  secret 
among  themselves  they  had  not  intended  to  tell,  but  would 
have  to  tell  him  in  order  to  clear  themselves  of  suspicion,  and 
enjoined  my  father  to  keep  it.  They  had  lived  for  some 
years  in  Martin  county,  this  state,  before  coming  to  this 
part,  and  they  had  so  much  trouble  there  that  they  moved 
awa}'^in  the  hope  that  their  trouble  would  cease.  But  for  the 
last  several  months  the  same  trouble  had  come  to  them  and 
they  were  planning  to  rid  themselves  of  the  evil.  They 
walited  the  small  coin  so  they  could  melt  it  in  lead  and  run  it 
into  bullets  for  the  purpose  of  disabling  witches  so  that  they 
would  let  them  alone.  They  said  there  was  an  old  woman 
who  lived  near  them  in  Martin  county*  who  was  a  terror  to  all 
the  country  round.  She  did  not  fear  anything,  would  ride 
without  a  bridle  and  saddle  the  wildest,  unbroken  horse  and 
would  fight  any  man.  She  had  nearly  killed  two  of  their 
neighbors  in  a  fight.  They  said  that  before  they  moved 
down  here  they  had  four  head  of  cows,  but  could  not  get  any 
milk  from  two  of  them  at  any  time — they  were  always  milked 
dry.  The  old  witch  did  not  hav.e  any  cows,  but  always  had 
plenty  of  milk  and  buttej.  *'We  tried,"  said  they,  *'many 
ways  to  find  out  how  the  cows  were  milked,  but  did  not  suc- 
ceed until  one  morning  one  of  our  women  went  up  to  the  old 
witch's  house  and  saw  her  doing  something  with  a  towel 
which  was  hanging  in  a  small  window.  While  the  witch's 
back  was  turned  she  determined  to  find  out  what  she  was  do- 
ing. She  first  stuck  a  pin  in  the  towel  and  named  it  for  one 
of  our  cows.  Then  she  took  hold  of  the  fringe  and  com- 
menced to  milk  it  as  if  she  were  milking  a  cow.  When  she 
had  finished  that  cow  she  put  another  pin  into  the  towel  and 
named  it  after  our  other  best  cow  and  proceeded  to  milk  her 
in  the  same  way.  At  night  she  would  assume  the  form  of  a 
black  cat  and  go  all  over  our  homes.     We  tried  many  times  to 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA.  341 

kill  the  cat,  but  could  not  do  it.  Finally  old  Mr.  McCo)%  one 
of  our  people,  saw  the  cat  go  into  his  room.  He  closed  the 
door  and  armed  himself  with  an  axe.  Opening  the  door  a 
little  waj's  to  let  the  cat  run  out,  which  it  did,  he  cut  ofif  one 
of  its  ears.  The  next  morning  one  of  our  women  went  over 
to  see  the  old  lad}"  and  fpund  her  in  bed  with  a  bandage  on 
her  head.  That  night  she  went  back  to  Mr.  McCoj^'s  cabin,, 
found  the  ear  and  it  grew  back  on  as  well  as  ever,  except  that 
it  was  cropped.  After  that  the  same  black  cat  was  seen  with 
one  ear  cropped.  We  brought  the  same  four  cows  when  we 
moved  down  here.  The  range  was  good  and  they  gave  an. 
abundance  of  milk.  About  two  months  ago  two  of  our  men. 
were  in  the  woods  hunting  and  saw  the  same  crop-eared  black 
cat.  Ever  since  that  evening  our  two  best  cows  have  given 
no  milk,  and  we  have  many  other  troubles  which  we  attribute 
to  the  same  cause." 

A  few  years  later  the  section  that  these  Griffys  occupied 
had  a  terrible  scourge  of  what  was  known  as  the  black 
tongue,  and  fifteen  or  twenty  of  the  colony  died  from  the 
dreadful  disease.  They  attributed  it  all  to  the  same  one- 
eared  black  cat,  and  as  soon  as  they  were  able  to  get  away^ 
they  moved  uj)  east  on  the  Patoka  river  and  none  of  them 
were  ever  seen  in  this  section  again.  I  have  been  unable  to 
learn  if  the  same  one-eared  black  cat  still  followed  them  upy 
inflicting  misfortune  upon  them. 


CHAPTER  XIV. 


AMUSEMENTS  AND  SPORTS  OF  THE  EARLY 

PIONEERS. 


There  was  nothing  in  the  rude  condition  in  which  the 
people  had  to  live  in  the  early  days  that  changed  their  na- 
tures. They  had  great  desire  to  engage  in  feats  of  strength 
or  skill  and  in  many  athletic  sports,  and  no  people  ever  en- 
joyed these  times  of  recreation  more  than  did  these  people. 

Many  of  the  games  used  by  the  early  settlers  were  bor- 
rowed or  copied  from  the  Indians.  Playing  or  rolling  the 
hoop  was  one  of  the  games  often  engaged  in.  They  made  a 
hoop  about  four  feet  in  diameter  out  of  a  young  hickory 
sapling  and  covered  it  all  over  with  raw  deer  hide,  making  it 
se  strong  that  there  was  no  danger  of  breaking  it.  There 
were  three  parallel  lines  made  about  one  hundred  yard^  long 
and  about  fifteen  feet  apart  on  a  level  piece  of  ground,  the 
middle  line  about  ten  yards  longer  than  the  others  at  each 
end.  On  the  outside  lines,  the  opposing  parties,  which  gen- 
erally consisted  of  from  ten  to  twenty  persons,  arranged 
themselves  from  ten  to  twelve  paces  apart,  each  individual 
fronting  his  opponent,  on  the  other  outside  line.  On  the  cen- 
tral line,  extending  a  few  paces  beyond  the  wings  of  the 
other  two  lines,  stood  two  persons  facing  each  other.  It  is 
their  part  of  the  play  to  alternately  roll  the  hoop  with  all 
their  strength  from  one  to  the  other.  The  object  of  triumph 
between  the  two  is  who  shall  catch  his  opponent's  hoop  the 
oftenest,  and  of  the  contending  parties  on  the  side  line, 
which  shall  throw  the  greatest  number  of  balls  through  the 
hoop  as  it  passes  rapidly  along  the  intervening  space.     Two 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA.  343 

judges  were  appointed,  with  powers  to  appoint  a  third  one,  to 
determine  which  side  was  victorious. 

Another  g^ame  that  was  often  played  was  called  **Bull 
Pen."  Eight  or  ten  persons  could  play  it.  Two  would 
choose  up  and  then  each  select  his  players.  The  ground  was 
laid  ofif  as  nearly  square  as  possible,  about  one  hundred  and 
twenty  feet  each  way.  The  basemen  stood  at  the  corners. 
If  five  corners  were  wanted,  at  one  side  an  extra  corner  was 
made  extending  the  line  to  a  half  angle,  making  room  for  the 
fifth  corner.  The  choice  as  to  who  should  have  the  corners 
was  first  decided  by  the  flip  of  a  chip,  wet  on  one  side  and 
dry  on  the  other.  The  thrower  would  call  out  "Wet"  or 
**Dry."  The  ball  was  usually  a  heavy  one,  made  over  a 
heavy  pebble  and  wrapped  with  yarn  and  covered  with  buck- 
rskin.  The  ball  was  in  the  hands  of  the  corner  man  and  was 
thrown  from  one  to  the  other  until  it  had  gone  around  and 
had  been  caught  by  each  corner;  then  it  was  said  to  be  hot  ^ 
and  could  be  thrown  at  any  of  the  other  sides  who  were  in- 
side of  the  pen  or  square.  When  the  ball  was  thrown,  the 
corner  men  had  to  run  to  the  right  and  change  places,  but  if 
the  ball  was  caught  or  found  and  thrown  between  a  corner 
man  and  the  base  he  was  running  for,  the  corner  men  went 
out  and  the  pen  men  went  to  the  corners.  There  was  really 
great  work  in  playing  this  game. 

Boys  would  run  as  deer  and  other  boys  after  them  as 
hounds.  Jumping  was  much  indulged  in,  stand  and  go — 
three  jumps  or  half  hamen,  a  hop,  a  skip  and  a  jump.  They 
climbed  trees  and  shot  with  a  bow  and  arrow.  In^this  they 
became  experts,  killing  quail,  squirrels  and  turkeys.  They 
would  practice  the  noise  made  by  birds  and  animals  in  their 
notes  of  call. 

When  a  boy,  the  author  could  imitate  a  squirrel  to  per- 
fection. Old  hunters  called  the  strutting  gobbler  up  to  them 
by  imitating  his  gobble  and  his  strutting,  blowing  noise. 
The  bleating  of  a  young  fawn  was  imitated  and  the  mother 
would  go  to  the  bleating.  The  same  with  wolves.  They 
would  make  the  night  hideous  with  their  everlasting  howl- 
ing, but  man  did  imitate  them  so  perfectly  that  they  would 


344  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA- 

howl  in  answer  and  finally  come  to  the  man  wolf. 

Dancing  was  the  principal  amusement  of  the  young-  peo- 
ple of  both  sexes.  They  were  not  of  the  fancy  figures  of 
these  modern  times,  but  were  of  the  simplest  figures,  three 
and  four-ljanded  reels  and  jigs.  In  most  neighborhoods  lived 
some  old  man  who  would  indulge  in  telling  dramatic  stories 
of  Jack  the  Giant  Killer.  In  telling  these  harmless  lies,  the 
narrator  would  spin  out  his  tale  to  quite  a  length,  embracing 
quite  a  range  of  incidents,  and  always  told  these  blood  and 
thunder  stories  of  their  hero,  Jack,  in  a  wa^'  to  bring  him  out 
the  great  victor.  He  often  told  tales  of  impossible  character, 
such  as  the  Arabian  Nights  are  full  of,  such  as  the  flying 
horse  with  a  peg  behind  his  ear  to  turn  when  he  was  desired 
to  alight  at  a  certain  place. 


CHAPTER  XV. 


INDIANA  DURING  THE  WAR  OF  1812. 


Reorganize  the  Ranger  Service — Pigeon  Roost  Massa- 
cre—Attack ON  Fort  Harrison — General  Hopkins^ 
Report  to  the  Gk>vERNOR  —  Expeditions  Against  the 
Indians — Delaware  Indians  Removed  to  Ohio — Gen- 
eral Gibson's  Message  to  House  of  Representatives 
IN    1813  —  Territorial  Gk)VERNMENT  Removed  from 

ViNCENNES  TO  CORYDON  —  MiSS  McMuRTRIE'S  STATE- 
MENT— Treaty  of  Friendship  and  Alliance  with  the 
Indians  —  General  John  Gibson  —  Gk)VERNOR  Thomas 
Posey  —  Logan,  the  Indian  Chief  —  Territory  Laid 
Off  Into  Five  Districts — Judicial  System  Improve! 
Charters  Granted  to  Banks — Rappites  at  Harmony- 
New  Harmony  Sold  to  Robert  Owen. 


After  the  battle  of  Tippecanoe  the  Indians  were  appar* 
cntly  submissive.  This  afforded  a  temporary  relief  from 
Indian  depredations  and  there  was  a  great  impetus  given  to 
emigration  into  Indiana  Territory  from  Kentucky  all  along^ 
the  southern  borders. 

During  December  of  1811  Governor  Harrison  received 
messages  from  different  tribes  of  the  Wabash  Indians,  ofifer- 
ing  to  renew  their  allegiance  to  the  United  States.  He  re« 
fused  at  that  time  to  have  a  meeting  with  them.  The  same 
month  the  Legislature  of  Indiana  Territory  adopted  a  me« 
morial  to  Congress  praying  that  body  to  authorize  the  people 
of  the  Indiana  Territory  to  form  a  state  constitution.     In 


346  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 

their  memorial  among:  other  things  they  declared  they  felt  it 
a  hardship  to  be  disfranchised  when  they  had  done  no  wrong* 
and  ended  their  appeal  by  saying:  *"It  is  principles  and  not 
men  or  measures  that  we  complain  of." 

The  Indians  were  too  much  under  the  influence  of  the 
British  at  Maiden  to  remain  for  any  length  of  time  submissive 
and  early  in  the  spring  of  1812  small  war  parties  were  on  the 
warpath  and  many  petty  annoyances  were  perpetrated  on  the 
exposed  settlements,  as  stealing  horses  and  shooting  dogs. 
Early  in  April  two  men  were  killed  near  the  mouth  of  the 
Wabash  river.  They  were  coming  to  Vincennes  in  a  large 
skifif.  In  the  same  month  Mr.  Hutson  and  wife  an,d  four 
children  were  killed  on  the  west  side  of  the  Wabash  thirty 
miles  north  of  Vincennes.  On  April  22,  Mr.  Harriman,  his 
wife  and  five  children  were  murdered  five  miles  from  Vin- 
cennes. These  depredations  caused  great  excitement  all 
along  the  borders  of  Indiana  Territory.  The  Territorial 
Militia  was  put  in  the  best  possible  condition  for  active  serv- 
ice. The  settlers  over  all  the  settled  portions  of  the  territory 
fitted  up  their  old  block-houses  and  erected  many  new  ones. 

The  Indians  who  had  for  four  years  before  this  been 
moving  away  from  the  lower  White  river  to  stations  farther 
north  were  now  returning,  and  in  such  numbers  as  to  be  very 
threatening  to  the  new  settlements.  Several  scouts  were  all 
the  time  on  the  watch  to  understand  the  intention  of  the  In- 
dians. Two  scouts  were  sent  to  the  southeastern  section  of 
the  territory  to  induce  the  people  to  erect  forts  and  block- 
houses on  the  frontiers  of  Wayne,  Franklin,  Dearborn,  Clark, 
and  Harrison  Counties.  In  this  way  most  of  the  exposed 
frontiers  were  put  in  a  fairly  good  condition  to  defend  them- 
selves. 

Friendly  Indians  of  the  Delaware  tribe  were  sent  among 
the  Indians  with  instructions  to  inform  them  that  Harrison 
•did  not  want  any  trouble  with  them,  that  he  was  for  peace 
and  that  there  was  plenty  of  room  for  the  whites  and  Indians, 
too,  in  this  big  country.  These  offers  of  friendship  caused 
ithe  Indians  to  hold  a  great  convention  at  an  Indian  town  on 
.the  Mississinawa  river.     There  were  deputations  from  the 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA.  347 

Wyandotts,  Chippewas,  Attawas,  Pottawattamies,  Dela- 
wares,  Miamis,  Weas,  Kickapoos,  Shawnees  and  Winne- 
bagoes.  Tecumseh  was  at  that  great  gathering:  of  Indians 
and  made  a  long  speech,  declaring  that  if  he  had  been  at 
home  there  would  have  been  no  trouble,  that  he  was  all  the 
time  in  favor  of  peace,  if  it  could  be  had  without  the  ruin  of 
the  Indians.  The  general  expression  of  that  meeting  was 
for  peace,  but  the  speeches  were  mostly  such  as  the  British 
Indian  traders  and  their  agents  put  in  the  mouths  of  the 
chiefs,  Tecumseh  became  very  much  angered  at  a  speech 
made  by  a  Delaware  chief,  who  said  things  which  reflected 
on  the  way  Tecumscfh  and  his  brother,  the  Prophet,  had 
acted  and  their  hypocritical  pretensions  of  friendship  to  the 
Americans.  Tecumseh  left  the  council  in  great  anger  and 
immediately  repaired  to  Maiden,  where  he  commenced  to 
gather  the  hostile  Indians  around  his  standard  in  the  interest 
of  the  British. 

Governor  Harrison  sent  his  orders  to  all  the  commanders 
of  detachments  of  Militia  to  use  all  fair  means  to  keep  peace 
with  the  Indians,  but  if  depredations  were  committed  in  their 
districts,  to  follow  the  Indians  and  fight  them  to  a  finish  if 
there  was  an  equal  chance  of  success. 

On  June  18,  1812,  Congress  declared  war  on  Great 
Britain.  There  was  no  apparent  trouble  immediately  in 
Indiana  Territory.  Harrison  and  the  people  of  the  Territory 
had  been  expecting  this  and  made  the  best  disposition  of  the 
means  at  their  command  to  be  prepared  for  any  trouble  that 
might  grow  out  of  open  hostilities  with  the  British,  by  the 
influence  they  had  with  the  Indians.  Soon  after  the  war  was 
declared  Governor  Harrison  visited  the  state  of  Kentucky  to 
consult  with  the  authorities  of  that  state  at>out  securing  help 
to  defend  the  exposed  frontier  of  Ihdiana  Territory. 

During,  the  year  of  1812  Gk>vernor  Harrison  was  so  busy 
looking  after  the  military  affairs  of  Indiana  Territory  that 
he  turned  the  general  management  of  the  civil  department 
and  the  local  military  affairs  over  to  General  John  Gibson 
with  the  authority  of  Acting  Governor.  At>out  the  first  of 
August,  the  Indians  becoming  very  troublesome,  it  was  re- 


348  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 

solved  to  organize  a  ranj^er  corps  on  a  similar  basis  to  the 
one  that  was  so  successful  in  preserving  peace  in  holding  the 
Indians  in  check  during  the  year  1807,  with  this  difference — 
the  rangers  of  1^07  were  foot  soldiers  and  the  corps  to  be  or- 
ganized now  were  to  be  mounted  in  order  to  cover  a  larger 
territory  in  a  given  time.  For  this  purpose  General  Gibson, 
wrote  a  letter  to  Captain  William  Hargrove. 


'*Vincennes,  Indiana  Territory, 

Sunday,  July  5,  1812. 

* 'Captain  Hargrove: 

Dear  Sir: 

'*This  letter  will  be  handed  you  by  interpreter 
John  Severns,  Jr.  The  times  are  so  full  of  threat- 
enings  that  it  is  thought  best  to  reorganize  a  ran- 
ger service  which  3'ou  proved  yoursel f  so  competent 
in  commanding  during  the  year  1807,  and  with  a 
view  to  that  end,  I  now  invite  3'ou  to  come  to  these 
headquarters  for  consultation.  I  would  suggest 
that  you  come  as  soon  as  convenient  for  you  to  do 
so.  The  Indians  are  much  better  than  the  British 
and  if  they  were  not  constantly  urged  to  take  up 
the  tomahawk  against  the  Americans  there  would 
be  no  trouble  in  keeping  peace  along  the  border; 
but  from  this  on,  as  long  as  the  war  continues, 
there  will  be  much  trouble  with  all  the  tribes  in  the 
northwest  and  along  the  Wabash. 

John  Gibson,  Acting  Governor 
Indian  Territory  in  absence  of  Governor  Harrison. 


*'Vincennes,  Indiana  Territory,  July  11,  1812. 

''It  is  hereby  ordered  that  on  and  from  this 
date,  William  Hargrove  shall  be  in  command  of  the 
rangers  in  Indiana  Territory  and  to  all  whom  it 
may  concern,  he  is  duly  authorized  to  so  act  with 
the  rank  of  Lieut.  Col.  commanding  the  rangers 
who  will  be  stationed  at  different  points  in  this 
Territory  and  will  be  so  obeyed  by  the  militia  and 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA.  J49 

all  other  troops  enlisted  for  the  defense  of  the  Ter- 
ritof}'. 

John  Gibson, 

Acting:  Governoi." 
Per  J.  T.  D.,  Clerk. 


Instructions  For  the  Guidance  of  Lieut.  Col. 
William  Hargrove  Commanding  Ran- 
gers IN  Indiana  Territory. 

1.  The  object  in  placing:  a  mounted  corps  of 
rangrers  on  duty  is  that  they  can  with  celerity  go 
over  the  various  routes  which  you  will  select  for 
them  to  operate  on. 

2.  You  will  accept  none  but  the  best  mounts 
for  the  men  as  speed  in  this  service  will  be  the  ob- 
ject to  gfain.  The  men  must  be  g^ood  horsemen  and 
if  possible,  men  who  have  had  practice  in  shootings 
from  horseback. 

3.  The  most  important  point  to  gfuard  will  be 
the  country  east  of  this  for  twenty  miles  up  to  sixty 
or  seventy  miles  east;  and,  that  you  may  be  able  to 
have  your  men  well  in  hand,  it  is  thougfhi  best  that 
you  have  a  permanent  stockade  station  between  the 
White  Oak  Spring's  blockhouse  and  the  Mudholes. 
At  this  station  you  will  keep  a  platoon  of  men  and 
four  sergeants  to  rank  as  first,  second,  third  and 
fourth  sergeants,  to  be  men  in  every  way  competent 
to  take  charge  of  a  squad  of  troops  in  any  emer- 
gency. The  next  station  will  be  at  a  point  about 
ten  miles  east  of  Blue  river  and  to  be  far  enough  to 
the  north  to  furnish  protection  to  the  few  settlers 
who  have  advanced  beyond  the  line  of  safet)'  in 
that  direction.  It  will  be  necessar)'  to  have  twent)' 
men  at  this  station,  with  three  sergeants  to  rank 
as  first,  second  and  third  sergeants.  • 

4.  The  sections  of  countrv  about  Robb's  Fort 
and  to  the  southwest  of  it  are  amply  able  to  take 
care  of  themselves  and  furnish  jou  all  the  men  that 
you  will  want.  It  is  thought  best  to  locate  a  post 
at  a  point  northwest  of  Kimble's  mill  on  the  foot- 
hills of  the  Wabash  river.  The  need  of  this  sta- 
tion is,  that  there  will  be  a  large  territor}'  east  and 


350  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 

west  of  the  Wabash  river  which  is  a  dense  wilder- 
ness and  a  large  body  of  Indians  could  concentrate 
there  and  successfully  raid  any  of  the  settlements 
in  that  section.  Twenty  men,  with  three  ser- 
geants, should  be  stationed  at  this  point. 

5.  It  is  thought  best  that  a  station  with  ten 
men  be  at  a  point  about  twenty-five  miles  north  of 
the  mouth  of  the  Wabash  river  and  on  the  foothills 
on  the  east  side  of  the  river,  to  be  established  un- 
der the  command  of  two  sergeants.  All  these  sta- 
tions should  have  a  strong  stockade  that  incloses 
all  the  ground  that  will  be  needed  for  the  horses 
when  inside  and  for  barracks  for  the  men.  A 
strong,  small  house  should  be  erected  to  hold  the 
rations  and  ammunition. 

7.  The  territory  around  all  the  stations  from 
whence  the  Indians  are  most  likely  to  come,  should 
be  closely  watched,  and  a  vidette  station  as  far 
front  as  it  is  practicable  to  place  it.  This  should 
be  done  every  day.  At  night  two  men  should  be 
selected  to  act  as  advance  sentinels.  These  men 
should  be  placed  at  points  where  they  can  see  the 
surrounding  country  with  as  little  exposure  to 
themselves  as  possible. 

8.  The  arms  should  be  of  the  best  that  can  be 
secured,  not  of  the  army  musket,  as  that  is  too 
heavy,  but  of  the  regular  hunting  rifle,  with  the 
caliber  of  a  size  that  would  make  forty  balls  to  the 
pound.  For  convenience  in  carrjnng,  if  the  barrels 
could  be  cut  down  lo  about  three  feet  and  a  half  in 
length,  it  would  be  better.  For  the  rest  of  the 
armament,  the  usual  hunting. outfit  will  be  all  suf- 
ficient. 

9.  The  stations  on' the  north  frontier  of  Har- 
rison County  should  patrol  the  section  in  their 
front  to  the  north  as  far  as  they  are  safe  to  go,  and 
to  the  northwest  and  northeast.  The  central  and 
southern  portion  of  Harrison  County  ca^n  take  care 
of  afty  raids  that  may  come  to  them.  They  have 
a  company  called  "Minute  Rangers,"  that  is  com- 
manded by  Captain  John  Tipton,  that  patrol  all  the 
country  as  far  south  as  the  Ohio  river  and  some 
miles  west  of  Blue  river  and  east  until  in  touch  with 
guards  from  Clark's  Grant  or  Jefferson ville. 

10.  If  you  think  best,  you  can  detail  one  man 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA.  351 

at  each  station  for  hunting  game.  In  that  way 
there  will  be  no  need  of  meat  rations  being  drawn 
from  the  Commissary  at  this  post. 

11.  You  will  have  a  platoon  of  not  less  than 
fifteen  men  with  you  at  the  place  which  you  shall 
choose  for  the  headquarters.  As  a  suggestion,  this 
headquarters  would  recommend  that  you  have  such 
a  station  at  or  near  the  White  Oak  Springs  Fort. 
From  there  it  will  be  easy  to  visit  any  of  the  sta- 
tions and  you  will  be  near  where  it  is  thought  the 
most  likely  place  for  the  Indians  to  attempt  to  ^ 
come  into  the  settlements  and  near  these  head- 
quarters. 

Done  at  Vincennes,  Indiana  Territory,  July  11^ 
1812. 

John  Gibson, 

Acting  Governor^ 
Per  J.  T.  D.,  Clerk. 


* 'Headquarters,  Indiana  Territory, 

Vincennes,  July  20,  1812. 

**CoL.  Wm.  Hargrove,  Commanding  the  Mounted 
Rangers  of  Indiana  Territ9ry: 

**This  will  be  handed  you  by  a  Piankashaw 
Indian  named  Minto.  Yesterday  (Sunday)  morn- 
ing a  French  boy  and  his  mother  were  out  to  the 
east  in  a  cart,  eight  or  nine  miles  from  this  post, 
when  they  were  met  by  eight  Indians  and  robbed  of 
their  horse  and  csfrt.  The  woman  thinks  they  were 
Shawnees.  She  says  that  she  was  on  the  old  Dela- 
ware trace  and  was  then  some  four  or  five  miles^ 
north  of  White  river.  There  was  a  cavalry  com- 
pany sent  out  from  here  to  try  to  intercept  them. 
The  reason  for  reporting  this  to  you  is  that  the 
eight  Indians  seen  may  be  only  a  small  band  of  a 
much  larger  one  that  may  be  hovering  on  the  fron-^ 
tier,  with  the  hope  that  they  may  find  an  oppor- 
tunity to  raid  some  of  the  settlements.  You  had 
better  send  some  of  your  men  to  several  olF  the  new 
settlements  on  the  border  and  notify  them  of  this^ 
and  inform  the  people  that  they  must  at  once  pre- 
pare to  go  into  the  fort  at  the  first  note  of  alarm. 

The  British  will  cause  the  Indians  to  do  all  the 


352  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 

harm  that  it  is  possible  for  them  to  do.  I  have  just 
had  an  interview  with  the  French  woman  who  was 
robbed.  I  asked  her  why  they  did  not  take  her 
and  her  boy  prisoners.  She  says  they  seemed  to 
want  to  be  friendly  and  only  wanted  the  loan  of  the 
cart  to  haul  several  deer  into  their  camp  and  in  less 
than  one-half  moon,  they  said,  they  would  bring:  it 
back  to  her  at  Vincennes.  This,  of  course,  was 
onl}'  a  pretense,  hoping:  that  she  would  report  to 
this  post  that  they  were  friendly  Indians. 

The  reports  from  different  points  of  the  Terri- 
tory indicate  that  the  Indians  are  concentrating:  at 
various  places  on  the  northern  frontier.  It  will  be 
best  to  keep  a  vig:ilant  lookout,  for  we  cannot  steer 
clear  of  trouble  if  the  war  continues,  and  it  is  much 
better  to  be  prepared  for  trouble,  if  it  is  a  little  in- 
convenient to  do  so,  than  to  wish  that  we  had  been, 
when  it  is  too  late. 

John  Gibson, 
Acting  Governor." 


* 'Vincennes,  Indian  Territory, 

July  29,  1812. 
**CoL.  Wm.  Hargrove, 

Commanding:  Mounted  Rang:ers: 

**For  about  ten  days  a  man  has  been  around 
this  post  claiming:  to  be  an  expert  eng:ineer  and 
that  he  has  built  many  forts  for  the  mounting:  of 
heavy  ordnances  in  the  states  east  of  the  Alle- 
g:hanies.  He  had  such  g:ood  papers  of  recommenda- 
tion that  he  was  permitted  to  go  where  he  pleased 
and  was  all  through  the  fort  and  barracks.  Last 
night  he  disappeared  and  took  with  him  a  very  fine 
saddle  horse  which  belonged  to  Col.  Luke  Decker, 
together  with  a  fine  saddle  and  a  pair  of  heavy  pis- 
tols in  the  holsters.  It  was  thought  he  went  to- 
ward the  Ohio  river  and  may  come  near  some  of 
30ur  stations.  You  had  better  inform  your  men  by 
a  courier.  There  is  no  doubt  that  he  is  a  British 
spy  and  it  is  very  desirable  to  capture  him.  A  de- 
scription of  him  given  by  those  with  whom  he  was 
is:  A  heavy  man,  five  feet  ten  in  height:  would 
weigh  about  one  hundred  and  eighty  pounds;  dark 
hair,  black  eyes,  and  he  wore  a  fine  velvet  vest  and 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA.  353 

a  dark  bltie  longf-tailed  coat  both  ornamented  with 
silver  buttons.  A  pair  of  fine  white  dressed  buck- 
skin knee  breeches  with  silver  buckles  at  his  knee; 
a  pair  of  fine  leather  shoes  with  silver  buckles;  a 
swiveled  hat,  made  out  of  beaver  skin.  Have  your 
men  keep  a  good  lookout  for  him. 

**I  will  here  again  inform  you  that  in  the  near 
future  there  is  danger  ahead  if  the  war  lasts  any 
length  of  time  This  lull  is  only  the  fore  runner  of 
certain  stirring  times.  Be  sure  that  everything  is 
in  readiness  for  what  may  come. 

John  Gibson, 
Acting  (Jovernor. 

**By  the  hand  of  a  friendly  Delaware  Indian. 
Return  him  in  two  days  with  anything  that  you 
wish  to  say.  J.   G." 

Vincennes,  Indiana  Territory, 

August  10,  1812. 
Col.  Wm.  Hargrove, 

Commanding  Mounted  Rangers. 
**The  new  men  can  be  mustered  in  and  the 
two  young  boys  will  be  returned  to  their  homes. 
Two  scouts  from  this  post  were  at  a  point  on 
West  White  river  thirty  miles  east  of  the  forks 
and  saw  two  old  Delaware  Indian  men  who  have  a 
lone  wigwam  at  that  place.  These  Indians  were 
friendly  and  "have  been  for  a  long  time.  They 
said  that  several  Pottawattamies  had  recently  been 
at  that  point  and  told  them — *Soon  we  will  go  to 
the  Ohio  river — get  heap  horses — maybe  get  scalps 
— the  British  drive  Americans  away  soon.' 

The  scouts  report  that  there  is  a'general  move- 
ment among  the  Indians,  a  sort  of  nervous  unrest 
that  forebodes  trouble  and  that  the  Indians  did  not 
seem  to  show  that  hearty  friendship  as  formerly. 
-One  friendly  Indian  was  with  the  scouts  pretend- 
ing to  be  a  hunter,  and  said  that  if  an  opportunity 
offered,  the  Indians  would  strike  our  people  soon. 

John  Gibson, 
Acting  Grovernor. 


t( 


»» 


During  the  month  of  August  there  was  a  great  deal  of 
activity  in  military  circles.     On  the  12th  of  the  month,  Gov- 


354  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA, 

ernor  Harrison  was  made  a  Major  General  by  Governor  Scott 
of  Kentucky,  with  authority  to  command  the  militia  of  that 
State  which  was  to  be  sent  to  assist  Indiana  Territory  for 
the  protection  of  her  iFrontiers.  Soon  afterward  two  thous- 
and Kentuckians  were  assembled  near  the  borders  of  the 
State  of  Ohio  and  with  the  militia  of  Indiana  and  Ohio, 
formed  an  army  of  three  thousand  four  hundred  men. 

They  marched  from  their  place  of  rendezvous  and  ar- 
rived at  Ft.  Wayne  in  Indiana  Territory  on  September  12th. 
The  approach  of  such  a  largfe  army  caused  the  hostile  Ind- 
ians to  retire  from  in  front  of  that  fort. 

On  the  15th  of  August,  1812,  General  Hull,  an  old  Rev- 
olutionary oflScer,  ingloriously  and  cowardly  surrendered  the 
post  of  Detroit  with  two  thousand  men  as  prisoners.  Thi& 
substantial  victory  by  the  British  was  a  great  aid  to  them  in 
allying  all  the  tribes  of  the  Indians  on  the  Wabash  and  the 
Northwest  Territory  to  their  standard  and  very  soon  after 
this  there  lyere  many  partisan  organizations  prepared  for  the 
purpose  of  preying  on  the  most  exposed  places  of  the  front- 
iers of  Indiana  and  Illinois  Territories  and  the  State  of  Ohio* 

THE   PIGEON    ROOST    MASSACRE. 

In  1809  there  was  a  settlement  made  by  a  few  families  at 
a  place  known  as  Pigeon  Roost  in  what  is?  now  Scott  county. 
These  families  were  from  four  to  five  miles  away  from  other 
settlers  who  had  located  in  that  section  some  years  before* 
They  bad  been  busy  cleaning  up  and  cultivating  the  rich 
land  for  more  than*  three  years,  without  taking  the  precau- 
;ion  to  build  a  fort  for  protection  against  the  Indians  who 
were  not  far  away  in  their  towns.  On  the  3d  of  September, 
1812,  while  Jeremiah  Payne  and  a  visitor  named  G^ffman 
were  out  in  the  woods  some  two  or  three  miles  from  the  set- 
tlement locating  bee  trees,  they  were  ambushed  and  killed  by 
a  party  of  Indians  which  afterward  was  learned  to  consist  of 
nine  Shawnees  and  four  Delawares.  The  Indians  moved  on 
to  the  settlement  and  in  less  than  two  hours  killed  one  man, 
five  women  and  sixteen  children.  Mrs.  Jane  Biggs  and  three 
Httlc  children  escaped   and   after   wandering    through    the 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA.  355 

woods^  nearly  all  nigfht,  reached  the  home  of  her  brother, 
Zebulum  Colling^s,  six  miles  awaj.  Iii  one  house  there  were 
William  Collingrs  (who  was  an  old  man),  and  Captain  John 
Norris,  and  two  small  children,  Lydia  and  John  Colling^s. 
The  two  men  made  a  brave  defense  and  held  the  Indians  in 
check  until  night  and  then  escaped  with  the  two  children, 
and  a  little  while  before  day  arrived  at  the  home  of  Zebulum 
Collinjrs.  • 

The  total  number  killed  in  this  massacre  was  twenty- 
four — the  two  who  were  bee  hunting^,  Henry  Collings  and  his 
wife,  Mrs.  Payne  and  eigfht  children,  Mrs.  John  Norris  and 
her  only  child,  and  Mrs.  Norris,  the  mother  of  John  Norris, 
and  Mrs.  Richard  Collingfs  and  seven  children.  These  vil- 
lainous murderers,  after  committing  this  awful  crime,  scalped 
their  victims,  took  all  the  goods  which  the}"  could  carry  »nd 
set  fire  to  the  houses.  They  then  hastily  returned  the  way 
they  had  come.  Captain  Devalt  with  his  company  of  rangers 
pursued  them  and  at  one  time  came  up  with  their  rear  guard, 
when  a  running  fight  took  place.  One  of  the  Captain's  men 
was  killed.  Still  the  pursuit  was  kept  up  through  the  woods 
but  the  Indians  were  not  overtaken  again.  The  Legislature 
recently  appropriated  two  thousand  dollars  ($2,000.00)  and 
the  State  has  erected  a  suitable  monument  to  the  unfortunate 
people  at  the  place  where  their  settlement  was. 

AN  ATTACK  ON  FORT  HARKISON. 

On  September  3.  1812,  two  men  were  killed  near  Fort 
Harrison  while  ihey  were  cutting  wild  hay.  On  the  night  of 
the  4th  of  September  a  large  body  of  Shawnees,  Pottawatta- 
mies,  Winnebagoes  and  Kickapoos  attacked  Fort  Harrison. 
At  the  outset  they  set  fire  to  a  blockhouse  which  was  near 
the  fort.  Captain  Zachary  Taylor,  who  afterward  was  the 
twelfth  President  of  the  United  States,  was  in  command  and 
determinedly  resisted  the  attack,  which  was  persistently  kept 
up  all  night,  at  which  time  the  Indians  withdrew. 

In  order  to  show  the  material  this  commander  was  made 
of,  his  report  to  Governor  Harrison  is  here  produced.  In  the 
official  account  of  this  action,  written  on  the  10th  of  Septem- 
ber, 1812,  Captain  Taylor  *iaid: 


356  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 

'* About  eleven  o'clock  I  was  awakened  by  the 
firing:  of  one  of  the  sentinels.  I  sprang:  up,  ran  out 
and  ordered  the  men  to  their  posts — when  my  or- 
derly sergfeant,  who  had  chargfe  of  the  upper 
blockhouse,  called  out  that  the  Indians  had  fired 
the  lower  blockhouse.  The  g:uns  had  begfun  to 
fire  pretty  smartly  from  both  sides.  I  directed  the 
buckets  to  be  prepared  and  water  brought  from 
the  well  and  the  fire  lo  be  extinguished  immedi- 
ately as  it  was  perceivable  at  that  time,  but  from 
debility  or  some  other  cause,  the  men  were  slow  in 
executing:  my  orders.  The  word  'Fire'  appeared  to 
throw  all  of  them  into  confusion,  and  by  the  time 
they  had  g:otten  the  water  and  broken  open  the 
door,  the  fire  had,  unfortunately,  communicated  to 
a  quantity  of  whisky,  and  in  spite  of  every  exertion 
we  could  make  use  of,  in  less  than  a  moment  it  as- 
cended to  the  roof  and  baffled  every  effort  we  could 
make  to  exting:uish  it.  As  that  blockhouse  joined 
pirt  of  the  barracks  that  make  part  of  the  fortifica- 
tions, most  of  the  men  immediatelj'  g:ave  them- 
selves up  for  lost,  and  I  had  the  g:reatest  difficulty 
in  g:etting  my  orders  executed.  And,  Sir,  what 
from  the  raging  of  the  fire — the  yelling  and  howl- 
ing of  the  several  hundred  Indians — the  cries  of 
nine  women  and  children  (a  part  soldiers'  and  part 
citizens'  wives  w.ho  had  taken  shelter  in  the  fort), 
and  the  despondency  of  so  many  men,  which  was 
worse  than  all — I  can  assure  you  ray  feelings  were 
unpleasant;  and,  indeed,  there  were  not  more  than 
ten  or  fifteen  men  able  to  do  a  good  deal,  the 
others  being  sick  or  convalescent;  and  to  add  to  our 
other  misfortunes,  two  of  the  strongest  men  in  the 
fort,  that  I  had  every  confidence  in,  jumped  the 
pickets  and  left  us.  My  presence  of  mind,  how- 
ever, did  not  forsake  me.  I  saw  that  by  throwing 
off  a  part  of  the  roof  that  joined  the  blockhouse 
that  was  on  fire  and  keeping  this  end  perfectly 
wet,  the  whole  row  of  buildings  might  be  saved 
and  leave  only  an  entrance  of  eighteen  or  twenty 
feet  for  the  Indians  after  the  house  was  consumed, 
and  that  a  temporary  breastwork  might  be  erected 
to  prevent  their  even  entering  there.  I  convinced 
the  men  that  this  might  be  accomplished  and  it  in- 
spired them  with  new  life,  and  never  did  men  work 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA.  357 

with  more  firmness  or  desperation.  Those  who 
.  were  able  (while  the  others  kept  up  a  constant  fire 
from  the  other  blockhouse  and  the  two  bastions'^ 
mounted  the  roofs  of  the  houses,  with  Dr.  Clark  at 
their  head  (who  acted  with  the  gfreatest  firmness 
and  presence  of  mind  the  whole  time  the  attack 
lasted,  which  was  about  seven  hours),  under  a 
shower  of  bullets,  and  in  less  than  a  moment 
threw  oflf  as  much  of  the  roof  as  was  necessary. 
Although  the  barracks  were  several  times  in  a 
blaze  and  an  immense  quantity  of  fire  against 
them,  the  men  used  such  exertions  that  they  kept 
it  under  and  before  day  raised  a  temporary 
breastwork  as  high  as  a  man's  head,  although  the 
Indians  continued  to  pour  in  a  heavy  fire  of  ball 
and  an  immense  quantity  of  arrows  during  the  en- 
tire time  that  the  attack  lasted.  After  keeping  up 
a  constant  fire  until  about  six  o'clock  the  next 
morning,  which  we  began  to  return  with  some  ef- 
fect after  daylight,  they  removed  out  of  reach  of 
our  guns.  A  party  of  them  drove  up  the  horses 
that  belonged  to  the  citizens,  and  as  they  coald  not 
catch  them  very  readily,  shot  all  of  them  in  our 
sight,  as  well  as  a  number  of  their  hogs.  They 
drove  oflf  all  of  the  cattle,  which  amounted  to 
sixty-five  head,  as  well  as  the  public  oxen." 

The  sight  that  met  the  soldiers  of  this  garrison  when 
aroused  from  their  slumbers  to  find  the  roaring  flames  of  fire 
devouring  a  part  of  their  blockhouse,  was  enough  to  try  the 
nerves  of  the  bravest.  The  men,  with  very  few  exceptions^ 
after  being  infused  with  the  heroism  of  their  commander^ 
fought  like  heroes.  Two  big  burly  fellows,  however,  let 
their  heels  get  the  better  of  their  honor,  jumped  over  the 
fence  and  attempted  to  break  through  the  Indian  lines  and 
get  away.  One  was  killed  and  the  other  was  glad  to  get 
back  to  the  fort,  where  he  lay  on  the  outside  of  the  walU 
screened  by  some  logs  until  daylight,  when  the  Indians  with- 
drew and  he  was  admitted  into  the  fort,  without  having  a 
very  high  appreciation  of  the  famous  lines,  '*He  who  fights 
and  runs  away,  will  live  to  fight  another  day. 

When  the  authorities  at  Vincennes  were  informed  of  the 


3S8  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 

attack  on  Fort  Harrison,  Colonel  Russel,  with  ten  hundred 
men,  was  dispatched  to  that  i>oint  for  the  purpose  of  chastis- 
ing: the  Indians  and  relieving  the  fort.  The  troops  arrived 
at  that  point  on  the  6th  of  September,  but  found  the  Indians 
had  retired.  A  small  detachment  commanded  by  Lieut. 
Richardson,  acting^  as  an  escort  for  provisions  sent  to  Fort 
Harrison,  was  attacked  by  a  large  party  of  Indians  at  a  point 
within  the  boundary  of  Sullivan  county.  Seven  of  the  men 
were  killed  and  the  balance,  with  the  provisions,  fell  into  the 
hands  of  the  Indians.  ' 

Colonel  Wilcox,  with  the  command  of  Kentucky  volun- 
teers, remained  at  Fort  Harrison;  Colonel  Russel,  with  the 
two  regiments  of  Indiana  Militia,  returned  to  Vincennes. 

There  was  a  noted  Shawnee  chief  named  Captain  Logan, 
acting  as  a  scout,  who  was  with  Harrison  during  his  march 
for  the  relief  of  Fort  Wayne.  Some  time  after  the  relief  of 
this  fort  he  and  two  warriors  of  his  tribe  were  on  a  recon- 
noisance  about  thirty  miles  north  of  Ft.  Wayne,  when  they 
had  a  skirmish  with  a  like  party  of  the  enemy,  consisting  of 
several  hostile  Indians  and  two  or  three  white  men  in  the 
British  service.  During  the  skirmish  one  of  the  white  men 
was  killed  and  Winnamac,  a  Pottawattamie  chief,  was  killed 
by  Logan,  who.  being  mortally  wounded,  retreated  and  got 
back  to  the  camp  of  General  Winchester,  where  shortly  after- 
ward he  died  and  was  buried  with  military  honors. 

During  the  occupancy  of  Ft.  Wayne  by  Harrison's  army 
the  Indian  village  and  their  cornfields  were  destroyed  for 
many  miles  in  every  direction.  In  the  latter  part  of  Septem- 
ber General  Harrison  turned  over  the  command  at  Ft.  Wayne 
to  Brigadier-General  James  Winchester.  On  the  24th  of  the 
same  month  Harrison  received  a  dispatch  from  the  Secretary 
of  War  with  orders  assigning  him  to  the  command  of  the 
Northwest  Army,  with  a  command  estimated  at  about  ten 
thousand  men,  with  Instructions  to  recapture  Detroit,  invade 
the  Canadas  and  destroy  the  British  army  in  that  quartet^- 
all  of  which  he  thoroughly  accomplished. 

As  the  seat  of  war  was  removed  out  of  Indiana  Territory, 
Harrison  and  his  command  will  be  left  for  the  general  history 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA.  359 

of  the  United  States  to  tell  of  the  heroism  of  that  ^reat  gren- 
«eral  and  the  valor  of  his  brave  and  determined  men. 


4»i 


**Vincennes,  Indiana  Territory, 

Augrust  20,  1812. 
C01.ONEL  Wm.  Hargrove, 

Commanding  Mounted  Rangers: 
General  Harrison  has  been  commissioned 
Major  General  by  the  Governor  of  Kentucky  and 
placed*'  in  command  of  the  militia  of  that  state, 
who  are  ordered  to  report  to  him  in  this  territory. 
There  will  soon  be  a  largre  number  of  troops  cross- 
ing: the  Ohio  river  into  this  Territory.  This  ap- 
parent security  will  not  in  the  least  changre  your 
duties.  The  men  under  your  command  will  still 
keep  up  the  same  vigfilance.  The  militia  of  this 
Territory  will  in  a  g^reat  measure  leave  for  the 
north.  Then  our  force  of  able  bodied  men  will  be 
much  reduced  and  it  will  be  necessary  to  carefully 
watch  every  point  of  our  frontier. 

John  Gibson, 
Acting:  Governor." 


*Vincennes,  Indiana  Territory, 

Augrust  28,  1812. 
"^'Colonel  Wm.  Hargrove, 

Commanding  Mounted  Rang^ers  of  Indiana 
Territory: 
''General  Hull  ing^loriously  and  cowardly  sur- 
rendered Detroit  and  two  thousand  troops  to  the 
British  on  the  15th  inst.  It  is  feared  that  this  suc- 
cess on  the  part  of  the  Britir^h  will  cause  the  Ind- 
ians who  have  been  apparently  friendly  to  go  to 
their  standard.  There  is  no  doubt  of  the  ultimate 
outcome  of  this  war,  but  there  seems  to  be  much 
incompetency  in  hig^h  places. 

John  Gibson, 
Acting:  Governor." 

**Vincennes,  Indiana  Territory, 

September  8,  '12. 
Colonel  Hargrove, 

Commanding:  the  Mounted  Rangier  Service: 
"On   last   Thursday,  the  3d  inst.,  there  were 


360  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 

twenty-four  people  killed  at  a  point  north  of  Louis^ 
ville,  some  thirty  or  forty  miles.  The  Indians  who* 
committed  this  murder  came  from  the  north  be- 
yond White  river.  These  fool-hardy  people  had 
moved  away  from  all  others  and  made  no  attempt 
at  preparing:  a  place  for  defense. 

"You  will  go  over  your  territory  and  at  each 
post  ascertain  if  there  are  people  who  are  out  be- 
yond the  line  that  you  are  protecting:.  If  you 
should  find  such  to  be  the  case,  then  order  them  to 
prepare  a  fort  and  see  that  they  do  it,  where  there 
are  as  many  as  three  families.  If  you  should  find 
less  than  three  families  at  any  isolated  point,  have 
them  and  their  effects  moved  to  a  place  where  they 
can  be  protected  and  where  the  men  of  these  fam- 
ilies can  help  protect  others.  See  that  this  order 
is  carried  out  in  the  earliest  possible  time. 

John  Gibson, 
Acting:  Governor- 
Per  J.  T.  D." 


*  Vincennes,  Indiana  Territory, 

September  12,  1812. 
*'CoL.  Hargrove,  Commanding:  Rang:ers: 

*'The  brave  defense  made  by  Captain  Taylor 
at  Ft.  Harrison  is  one  bright  ray  amid  the  gloom 
of  incompetency  which  has  been  shown  in  so  many 
places. 

*'Your  force  east  of  Blue  river  was  not  expect- 
ed to  do  anything  toward  guarding  the  country  for 
several  miles  this  side  of  the  frontier  where  the 
twenty-four  foolish  people  were  murdered.  The 
militia  of  Clark  county  are  supposed  to  be  on  duty 
in  that  direction  and  were  not  to  blame.  The  ven-^ 
turesome  people  who  are  in  all  sections  of  the 
country  cause  their  own  destruction  and  keep  the 
country  in  a  great  turmoil.  The  orders  in  regard 
to  people  moving  beyond  the  line  of  protection 
from  this  date  shall  be  obeyed  and  the  venturesome 
people  who  are  continually  wanting  to  go  too  near 
the  front,  shall  go  into  forts  in  touch  with  our 
guards  or  brought  back  inside  of  the  line. 

**There  is  great  need  of  vigilant  watch  being 
kept.     The  Indian  will  attempt  in  many  ways  to 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA.  361 

wreak  veng^eance  on  the  white  people. 

John  Gibson, 
Acting  as  Governor." 
Per  J.  T.  D." 


During  the  last  part  of  1812  there  was  so  much  uncer-^ 
tainty  in  all  parts  of  Indiana  Territory  and  so  many  men 
who  were  members  of  the  Legislature  who  were  on  military 
duty,  that  when  the  time  for  the  regular  Legislature  came- 
around  it  was  thought  best  to  postpone  it. 

After  it  became  evident  that  the  Indians  were  concen*^ 
trating  at  different  points  in  Illinois  and  Indiana  Territories^ 
so  as  to  be  in  position  to  send  out  various  raids  to  all  the  dis- 
tricts which  were  "the  most  exposed  on  the  borders  of  these 
two  Territories,  the  Governor  of  Kentucky  became  alarmed^ 
After  the  determined  attack  made  upon  Ft.  Harrison  and 
numerous  raids  made  by  the  Indians  along  the  line  and  the 
murder  of  so  many  citizens  north  of  Louisville,  he  determined 
to  strongly  reinforce  the  militia  of  these  two  territories.  Is- 
suing a  call  for  volunteers  for  that  purpose,  there  were  so. 
many  responded  that  he  could  not  accept  half  of  them.. 
At)out  the  middle  of  September  General  Samuel  Hopkins,  a 
man  of  noted  distinction,  was  placed  in  command  of  two. 
thousand  Kentuckians  and  marched  with  them  to  Vincennes^ 
Indiana.  Refitting  his  corps  with  the  proper  supplies  and 
ammunition,  along  about  the  fourth  of  October  he  was  ready 
to  march.  In  a  conference  between  the  military  commanders 
and  Governor  Gibson,  of  Indiana  Territory,  and  Gov*^ 
ernor  Eidwards,  of  Illinois  Territory,  it  was  decided  that 
so  many  of  the  Wabash  and  Northwest  Indians  had 
moved  and  settled  in  that  section  around  the  Illinois  river 
and  at)out  where  Peoria,  Illinois,  is  now  located,  placing  them 
in  a  position  to  raid  any  of  the  settlements  along  the  borders, 
of  the  the  two  territories,  that  Hopkins'  corps  should  be  sent 
against  them.  The  first  objective  point  would  be  the  villages 
of  the  Kickapoo  Indians  beyond  and  to  the  northwest  of  Ft^ 
Harrison.  Hopkins  got  away  with  his  army  and  crossed  the- 
Wabash  at  Fort  Harrison.     After  marching  some  days   and 


3h2  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 

-coming'  near  to  the  objective  {>oint,  owingf  to  the  loose  man- 
ner in  which  the  rules  of  discipline  were  enforced,  thete 
arose  grreat  disscntion  amon^  the  men  and  officers,  several  of 
whom  possibly  felt  that  they  had  not  bee^n  consulted  concern- 
ing matters  about  which  they  thougfht  themselves  competent 
to  give  advice,  and  others  claiming  that  they  were  not  ex- 
pected to  march  so  far  into  the  interior  when  they  enlisted. 
After  getting  probably  within  one  da)'*s  march  of  the  Peoria 
Indians  there  seemed  to  be  a  spirit  of  mutiny  among  all  the 
men  which  was  led  on  by  one  very  officious  major.  The  army 
followed  their  trail  back,  recrossed  the  Wabash,  General  Hop- 
kins following  in  the  rear  with  a  picked  corps  to  protect  the 
army  from  being:  assailed  by  any  Indians  who  migfht  be  fol- 
lowing on  their  trail.  This  mutinous  army  was  discharged 
and  sent  to  their  homes.  The  conduct  of  the  men  and  a  por- 
tion of  the  officers  was  deeply  deplored  by  General  Hopkins, 
who  was  a  brave,  gallant  and  generous-hearted  man,  worthy 
the  confidence  of  this  nation. 

Soon  after  this  General  Hopkins  asked  permission  to  or- 
ganize another  corps  which  was  g'ranted  and  three  regiments 
of  Infantry  were  organized  under  the  commands  of  Colonels 
Barbour,  Miller  and  Wilcox,  and  a  company  of  Regulars 
under  the  command  of  Zachary  Taylor.  With  this  command 
there  were  several  companies  of  the  militia  infantry  rangers 
of  Indiana  Territory. 

The  army  rendezvoused  at  Vincennes  and  in  the  early 
part  of  November  marched  to  Ft.  Harrison  and  from  there  up 
to  the  regfion  round  the  Tippecanoe  river,  where  they  de- 
stroyed a  largfe  amount  of  Indian  stores  and  a  number  of  their 
towns.  In  defense  of  this  otd  veteran  hero.  General  Hop- 
kins, it  is  thoug^ht  best  to  let  him  tell  to  the  Governor  of  his 
state  in  his  own  way  the  doings  of  the  corps  under  his  com- 
mand: 

'*On  the  11th  of  Noveml)€r  the  army  marched  from 
Ft.  Harrison  on  the  road  formerly  made  by  Governor  Har- 
rison*s  army  and  the  boats  set  out  at  the  same  time.  The 
lengfth  of  time  the  enemy  had  expected  us  made  it  necessary 
to  gfuard  ourselves  in   a  special   manner.      The  rise  of  the 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA.  363 


% 


waters  from  the  heavy  rain  preceding^  our  march  and  some 
largre  creeks,  left  us  no  doubt  of  considerable  difficulty  and 
embarrassment  in  so  much  that  not  until  the  14th  did  we  pass 
Sugar  Creek,  three  miles  above  the  road.  From  every  infor- 
mation I  had  no  hesitation  in  moving:  on  the  east  side  of  the 
Wabash.  The  Vermilion  Pine  Creek  and  other  impediments 
on  the  west  side,  superadded  to  the  presumption  that  we  were 
expected  and  migfht  more  easily  be  annoyed  and  ambuscaded 
on  that  route,  determined  me  in  this  measure.  The  boats, 
too,  with  provisions  of  rations,  forage  and  military  stores, 
could  be  easily  covered  and  protected,  as  the  line  of  march 
could  be  invariably  nearer  the  river.  Lieutenant  Colonel 
Barbour,  with  one  battalion  of  his  regiment,  had  command  of 
the  seven  boats  and  encamped  with  us  on  the  bank  of  the 
river  almost  every  night.  This  so  protracted  our  march  that 
we  did  not  reach  the  Prophet's  town  until  the  19th. 

'*On  the  morning  of  this  day  I  detached  three  hundred 
men  tp  surprise  the  Winnebago  town  lying  on  Ponce  Passu 
(Ponce  peau  pichou)  Creek,  one  mile  from  t4ie  Wabash  and 
four  below  the  town  of  the  Prophet.  This  party,  commanded 
by  General  Butler,  surrounded  the  place  about  break  of  day, 
but  found  it  evacuated.  There  were,  in  the  main  town,  about 
forty  houses,  many  of  them  from  thirty  to  fifty  feet  in  length, 
besides  many  temporary  huts  in  the  surrounding  prairie,  in 
which  they  had  cultivated  a  good  deal  of  com. 

"On  the  20th,  21st  and  22d  we  were  embarked  in  the 
-complete  destruction  of  the  Prophet's  town,  which  had  about 
forty  cabins  and  huts,  and  the  large  Kickapoo  village  adjoin- 
ing, below  it  on  the  west  side  of  the  river,  consisting  of  about 
one  hundred  and  sixty  cabins  and  huts—finding  and  destroy- 
ing their  corn,  reconnoitering  the  circumjacent  country  and 
constructing  works  for  the  defense  of  our  boats  and  army. 
Seven  miles  east  of  us,  on  the  Ponce  Passu  creek,  a  party  of 
Indians  w-ere  discovered.  They  had  fired  on  a  party  of  ours 
on  the  21st  and  killed  a  man  by  the  name  of  Dunne,  a  gallant 
^dier  in  Captain  Duval's  company.  On  the  22d  upwards  of 
sixty  horsemen,  under  the  command  of  Lieutenant  Colonels 
Miller  and  Wilcoju  anxious  to  bury  their  comrade,  as  well  as 


364  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 

g^ain  a  more  complete  knowledg^e  of  their  g^round,  went  to  a 
point  near  the  Indian  encampment,  fell  into  an  ambuscade 
and  eighteen  of  our  party  were  killed,  wounded  and  missing. 
On  the  return  of  this  party  and  the  information  of  a  large 
assembly  of  the  enemy,  who,  encouraged  by  the  strength  of 
their  camp,  appeared  to  be  waiting  for  us,  every  preparation 
was  made  to  march  early  and  to  engage  the  enemy  at  every 
risk,  when  from  the  most  violent  storm  and  fall  of  snow,  at- 
tended with  the  coldest  weather  I  ever  saw  or  felt  at  this  sea- 
son of  the  year  and  which  did  not  subside  until  the  evening 
of  the  23rd,  we  were  delayed  until  the  24th.  Upon  arriving 
on  the  ground,  we  found  the  enemy  had  deserted  their  camp 
before  the  fall  of  the  snow  and  passed  the  Ponce  Passu.  I 
have  no  doubl  but  their  ground  was  the  strongest  I  have  ever 
seen.  The  deep-rapid  creek  spoken  of  was  in  their  rear,  run- 
ning in  a  semi-circle  and  fronted  by  a  bluff  one  hundred  feet 
high,  almost  perpendicular,  and  only  to  be  penetrated  by 
three  steep  ravines.  If  the  enemy  would  not  defend  them- 
selves here,  it  was  evident  they  did  not  intend  to  fight  at  all. 

''After  reconnoitering  sufficiently,  we  returned  to  camp- 
and  found  the  ice  so  accumulated  as  to  alarm  us  for  the  re- 
turn of  the  boats.  I  had  fully  intended  to  spend  one  more 
week  in  endeavoring  to  find  the  Indian  camp,  but  the  shoe- 
less, shirtless  state  of  the  troops  now  clad  in  the  remnants  of 
their  summer  dress — a  river  full  of  ice — the  hills  covered  with 
snow — a  rigid  climate  and  no  certain  point  to  which  we  could 
further  direct  our  operations — under  the  influence  and  advice 
of  every  staff  and  field  officer,  orders  were  given  and  meas- 
ures pursued  for  our  return  on  the  25th. 

'*We  are  now  progressing  to  Ft.  Harrison  through  ice 
and  snow,  where  we  expect  to  arrive  on  the  last  day  of  this 
month.  Before  I  close  this  I  cannot  forbear  expressing  the 
merits  of  the  officers  and  soldiers  of  this  command.  After 
leaving  Ft.  Harrison,  all  unfit  for  duty,  we  had  in  privates  of 
every  corps,  about  one  thousand — in  the  total,  twelve 
hundred  and  fifty  or  thereabout.  At  the  Prophet's  town  up- 
wards of  one  hundred  there  were  on  the  sick  report,  yet,  sir, 
have  we  progressed  in  such  order  as  to  menace  our  enemy.. 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA.  36^ 

free  from  annoyance;  seven  large  keel  boats  have  been  con- 
voyed and  protected  to  a  point  heretofore  unknown  to  Indian 
expeditions;  three  larg^e  Indian  establishments  have  been 
burned  and  destroyed,  with  nearly  three  miles  of  fence  (and 
all  the  corn,  etc.,  we  could  find),  besides  many  smaller  ones. 
The  enemy  have  been  sought  in  their  strongholds  and  every  op- 
portunity afforded  them  to  attack  or  alarm  us;  a  march  on  the 
•east  side  of  the  Wabash  without  road  or  cognizance  of  the 
country,  fully  one  hundred  miles  perfected,  and  this  has  been 
done  with  a  naked  army  of  infantry,  aided  with  only  fifty 
rangers  and  spies.  All  this  was  done  in  twenty  days — no 
sigh,  no  murmur,  or  complaint. 

"I  certainly  feel  particular  obligations  to  my  friends, 
General  Butler  and  Colonel  Taylor,  for  their  effectual  and 
ready  aid  in  their  line;  as  also  to  Captain  Z.  Taylor,  of  the 
Seventh  United  States  Infantry.  Messrs.  Gist  and  Richen- 
son,  my  aide-de-camps,  and  Major  J.  C.  Breckinridge,  my  sec- 
retary, for  prompt  and  effectual  support  in  every  instance. 
The  firm  and  almost  unparalleled  defense  of  Ft.  Harrison  by 
Captain  Z.  Taylor  has  raised  for  him  a  fabric  of  character  not 
to  be  effaced  by  my  eulogy.  To  Colonel  Barbour  for  his 
of5cer-like  management  in  conducting  and  commanding  the 
boats,  my  thanks  are  due.  As  also  to  Colonels  Miller  and 
Wilcox;  and  to  Majors  Hughes  and  Shacklett,  and  to  the 
Captains  and  subalterns  of  the  army  in  general.  From 
Lieutenants  Richenson,  Hawkins  and  Sullivan,  of  the  U.  S. 
troops,  I  have  to  acknowledge  my  obligations  for  their  steady 
and  uniform  conduct,  as  well  as  Captain  Beckes,  of  the 
rangers.  Captain  Washburn  of  the  spies,  and  the  staff  gen- 
erally." 

When  the  army  on  its  return  trip  had  arrived  at  Vin- 
cennes.  General  Hopkins  announced  in  a  general  order  his 
determ  ination  to  retire  from  military  life. 


From  the  northern  borders  of  Indiana  Territory  many 
ludians  had  returned  to  the  former  sites  of  their  old  towns  in 
the  central  part  of  the  Territory  and    rebuilt   them.      The 


366  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 

Miamis  occupied  many  stations  alon^^  the  Mississinewa  river 
and  were  concentratipc:  a  large  force  at  these  towns.  Gen- 
eral Harrison  ordered  Lieutenant  Colonel  John  B.  Campbell 
of  the  Nineteenth  U.  S.  Rej^imcnt  to  organize  a  corps  of 
mounted  troops  for  the  purpose  of  breaking  up  these  stations 
along  the  Mississinewa  river.  A  regiment  of  Kentucky 
Dragoons,  commanded  by  Colonel  Simerall,  and  a  detachment 
of  U.  S.  Dragoons,  commanded  by  Major  Ball,  and  a  few 
other  detachments  of  regular  and  volunteer  troops  —  in  all 
something  over  six  hundred  troops.  With  the  command  was 
a  company  of  spies  and  several  guides  who  had  been  impris- 
oned with  the  Indians  for  a  long,  time  when  stationed  in  the 
section  that  the  army  intended  to  march  through. 

This  detachment  started  on  the  expedition  along  the  lat- 
ter part  of  November.  The  weather  becoming  very  cold, 
they  were  very  much  retarded  in  their  march.  They  carried, 
individually,  a  full  ration  for  twelve  days  and  on  their  horses, 
strapped  behind  their  saddle,  a  bushel  of  corn.  It  was  not 
until  the  17th  of  December  that  they  arrived  at  a  town  on  the 
Mississinewa  river,  inhabited  by  the  Indians.  The  ground 
being  covered  with  snow  and  ver>^  cold,  the  Indians  were  in 
their  wigwams.  The  troops  entered  the  town  from  several 
points  and  killed  several  warriors  and  captured  between  fort)' 
and  fifty  prisoners,  most  of  them  women  and  children.  Then 
they  went  to  some  other  villages  farther  down  the  river,  but 
found  them  all  evacuated.  The  weather  was  so  extremely 
cold  that  it  was  thought  best  by  the  council  of  officers  assem- 
bled for  the  expedition  to  return,  but  while  the  officers  were 
in  council  the  camp  was  attacked  by  a  large  body  of  Indians. 
The  attack  was  made  upon  the  left  flank  of  the  camp,  but  in 
a  very  ^hort  time  became  general.  The  enemy  advanced 
very  close  to  the  line,  and  seemed  determined  to  come  into 
the  camp.  The  soldiers  along  that  line  were  brave  men, 
many  of  them  old  Indian  fighters,  and  they  met  this  o;irush 
of  the  Indians  with  a  leaden  hail  that  checked  them,  when 
they  rushed  to  find  places  of  concealment,  from  which  posi- 
tion they  kept  up  a  furious  fire  on   the  American  troops  for 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA.  367 

more  than  one  hour,  when  the  Indians  gave  way  and  retired 
from  the  field. 

Of  the  Americans,  eight  were  killed  outright  and  several 
died  that  day  of  their  wounds.  In  all  there  were  about  fifty- 
five  soldiers  hit.  They  lost  something  more  than  one  hun- 
dred horses.  The  Indians  left  on  the  field  fifteen  dead.  It 
was  not  known  how  many  they  carried  off  the  field  dead  or 
mortally  wounded,  but  probably  as  many  as  they  left.  There 
was  no  way  of  ascertaining  the  number  of  others  wounded 
who  were  able  to  get  away. 

After  the  battle  was  over  and  the  dead  were  buried,  it 
was  decided  to  commence  immediately  their  return  trip.  They 
were  compelled  to  move  very  slowly  owing  to  a  number  of 
severely  wounded  men,  whom. they  had  to  carry  with  them» 
Colonel  Campbell  sent  an  express  to  Greenville  notifying  the 
authorities  there  of  their  condition,'  and  a  detachment  of 
ninety  men,  commanded  by  Major  Adams,  started  to  meet 
them  with  supplies  and  conveyances  for  the  wounded. 

At  a  large  town  in  what  is  now  Delaware  county,  Indiana, 
the  Delaware  Indians  were  in  considerable  force,  and  at  vari- 
ous other  towns  up  and  down  that  river  and  its  tributaries.. 
These  Indians  were  regarded  as  friendly  to  the  United  States 
and  were  urged  to  move  away  from  the  routes  of  the  hostile 
Indians  into  the  state  of  Ohio  at  a  reservation  assigned  for 
them  on  the  Auglaize  river.  This  arrangement  was  carried 
out  and  the  friendly  Delawares  placed  themselves  under  the 
protection  of  the  United  States  Government. 

During  the  times  of  these  expeditions  against  the  Indians 
and  the  many  battles  with  them,  Governor  Gibson  and  the 
few  troops  of  his  command  were  busy  trying  to  influence  the 
people  who  had  settled  in  the  Territory  to  prepare  suitable 
places  in  each  settlement  where  the  people  could,  rally  in  case 
of  danger  and  defend  themselves. 

On  the  I8th  of  December,  1812,  General  Gibson,  acting 
Governor,  issued  a  proclamation  in  which  he  required  the 
Legislature  to  meet  on  the  first  day  of  February,  1813.  In  a 
message  which  he  delivered  to  the  House  of  Representatives 
in  1813,  the  acting  Governor  said:     **The  Governor  of  the 


368  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA.     ' 

Territory,  having  been  for  some  time  absent  from  us,  the 
gfubernatorial  functions  consequently  devolving:  upon  him 
have  been  exercised  by  me.  In  my  discharge  of  this  import- 
ant trust,  I  have  been  actuated  by  none  other  than  a  wish  to 
preserve  public  rights  and  protect  private  property.  If  I 
have,  at  any  time,  failed  in  my  official  duties,  or  erred  in  my 
plans  you  must  attribute  it  to  the  head  and  not  to  the  heart. 
My  address  to  you,  gentlemen,  shall  be  laconic,  for  I  am  not  an 
*orator  nor  accustomed  to  set  speeches  and  did  I  possess  the 
abilities  of  Cicero  or  Demosthenes,  I  could  not  portray  in  more 
glowing  colors  our  foreign  and  domestic  political  situation  than 
it  is  already  experienced  within  our  own  breasts.  The  United 
'States  has  lately  been  compelled  by  frequent  acts  of  injustice 
to  declare  war  against  England.  I  say  compelled,  for  I  am 
•convinced  from  the  pacific  and  agricultural  disposition  of  her 
•citizens  that  it  must  be  a  case  of  the  last  necessity  which 
would  induce  such  a  measure.  For  the  detailed  causes  of  the 
\7ar,  I  beg  leave  to  refer  you,  gentlemen,  to  the  message  of 
his  excellency,  the  President,  to  Congress  at  the  commence- 
ment of  the  present  session.  It  is  highly  worthy  of  the  ser- 
ious perusal  of  the  sage  and  patriot.  It  does  honor  to  the 
liead  and  heart  of  Mr.  Madison.  Although  I  am  not  an  ad- 
mirer of  wars  in  general,  yet,  as  we  are  now  engaged  in  a 
necessary  and  justifiable  one,  I  can  exultingly  say  that  I  am 
happy  to  see,  in  my  advanced  days,  our  little  but  inimitable 
navy  riding  triumphant  on  the  seas;  but  chagrined  to  find 
that  our  armies  by  land  are  so  little  successful.  The  spirit 
«of  76  appears  to  have  fled  from  our  continent,  or  if  not  fled, 
is  at  least  asleep  for  it  appears  not  to  pervade  our  armies 
generally^  On  the  contrary,  lassitude,  and  too  often  schisms 
— hav€  crept  in  and  usurped  the  place  of  patriotic  ardor. 

*^At  your  last  assemblage,  gentlemen,  our  political  hor- 
izon seemed  clear;  our  infant  Territory  bid  fair  for  a  rapid 
and  rising  grandeur;  our  population  was  highly  flattering; 
•our  citize«is  were  becoming  prosperous  and  happy,  and  secur- 
ity dwelt  everywhere,  even  on  our  frontiers.  Alas!  the 
scene  has  <:hainged  and  whether  this  change,  as  it  respects 
our  Terri4s0»y  i^as  been  owing  to  over  anxiety  in  us  to  attend 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA.  369 

our  dominions  or  to  a  wish  for  a  retaliation  by  our  foes  or  to 
a  foreigrn  influence,  I  shall  not  pretend  to  decide,  but  that 
there  is  a  change,  and  that,  too,  a  distressing:  one,  is  evident. 
For  the  aborigines,  our  former  neighbors  and  friends,  have 
become  our  most  inveterate  foes.  They  have  drawn  the 
scalping  knife  and  raised  the  tomahawk  and  shouts  of  savage 
fury  are  heard  at  our  thresholds.  Our  former  frontiers  are 
now  our  wilds  and  our  inner  settlements  have  become  fron- 
tiers. Some  of  our  best  citizens  and  old  men  worn  down  with 
age  and  helpless  women  and  innocent  babes,  have  fallen  vic- 
tims to  savage  cruelty.  Our  citizens,  even  in  our  towns,  have 
frequent  alarms  and  constant  apprehensions  as  to  their 
preservation.  I  have  not  been  inattentive  to  my  duty,  gen- 
tlemen, but  have  hitherto  and  shall  continue  to  exert  every 
nerve  to  afford  our  citizens  all  possible  protection,  and  it. is 
hoped  that  the  all-wise  and  powerful  Creator  and  Governor  of 
the  Universe  will  not  forget  his  people,  but  cover  us  from  our 
savage  and  sanguinary  foe  by  his  benign  interposition." 

During  the  session  of  this  Legislature  there  were  thirty- 
two  laws  passed,  mostly  of  local  importance  to  a  number  of 
sections  in  the  Territory.  Fixing  the  seat  of  justice  in  new 
counties;  an  act  to  organize  Gibson  and  Pike  Counties  and 
defining  their  boundaries;  an  act  to  remove  the  Territorial 
government  from  Vincennes  to  Corydon,  Harrison  County;  an 
act  to  reduce  into  one  the  several  acts,  establishing  a  perma- 
nent revenue.  *'The  following  tax  shall  be  paid  annually  on 
one  hundred  acres  of  first  rate  land,  and  so  in  proportion  for 
a  lesser  amount  of  first  rate  land,  seventy-five  cents.  On  one 
hundred  acres  of  second  rate  land,  fifty  cents:  and  so  in  pro- 
portion for  lesser  amount  of  second  rate  land.  On  third  rate 
land,  one  hundred  acres,  twenty- five  cents;  and  in  proportion 
for  lesser  amount  of  third  rate  land.  For  every  slave  or  serv- 
ant of  color  over  twelve  years  of  age,  two  dollars;  for  a  retail 
store,  twenty  dollars;  town  lots  to  be  taxed  at  a  rate  of  fifty 
cents  on  every  hundred  dollars  worth;  for  a  tavern,  not  more 
than  twenty  dollars;  for  a  billiard  table,  fifty  dollars." 

By  an  act  which  was  approved  on  the  11th  of  March, 
1813,  the  seat  of  government  was  declared  to  be  fixed  at  the 


370  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 

town  of  Corydon  from  and  after  the  first  day  of  May,  1813. 

After  having  been  in  session  about  forty  days,  the  General 
Assembly,  in  conformity  to  a  joint  resolution  of  both  Houses, 
was  prorogued  by  proclamation  of  Gk)vernor  Gibson  to  meet 
at  Corydon  on  the  first  Monday  in  December,  1813. 

Governor  Gibson  becoming  convinced  that  the  only  safety 
to  the  people  in  his  Territory  lay  in  increasing  the  number  of 
the  militia,  a  proclamation  was  issued  calling  for  twelve  com- 
panies of  militia.  This  call  was  but  partly  filled,  owing  to 
the  fact  that  so  many  were  already  on  militar}'  dut}^;  but  the 
number  enlisted  added  much  to  the  prospect  of  resisting  the 
attacks  of  the  Indians  when  they  were  stationed  at  the  differ- 
e  It  places  along  the  most  exposed  part  of  the  Territor}'. 

Wayne,  Franklin  and  Dearborn  Counties,  or  the  eastern 
portion  of  those  counties,  being  near  the  thick  settlement  of 
the  state  of  Ohio,  was  nluch  more  securely  protected  than 
many  other  districts  to  the  west.  The  new  companies  organ- 
ised— one  of  them  went  on  duty  on  the  borders  of  Wayne,, 
and  their  line  of  defense  extended  along  part  of  Franklin 
County.  That  company,  together  with  the  militia  and  the 
rangers  already  on  duty  on  that  border,  made  that  section 
quite  secure.  Another  company  went  on  duty  on  the  north- 
ern borders  of  Dearborn  County  and  the  south  and  west  part 
of  Franklin  County;  another  company  was  placed  on  duty  on 
t  le  northern  border  of  Clark  County,  and  another  company 
went  on  duty  on  the  northern  border  of  Harrison  County;  the 
rangers  alread}'  on  duty  in  these  two  last  named  counties  co- 
u;>erated  with  these  new  militia  companies.  These  two  last 
named  companies,  with  all  the  other  miliiar}^  forces  in  that 
district,  were  commanded  by  Major  John  Tipton,  who  after- 
ward became  U.  S.  Senator  from  Indiana.  Col.  Robert  M. 
Evans,  who  was  in  charge  of  this  militia,  at  one  time  while 
making  inspection  of  the  forces  somewhere  in  the  woods 
where  Jackson  County  now  is,  with  his  large  cavalry  escort, 
c  ime  up  to  the  place  where  Major  Tipton  was  'giving  some 
directions  to  mounted  spies.  Tipton,  not  paying  the  Colonel 
what  he  (the  Colonel)  thought  was  proper  military  attention, 
Kvans    said,     '*What    is   your   name,    sir?"      Tipton    turned 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA.  371 

around  in  his  saddle  and  looking  at  him,  said,  *'If  that  is  of 
any  importance,  Colonel,  my  name  is  John  Tipton."  '*Where 
are  your  headquarters?"  asked  the  Colonel.  The  Major  re- 
plied, **It  is  now  on  this  saddle,  and  tonight,  sir.  if  I  can  find 
a  tree  without  a  panther  being  at  roost  in  it,  it  will  be  on  this 
saddle  at  the  root  of  that  tree."  The  Colonel,  being  a  very 
dignified  man  and  much  used  to  formality,  in  making  his  re- 
port to  Governor  Gibson,  said:  **That  varmint  that  you  have 
on  duty  up  in  the  wilds  of  Harrison  County  paid  no  more  at- 
tention to  me  than  he  would  have  to  an  ordinary'  man." 

The  rest  of  the  militia  companies  organized,  two  of  them 
being  enlisted  at  Vincennes.  were  stationed  at  points  above 
and  below  that  post  at  or  near  the  Wabash  river.  One  of  the 
other  two  companies  raised  was  on  duty  near  the  forks  of 
White  river  and  the  last  near  Blue  river.  The  ranger  service 
which  had  been  organized  and  was  under  the  command  of 
Colonel  Hargrove,  was  all  merged  into  these  organizations 
and  Colonel  Hargrove  went  on  duty  under  Colonel  Evans, 
who  commanded  all  these  new  levies. 

During  the  year  of  1813  the  Indians  did  not  attempt  to 
attack  any  of  the  forts  on  the  frontiers,  but  gathered  at  dif- 
ferent points  in  small  numbers  in  the  neighborhood  of  a  fort 
or  blockhouse  and  laid  in  wait  for  days  at  a  time,  until  they 
caught  some  unguarded  man  stealing  away  from  the  fort  to 
look  after  his  little  fields  of  corn  or  stock.  In  -this  way  a 
number  of  men  were  killed  and  several  women  and  children 
captured.  Wiih  all  of  the  vigilance  that  the  rangers  and 
soldiers  could  bestow  upon  the  thinly  settled  sections  of  th^ 
country,  these  depredations  were  committed.  Many  horses 
were  stolen  and  houses  plundered  of  such  things  as  they 
could  carry  away,  and  then  burned.  . 

Within  a  very  few  miles  of  Vincennes  at  one  time,  three 
men  were  killed  and  scalped  and  twenty-five  horses  were  sur- 
rounded and  captured  and  ridden  away  by  the  Indians.  Dur- 
ing the  early  part  of  the  spring  of  that  year  two  men  who 
were  cutting  a  bee  tree  in  Franklin  County  were  surprised  by 
seven  or  eight  indians,  killed  and  scalped  and  their  vessels 
full  of  honey  carried  away. 


372  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 

There  was  a  running  fight  between  three  scouts  of  Tip- 
ton's command  and  about  twenty-five  Indians.  One  of  the 
men,  after  running  over  eight  miles,  was  shot  dead.  The  In- 
dians lost  three  of  their  men  in  the  encounter. 

At  a  point  near  White  Oak  Springs  fort  (now  Peters- 
burg, Ind.),  and  within  the  lines  of  the  patrol  guard,  two 
men  were  killed  while  out  hunting  for  their  horses  that  were 
belled.  The  Indians  had  caught  the  horses  and  tied  them  in 
a  thicket,  taking  the  bells  off  their  necks  and  climbing  into  a 
low,  bushy  tree.  At  intervals  they  would  ring  these  bells 
and  the  men,  not  suspecting  any  danger,  deliberately  went 
forward  to  within  a  short  distance,  when  two  out  of  the  three 
who  were  together  were  shot  dead  by  two  Indians  who  were 
hidden  in  the  tree.  The  third  rushed  back  to  the  fort,  less 
than  a  mile  away,  raised  the  alarm  and  twenty  mounted  sol- 
diers went  to  the  point  and  found  the  two  men  dead  and 
scalped.  They  found  where  the  horses  had  been  hitched  and 
where  the  Indians  had  hurriedly  ridden  away. 

These  maraudings  were  very  annoying,  but  it  was  im- 
possible to  break  them  up,  as  there  were  many  square  miles 
in  one  body  of  land,  which  was  a  perfect  wilderness  and  un- 
surpassed for  density.  There  were  a  great  many  such  places 
as  this  in  which  the  Indians,  in  small  squads,  could  hide  in 
for  weeks  at  a  time  without  being  discovered. 

With  all  the  precaution  that  could  be  used,  the  Indians 
would  appear  from  points  near  where  the  guards  were  sta- 
tioned, killing  many  of  the  settlers  and  stealing  their  horses. 
A  letter  written  by  Major  Tipton  to  General  Gibson  in  April, 
1813,  will  explain  the  condition  of  affairs  of  the  Indiana  Ter- 
ritory at  this  time: 

'*Since  I  have  had  command  of  the  militia  on 
the  borders  of  Harrison  and  Clark  Counties,  the 
Indians  have  caused  us  much  trouble  and  murdered 
a  number  of  citizens  on  the  frontiers  of  these  coun- 
ties, all  of  which  I  have  reported  to  Colonel  Evans; 
but  in  order  that  )'ou  may  understand  the  situation, 
I  have  directed  this  letter  to  )'ou. 

**On  the  18th  of  March  ohe  man  was  killed  and 
three  others  wounded  near  this  place  (Valonia), 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA.  373 

At  that  time  I  was  not  there.  On  my  arrival  I 
took  twenty-nine  men  and  went  up  to  Drift  river, 
twenty-five  miles,  and  here  found  a  party  of  Indians 
on  an  island  in  the  river.  In  a  skirmish  of  twenty 
minutes,  I  defeated  them,  killed  one  and  saw  others 
sink  in  the  river,  and  I  believe  if  any  made  their 
escape  by  swimming,  they  lost  their  guns.  I  lost 
no  men. 

*'On  the  sixteenth  inst.  two  men  were  killed 
and  one  wounded  southwest  eight  miles  of  this- 
place  and  a  number  of  horses  were  stolen.  I  im- 
mediately took  thirty  men  and  followed  them  three 
days.  We  had  five  large  creeks  to  raft  and  many  to 
wade  and  every  day  a  heavy  rain  fell.  The  third  day 
I  directed  my  spies  to  march  slowly.  The  Indians^ 
horses  were  showing  evidences  of  fatigue,  and  I 
thought  it  best  not  to  overtake  them  until  night; 
but  contrary  to  my  orders,  they  came  up  with  one 
Indian  who  had  stopped  to  fix  his  pack  and  fired  at 
him.  The  other  Indians  were  but  a  little  in  ad- 
vance and  they  all  left  their  horses  and  plunder. 
The  ground  being  hilly,  we  could  not  overtake 
them.  Had  it  not  been  for  my  orders  being  dis- 
obeyed, I  would  have  been  able  to  have  killed  or 
captured  them  in  their  camp  that  night.  As  they 
went  out  they  passed  Salt  creek  and  there  took  an, 
old  trail  directly  for  Delaware  town,  and  it  is  my 
opinion  that  while  the  government  was  supporting 
one  part  of  that  tribe,  the  others  were  murdering 
our  citizens.  It  is  much  to  be  desired  that  these 
rascals,  of  whatever  tribe  they  may  be  harboring 
about  their  town,  should  be  routed.  This  could  be 
done  with  one  hundred  mounted  men  in  seven  days. 

'*If  there  is  not  an  effective  measure  taken  to 
guard  this  place,  all  of  Clark  and  Harrison  Coun- 
ties will  break.'  It  is  rumored  here  that  when  the 
rangers  come  out,  the  militia  will  be  dismissed.  If 
so,  our  case  is  a  dangerous  one,  as  it  is  hard  for 
mounted  men  to  range  through  the  swamps  and 
backwaters  of  Driftwood  and  Muscackituck  rivers, 
as  they  have  been  for  most  of  the  season  more  than  a 
mile  wide,  by  reason  of  low,  marshy  bottoms  which 
overflow,  and  many  times  three  and  four  miles 
wide.  The  Indians  come  in  and  secrete  themselves 
in  some  high  ground  surrounded  by  water  and  by 


374  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 

the  help  of  bark  canoes,  come  in  and  do  mischief 
and  until  I  came  out,  never  could  be  found.  Since 
I  came  they  have  made  two  attempts  to  take  off  the 
horses.  The  first  time,  on  the  12th  inst.,  I  took 
all  their  horses  but  one.  The  last  time  I  took  all 
and  still  followed  them  with  footmen.  The  last 
time  we  lived  three  days  on  a  little  venison,  with- 
out bread  or  salt,  and  I  believe  if  there  are  to  be 
rangers,  there  should  be  spies  of  young  and  hardy 
footmen,  who  can  lay  and  scout  through  the 
swamps  and  thickets  as  the  Indians  do;  then  we 
will  be  secure,  not  else.  I  have  been  constantly  out 
for  the  last  eight  days  on  foot,  wading  and  rafting 
the  creeks.  I  have  seen  many  signs  of  Indians, 
such  as  camps  where  they  have  lain,  and  killed 
hogs  and  cattle  to  live  on,  and  many  canoes  to  ap- 
proach our  settlements,  and  I  am  conscious  if  you 
had  not  ordered  out  the  additional  company  and 
made  those  excellent  arrangements  of  the  ninth  of 
February,  all  of  this  frontier  would  have  been 
murdered  ere  now.  The  citizens  are  living  be- 
tween hope  and  despair,  waiting  to  know  their 
doom." 

In  June,  1813,  an  expedition  of  one  hundred  and  thirty- 
five  men  under  Colonel  Joseph  Bartholomew  left  Valonia  in 
the  direction  of  the  Delaware  town  on  the  west  fork  of  White 
river  to  capture  several  hostile  Indians  who  were  thought  to 
be  among  the  Delawaies.  The  most  of  these  places  they 
found  deserted.  Some  were  burnt  and  others  had  been  only 
temporarily  occupied  by  the  Indians  to  collect  and  carry  away 
their  corn.  Colonel  Bartholomew's  forces  succeeded  in  kill- 
ing one  Indian  and  wounding  two  more  and  capturing  a  very 
old  man  who  claimed  to  be  a  brother  of  Buckongahelas,  th'e 
great  chief  of  the  Delawares.  The  old  man  was  fitted  up  in 
comfortable  quarters  by  the  troops  and  given  supplies  of  food 
and  ammunition  for  his  fine  gun,  a  present  from  Daniel 
Boone,  which  had  engraved  on  the  metal  plate,  fastened  to 
the  stock  of  the  gun,  ''Presented  to  my  friend,  Treat  way, 
brother  of  Chief  Buckongahelas,  for  great  favor  shown  me 
when  my  life  was  in  peril,  while  a  prisoner  among  the  In- 
dians during  the  year  1779;  this  is  given  in  testimony  for  my 
sincere  regard  for  this  kind-hearted  Indian.     D.  Boone." 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA.  375 

In  one  of  the  treaties  which  Clark  had  with  the  Indians, 
Boone,  who  was  one  of  the  commissioners  to  make  the  treaty, 
sent  the  gun  b}'  Chief  Buckongahelas  to  his  brother. 

In  July,  1813,  Colonel  Russel  organized  a  force  of  six 
hundred  men  at  Valonia  and  marched  to  the  Indian  villages 
which  were  about  the  mouth  of  the  Mississinewa  river,  and 
found  they  were  all  deserted.-  It  appeared  that  the  Indians 
had  all  left  the  country. 

During  the  summer  there  were  man}^  smaller  expeditions, 
but  they  found  no  Indians.  With  all  of  these  expeditions, 
there  were  many  of  the  most  noted  Indian  fighters  of  that 
period,  and  had  they  found  the  Indians,  would  have  given  a 
good  account  of  themselves. 

The  British  still  held  Detroit,  and  from  that  point  had 
furnished  supplies  to  the  Indians  and  paid  for  scalps  of  the 
Americans  up  to  July,  1813.  A  young  Kentucky  woman, 
named  McMurtree,  was  sold  to  a  Canadian  officer  named 
Rahel  in  July,  1813,  and  was  recaptured  October  5,  1813,  after 
the  battle  of  the  Thames,  when  General  Procter's  headquar- 
ters and  all  his  baggage  was  captured.  With  that  was  a 
large  number  of  American  women  who  had  been  captured  and 
sold  into  slavery.  With  this  number  was  Miss  McMurtree, 
and  she  was  recognized  b}^  some  of  her  former  neighbors  be- 
longing to  a  Kentucky  battalion  who  were  in  that  fight.  The 
statements  made  by  this  lady  were  so  damaging  to  the 
British  that  it  was  thought  best  to  preserve  them.  Her  tes- 
timony was  taken  down  by  the  adjutant  of  that  batallion. 
She  said  that  she  was  captured  at  a  point  about  thirty-five 
miles  northwest  of  Louisville  as  she,  with  her  father,  mother 
and  brother  were  coming  to  Indiana  Territory.  Her  father 
and  mother  were  killed  and  scalped  and  she  and  her  brother 
were  captured,  and  after  the  first  day's  march,  her  brother 
was  taken  by  the  Indians  to  a  town  which  they  passed  near  a 
large  river  and  she  had  never  seen  him  since.  Three  Indians 
had  her  in  charge  atld  took  her  to  Detroit,  where  she  was 
taken  into  a  building  in  which  quartermaster  supplies  were 
stored.  Here  she  saw  a  man  who  seemed  to  be  in  charge  of 
that  building  pay  the  three  Indians  who  had  her  in  charge 


.^76  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 

S3me  pieces  of  coin  and  presented  each  of  them  with  a  jack- 
knife  and  then  the  Indians  gave  the  man  the  scalps  of  her 
mother  and  father.  Her  father's  hair  being:  of  a  fiery  red 
color,  this  white  man  made  joking  remarks  to  her  that  they 
would  keep  that  and  would  not  have  to  use  the  steel  and 
punk  any  more — that  they  could  catch  fire  by  the  brilliancy 
of  that  hair.  They  sent  to  the  fort  or  barradcs  for  Lieuten- 
ant Rahel.  He  returned  with  the  messenger,  looked  at  the 
girl  carefully  and  said  to  the  man  who  seemed  to  be  in  charge 
of  the  quartermaster's  building  something  she  did  not  under- 
stand. This  quartermaster  gave  each  of  the  Indians  a  piece 
of  coin,  also  a  red  blanket.  The  man  who  paid  for  her  said 
she  would  go  to  his  home,  that  he  had  a  mother  there  and 
she  would  provide  for  her.  These  was  so  much  excitement 
about  the  army  evacuating  Detroit  that  she  saw  the  young 
lieutenant  but  once  after  this.  He  was  then  making  prepara- 
tions to  send  his  mother  and  household  effects  to  Maiden, 
where  they  remained  for  a  few  days  until  Procter  evacuated 
that  town.  This  young  man  was  killed  at  Maiden  while  try- 
ing to  quell  a  drunken  riot  among  the  Indians. 

After  the  destruction  of  Procter's  army  and  the  death  of 
Tecumseh,  the  Indians  became  less  troublesome  and  several 
tribes  sued  for  peace.  Among  them  were  some  which  had 
caused  much  trouble  in  Indiana  Territory — the  Pottawata- 
mies,  Miamis  and  Kickapoos.  About  the  middle  of  October, 
1813,  General  Harrison  for  the  United  States  and  several 
tribes  of  Indians,  the  Miamis,  Pottawattamies,  Wyandotts, 
Eel  River  Miamis,  Ottawas  and  Chippewas,  held  a  meeting^ 
and  agreed  on  the  terms  of  an  armistice,  as  follows: 

**1.  There  shall  be  a  suspension  of  hostilities 
between  the  United  States  and  said  tribes  from  this 
day  until  the  pleasure  of  the  Gk)vernment  of  the 
United  States  can  be  known.  In  the  meantime, 
these  said  tribes  may  retire  to  their  hunting 
grounds  and  be  unmolested,  if  they  will  behave 
themselves. 

"2.  In  the  event  of  any  murder  or  other  dep- 
recations being  committed  upon  any  citizen  of  the 
United  States  by  any  of  the  other  tribes  of  Indians, 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA.  377 

those  who  are  parties  to  this  agreement  shall  unite 
their  efforts  to  punish  the  offenders. 

'*3.  Hostages  shall  be  given  by  said  tribes 
who  shall  be  sent  into  the  settlements  and  there 
remain  until  the  termination  of  all  the  differences 
with  the  United  States  and  said  tribes  by  a  council 
to  be  held  for  that  purpose. 

*'4.  All  prisoners  in  the  possession  of  said 
tribes  shall  be  immediately  brought  to  Ft.  Wayne 
or  some  other  post  and  delivered  to  the  command- 
ing of&cer."^ 

This  armistice  affected  about  three  thousand  five  hun- 
dred Indians. 

During  the  early  part  of  the  year  1814,  General  Harrison^ 
General  Lewis  Cass  and  General  Adair  were  appointed  com- 
missioners to  hold  a  conference  at  Greenville,  Ohio,  with  the 
Indians  named  in  the  armistice  and  all  other  Indians  of  the 
Northwest.  The  information  of  this  treaty  was  sent  to  all 
tribes  by  the  hands  of  friendly  Indians^  asking -them  to  meet 
on  the  20th  of  June,  1814,  at  Greenville  to  form  a  treaty  of 
friendship  and  alliance  between  the  United  States  and  the 
Northwest  Indians.  Nearly  all  the  tribes  of  Indians  that  had 
been  at  war  with  the  United  States  resjwnded  to  this  call. 
The  negotiations  were  not  concluded  until  late  in  July,  when 
the  treaty  of  friendship  and  alliance  was  signed,  and  from 
that  period  on  there  was  but  little  trouble  with  the  Indians* 

GENERAL  JOHN   GIBSON. 

In  the  early  part  of  1813  Thomas  Posey  was  appointed 
Governor  of  Indiana  Territory,  thus  relieving  General  Gib- 
son of  his  duties  of  Acting  Governor.  It  is  thought  to  be 
but  a  just  tribute  to  this  gallant  old  hero  to  give  a  short 
sketch  of  his  life. 

He  was  born  in  Lancaster,  Pennsylvania,  in  May,  1740, 
and  was  well  educated  for  that  day.  He  was  of  Scotch-Irish 
ancestry  and  was  thoroughly  imbued  with  the  patriotism, 
energy,  and  physical  and  intellectual  strength  sa  typical  of 
these  people.  In  his  youth  he  served  under  (Jeneral  Forbes, 
who  commanded  an  expedition  against  Fort  DuQuesne  on  the 
site  of  the  present  city  of  Pittsburg,  Pennsylvania,  which  re- 


378  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 

suited  in  its  reduction.  This  became  the  first  settlement  west 
of  the  main  region  of  the  Allegfhanies  made  bj'  the  English 
and  away  from  the  seaboard.  He  remained  in  the  infant 
town  for  some  time  as  an  Indian  trader.  In  an  excursion  with 
another  party  into  the  country  in  1763,  he  was  captured  by 
the  Indians  and  was  adopted  by  an  Indian  squaw  whose  son 
he  had  slain  in  battle.  He  remained  with  these  Indians  for 
a  time  and  had  an  opportunity  to  acquire  the  language 
of  several  Indian  tribes  and  also  to  learn  their  customs  and 
manners  of  warfare  and  attack,  which  afterward  became  of 
great  use  to  him  as  an  Indian  trader  and  government  officer. 
His  conduct  was  so  exemplary  that  he  won  the  confidence  and 
esteem  of  his  Indian  neighbors,  and  they,  in  council,  deter- 
mined that  he  should  be  released  and  returned  to  his  own 
people.     He  then  resumed  business  at  Pittsburg. 

Governor  Dunmore  of  Virginia  organized  an  expedition 
against  the  Indians  in  1774;  Gibson  was  enlisted  by  that  of- 
ficer to  go  with  them  and  by  his  influence  with  the  Indians 
negotiate  important  treaties. 

The  speech  of  the  celebrated  Indian  chief,  Logan,  on  this 
occasion,  which  was  cited  by  Thomas  Jefferson  as  one  of  the 
masterpieces  of  eloquence  of  all  times,  owes  its  English  ver- 
sion to  the  skill  of  General  Gibson  in  translating  it  from  the 
Indian  language. 

On  the  breaking  out  of  the  Revolutionary  war,  Gibson 
was  made  Colonel  of  a  Virginia  regiment,  remaining  in  that 
command  for  seven  long  years;  he  again  returned  to  Pitts- 
burg. From  that  district  he  was  elected  a  member  of  the 
Pennsylvania  Constitutional  Convention.  He  also  became  a 
Major-General  of  the  militia  and  an  associate  judge. 

In  1800  he  was  appointed  Secretary  of  the  Territory  of 
Indiana  and  held  the  office  until  1816. 

At  the  outbreak  of  the  second  war  with  Great  Britain  he 
was  left  as  Acting  Governor  while  General  Harrison  was  en- 
gaged at  the  front.  In  his  old  age  he  became  afflicted  with 
an  incurable  cataract  which  compelled  his  retirement  from 
office.     He  ended  his  da^s  with  his  son-in-law,  George  Wal- 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA.  379 

lace,  at  Braddocks  Field,  near  Vincennes,  Indiana,  where  he 
died  in  May,  1822. 

LOGAN,  THE    INDIAN   CHIEF. 

The  object  of  this  is  to  show  a  few  of  the  man)'  instances 
of  the  wrong  doing  pf  the  Americans  which  had  much  to  do 
with  bringing  about  man)'  of  the  blood  curdling  atrocities 
of  the  savage  race,  who  were  only  too  glad  for  an  excuse  to 
destroy  the  white  intruders,  as  they  termed  them. 

In  showing  this,  it  is  not  for  a  moment  intended  to  ex- 
cuse or  paliate  the  cruel,  barbarous  and  fiendish  actions  of 
the  Indians,  who  murdered,  scalped  and  burned  because  they 
loved  to  destroy.  They  fought  and  destroyed  their  own 
people  of  other  tribes  with  the  same  relentless  cruelty  that 
they  did  the  whites;  even  the  members  of  the  same  tribe 
would  fall  out  over  some  trivial  thing  and  bring  on  a  feudal  war 
which  only  ended  when  all  the  partisans  were  killed.  This  is 
the  reason  the  Indians  were  in  so  many  little  bands  and  the 
great  reason  why  they  were  not  mOre  numerous  when  our 
people  came  to  this  country.  They  had  been  here  for  a  long 
time  and  it  is  now  generally  conceded  that  they  over-ran  the 
country  and  destroyed  its  inhabitants  when  it  was  peopled  by 
a  far  superior  race.  There  should  not  be  the  least  sympathy 
with  those  who  are  ever  lamenting  the  sad  fate  of  the  Indians, 
accusing  the  white  race  of  stealing  their  lands  from  them. 
The  good  Lord  never  intended  this  fair  domain  to  remain  a 
howling  wilderness,  nor  the  hands  of  the  world's  onward  march 
to  stop,  that  a  race  of  barbarians  might  have  this^immense 
country  for  a  hunting  ground.  No;  it  was  intended  for  just 
what  has  been  and  is  still  being  done,  making  of  it  the 
cultured  and  beautiful  home  of  the  greatest  people  that  are 
yet  on  record  in  the  world's  history.  Of  the  white  people 
who  wronged  the  Indians  none  were  more  cruel  than  Colonel 
Cresap,  who  was  a  brave  man  but  the  spirit  of  the  border 
ruffian  controlled  him.  He  was  as  cruel  as  the  worst  of  the 
savage  Indians  at  times,  and  much  more  resourceful  in  hunt- 
ing them  and  much  more  determined  in  battle.  Without  an 
excuse  he  and  his  fellows  ambushed  and  murdered  two  friend- 


380  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 

ly  Shawnee  Indians  against  a  protest  of  the  better  element  of 
his  followers.  The  next  day  he  led  his  band  and  killed  sev- 
eral other  friendly  Indians  and  the  day  after  that  they  made 
arrangements  to  march  and  attack  Logan's  camp  on  Yellow 
Creek,  fifty  miles  away.  Young  Greorge  Rogers  Clark  who 
was  one  of  the  company,  talked  with  different  parties  of  the 
expedition  while  they  were  marching,  telling  them  the  In- 
dians they  were  intending  to  attack  were  friendly  to  the 
white  people  and  he  felt  it  a  great  wrong  to  murder  them.. 
Some  of  the  older  ones  told  Cresap  that  they  felt  condemned 
for  engaging  in  such  uncalled  for  murder. 

When  the  party  had  stopped  for  dinner  young  Clark  ap- 
pealed to  theHi — *Xet  us  go  and  hunt  enemies,  not  friends; 
there  are  plenty  of  them  and  it  is  a  disgrace  for  the  white 
race  to  murder  the  friendly  Indians."  After  talking  the  mat- 
ter over,  Cresap  and  all  the  company  felt  ashamed  of  their 
action.  They  about  faced  and  went  back  to  their  homes.  A 
few  days  after  this  a  dozen  or  more  Indians,  all  of  them 
Logan's  family  and  relatives,  crossed  the  river  from  Logan's 
camp  and  went  to  a  trading  post  of  one  Greathouse,  where 
mm  was  for  sale.  He  sold  them  the  fiery  liquor  until  they 
became  helplessly  drunk  and  then  he  and  a  lot  of  drunken 
white  men  murdered  every  soul  of  the  party.  Had  it  not 
been  for  Clark,  Cresap  instead  of  Greathouse  would  have 
been  the  bloody  butcher.  The  murder  of  these  friendly  In- 
dians all  came  so  close  together  that  they  were  all  charged 
to  Colonel  Cresap  by  the  Indians.  The  Indians  were  in  a 
furious  rage  and  determined  to  have  revenge  for  the  coward- 
ly, dastardly  crime. 

Logan  was  an  Iroquois  Indian  but  had  moved  away  from 
his  people  and  settled  among  the  Mingo  tribe  and  was  known 
far  and  near  as  the  white  man's  friend.  He  was  named  by 
his  father  for  Governor  Logan  of  Pennsylvania.  As  soon  as 
the  brutal  murder  became  known  the  frontier  Indians  hur- 
riedly made  preparations  to  defend  themselves.  Logan  or- 
ganized the  Mingos  into  a  company  and  commenced  his 
bloody  work,  killing,  burning  and  destroying  those  he  had  so 
recently  protected,  .until  his  cup  of  revenge  was  full.     After 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA.  381 

the  war  had  raged  for  some  time,  the  Shawnees  sent  word  to 
the  white  people — '*Send  someone  who  can  understand  our 
lang-uage."  General  John  Gibson  was  selected  to  go.  Enter- 
ing the  town  he  was  conducted  to  the  great  Shawnee  JChief, 
Cornstalk,  and  other  chiefs  of  the  same  nation.  Logan  camje 
to  the  place  where  they  were  and  asked  Gibson  to  walk  with 
liim.  When  they  had  reached  a  nearby  copse  of  woods,  they 
sat  down  on  a  log  and  Logan,  after  shedding  an  abundance 
of  tears  made  the  following  speech  to  Gibson:  "I  appeal  to 
any  white  man  to  say  if  he  ever  entered  Logan's  cabin 
liungry  and  he  gave  him  not  meat.  If  he  ever  came  cold 
and  naked  and  he  clothed  him  not.  During  the  course  of  the 
last  long  and  bloody  war,  Logan  remained  idily  in  his  cabin, 
an  advocate  of  peace.  Such  was  my  love  for  the  whites  that 
my  countrymen  pointed  as  they  passed  and  said — 'Logan  is 
the  friend  of  the  white  man.'  I  had  even  thought  to  have 
lived  with  you,  but  for  the  injuries  of  one  man,  Colonel 
Cresap,  who  last  spring,  in  cold  blood  and  unprovoked,  mur- 
dered all  the  relatives  of  Logan,  not  even  sparing  my  women 
and  children.  There  runs  not  a  drop  of  my  blood  in  the  veins 
of  any  living  creature.  This  called  for  revenge.  I  have 
sought  it.  I  have  killed  many.  I  have  glutted  my  ven- 
geance. For  my  country  I  rejoice  at  the  beams  of  peace  but 
don't  harbor  for  a  moment  the  thought  that  mine  is  the  joy 
of  fear — Logan  never  felt  fear.  He  will  not  turn  on  his  heel 
to  save  his  life.  Who  is  there  to  mourn  for  Logan?  Not 
one." 

One  of  the  lords  of  England,  when  on  a  visit  to  Lord 
Dunmore  went  with  him  to  the  wilds  of  Virginia  and  met 
Logan.  When  he  returned  home,  in  a  speech  telling  of  what 
he  had  seen,  he  said:  "I  met  an  Iroquois  Indian  b/  the  name 
of  Logan  and  he  was  the  finest  specimen  of  humanity,  red  or 
white,  that  my  eyes  have  ever  seen." 

GOVERNOR   THOMAS   POSEY. 

In  February,  1813,  President  Madison  appointed  Thomas 
Posey  who  was  a  senator  in  Congress  at  that  time  from  the  state 
of  Tennesee,  Governor  of  the  Indiana  Territory.     Governor 


382  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 

Posey  had  been  an  officer  in  the  Revolutionary  war  and  went 
to  Vincennes  to  take  charg-e  of  his  office  on  the  25th  of  May, 
1813.  The  Territorial  Legislature  met  at  Corydon  on  the  6th 
day  of  December,  1813  and  received  the  Governor's  message. 
This  message  in  part  said: 

''The  present  crisis  is  awful  and  big  with 
events.  Our  land  and  nation  is  involved  in  the 
common  calamity  of  war  but  we  are  under  the  pro- 
tecting care  of  the  beneficent  Being  who  has  in 
former  occasions  brought  us  in  safety  through  an 
adventurous  struggle  and  placed  us  on  a  founda- 
tion of  independence,  freedom  and  happiness.  He 
will  not  suffer  to  be  taken  from  us  what  he  has,  in 
his  great  wisdom,  thought  proper  to  confer  and 
bless  us  with,  if  we  make  a  wise  and  virtuous  use 
of  his  good  gifts. 

'* Although  our  affairs  at  the  commencement  of 
the  war  wore  a  gloomy  aspect,  thej^  have  bright- 
ened and  promise  a  ceria  nty  of  success  if  proper- 
ly' directed  and  conducted,  of  which  I  have  no 
doubt,  as  the  President  and  heads  of  departments 
of  the  general  government  are  men  of  undoubted 
patriotism,  talents  and  experience,  who  have  grown 
old  in  the  service  of  their  country.  It  must  be  ob- 
vious to  every  thinking  man  that  we  were  forced 
into  the  war.  Every  measure  consistent  with 
honor  before  and  since  the  declaration  of  war  has 
been  tried  to  be  on  amicable  terms  with  our  en- 
emies. If  they  will  noi  listen  to  terms  of  recipro- 
city and  be  at  peace  with  us,  who  is  the  man  who 
is  a  friend  to  this  country  who  will  not  give  a 
helping  hand  and  use  his  best  exertions  to  preserve 
and  maintain  inviolate  the  just  rights  of  this 
country? 

*'It  is  to  be  hoped  that  there  are  none  such.'' 

During  that  session  of  the  Legislature,  which  lasted 
altogether  thirty  days,  there  were  several  very  useful  and 
commendable  laws  passed.  One  of  the  most  important  was 
that  regulating  and  reorganizing  the  Territorial  militia. 
Others  were  to  regulate  the  practice  of  attorneys;  to  author- 
ize collection  of  taxes;  an  act  to  regulate  elections;  an  act  to 
prevent  duelling,   requiring  all  of  the  civil  and  military  of- 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA.  383 

ficers  to  prescribe  to  an  oath  that  they  would  not  accept  a 
challenge  or  carry  a  challenge  for  a  duel. 

Grovernor  Posey  was  in  very  poor  health  and  had  to  leave 
the  seat  of  Territorial  government  and  go  to  Jeflfersonville 
for  medical  attention.  He  remained  away  all  the  time  dur- 
ing the  session  of  the  Legislature  and  for  a  long  time  after- 
ward. 

The  House  of  Representatives  of  Indiana  Territory,  by 
an  act  of  Congress  on  the  4th  of  March,  1814,  was  authorized^ 
to  lay  off  that  territory  into  five  subdivisions  or  districts,  and 
in  each  of  these  districts  the  voters  were  empowered  to  elect 
a  member  to  the  Legislative  Council.  The  members  of  the 
House  assembled  at  Corydon  in  June,  1814,  and  divided  the 
districts  in  accordance  with  the  ^iaid  act  of  Congress.  These 
divisions  consisted  of  the  following  counties: 

1.  Washington  and  Knox. 

2.  Gibson  and  Warrick. 

3.  Harrison  and  Clark. 

4.  Jefferson  and  Dearborn. 

5.  Franklin  and  Wayne. 

There  was  a  great  deal  of  contention  at  this  time  that 
interfered  with  the  administration  of  the  laws.  The  contro- 
versies grew  out  of  a  doubt  that  the  people  had  as  to  the 
jurisdiction  and  powers  of  the  several  courts  of  the  Territory. 
To  cure  this  defect,  Governor  Posey  issued  a  proclamation 
convening  the  General  Assembl)^  to  meet  at  Corydon  on  the 
15th  of  August,  1814. 

The  General  Assembly  was  convened  for  the  purpose  of 
organizing  a  judiciary  system  in  conformity  to  the  laws  of 
the  United  States  and  that  Legislature  by  an  act,  divided  the 
territory  into  three  judicial  circuits  and  made  provisions  for 
holding  courts;  defined  the  jurisdiction  of  such  courts  and 
authorized  the  Governor  to  appoint  a  presiding  judge  in  each 
circuit  and  two  associate  judges  of  the  circuit  courts  in  each 
county.  The  Governors  were  required  b^^  this  statute  to  se- 
lect for  the  circuit  judges  men  learned  in  law  who  were  citi- 
zens of  the  United  States  and  had  regularly  practiced  in  the 


384  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 

courts  of  the  United  States  or  in  this  Territory  for  the  three 
years  previous. 

The  administration  of  justice  in  the  Indiana  Territory 
was  embarrassed  by  difiSculties  which  no  Territorial  Leg^isla- 
ture  could  remove.  These  difficulties  were  mentioned  in  a 
memorial  by  the  Territorial  General  Assembly  and  laid  be- 
fore the  House  of  Representatives  of  the  United  States  on  the 
18th  of  October,  1814.  It  seems  by  a  former  law  which  Con- 
gress had  passed,  one  of  the  judges  appointed  for  the  govern- 
ment of  this  Territory  was  authorized  to  hold  court.  By  this, 
•one  of  the  judges  was  competent  to  hold  a  court  and  decide  a 
point  of  law  at  one  term,  and  at  the  next,  if  the  other  two 
judges  should  be  present,  they  might  decide  the  same  princi- 
ples of  law  differently. 

There  was  another  evil  growing  out  of  the  system  of  one 
judge  holding  the  superior  court,  or  the  court  of  last  resort, 
for  appeals  were  taken  from  all  the  courts  of  inferior  juris- 
diction to  the  court  organized  by  the  ordinance,  which  in- 
ferior courts  are  never  constituted  of  less  than  two  judges. 
Thus  the  suitor  in  the  Territory  was  frequently  driven  to  ap- 
peal from  the  judgment  of  the  two  men  to  that  of  one,  but 
this  only  constituted  part  of  the  trouble,  for  the  next  superior 
court  and  the  other  two  judges  might  over-rule  the  decision  of 
their  judge  at  the  preceding  term.  Hence  the  want  of  Uni- 
formity in  the  decisions  of  the  court  of  the  last  resort. 

Some  of  the  evils  complained  of  were  cured  by  an  act  of 
•Congress  on  February  24,  1815.  That  act  set  out  that  the 
general  or  superior  court  of  the  Indiana  Territory  should  be 
•composed  of  at  least  two  of  the  judges  appointed  by  the 
United  States. 


After  the  successes  by  land  and  sea  of  the  American 
army  and  navy,  all  opposition  disappeared  from  the  north- 
w^est  section  of  the  United  States,  and  England  seemed  to 
have  contented  herself  with  the  guerilla-marauding,  house- 
burning  kind  of  war  at  exposed  places  on  the  Atlantic  coast. 
During  1814  there  was  a  large  emigration  into  Indiana  Ter- 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA.  385 

ritor)'.  The  trouble  with  the  Indians  had  passed,  never  to 
return  with  any  severity  in  this  section.  The  people  com- 
menced to  develop  the  country,  build  houses,  repairing  the 
damag-e  done  by  the  Indians  and  their  brutal  allies.  By  the 
time  that  the  joyful  news  of  peace  was  declared  in  the  latter 
part  of  December,  1814,  all  the  older  settled  districts  of 
Indiana  Territory  had  received  such  a  large  addition  to  their 
population  that  the  hum  of  busy  industry  was  heard  on  every 
hand.  They  built  mills,  cleared  land,  opened  roads  and  In 
many  ways  started  out  to  develop  and  improve  the  rich  coun- 
try they  had  selected  for  their  homes. 

In  the  year  1814  the  General  Assembly  of  Indiana  Territory 
granted  charters  to  two  banking  institutions.  The  Farmers* 
and  Mechanics'  Bank  of  Indiana  at  Madison  was  incorporated 
by  an  act  approved  the  5th  of  September.  The  charter  ex- 
tended to  the  first  of  January,  1835.  That  act  declared  that 
the  property  of  the  corporation,  including  the  capital  stock, 
should  not  exceed  $750,000.00.  An  act  incorporating  the 
Bank  of  Vincennes  was  approved  on  the  10th  of  September. 
The  capital  stock  of  this  institution  was  fixed  at  $500,000.00, 
the  charter  authorizing  the  stockholders  to  organize  a  bank 
on  prescribed  conditions  until  October  1,  1835.  The  charters 
of  these  banking  institutions  were  confirmed  by  the  state 
constitution  in  1816.  The  Legislature  by  an  act  of  1817 
adopted  the  Bank  of  Vincennes  as  the  State  Bank  of  Indiana. 


In  1814  Frederick  Rapp  bought  a  large  body  of  land  on 
the  Wabash  river  and  founded  the  society  known  as  the  Rap- 
pites  and  established  a  town  which  they  named  Harmony. 
The  society  was  composed  of  Germans  who  were  principally 
natives  of  Wurtemberg.  The  members  of  the  society  were 
professedly  Lutherans  and  were  very  simple  in  their  manners, 
dress  and  living.  By  industry  and  economy  they  purchased 
a  very  large  body  of  land,  opened  farms,  planted  vineyards 
and  orchards,  erected  mills  for  the  manufacture  of  flour  and 
meal  and  an  establishment  for  the  manufacture  of  various 
sorts   of   articles   of   industry.      In    the   town   they   erected 


386  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 

• 

churches  and  public  schools.  Their  farms,  homes  and  prop- 
erty, by  certain  stipulations  of  agreements  in  their  organiza- 
tion, were  owned  in  common  by  the  members  of  that  com- 
munity; and  their  spiritual  welfare  was  vested  in  Frederick 
Rapp,  who  was  the  founder  of  the  society.  They  manufac- 
tured many  things,  having  artisans  of  many  professions — 
hatters,  shoemakers,  blacksmiths  and  coopers,  tailors,  tan- 
ners and  wagon-makers,  wheelwright  mechanics,  and  sad- 
dlers. They  had  establishments  for  spinning  and  carding 
and  making  various  sorts  of  cloth,  both  cotton  and  woolen 
and  the  common  goods  for  dresses  of  that  day — flannel  and 
linsey.  They  brought  from  the  old  country  their  love  of  the 
distilled  hops,  which  they  brewed  in  a  large  distillery. 

The  community  under  Rapp  had  in  the  neighborhood  of 
nine  hundred  persons.  Schoolcraft,  who  visited  New  Har- 
mony in  1821,  said:  "There  is  not  an  individual  in  that  so- 
ciety who  is  of  the  proper  age  who  does  not  contribute  his 
proportional  share  of  labor.  They  have  neither  spendthrifts 
nor  drunkards,  and  during  the  whole  period  of  their  residence 
in  America,  about  seventeen  years,  there  has  not  been  a 
single  lawsuit  among  them.  If  a  misunderstanding  or  quar- 
rel occurs,  it  is  a  rule  to  settle  it  before  retiring  to  rest,  thus 
obeying  the  injunctions  of  the  prophets." 

In  1825  the  town  of  Harmony,  now  called  New  Harmony^ 
was  sold  to  Robert  Owen,  of  Scotland,  and  Mr.  Rapp  and  his 
associates  moved  away.  Mr.  Owen  came  from  Scotland  and 
was  regarded  as  a  philanthropist  who  did  not  regard  Chris- 
tianity as  an  essential  element  of  society,  and  made  efforts  ta 
establish  a  community  at  New  Harmony  who  were  under  the 
same  impression. 

There  is  a  very  interesting  volume  written  by  Lockwood 
giving  a  full  history  of  the  Harmony  movement.  The  author 
will  only  give  here  an  anecdote  showing  Father  Rapp's  re- 
sourcefulness in  bringing  his  adherents  to  his  way  of  think- 
ing.    The  latter  part  of  this  has  not  been  published  before. 

Those  who  are  familiar  with  the  history  of  the  Rappites 
will  recall  that  while  they  were  at  New  Harmony,  Father 
Rapp  in  many  instances  had  difficulty  in  bringing  his  indus- 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA.  387 

trious  followers  to  a  point  where  they  were  willing  to  leave 
their  works  of  useful  industry  to  gratify  his  ideas  for  erect- 
ing great  structures.  At  one  time  Rapp  was  very  desirous  of 
building  a  large  granary  to  store  the  cereal  the  community 
raised  and  also  to  build  a  very  large  military  fortress  pierced 
with  portholes  for  artillery  and  musketry  in  tiers  one  above 
the  other,  in  case  he  should  have  trouble  with  the  Indians. 
He  allowed  his  wants  to  become  known  to  the  community, 
but  they  demurred  against  his  wishes.  He  then  realized  that 
the  time  was  at  hand  when  he  must  bring  to  his  aid  other 
than  temporal  things  to  gain  his  point.  For  the  time  he 
seemed  to  acquiesce  in  their  opposition.  In  the  meantime  he 
sent  some  of  his  trusted  adherents  with  a  boat  to  a  point  on 
the  Mississippi  river,  where  he  knew  there  were  two  large  pic- 
tograph  rocks.  In  each  of  them  was  an  impression  of  an  enor- 
mous human  foot.  These  boats  were  returned  at  night  and  the 
treasured  rocks  were  conveyed  into  Rapp^s  front  yard  and 
nicely  imbedded  in  the  turf  The  next  morning  he  sent  a 
courier  around  to  see  all  his  people  and  invited  them  at  a  cer- 
tain hour  to  come  to  his  house.  When  the  people  arrived 
they  were  amazed  to  find  these  two  great  slabs  of  stone  with 
the  immense  footprints.  In  a  short  time  Father  Rapp  came 
slowly  out  of  his  house  and  walked  down  to  where  the  people 
were  standing  and  in  a  very  meek  and  submissive  manner  told 
the  people  that  during  the  night  Gabriel  had  come  down 
from  Heaven  on  these  stones  and  had  given  him  instructions 
to  forthwith  proceed  lo  the  erection  of  the  granary  and  the 
great  military  fortress,  and  thai  if  he  failed  to  carry  out 
these  injunctions,  there  would  be  visited  upon  him  and  his 
people  plagues  and  disasters  which  would  be  their  ruin.  This 
was  all  that  was  needed.  The  shoemaker  lorsook  his  bench, 
the  hatter  his  blocks,  the  tailor  his  table,  the  blacksmith  his 
anvil,  the  weaver  his  loom,  and  ihe  dyer  his  pots,  the  farmer 
his  plow,  and  even  the  distiller  left  ofF  brewing  his  favorite 
beverages  in  the  great  rush  to  erect  that  immense  granary 
and  military  fortress,  which  is  standing  today  in  a  good  state 
of  preservation  at  New  Harmony,  Indiana. 


CHAPTER  XVI. 
INDIANA  BECOMES  A  STATE. 


Constitution  Adopted  —  Officers  Selected  —  Governor 
Jennings'  First  Message  —  Bodndary  and  Area'  of 
State  —  Survey  —  Taxes  —  Internal  Improvements — 
Purchase  of  Indian  Claims  —  Counties  Organized  — 
Ague  and  Other  Illness — Failure  of  State  Banks — 
William  Hendricks  Elected  Governor  —  Site  of  In- 
dianapolis Chosen  for  Capital  —  India nians  Called 
HoosiERS  —  Counties  Organized  —  White  Men  Exe- 
cuted FOR  Murder  of  Indians— A  Letter  From  Oliver 
H.  Smith— Improvements  Recommended  by  Governors 
Hendricks  and  Ray. 


On  the  first  Monday  in  December,  1815,  the  Legislature 
of  Indiana  Territory  met  at  Corydon.  Governor  Posey  was 
still  an  invalid  at  Jefferson ville,  but  on 
his  message  to  the  General  Assembly, 
congratulating  them  and  the  country  on 
I  the  termination  of  the  war.  and  alluded 
to  the  vast  tide  of  emigration  which 
was  coming  into  the  Territory  from 
every  quarter,  and  advising  the  Legis- 
lature to  make  such  wholesome  laws  as 
would  develop  the  country  and  add  to  the  comfort  of  the  new 
comers.  Among  the  beneficial  acts  that  he  asked  them  to 
look  after,  was  education  and  the  opening  of  public  highways 
throughout  the  settled  portions  of  the  Territory,  The  Leg- 
islature, which  lasted  for  thirty  days,  passed  some  amend- 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA.  389 

ments  to  the  existing-  laws  and  adopted  some  others  which 
would  meet  the  requirements  of  the  condition  of  the  Territory. 

A  memorial  was  adopted  by  that  Legislature  and  sent  to 
Mr.  Jenning-s,  the  Territorial  delegate  in  Congress,  which  he 
laid  before  that  body.     It  contained  the  followin  t^ 

* 'Whereas,  The  ordinance  of  Congress  for  the 
government  of  this  Territory  has  provided  that 
when  there  shall  be  sixty  thousand  free  inhabit- 
ants therein,  this  Territory  shall  be  admitted  inta 
the  Union  of  equal  footing  with  the  original  states; 
and  whereas,  by  the  census  taken  by  the  authority 
of  the  Legislature  of  this  Territory,  it  appears  that 
the  number  of  free  white  inhabitants  exceeds 
sixt)"  thousand,  we  therefore  pray  the  honorable 
Senate  and  House  of  Representatives,in  Congress  as- 
sembled, to  order  an  election  according  to  the  exist- 
ing laws  of  this  Territory  to  be  held  in  the  several 
counties  on  the  first  Monday  in  May,  1816,  for  rep- 
resentatives to  meet  in  convention  at  the  seat  of 
government  of  this  Territory  on  the  10th  day  of 
June,  1816,  who,  when  assembled,  shall  determine 
by  a  majority  of  the  votes  of  all  the  members 
elected  whether  it  will  be  expedient  to  form  a 
state  government,  and  if  it  is  determined  expedient, 
the  convention  thus  assembled  shall  have  the  power 
to  form  a  constitution  and  frame  of  government,  or 
if  it  be  deemed  inexpedient  to  provide  for  the  elec- 
tion of  representatives  to  meet  in  convention  at 
some  future  time  to  form  a  constitution.  Whereas, 
the  inhabitants  of  this  Territory  are  principally 
emigrants  from  every  part  of  the  Union  and  as 
various  in  their  customs  and  sentiments  as  in  their 
persons,  we  think  it  prudent  at  this  time  to  express 
to  the  General  Government  our  attachment  to  the 
fundamental  principles  of  legislation  prescribed  by 
Congress  in  their  ordinance  for  the  government  of 
this  Territory,  particularly  as  respects  personal 
freedom  and  involuntary  servitude,  and  hope  they 
may  be  continued  as  a  basis  of  the  constitution." 

The  memorial  was  referred  to  a  committee,  of  which  Mr, 
Jennings  was  chairman,  and  on  the  Sth  of  January,  1816,  was 
reported  to  the  House  of  Representatives  of  the  United 
States.     A  bill  enabling  the  people  of  Indiana  Territory  to 


390  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 

form  (a  constitution  and  state  gfovemment  and  for  the 
admission  of  the  state  into  the  Union  on  the  same  basis  as 
other  states  had  been  admitted,  was  passed  by  Congress  and 
approved  by  the  President  of  the  United  States  on  the  I9th  of 
April,  1816. 

On  Monday,  the  13th  day  of  May,  1816,  members  of  the 
constitutional  convention  were  elected  in  proportion  to  the 
population  of  each  county  in  the  Territory  of  Indiana. 

Clark  County — White  males  over  21  years, 
1,387;  total  population,  7,150.  Members  of  the  con- 
vention, Jonathan  Jennings,  James  Scott,  Thomas 
Carr,  John  K.  Graham  and  James  Lemmon. 

Dearborn  County — White  males  over  21  years, 
902;  total  population,  4,424.  Membeis  of  the  con- 
vention, James  Dill,  Solomon  Manwaring  and  Ezra 
Ferris. 

Franklin  County— White  males  over  21  years, 
1,430;  total  population,  7,370.  Members  of  the  con- 
vention, William  H.  Bads,  James  Brownlee,  Enoch 
McCarty,  Robert  Hannah,  Jr.,  and  James  Noble. 

Gibson  County — White  male  inhabitants  over 
21  years,  1,100;  total  population,  5,330.  Members 
of  convention,  David  Robb,  James  Smith,  Alexan- 
der Devin  and  Frederick  Rapp. 

Harrison  County  —  White  male  inhabitants 
over  21  years,  1,050;  total,  6,975.  Members  of  con- 
vention, Dennis  Pennington,  Davis  Floyd,  Daniel 
C.  Lane,  John  Boone  and  Patrick  Shields. 

Jefferson  County — White  males  over  21  years, 
874;  total,  4,270.  Members  to  convention,  David 
H.  Maxwell,  Samuel  Smock  and  Nathanial  Hunt. 

Knox  County — White  males  over  21  years, 
1,391;  total,  8,068.  Members  to  convention,  John 
Johnson,  John  Badollet,  William  Polk,  Benjamin 
Park  and  John  Bennefield. 

Posey  County — White  males  over  21  years, 
320;  total  population,  1,619.  Member  to  conven- 
tion, Dann  Lynn. 

Perry  County  —  White  males  over  21  years, 
350;  total  popiilation,  1,720.  Member  to  conven- 
tion, Charles  Polke. 

Switzerland  County  —  White  male  citizens 
over  21  years,  377;  total  population,  1,832.  Member 
to  convention,  William  Cotton. 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA.  391 

Wayne  County — White  males  over  21  years, 
1,225;  total  population,  6,407.  Members  to  conven- 
tion, Jeremiah  Cox,  Patrick  Baird,  Joseph  Holman 
and  Hugh  Gull. 

Washington  County  —  White  males  over  21 
years,  1,420;  total  population,  7,317.  Members  to 
convention,  John  DePauw,  Samuel  Milroy,  Robert 
McAntire,  William  Lowe  and  William  Graham. 

Warrick  County  -White  males  over  21  years, 
280;  total  population,  1,415.  Member  to  conven- 
tion, Daniel  Grass. 

Grand  Total  Population — 63,897. 

The  convention  assembled  at  Corydon  on  the  10th  of 
June,  1816,  and  completed  its  work  on  the  29th  day  of  June, 
1816.  Jonathan  Jennings  was  chosen  to  preside  over  the 
•convention  and  William  Hendricks  was  elected  secretary. 
The  constitution  framed  by  the  men  of  this  convention  was  a 
practical  business  document,  and  in  the  interest  of  good  gov- 
ernment and  for  the  advancement  of  the  individual  and  state 
interests.  Under  the  wise  provisions  of  this  constitution  the 
State  of  Indiana  made  rapid  advancement  in  the  improve- 
ments of  the  country  and  in  upbuilding  of  state  institutions 
and  in  internal  improvements,  which  were  carried  out  for  the 
advancement  of  the  interest,  comfort  and  convenience  of  the 
people. 

Under  this  code  of  laws  made  by  the  old  pioneers  (who 
had  undergone  the  perils,  hardships  and  many  privations  in 
order  that  they  might  have  this  rich  domain  as  a  home  for 
themselves  and  to  transmit  as  a  princely  heritage  to  their 
children),  with  amendments  adopted  from  time  to  time,  the 
people  of  this  state  lived  and  prospered  for  thirty-six  years, 
when  it  was  thought  best  to  adopt  a  new  constitution  in  1852. 

An  act  of  Congress  enabling  the  people  of  Indiana  Terri- 
tory to  form  a  constitution  and  state  government,  contained 
several  conditions  and  propositions  with  respect  to  boundaries, 
jurisdiction,  school  lands,  salt  springs  and  land  for  seat  of 
government.  All  the  conditions  and  propositions  were  ac- 
cepted by  an  ordinance  which  passed  the  Territorial  conven- 
tion on  the  29.th  of  June,  1816. 


392  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 

The  oflScers  of  the  Territorial  Government  of  Indiana^ 
including  the  Governor,  Secretary  of  State,  Judges,  civil  and 
military  officers,  were  required  by  the  provisions  of  the  State 
constitution  to  continue  the  exercise  of  their  duties  until  they 
were  superseded  by  officers  under  the  authority  of  State 
government.  The  president  of  the  convention  which  formed 
the  constitution  was  required  to  issue  writs  of  election  to  the 
sheriffs  of  the  different  counties,  requiring  them  to  call  an 
election  to  be  held  for  Governor,  Lieutenant  Governor,  a  Rep- 
resentative to  Congress  of  the  United  States,  members  of  the 
General  Assembly,  sheriffs  and  coroners,  at  the  respective 
election  districts  in  each  county;  election  to  be  held  the  first 
Monday  in  August,  1816.  At  the  first  general  election  held 
in  the  different  counties  in  Indiana,  Jonathan  Jennings  was 
elected  Grovernor,  receiving  5,211  votes.  His  opponent  was 
Thomas  Posey,  then  Governor  of  Indiana  Territory,  he  re- 
ceiving 3,934.  Christopher  Harrison,  Washington  County, 
was  elected  Lieutenant  Governor;  JVilliam  Hendricks  was 
elected  the  first  Representative  from  the  State  of  Indiana  to 
Congress.  At  that  election  the  following  named  individuals 
from  the  counties  here  named  were  elected  as  Senators  and 
Representatives: 

SENATE. 

Knox  County:    William  Polk. 

Gibson  County:   William  Prince. 

Posey,  Perry  and  Warrick  Counties:    Daniel  Grass. 

Wayne  County:   Patrick  Baird. 

Franklin  County:   John  Conner. 

Washington,  Orange  and  Jackson  Counties:  John  Depauw. 

Jefferson  and  Switzerland  Counties:   John  Paul. 

Dearborn  County:   Ezra  Ferris. 

Harrison  County:    Dennis  Pennington. 

Clark  County:   James  Beggs. 

HOUSE  OF   REPRESENTATIVES. 

Clark  County:  Benjamin  Ferguson,  Thomas  Carr  and 
John  K.  Graham. 

Dearborn  County:   Amos  Lane  and  Erasmus  Powell. 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA.  39S 

Franklin  Count}':  James  Noble,  David  Mount  and  James 
Brownlee. 

Gibson  County^   John  Johnson  and  EMmund  Hogan. 

Harrison  County:  John  Boone,  Davis  Floyd  and  Jacob- 
Zenor. 

Jefferson   County:     Samuel    Alexander   and    Williamson 

Dunn. 

Knox  County:    Walter  Wilson,  Henry  I.  Mills  and  Isaac 

Blackford. 

Posey  County:   Daniel  Lynn. 

Perry  County:   Samuel  Conner. 

Switzerland  County:   John  Dumont. 

Wayne  County:  Ephriam  Overman,  Joseph  Holman  and 
John  Scott. 

Washington  Count}':  Samuel  Milroy  and  Alexander 
Little. 

Warrick  County:    Ratcliflfe  Booile. 

Jackson  Count)':    William  Graham. 

Orange  County:   Johnathan  Linley. 

The  first  meeting  of  the  General  Assembly  commenced 
its  session  at  Corydon  on  the  4th  of  November,  1816.  John 
Paul  was  elected  chairman  of  the  Senate  pro-tem  until  the 
oath  of  oflSce  would  be  administered  to  Lieutenant  Governor 
Harrison.  Isaac  Blackford  was  elected  Speaker  of  the  House 
of  Representatives  November  7th;  the  oath  of  office  was  ad- 
ministered to  Grovernor  Jennings  and  Lieutenant  Governor 
Harrison,  after  which  Grovernor  Jennings  delivered  his  first 
message  to  the  Greneral  Assembly.  This  message  was  so  re- 
plete with  many  good  things  for  the  interest  of  the  inhabit- 
ants of  the  young  state  and  gave  evidence  of  such  wise  ad- 
ministration for  the  people,  that  it  is  here  given  in  full: 

*'Qentlkmen  of  the  Senate  and  House  of  Rep- 
resentatives: 

'*The  period  has  arrived  which  has  devolved 
on  you  the  important  duty  of  giving  the  first  im- 
pulse to  the  government  of  the  State.  The  result 
of  your  deliberation  will  be  considered  as  indica- 
tive of  its  future  character,  as  well  as  the  future 
happiness  and  prosperity  of  its  citizens.    The  repu- 


-394  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 

tation  of  the  State;  as  well  as  its  highest  interest, 
will  require  that  a  just  and  generous  policy  toward 
the  general  government  and  due  regard  to  the 
rights  of  its  members,  respectively,  should  invari- 
ably have  their  proper  influence. 

In  the  commencement  of  the  State  government 
the  shackels  of  the  colonial  should  be  forgotten  in 
your  united  exertions  to  prove,  by  happy  experi- 
ence, that  a  uniform  adherence  to  the  first  princi- 
ples of  our  government  and  a  virtuous  exercise  of 
its  powers,  will  best  secure  efficiency  to  its  meas- 
ures and  stability  to  its  character.  Without  a  fre- 
quent recurrence  to  those  principles,  the  adminis- 
tration of  the  government  will  imperceptibly  be- 
come more  and  more  arduous,  until  the  simplicity 
of  our  republican  institutions  may  eventually  be 
lost  in  dangerous  expedients  and  political  design. 
Under  every  free  government  the  happiness  of  the 
citizens  must  be  identified  with  their  morals,  and 
while  a  constitutional  exercise  of  their  rights  shall 
•continue  to  have  its  due  weight  in  the  discharge  of 
the  duties  required  of  the  constituted  authorities  of 
the  State,  too  much  attention  cannot  be  bestowed 
to  the  encouragement  and  promotion  of  every  moral 
virtue  and  to  the  enactment  of  laws  calculated  to 
restrain  the  vicious  and  prescribe  punishment  for 
every  crime  commensurate  to  its  enormity. 

*'In  measuring,  however,  to  each  crime  its  ade- 
quate punishment,  it  will  be  well  to  recollect  that 
the  certainty  of  punishment  has  generally  the 
surest  effect  to  prevent  crime,  while  punishments 
unnecessarily  severe  too  often  produce  the  ac- 
quittal of  the  guilty  and  disappoint  one  of  the 
greatest  objects  of  legislation  and  good  govern- 
ment. The  dissemination  of  useful  knowledge  will 
be  indispensably  necessary  as  a  support  to  morals 
and  a  restraint  to  vice,  and  on  this  subject 
it  will  only  be  necessary  to  direct  your  attention  to 
the  plan  of  education  as  prescribed  by  the  consti- 
tution. 

**I  recommend  to  your  consideration  the  pro- 
priety of  providing  by  law,  to  prevent  more  effect- 
ually any  unlawful  attempts  to  seize  and  carry  into 
bondage  persons  of  color  legally  entitled  to  their 
freedom,  and  at  the  same  time,  as  far  as  practi- 


V 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OP  INDIANA.  395 

cable,  to  prevent  those  who  rightfully  owe  service 
to  the  citizens  of  any  other  state  or  territory  from 
seeking,  within  the  limits  of  this  state,  a  refuge 
from  possession  of  their  lawful  owners.  Such  a 
measure  will  tend  to  'secure  those  who  are  free 
from  any  unlawful  attempts  (to  enslave  them)  and 
secure  the  rights  of  the  citizens  of  the  other  states 
and  territories  as  far  as  ought  reasonably  to  be  ex- 
pected." 

BOUNDARY   AND    AREA. 

The  State  of  Indiana  is  situated  between  the  parallels  of 
37  degrees,  50  minutes  and  41  degrees,  46  minutes  north  lati- 
tude, and  between  8  degrees,  48  minutes  and  11  degrees  and  1 
minute  west  longitude  from  Washington.  The  extreme 
length  from  north  to  south  is  two  hundred  and  seventy-six 
miles.  The  state,  however,  is  nearly  an  oblong,  the  only  ir- 
regularities being  the  Ohio  river  on  the  south  and  where  the 
Wabash  is  the  dividing  line  between  it  and  Southern  Illinois. 
The  average  length  is  two  hundred  and  forty  miles,  the  aver- 
age width  one  hundred  and  fifty-two  miles,  making  the  con- 
tents about  thirty-six  thousand  five  hundred  square  miles,  or 
twenty-three  million  three  hundred  and  sixty  thousand  acres. 

B}^  the  ordinance  of  Congress  of  April  19,  1816,'  the  con- 
templated s]tate  was  to  be  bounded  on  the  east  by  a  meridian 
line  which  forms  the  western  boundary  of  the  State  of  Ohio, 
being  a  northern  line  from  the  mouth  of  the  Miami;  on  the 
south  by  the  River  Ohio,  from  the  mouth  of  the  great  Miami 
to  the  mouth  of  the  River  Wabash;  on  the  west  by  a  line 
drawn  along  the  middle  of  the  Wabash  from  its  mouth  to  a 
point  where  a  due  north  line  drawn  from  the  town  of  Vin- 
cennes  would  last  touch  the  northwestern  shore  of  said  river 
and  from  thence  by  a  due  line  north  until  the  same  should 
intersect  an  east  and  west  line  drawn  through  a  point  ten 
miles  north  of  the  southern  extremity  of  Lake  Michigan;  on 
the  north  by  the  said  east  and  west  line  until  the  same  shall 
intersect  the  first  mentioned  meridian  line,  which  forms  the 
western  boundary  of  the  State  of  Ohio. 

Indiana  is  therefore 'bounded  by  Ohio  on  the  east.  Ken- 


396  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA, 

tucky  on  the  south,  Illinois  on  the  west,  and  Michigan  on  the 
north. 

The  titles  to  the  lands  in  this  state  have  been  acquired 
and  the  lands  all  passed  through  the  general  government,  ex« 
cept  the  French  grants  near  Vincennes,  which  were  con* 
firmed  to  the  descendants  of  the  early  settlers  there,  and  the 
grants  near  the  falls  of  the  Ohio  made  to  Clark's  regiment  by 
the  State  of  Virginia  for  their  services  in  the  Indian  cam- 
paign. 

In  the  surveys,  meridian  lines  were  first  established  run* 
ning  due  north  from  the  mouth  of  some  river  or  from  some 
other  point  easily  located.  These  are  intersected  at  right 
angles  by  lines  running  east  and  west  and  called  base  lines. 

The  first  principal  meridian  for  the  State  of  Indiana  is  a 
line  running  due  north  from  the  mouth  of  the  Miami,  and  is 
in  fact  the  east  line  of  the  state.  The  second  principal 
meridian  is  a  line  running  due  north  from  the  mouth  of 
Little  Blue  river,  eighty-nine  miles  west  of  the  eastern  state 
line.  The  only  base  line  running  through  the  state  crosses 
it  from  east  to  west  in  latitude  38  degrees,  30  minutes,  leav- 
ing the  Ohio  twenty-five  miles  above  Louisville  and  striking 
the  Wabash  four  miles  above  the  mouth  of  White  river.. 
From  thi«  base  line  the  Congressional  townships  of  six  miles 
square  are  numbered  north  and  south  from  the  second  principal 
meridian  crossing  the  base  line  six  miles  south  of  Paoli,  in^ 
Orange  County;  all'  the  ranges  of  township  are  numbered  east 
and  west,  except  the  counties  of  Switzerland,  Dearborn  and 
parts  of  Franklin,  Union,  Wayne  and  Randolph.  This  part 
of  the  state,  which  was  acquired  by  the  Greenville  treaty  in 
1795,  was  attached  to  the  land  oflSce  at  Cincinnati  and  was 
surveyed  in  townships  from  a  base  line  fifteen  miles  north  of 
the  former  and  it  ranges  west  of  the  first  principal  meridian.. 

Townships  are  sub-divided  into  thirty-six  equal  parts  or 
thirty-six  square  miles,  containing  six  hundred  and  forty 
acres  each,  called  sections.  These  sections  are  sub-divided 
into  halves  of  three  hundred  and  twenty  acres  and  quarters 
of  one  hundred  and  sixty  acres  each,  which  last  are  again 
sub-divided  into  halves  of  eighty  acres  and  into  quarters  of 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA.  397 

eighty  acres  and  into  quarters  of  forty  acres  each. 

The  townships  are  laid  off  into  sections,  commencing:  at 
the  northeast  corner,  numbering  from  the  right  to  the  left 
hand  and  from  the  left  to  right  hand  until  the  thirty-six  sec- 
tions are  numbered. 

The  Territorial  government  of  Indiana  ended  on  the  7th 
of  November,  1816,  when  it  was  superseded  by  the  state  gov- 
ernment and  the  state  was  formally  admitted  by  resolution  of 
Congress,  approved  the  11th  of  December  the  same  year. 
The  first  Senators  elected  to  represent  Indiana  in  the  United 
States  Senate  were  James  Noble  and  Waller  Taylor.  Robert 
C.  New  was  elected  Secretary  of  State;  William  H.  Lilly  was 
elected  Auditor;  Daniel  C.  Lane,  Treasurer.  After  this  the 
first  General  Assembly  adjourned  on  the  third  day  of  Janu- 
ary, 1817. 

The  citizens  of  the  infant  state  had  but  very  few  among 
its  number  who  were  well  off  financially,  and  as  the  amount 
required  to  run  the  state  machinery  at  that  period  was  not 
large,  the  taxes  on  the  property  were  kept  at  the  lowest 
possible  figure.  For  state  revenue  purposes  the  taxes  were 
raised  from  the  land,  of  which  they  made  three  classes.  In 
1817  and  1818  the  rate  of  taxation  on  one  hundred  acres  of 
first  rate  land  was  one  dollar;  on  a  hundred  acres  of  second 
^ate  land,  eighty-seven  and  a  half  cents;  on  a  hundred  acres 
of  third  rate  land  it  was  fifty  cents.  In  1821  it  was  increased 
to  a  dollar  and  a  half  on  one  hundred  acres  of  first  rate  land 
and  other  land  in  proportion.  About  this  same  rate  of  tax- 
ation was  continued  until  the  year  1831,  when  the  taxes  on 
one  hundred  acres  of  first  rate  land  were  reduced  to  eighty 
cents;  second  rate  land,  sixty  cents,  and  third  rate  land,  forty 
cents.  The  tax  for  the  funds  to  support  the  county  institu- 
tions and  officers,  taking  care  of  the  poor  and  for  such  im- 
provements on  public  highways  as  building  bridges,  etc.,  was 
secured  from  a  poll  tax  on  the  head  Of  every  man  over  twenty- 
one  and  under  fifty  j^ears,  and  from  all  sorts  of  merchandise 
and  personal  property  and  a  license  to  venders  of  all  sorts  of 
merchandise.  Even  at  these  low  rates  of  taxation  it  was  a 
great  hardship  on  many  people  to  pay  the  small  amounts  as- 


398  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 

sessed  against  them. ,  Nearly  all  the  people  were  more  or  less 
in  debt  in  small  amounts,  and  in  some  cases  for  the  money 
which  purchased  their  lands.  Very  little  of  the  land  was 
cleared  up  and  productive,  and  it  was  several  years  after  1820 
before  the  people  could  depend  upon  agricultural  sources  for 
money.  Nearly  all  of  the  men  put  in  their  time  on  the  chase 
and  paid  but  very  little  attention  to  clearing  the  land  or  cul- 
tivating the  soil. 

While  It  was  true  that  money  was  hard  to  get  and  many 
of  the  people  had  nothing  practically  in  this  way,  there  never 
were  people  who  lived  better  or  had  more  of  the  real  comforts 
that  come  to  people  who  are  willing  to  accept  the  situation 
and  make  the  best  of  it,  than  did  the  pioneers  of  Indiana. 
Their  homes  at  that  time  were  log  cabins  and  were  finished 
in  a  very  rude  manner—  in  most  cases  with  such  furniture  as 
the  men  could  make  by  the  use  of  an  auger  and  an  ax. 

During  Jennings'  administration  as  Governor  of  Indiana, 
the  inconvenience  of  transporting  articles  of  merchandise  and 
of  travel,  was  so  apparent  that  the  first  note  of  internal  im- 
provements was  sounded  by  him  in  a  message  to  the  Legisla- 
ture in  1818,  in  which  he  said: 

**The  internal  improvements  of  the  state  form 
a  subject  of  the  greatest  importance  and  deserves 
the  most  serious  consideration.  Roads  and  canals 
are  calculated  to  afford  facilities  for  commercial 
transactions  connected  wiih  the  exports  and  im- 
ports of  the  country,  by  lessening  the  expense  and 
time  attendant,  as  well  as  on  the  transportation  of 
bulky  articles  which  compose  our  exports,  as  on  the 
importation  of  articles,  the  growth  and  manufac- 
ture of  foreign  countries,  which  luxury  and  habit 
have  rendered  too  common  and  indispensable  to  our 
consumption.  They  enhance  the  value  of  the  soil 
by  affording  agriculturists  the  means  of  deriving 
greater  gains  irom  its  cultivation  with  an  equal 
proportion  of  labgr,  thereby  presenting  stronger 
inducements  to  industry  and  enterprise,  and  at  the 
same  time,  by  various  excitements,  invite  to  a 
more  general  intercourse  between  the  citizens.  The 
success  which  had  attended  the  exertions  of  the 
Jeffersonville    and    Ohio   Canal  Company  affords  a 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA.  399^ 

flattering  prospect  of  a  speedy  commencement  upon 
a  g^reat  object  for  which  the  corporation  was  cre- 
ated, and  presents  still  strongrer  claims  upon  the 
General  Assembly  to  aid  in  its  ultimate  execution." 

Governor  Jennings  in  1818,  in  connection  with  General 
Cass  and  Judge  Parks,  was  appointed  a  commissioner  to 
treat  with  the  various  tribes  of  Indians  for  lands  in  central 
Indiana.  In  the  series  of  treaties  they  succeeded  in  purchase 
ing  the  Indians'  claims  to  all  the  lands  in  the  central  part  of 
the  state.  In  fact,  except  the  Miami,  Thorntown  and  a  few 
other  small  reservations,  they  purchased  all  the  land  south  of 
the  Wabash  river.  This  was  a  very  important  transaction 
for  Indiana,  and  was  of  sufficient  excuse,  in  the  opinion  of 
the  majority  of  the  people,  for  the  violation  of  the  clause  in 
the  constitution  which  forbids  the  Grovernor  of  the  State  to 
hold  any  office  under  the  United  States.  In  order  to  insure 
success,  the  contemplated  proceedings  were  kept  secret.  The 
negotiations  were  not  protracted  and  the  offense,  whatever  it 
may  have  been,  was  wholly  inadvertent  on  the  part  of  the 
Governor.  He  was,  however,  very  much  chagrined  when  he 
learned  that  his  conduct  had  been  called  into  question.  He 
threw  his  commission  into  the  fire  and  left  it  to  his  enemies, 
as  he  called  them,  to  sustain  their  charge  The  subject  came 
up  before  the  Legislature  whether  the  Grovernor  had  not  va- 
cated his  office,  thereby  devolving  it  on  the  Lieutenant  Gov- 
ernor by  acting  as  commissioner  of  the  United  States.  The 
Legislature,  however,  appreciated  the  motives  of  the  Gov- 
ernor and  declined  any  action  in  the  premises.  Lieutenant 
Governor  Harrison  immediately  resigned  his  ofl&ce  and  at  the 
August  election  of  1819  was  a  candidate  against  Jennings  for 
Governor.     Jennings  received  9,168  votes  out  of  11,256. 

During  the  year  1816  the  following  counties  were  organ- 
ized: 

Pike  County,  containing  338  square  miles. 
Jennings  County,  containing  380  square  miles. 
Monroe  County,  containing  420  square  miles. 
Orange  County,  containing  400  square  miles. 
Sullivan  County,  containing  430  square  miles. 


400  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 

During  the  j^ear  1817  the  following:  counties  were  organ- 
ized : 

Davis  County^  containing  420  square  miles. 

Dubois  County,  containing  432  square  miles. 

Scott  County,  containing  200  square  miles. 

In  the  year  1818  the  following  counties  were  organized: 

Crawford  County,  containing  320  square  miles. 

Lawrence  County,  containing  438  square  miles. 

Martin  County,  containing  340  square  miles. 

Morgan  County,  containing  453  square  miles. 

Owen  County,  containing  396  square  miles. 

Randolph  County,  containing  440  square  miles. 

Ripley  County,  containing  440  square  miles. 

Spencer  County,  containing  408  square  miles. 

Vanderburg  County,  containing  240  square  miles. 

Vigo  County,  containing  408  square  miles. 

Flo3'd  County  was  organized  in  1819,  containing  144 
square  miles. 

The  first  few  years  after  the  state  was  admitted  into  the 
Union  the  price  of  government  land  was  held  at  two  dollars 
an  acre.  One-fourth  of  which  must  be  paid  down  and  the 
balance  in  three  equal  annual  payments  and  a  year  of  grace 
after  the  last  payment  became  due  before  forfeiture  was  ex- 
acted. If  paid  at  the  end  of  four  years,  interest  was  exacted 
on  all  the  unpaid  installments.  The  government  allow- 
ing credit  to  the  purchaser  caused  many  men  to  bargain 
for  more  land  than  it  was  possible  for  them  to  pay  for. 
In  man}'  cases  they  would  borrow  mone}^  and  buy  a  half 
section  or  more  ^of  land,  paying  one-fourth  or  fifty  cents  an 
acre.  Good  land  at  this  time  advanced  very  rapidly  in 
price.  About  the  year  1818  there  was  great  trouble  caused 
by  so  many  who  were  unable  to  secure  mone}'  to  settle  the 
second  or  third  pa3'ments. 

By  1821  thousands  of  those  purchasers  were  unable  to 
meet  their  obligations  as  it  was  utterly  impossible  for  them 
to  secure  the  money.  This  subject  was  brought  up  before 
Congress  and  the  plan  that  was  agreed  upon  was  probably 
most  favorable  to  the  people  of  any  that  could  have  been 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA.  401 

adopted.  All  interest,  which  then  amounted  in  man}^  cases 
to  more  than  one-third  of  the  debt  was  released.  Lands  en- 
tered, that  part  payments  had  been  made  on,  were  allowed  to 
be  relinquished  and  the  amount  that  h^d  been  advanced  was 
applied  on  such  lands  as  the  purchaser  would  select,  paying: 
for  it  in  full.  The  lands  were  thereafter  sold  for  cash  only 
at  $1.25  an  acre. 

The  three  years  of  1820,  '21  and  '22  were  attended  with 
more  fatal  sickness  than  has  ever  been  known  either  before 
or  since  in  the  western  countr}-.  Many  of  the  young:  towns 
which  were  county  seats,  which  had  sprung:  up  in  the  vari- 
ous parts  of  the  country,  were  almost  depopulated.  During: 
that  time  very  few  persons  escaped  without  one  or  more  se- 
vere attacks  of  fever.  The  prevailing:  disease  was  what  is 
known  as  bilious  or  remittent  fever,  in  man}'^  cases  diflFering: 
very  little  from  the  yellow  fever  known  in  the  extreme  south. 
In  all  parts  of  the  new  country,  owing  to  so  much  decaying:  veg:- 
etation,  there  was  a  g:reat  deal  of  malaria  and  almost  every- 
body was  affected  with  it.  The  reg:ular  old  shaking:  **ag:ue 
fits''  and  fever  were  common  on  every  hand. 

The  persons  owning:  milk  cows  permitted  them  to  g:ra2e 
on  the  rich  rang:e  of  the  country,  and  from  some  cause  the 
cows  contracted  a  disease  called  Tires,  or  Milk-sickness.  The 
disease  was  thus  conveyed  to  the  people  and  in  many  cases 
proved  fatal.  A  tired  and  weary  feeling:  was  the  chief  char- 
acteristics of  this  disease,  and  many  times  the  little  calves 
would  reel  and  fall  down  while  sucking:  milk  from  their 
mothers.  As  the  country  was  cleared  this  disease  became 
less  prevalent,  and  in  a  few  years  entirely  disappeared.  The 
same  was  also  true  of  the  ag:ue  which  was  so  prevalent. 

In  November,  1821,  Governor  Jenning:s  convened  the  Leg:is- 
lature  in  extra  session  to  make  provisions  for  the  payment  of 
the  interest  on  the  state  debt.  It  was  thoug:ht  that  a  sufficient 
amount  for  that  purpose  could  be  realized  on  the  notes  of  the 
State  Bank  and  its  branches,  and  the  Governor  urg:ed  upon 
the  Leg:islature  that  the  public  debt  could  honestl}'^  and  con- 
scientiously be  paid  with  these  depreciated  notes.  He  said 
that  it  would  be  oppressive  if  the  state,   after  the  paper  of 


402  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 

this  institution  was  authorized  to  be  circulated  in  revenue^ 
should  be  prevented  by  any  assignment  of  the  evidence  of  the 
existing^  debt,  from  dischargfing  at  least  so  much  of  the  debt 
with  the  paper  of  the  bank  as  would  absorb  the  collections  of 
that  year,  especially  when  their  notes  were  to  be  made  re^ 
ceivable  by  the  agent  of  the  state  because  greatly  depreciated 
by  mismanagement  on  the  part  of  the  bank  itself.  It  was  not 
to  be  expected  that  a  public  loss  to  the  state  should  be 
avoided  by  resorting  to  any  measures  which  would  not  com- 
port with  the  correct  views  of  public  justice,  nor  should  it  be 
anticipated  that  the  Treasurer  of  the  United  States  would 
ultimatel}"  adopt  measures  to  secure  an  uncertain  debt,  which 
would  interfere  with  the  arrangement  calculated  to  adjust 
the  demands  against  the  state  without  producing  an  ad- 
ditional embarrassment. 

The  manufacturing  industries  which  had  been  started  in 
New  England  and  the  Atlantic  states  furnished  a  good  de- 
mand for  cotton  that  was  raised  in  the  Southern  states  and 
territories.  This  furnished  labor  for  a  large  number  of  per- 
sons in  the  East,  also  a  large  amount  of  slave  labor  in  the 
«outh  and  there  was  a  great  demand  for  produce  raised  in 
the  western  states.  Flat-boating  commenced  and  was  in  full 
blast,  carrying  corn,  wheat  and  pork  to  New  Orleans,  where 
it  was  then  distributed  to  the  cotton  country  and  by  ship  to 
the  New  England  shores.  All  sorts  of  business  flourished 
and  there  was  a  great  deal  of  emigration  into  this  state. 
This  favorable  condition  of  things  was  noted  b}^  the  min- 
isters of  foreign  countries.  There  being  no  tariff  (or  not  a 
sufficient  one)  to  protect  our  new  industries,  in  a  short  time 
immense  quantities  of  goods  were  imported  into  our  country 
which  could  be  sold  for  much  less  price  than  our  new  man- 
ufacturing institutions  could  make  them.  This  stopped  our 
manufacturing  business,  broke  down  the  demand  for  cotton 
and  destroyed,  or  nearly  so,  our  flat  boat  trade  with  produce 
in  the  south. 

For  the  next  few  years  after  1820,  produce  became  so 
cheap  that  it  did  not  pay  to  raise  any  more  than  was  needed 
for  the  home  consumption.    Everything  and  all  sorts  of  busi- 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OP  INDIANA.  403 

ness  was  affected  from  the  same  cause.  Land  that  had  been 
advancing  in  price  during  the  short  period  of  good  times  was 
now  in  yio  demand.  Improved  farms  which  had  been  worth 
from  six  to  ten  dollars  per  acre  were  not  worth  now  more  than 
two  and  a  half.  Contracts  which  were  made  during  the  good 
times,  where  deferred  payments  were  to  be  made,  caused  ruin 
to  many  parties. 

It  was  impossible  to  collect  debts  by  forced  sales;  nobody 
wanted  property.  The  failure  of  the  bank  at  Vincennes  that 
had  become  the  state  bank  of  Indiana,  and  its  branches  at 
Corydon,  Brookfield  and  Vevay  left  a  large  amount  of  worth- 
less paper  in  the  hands  of  the  people.  This  was  another 
severe  blow  to  the  people  of  this  State.  There  was  no  possi- 
ble reason  why  this  bank  and  its  branches  should  not  have  kept 
solvent  if  they  had  lived  up  to  the  conditions  of  their  charter; 
but  speculation  and  peculation  were  engaged  in  contrary  to 
the  stipulated  and  lawful  conditions  of  the  charter  of  this 
bank,  which  brought  ruin  to  it  and  injured  thousands  of  the 
citizens  of  Indiana.  The  Government  of  the  United  States 
received  only  thirty-seven  thousand  dollars  on  a  deposit  of 
two  hundred  thousand  dollars  for  land  sales. 

The  bank  at  Madison,  Indiana,  was  an  honest  institution 
and  was  governed  by  a  Board  of  Directors  and  bank  officers 
who  regarded  a  solemn  oath  to  mean  that  it  was  their  duty  to 
protect  those  who  intrusted  them  with  the  keeping  of  their 
means,  and  not  to  mean  to  get  all  they  could  by  honest  or 
dishonest  means  and  keep  it  all.  The  financial  pressure  on 
this  bank,  however,  was  very  heavy,  caused  by  the  failure  of 
the  others,  and  it  was  forced  to  suspend.  A  little  while  af- 
terward it  terminated  its  business  and  paid  the  last  farthing 
of  its  debts. 

These  bank  failures  were  one  of  the  real  causes  of  such 
hard  times  in  Indiana  at  that  period.  There  was  very  little 
coin  in  the  country  at  that  time,  the  silver,  with  the  excep- 
tion of  a  small  amount  of  subsidiary  coin,  the  old  style  bits 
^twelve  and  a  half  cent  pieces)  and  what  was  termed  by  the 
Hoosiers  '*fo-pence"  (six  and  a  half  cents),  was  all  Mexican 
dollars.     They  cut  man}-  of  these  dollars  into  quarters  and 


404  PIONEER  HISTORY  OP  INDIANA. 

sometimes  into  eighths  when  the  transaction  called  for  twelve 
and  a  half  cents.  Then,  as  now,  some  who  wanted  to  get  the 
best  of  the  bargain  would  cut  the  dollar  into  five  pieces,  thus 
making  a  quarter  on  each  dollar  cut  up.  This  became  so 
common  that  man}"  count)'  commissioners  had  a  diagram 
made  of  a  cut  quarter  when  a  dollar  was  to  be  cut  in  equal 
parts,  and  when  paying  taxes  and  cut  money  was  used,  it  had 
to  conform  to  the  diagram  or  it  was  rejected.  Storekeepers 
resorted  to  the  same  expedient  to  detect  short  quarters. 

When  blacksmithing  was  needed,  if  the  account  amounted 
to  a  quarter  and  the  customer  had  a  dollar  to  pay  it  with, 
they  took  the  dollar  and  laid  it  on  the  anvil  and  the  black- 
smith, with  a  cold  chisel,  cut  out  a  notch  of  one-fourth  of  the 
dollar  for  his  pay.  Some  times  a  round  bit  would  be  fur- 
nished when  the  article  was  only  six  and  a  fourth  cents  and 
it  would  be  cut  in  the  middle. 

Governor  Jennings  was  elected  to  two  terms  as  Governor 
of  Indiana.  At  the  August  election  of  1822  he  was  elected  as 
member  to  Congress  and  served  in  that  position  until  1831. 
Soon  after  his  being  elected  to  Congress,  he  resigned  his  po- 
sition of  Governor  and  was  succeeded  by  Ratliffe  Boone,  of 
Boonville,  Indiana,  who  at  that  time  was  Lieutenant  Gov- 
ernor. At  the  election  of  August,  1822,  William  Hendricks 
was  elected  Governor.  He  was  a  good  man  and  made  a  good 
Governor  and  held  that  position  until  1825,  when  he  was 
elected  United  States  Senator. 

In  1820  a  committee  was  appointed  to  select  a  suitable 
place  for  a  state  capital.  The  commissioners  for  that  pur- 
pose were  George  Hunt,  of  Wayne  County;  John  Conner,  of 
Fayette  County;  Stephen  Ludlow,  of  Dearborn  County; 
Joseph  Bartholomew,  of  Clark  County;  John  Tipton,  of  Har- 
rison County;  Thomas  Emmerson,  of  Knox  County;  Jesse  B. 
Durham,  of  Jackson  County;  John  Gilliland,  of  Switzerland 
County,  and  Frederick  Rapp,  of  Posey  County.  Williarn 
Prince  was  appointed  on  that  committee  from  Gibson  County, 
but  failed  to  go.  The  commission,  in  accordance  with  a 
proclamation  of  Governor  Jennings,  met  at  the  cabin  of  Wil- 
liam Conner  on  the  west  fork  of  White  river.  May  22,  1820. 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA.  405 

After  canvassing:  many  sites  which  were  presented  and  rec- 
ommended to  them  by  delegfations  of  citizens  from  various 
towns  who  were  at  the  meeting,  owing  to  the  location  of 
many  of  these  recommended  sites  being  so  near  the  southern 
border  of  the  state,  it  was  agreed  to  select  a  site  as  near  as 
practicable  in  the  center  of  the  state.  This  had  to  be  deter- 
mined by  the  surveys  which  had  then  been  made  and  by  the 
length  and  breadth  of  the  territory  which  was  then  unsur- 
veyed.  After  a  heated  controversy  the  site  of  Indianapolis  was 
agreed  upon,  it  having  received  the  votes  of  a  majority  of  two 
of  all  the  commissioners  present.  At  that  time  there  was  not  a 
white  family  located  in  that  immediate  neighborhood.  Sur- 
veyors were  put  to  work  and  laid  out  a  new  location  for  the 
capital.  On  the  9th  of  January,  1821,  the  report  of  the  com- 
mission was  accepted  and  the  capital  of  Indiana,  then  a  dense 
woods,  was  located  and  named  Indianapolis.  Congress  do- 
nated four  sections  of  land  for  that  purpose,  on  which  the 
city  was  laid  out  and  which  now  stands  so  proudly  as  a  mon- 
ument to  Hoosier  progress  and  industry. 

The  first  sale  of  lots  at  Indianapolis  was  a  spirited  af- 
fair. Many  of  them  sold  for  five  hundred  dollars  and  some 
that  are  now  located  in  the  most  valuable  portions  of  the  city 
sold  as  low  as  thirty  dollars.  It  was  difl&cult  to  gather  to- 
gether a  sufficient  number  of  bidders  in  that  remote  section 
to  sell  the  lots  at  a  very  advantageous  price.  Everybody  in- 
terested in  the  capital  bought  all  they  could  pay  for.  As  soon 
as  it  became  known  that  the  capital  was  to  be  at  that  point, 
there  was  a  rush  of  settlers  to  that  section  and  nearby 
country.  Nearly  all  of  them  adopted  the  same  tactics  that 
all  early  settlers  did,  of  purchasing  forty  acres  of  land  out  of 
a  hundred  and  sixty  acres  which  they  located  and  intended  to 
purchase  as  soon  as  they  could  in  any  way  secure  the  means. 
This  was  true  of  all  the  country  around  Indianapolis  for 
many  miles  and  very  soon  speculators  started  out  to  select 
lands  in  the  country  around  where  the  new  capital  was 
located. 

The  first  of  these  were  three  or  four  from  Louisville^ 
Kentucky,  who  were  acting  as  agents  for  large  land  syndi- 


406  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 

cates  in  the  east  and  were  preparing  to  locate  some  land  ten 
or  fifteen  miles  to  the  south-east  of  Indianapolis.  The}'  were 
met  by  some  of  the  squatters,  who  had  boug^ht  small  pieces  of 
land,  who  told  them  there  was  much  better  land  than  they 
were  preparing  to  select  nearer  the  capital.  Accepting  this  ad- 
vice and  the  guidance  of  these  citizens,  they  started  out  to 
examine  some  lands,  and  while  in  a  dense  wilderness  they 
were  fired  on  by  a  concealed  foe,  several  shots  passing  very 
near  their  heads.  This  was  evidently  done  by  men  who 
wished  to  drive  them  out  of  the  country  and  it  had  the  de- 
sired effect,  they  reporting  at  Louisville  that  they  had  been 
fired  on  by  Indians. 

The  settlers  in  the  country  in  the  meantime  were  making 
ever}'  effort  to  secure  the  land  they  wanted,  but  for  fear  of 
trouble  from  the  land  sharks  and  of  losing  the  land  they 
wanted  to  purchase,  some  of  which  they  had  made  improve- 
ments on,  they  determined  to  form  an  organization  for  self 
protection  and  to  that  end  they  called  a  meeting  of  all  the 
citizens  in  the  surrounding  country  to  assemble  at  a  given 
point.  They  called  themselves  **Home  Defenders."  Every- 
thing that  took  place  at  this  meeting  was  to  be  a  profound 
secret.  They  resolved  that  these  land  sharks  should  be  de- 
feated in  their  attempts  to  purchase  the  lands  these  farmers 
had  selected  even  if  they  had  to  kill  them  to  accomplish  their 
object.  They  selected  three  of  their  most  resolute  men  to 
keep  a  lookout  for  the  agents  of  these  land  syndicates.  They 
organized  a  company  of  thirty  men  who  were  dressed  in  reg- 
ular Indian  costumes  and  when  needed  they  were  to  be 
painted  and  wear  all  the  paraphernalia  that  the  Indian  wore 
.to  make  them  look  as  dangerous  and  hideous  as  possible. 
They  had  another  company  of  twenty-five  men  who  were 
dressed  in  the  home  spun  wear  of  the  pioneer,  hunting 
shirts  and  coon-skin  caps.  Having  their  organization  in 
readiness,  they  sent  their  spies  out  in  various  directions  to 
watch  for  these  dressed-up  dandy  agents,  many  of  them 
wearing  the  stove-pipe  hats  of  that  period,  whom  they  knew 
would  come  by  the  way  of  the  White  water  country  from 
Cincinnati  or  from  Louisville  over  the   beaten   trace   which 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA.  407 

liad  been  made  through  Jackson  county  that  crossed  the  east 
fork  of  the  White  river  not  far  from  Columbus,  Indiana. 
Having  a  detachment  of  mounted  men  who  were  all  the  time 
in  touch  with  their  spies  who  would  notify  all  the  organiza- 
tions at  the  earliest  possible  moment  when  they  should  find 
out  that  any  of  the  speculators  were  coming  into  that  section, 
the  main  body  of  these  people  returned  to  their  homes. 
Everything  went  on  very  quietly  for  some  time,  until  finally  one 
day  several  of  the  detachment  left  on  duty  came  into  the  set- 
tlement and  notified  all  the  citizens  to  assemble  at  a  point 
formerly  selected,  as  the  speculators  were  coming. 

These  speculators  traveled  in  a  body  of  from  fifteen  to 
twenty  men,  in  order  that  they  might  be  company  for  each 
other  and  that  they  might  be  better  able  to  defend  them- 
selves as  each  of  them  had«on  his  person  a  pair  of  pistols  or 
some  weapon  of  defense.  These  men  were  coming  by  way  of 
Wayne  county,  there  being  a  trace  from  Cincinnati  through 
the  White  Water  valley,  up  to  that  country. 

After  the  men  who  had  organized  to  defend  their  homes 
had  been  in  camp  some  time  and  had  all  their  preparations 
made,  one  of  their  spies  rode  hurriedly  ui^  and  told  them  that 
the  land  sharks  were  coming  and  would  be  in  the 
neighborhood,  where  they  had  selected  to  receive  them 
within  two  or  three  hours.  Three  men  were  sent  back 
to  meet  the  speculators  proposing  to  act  as  guides  for  them 
and  show  them  the  best  lands  to  select  from.  They  were  rid- 
ing leisurely  along  looking  at  lands,  having  a  jolly,  social 
time,  when  all  at  once  they  heard  several  shots  fired  not  far 
away,  and  they  saw  a  number  of  backwoodsmen,  riding  at 
breakneck  speed  across  their  front,  stopping  every  little 
while  and  firing  back.  These  backwoodsmen  apparently, 
were  being  pursued  by  some  men  who  were  yet  in  the  dis- 
tance. They  halted  not  far  from  the  place  where  these 
speculators  had  stopped  and  leaving  t^heir  horses  in  the  hands 
of  a  few  men  to  hold,  they  rushed  back  and  selected  places  to 
defend  themselves,  seeming  to  be  waiting  for  the  coming  ene- 
my whatever  it  was.  In  a  few  minutes  a  large  body  of  In- 
•dians  came  rushing  over  the  brow  of  the  hill  screaming  and 


408  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 

whooping:  as  Indians  do.  The  white  men  fired  several  shots: 
at  them  which  seemed  to  stop  the  advance  of  the  Indians. 
The  pioneers  went  to  the  point  where  their  horses  were  left 
and  gfot  onto  them  and  rode  in  among  the  speculators  and 
told  them  that  they  had  been  assailed  by  a  strong  body  of  In- 
dians, two  of  their  men  had  been  killed  and  that  they  were 
not  strong  enough  to  hold  their  ground  as  the  Indians  out- 
numbered them  two  to  one  and  appealed  to  the  speculators  to 
form  and  help  them  protect  their  homes.  About  this  time 
the  Indians  were  seen  coming,  whooping  and  firing  as  they 
came,  the  pioneers  firing  back  at  them,  at  the  same  time  ap- 
pealing to  these  speculators  to  get  in  position  and  help  them 
drive  the  Indians  back.  This  was  a  little  more  than  the 
speculators  had  bargained  for.  -Ther  turned  and  took  their 
back  trail  at  the  best  speed  their  borses  had  in  them.  They 
were  followed  by  tire  pioneers  who  tried  to  prevail  on  them  to 
— **StopI  Be  men  and  help  us  defend  our  homes."  The  In- 
dians all  the  time,  whooping  and  yelling  and  firing,  many  of 
the  balls  coming  in  close  proximity  to  their  heads.  These 
agents  lost  all  thought  of  honor  and  determined  to  take  care 
of  themselves  only.  The  white  soldiers  kept  up  with  them 
for  some  distance  in  their  mad  race,  finally  cursing  them  for 
a  lot  of  cowardly,  speculating  villians.  They  halted  their 
detachment  and  as  the  Indians  came  up,  they  fought  a  sham 
battle  of  no  mean  proportion.  The  speculators  made  good 
their  retreat  and  did  not  halt  until  they  reached  Cincinnati. 
It  was  said  afterward  that  in  the  woods  in  eastern  Marion 
and  the  western  part  of  Hancock  county,  many  "plug"  hats 
were  found  which  had  been  worn  by  these  gentry.  The 
farmers  returned  to  their  homes  and  were  never  bothered 
again  by  speculators,  purchasing  their  homes  and  living 
happily. 

HOOSIER." 

It  was  in  1830  that  the  word  **Hoosier"  became  known  as 
meaning  Indiana  people.  In  1833  the  New  Year's  address, 
published  by  the  Indianapolis  Journal,  contained  a  poem 
written  by  John  Finley,  of  Richmond,  Indiana.^  The  poem 
was  entitled,   **The  Hoosier's  Nest."    The  word  "Hoosier'" 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA.  409 

evidently  was  intended  to  convey  the  meaning  of  an  uncouth, 
crude,  uncultivated  people  who  lived  in  Indiana,  and  the 
**smart  set"  of  other  parts  of  the  United  States  had  tried  to 
construe  the  word  to  express  odium  on  our  people.  When 
taking:  into  consideration  the  advanced  steps  taken  by  our 
state  in  educational  matters,  these  attempts  have  been  as  a 
boomerang  and  only  reflect  upon  those  ignorant  enough  to 
attempt  to  cast  the  odium.  There  is  no  Indianian  today  of 
any  note  who  does  not  accept  the  term  *'Hoosier"  and  is 
proud  of  the  name.  In  the  earl}^  days  men  who  went  from 
Indiana  to  California,  when  in  answer  to  the  question, 
/* Where  are  you  from?"  said  '^Indiana,"  the  reply  would  be, 
"A  Hoosier  from  Posey  County,  Hooppole  Township."  Much 
of  such  slang  was  originated  by  the  Pittsburg  coal  boatmen. 
"Hooppole  Township"  came  to  be  used  in  this  way:  In  the 
early  boating  days  of  this  country,  Mt.  Vernon  was  a  head 
centre  for  the  gathering  of  flatboat  crews.  At  one  time  a 
large  coal  fleet  had  landed  at  that  point  from  Pittsburg  and 

a  number  of  the  boatmen  had  gone  up  into  the  town  and 
filled  up  on  fighting  whisky.  They  soon  raised  a  disturbance 
and  started  in  to  clean  out  the  town.  At  that  time  there  were 
some  large  cooper  shops  in  the  lower  edge  of  the  village  next 
the  river  and  some  twenty-five  or  thirty  coopers  were  working 
there.  As  the  boatmen  and  citizens  were  having  the  battle, 
these  coopers,  with  a  stout  hooppole,  went  to  the  relief  of  the 
officers  who  were  trying  to  quell  the  disturbance,  and  with 
these  formidable  weapons  gave  the  Pittsburg  boatmen  a 
chastising  which  they  remembered  for  all  time  afterward. 
Hence  the  name  of  "Hooppole  Township,  Posey  County." 

In  1821  there  were  several  counties  organized: 

Bartholomew  County,  containing  405  square  miles. 

Decatur  County,  containing  380  square  miles. 

Green  County,  containing  540  square  miles. 

Henry  County;  containing  385  square  miles. 

Marion  County,  containing  400  square  miles. 

Park  County,  containing  440  square  miles. 

Putnam  County,  containing  486  square  miles. 

Rush  County,  containing  414  square  miles. 


410  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 

Shelby  County,  containing:  408  square  miles. 
Union  County,  containing  168  square  miles. 

In  1822  the  following  counties  were  organized: 
Johnson  County,  containing  320  square  miles. 
Montgomery  County,  containing  504  square  miles. 

In  1823  the  following  counties  were  organized: 
Hamilton  County,  containing  400  square  miles. 
Hendricks  County,  containing  380  square  miles. 
Madison  County,  containing  390  square  miles. 
Vermilion  County,  containing  280  square  miles. 

In  1824  the  following  county  was  formed: 
Allen  County,  containing  672  square  miles. 

In  1825  the  following  counties  were  formed: 
Clay  County,  containing  360  square  miles. 
Fountain  County,  containing  390  square  miles. 

In  1826,  Tippecanoe  County,  containing  504  square  miles. 

In  1820  the  population  was  147,178.  The  increase  for  the 
next  three  and  a  half  years  was  very  light,  as  that  embraced 
one  of  the  hardest  financial  periods  in  the  state's  early  history. 

The  administration  of  Governor  Hendricks  was  a  wise 
and  careful  one.  No  man  was  more  respected  and  none  more 
worthy  of  it.  He  was  ever  on  the  lookout  for  the  interests  of 
his  state  and  its  people. 

From  1816  to  1821  the  Legislature  was  organized  with 
ten  Senators  and  twenty-nine  Representatives.  By  ap- 
portionment law  made  by  the  Legislature  at  Corydon  in 
1821,  the  Senate  was  increased  to  sixteen  members  and  the 
House  to  forty-three  members.  The  men  composing  the 
General  Assembly  were  not  always  men  of  profound  learn- 
ing, but  in  most  cases  were  the  best  men  of  the  section  in 
which  they  lived.  At  that  time  politics  had  not  invaded  this 
country  in  any  serious  degree  and  the  difference  between  the 
men  was  usually  local.  These  lawmakers  had  to  face  the 
dishonest  actions  of  men  who  had  been  entrusted  with  the 
banking  interests  of  the  state  and  the  unfavorable  condition 
brought   about   by  the  paralyzing  situations  that  our  manu- 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA.  411 

facturing  interests  were  in  and  the  consequent  hard  times,  the 
want  of  a  market  put  upon  our  people. 

Portions  of  the  new  country  had  settled  up  previous  to 
these  hard  times  very  fast,  and  in  that  day  what  was  termed 
a  neighborhood  was  a  cluster  of  families  over  several  quarter 
sections  of  land,  and  most  likely  there  was  a  wilderness  of  six 
to  eight  miles  between  them  and  the  next  neighborhood. 
Around  the  most  important  towns  they  were  much  closer  to- 
gether. These  pioneers  were  very  short  of  money,  but  they 
had  their  guns  and  were  good  marksmen.  The  country  at 
that  time  was  at  peace  with  the  Indians.  The  greater  por- 
tion of  all  of  them  had  moved  to  the  west  and  northwest  to 
better  hunting  grounds,  where  there  were  no  white  people. 

In  Madison  County  in  1824  there  were  two  or  three  fami- 
lies of  friendly  Indians  who  had  located  a  camp  on  Fall  creek 
and  were  hunting  in  the  surrounding  country.  These  Indians 
had  a  large  amount  of  valuable  furs.  This  becoming  known 
to  some  parties,  it  aroused  their  cupidity  and  they  resolved  to 
kill  the  Indians  in  order  that  they  might  secure  the  booty. 
The  history  of  this  murder  and  the  trials  which  followed  are 
so  well  told  by  the  Honorable  Oliver  H.  Smith  in  his  "Early 
Indian  Sketches,"  that  it  is  thought  best  to  here  produce 
it — also  a  letter  from  Mr.  Smith  to  the  author  in  1856  in  rela- 
tion to  this  matter.     The  letter  speaks  for  itself; 

Indianapolis,  Ind., 

February  10,  1856. 
Mr.  Wm.  M.  Cockrum, 

Oakland,  Gibson  County,  Indiana — 

My  Dear  Young  Friend:  Your  letter  of  recent 
date  is  before  me.  Certainly  I  recollect  you.  You 
drove  me  too  many  times  over  the  hills  and  bad 
roads  of  Gibson  and  Pike  Counties  for  me  to  forget 
you  so  soon.  Your  good  mother  I  shall  always  re- 
member for  the  kind  and  thoughtful  attention  she 
showed  for  my  comfort  during  the  many  weeks  I 
was  at  your  father's  home. 

Let  me  say,  you  are  very  young  yet.  The  first 
dawn  of  manhood  is  just  opening  to  you.  It  is 
reasonable  to  conclude  that  you  will  grow  old.  If 
you  do,  you  will  then  realize  that  the  best  friend 


412  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 

that  Grod  gave  3^ou  was  your  mother.  There  could 
be  no  misfortune  or  sorrow,  disgrace  or  evil,  come 
to  you  but  your  mother  would  stand  by  you. 
Others  may  leave,  but  a  mother's  love  endureth 
beyond  the  grave. 

Your  request  for  the  trial  of  the  men  for  kill- 
ing the  Indians  and  their  execution  and  the  story 
of  Doderidge  being  treed  by  his  own  dogs  for  a 
panther,  which  I  told  you,  I  would  have  copied 
from  my  MS.,  but  I  can  do  better  than  that; 
I  will  publish  a  book,  * 'Early  Indiana  Sketches," 
during  the  next  year  and  will  send  you  a  copy;  you 
then  may  use  the  two  articles  and  as  many  others 
as  you  care  to,  if  you  conclude  to  put  your  data 
into  book  form.  Just  such  hunting  stories  as  your 
father  tells  so  well  is  the  sort  of  material  that  the 
young  people  will  read.  In  writing  a  book,  the 
author  must  write  for  the  young  to  read.  They 
soon  will  grow  old  and  still  other  young  people 
take  their  places. 

I  hope  that  you  may,  in  the  near  future,  visit 
us,  and  come  on  the  Evansville,  Indianapolis  and 
Cleveland  Straight-Line  Railroad.* 

Very  truly  yours, 

Oliver  H.  Smith. 

Following  is  a  history  of  the  trial  and  execution  of  sev- 
eral white  men  for  the  murder  of  Indians  in  Madison  County 
in  1824,  the  only  case  of  the  sort  in  the  State  or  Territory  of 
Indiana;  related  by  the  Honorable  Oliver  H.  Smith. 

At  the  time  of  the  Indian  murders  of  Fall  Creek,  the 
country  was  new  and  the  population  scattered  here  and  there 
in  the  woods.  The  game  was  plenty  and  the  Indian  hunting 
grounds  had  been  forsaken  by  many  of  the  tribes.  The  white 
settlers  felt  some  alarm  at  the  news  of  an  Indian  encamp- 
ment in  the  neighborhood  and  although  they  were  all  friend- 
ly a  watchful  eye  was  kept  on  all  their  movements.  The 
county  of  Madison  had  been  organized  but  a  short  time  be- 
fore.    Pendleton,  with  a  few  houses  at  the  falls  was  the  seat 


*  Author's  NoTB.~Mr.  Smith  at  that  time  was  the  President  of  the 
Bvansvine,  Indianapolis  and  Cleveland  Straight-Line  R.  R.  (now  Evansville 
&  Indianapolis  R.  R.) 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA.  413 

of  the  new  county.  Anderson  on  White  river  was  a  small 
village;  Chesterfield  and  Huntsfield  were  not  heard  of. 
There  were  only  a  few  houses  between  Indianapolis  and 
the  falls  and  still  fewer  in  other  directions  from  the  capital. 

Early  in  the  spring  pi  1824  a  hunting  party  of  Seneca 
Indians,  consisting  of  two  men,  three  squaws  and  four  child- 
ren, encamped  on  the  east  side  of  Fall  Creek  about  eight 
miles  above  the  falls.  The  country  around  their  camping 
ground  was  a  dense,  unbroken  forest  filled  with  game.  The 
principal  Indian  was  called  Ludlow  and  was  said  to  be  named 
for  Stephen  Ludlow,  of  Lawrenceburg.  The  other  man  I  call 
Mingo.  The  Indians  commenced  their  season's  hunting  and 
trapping — the  men  with  their  guns  and  the  squaws  setting 
the  traps,  preparing  and  cooking  the  game  and  caring  for 
the  children,  two*  boys  some  ten  years  old,  and  two  girls  of 
more  tender  years.  A  week  had  rolled  around  and  the  suc- 
cess of  the  Indians  had  been  very  fair  with  better  prospects 
ahead  as  spring  was  opening. and  raccoons  were  beginning  to 
leave  their  holes  in  the  trees  in  search  of  frogs  that  Had 
begun  to  leave  their  mudd}^  beds  at  the  bottom  of  the  creeks. 

The'  trapping  season  was  only  just  commencing.  Ludlow 
and  his  band  wholly  unsuspicious  of  harm  and  unconscious 
of  any  approaching  enemies,  were  seated  around  their  Camp 
fire,  when  there  approached  through  the  woods  five  white  men 
— Harper,  Sawyer,  Hudson,  Bridge  Sr.,  and  Bridge  Jr.  Harper 
was  the  leader  and  stepping  up  to  Ludlow,  took  him  b}'  the 
hand  and  told  him  his  part}^  had  lost  their  horses  and  wanted 
Ludlow  and  Mingo  to  help  find  them.  The  Indians  agreed 
to  go  in  search  of  the  horses.  Ludlow  took  one  path  and 
Mingo  the  other.  Harper  followed  Ludlow;  Hudson  trailed 
Mingo,  keeping  some  fifty  yards  behind.  They  traveled 
some  short  distance  from  the  camp  when  Harper  shot  Ludlow 
through  the  body.  He  fell  dead  on  his  face.  Hudson,  on 
hearing  the  crack  of  the  rifle  of  Harper,  immediatel}'  shot 
Mingo,  the  ball  entering  just  below  his  shoulders  and  pass- 
ing clear  through  his  body.  Mingo  fell  dead.  The  party 
then  met  and  proceeded  to  within  gunshot  of  the  camp. 
Sawj^er  shot  one  of  the  squaws  through* the  head.      She  fell 


414  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 

and  died  without  a  struggle.  Bridge  Sr.  shot  another  squaw 
and  Bridge  Jr.  the  other  one.  Both  fell  dead.  Sawyer  then 
fired  at  the  eldest  boy,  but  only  wounded  him.  The  other 
children  were  shot  by  some  of  the  party.  Harper  then  led 
on  to  the  camp. 

The  thr^e  squaws,  one  boy  and  the  two  little  girls  lay 
dead  but  the  oldest  boy  was  still  living.  Sawyer  took  him 
and  knocked  his  brains  out  against  the  end  of  a  log.  The 
camp  was  then  robbed  of  everything  worth  carrying  away. 
Harper,  the  ringleader,  left  immediately  for  Ohio  and  was 
never  taken.  Hudson,  Bridge  Sr.,  Bridge  Jr.,  and  Sawyer 
were  arrested  and  when  I  first  saw  them  they  were  confined 
in  a  square  log  jail  built  of  heavy  beech  and  sugar-tree  logs, 
notched  down  closely  and  fitting  tight  above  and  below  on 
the  sides.  I  entered  with  the  sheriff.  The  prisoners  were  all 
heavily  ironed  and  sitting  on  the  straw  on  the  floor.  Hudson 
was  a  man  of  about  middle  size,  with  a  bad  look,  dark  eyes 
and  bushy  hair,  about  thirty-five  years  of  age  in  appearance. 
Sawyer  was  of  about  the  same  age,  rather  heavier  than  Hud- 
son but  there  was  nothing  in  his  appearance  that  could  have 
marked  him  in  a  crowd  as  anything  more  than  a  common  far- 
mer. Bridge,  Sr.  was  much  older  than  Sawyer,  his  head  was 
quite  grey,  he  was  about  the  common  height,  slender  and  a 
little  bent  while  standing.  Bridge,  Jr.  was  some  eighteen 
years  of  age,  a  tall  stripling.  Bridge,  Sr.  was  the  father  of 
Bridge,  Jr.  and  the  brother-in-law  of  Sawyer. 

The  news  of  these  Indian  murderers  flew  upon  the  wings 
of  the  wind.  The  settlers  became  greatly  alarmed,  fearing 
the  retaliatory  vengeance  of  the  tribes  and  especiall}'  of  the 
the  other  bands  of  the  Senecas.  The  facts  reached  Mr.  John 
Johnston  at  the  Indian  Agency  at  Piqua,  Ohio.  An  account 
of  the  murders  was  sent  from  the  agency  to  the  war  depart- 
ment at  Washington  City.  Colonel  Johnston  and  William 
Conner  visited  all  the  Indian  tribes  and  assured  them  that 
the  government  would  punish  the  offenders  and  obtaining  the 
promises  of  the  chiefs  and  warriors  that  they  would  wait  and 
see  what  their  ''Great  Father''  would  do  before  they  took  the 
matter  into  their  own  hands.     This  quieted  the  fears  of  the 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA.  415 

settlers  and  preparation  was  commenced  for  the  trials.  A^ 
new  log  building  was  erected  at  the  north  part  of  Pendleton 
with  two  strong  rooms,  one  for  the  court  and  one  for  the 
grand  jury.  The  court  room  was  about  twenty  by  thirty  feet 
with  a  heavy  **puncheon"  floor,  a  platform  at  one  end  thr^e 
feet  high,  with  a  strong  railing  in  front,  a  bench  for  the 
judges,  a  plain  table  for  the  clerk,  in  front  on  the  floor  a  long 
bench  for  the  counsel,  a  little  pen  for  the  prisoners,  a  side 
bench  for  the  witnesses  and  a  long  pole  in  front,  sub- 
stantially supported  to  separate  the  crowd  from  the  court  and 
bar.  A  guard  by  day  and  night  was  placed  around  the  jail. 
The  court  was  composed  of  Wm.  W.  Wick,  presiding  judge, 
Samuel  Holliday  and  Adam  Winchell  associates.  Judge  Wick 
was  young  on  the  bench  but  with  much  experience  in  crim- 
inal trials.  Judge  Holliday  was  one  of  the  best  and  most 
conscientious  men  I  ever  knew.  Judge  Winchell  was  a  black- 
smith, and  had  ironed  the  prisoners.  He  was  an  honest, 
frank,  rough  illiterate  man,  without  any  pretensions  of  legal 
knowledge.  Moses  Cox  was  the  clerk.  He  could  barely  write 
his  name  and  when  a  candidate  for  justice  of  the  peace  at 
Connersville,  he  boasted  of  his  superior  qualifications,  saying: 
*'I  have  been  sued  on  every  section  of  the  statute  and  know 
all  about  the  law,  while  m}^  competitor  has  never  been  sued 
and  knows  nothing  about  the. statute."  Samuel  Cory  was  a 
fine  specimen  of  a  woods'  Hoosier.  tall  and  strong-boned, 
with  a  hearty  laugh,  without  fear  of  man  and  beast,  with  a 
voice  that  made  the  woods  ring  when  he  called  the  jurors  and 
witnesses.     The  county  was  then  prepared  for  the  trials. 

In  the  meantime  the  government  was  not  sleeping. 
Colonel  Johnston,  the  Indian  agent,  was  directed  to  attend 
the  trials  to  see  that  the  witnesses  were  present  and  to  pay 
their  fees.  General  James  Noble,  then  a  United  States  Sen- 
ator, was  employed  .by  the  Secretary  of  War  to  prosecute, 
with  power  to  fee  an  assistant.  Philip  Sweetzer,  a  young 
son-in-law  of  the  General,  of  high  promise  in  his  profession, 
was  selected  by  the  General  as  his  assistant.  Calvin  Fletcher 
was  the  regular  prosecuting  attorney,  then  a  young  man  of 
more  than  ordinary  ability  and  a  good  criminal  lawyer.    The 


416  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 

only  inn  in  Pendleton  was  a  new  frame  house  near  the  creek, 
still  standing  by  the  side  of  the  railroad  bridgfe. 

The  term  of  the  court  was  about  being  held.  The  Sun- 
day before  the  term  commenced,  the  lawyers  began  to  arrive 
and,  as  the  custom  was  in  those  days,  they  were  invited  out 
to  dine  on  the  Sabbath  b}'^  the  most  wealthy  citizens  as  a 
•  favor  and  compliment,  not  to  the  lawyers  but  to  their  hosts. 
We  had  a  statute  in  those  days  imposing  a  line  of  one  dollar 
on  each  person  who  should  * 'profanely  curse,  swear  or  damn," 
and  making  it  the  duty  of  all  judges  and  magistrates  to  see 
that  the  law  was  enforced  upon  offenders  in  their  presence. 
Judge  Holliday  invited  Calvin  Fletcher,  the  circuit  prosecut- 
ing attorney,  and  his  Indianapolis  friend,  Daniel  B.  Wick, 
the  brother  of  the  Judge,  to  dine  with  him.  The  invitation 
was  accepted,  of  course,  there  being  no  previous  engagement 
in  the  way.  Dinner  was  announced;  Judge  Holliday  asked  a 
**blessing"  at  the  table — Mr.  Fletcher  declining.  The  Judge 
had  killed  a  fat  goose  for  the  extraordinary  occasion,  which 
was  nicely  stuffed  with  well-seasoned  bread  and  onions  and 
placed  in  the  center  of  the  table.  Mr.  Wick,  who  was  not  a 
church  member,  fixed  his  e3^e  an  the  goose  and  said,  by  way 
of  compliment,  ^'That's  a  damned  fine  goose.  Judge."  *'Yes, 
it  is  a  fine  goose,  and  you  are  fined  one  dollar  for  swearing." 
Not  a  word  more  was  spoken  at  the  table.  Dinner  over. 
Judge  Holliday  said,  **Squire  Wick,  pay  me  the  dollar."  '*! 
have  not  a  cent  with  me,  Judge."  **Perhaps  Mr.  Fletcher 
will  lend  it  to  you."  Mr.  Fletcher:  ''I  really  have  with  me 
only  sufficient  to  pay  my  tavern  bill."  Judge  Holliday: 
''What  is  to  be  done?"  Fletcher:  **Lend  him  the  money. 
Judge,  take  his  note  or  bind  him  over  to  the  court."  *'I'll 
bind  him  over;  you'll  go  his  security?"  **The  rules  of  the 
court  forbid  lawyers  to  go  security  for  anyone,  but  you  can 
go  it  yourself;  just  draw  the  recognizance,  'Daniel  B.  Wick 
and  Samuel  Holliday  appear  before  Samuel  Holliday,  associ- 
ate judge  of  the  Madison  circuit  court,  and  acknowledge 
themselves  to  be  indebted  to  the  state  in  the  penalty  of 
twenty-five  dollars  each  for  the  appearance  of  Daniel  B. 
Wick  at  the  next  term  of  court  to  answer."     The  reasonable 


"PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA.  417 

proposition  of  Mr.  Fletcher  was  at  once  accepted  by  all  par- 
ties. The  recognizance  was  taken  in  due  form  and  forfeited 
at  the  next  term  of  court  by  the  absence  of  Mr.  Wick.  Judge- 
ment was  rendered  against  Judge  Holliday  for  twenty-five 
dollars.  A  petition  to  the  Governor  was  drawn  and  signed 
by  the  whole  bar;  a  remittance  soon  followed. 

The  trial  of  Hudson  commenced  the  next  day  after  the 
Sabbath  dinner  at  Judge  Holliday's.  A  number  of  distin- 
guished lawyers  were  in  attendance  from  this  state  and  sev- 
eral from  the  State  of  Ohio.  Among  the  most  prominent  I 
name  General  James  Noble,  Philip  Sweetzer,  Harvey  Gregg, 
Lot  Bloomfield,  James  Rariden,  Charles  H.  Test,  Calvin 
Fletcher,  Daniel  B.  Wick  and  William  R.  Morris,  of  this 
state;  General  Sampson  Mason  and  Moses  Vance,  of  Ohio. 
Judge  Wick  being  temporarily  absent  in  the  morning,  Wil- 
liam R.  Morris  arose  and  moved  the  associate  judges:  **I  ask 
that  these  gentlemen  be  admitted  as  attorneys  and  counselors 
at  this  bar;  they  are  regular  practitioners,  but  have  not 
brought  their  licenses  with  them."  Judge  Winchell:  **Have 
they  come  down  here  to  defend  the  prisoners?"  "Most  of 
them  have."  'Xet  them  be  sworn  —  nobody  but  a  lawyer 
would  defend  a  murderer." 

Mr.  Morris:  *'I  move  the  Court  for  a  writ  of  habeas  cor- 
pus to  bring  up  the  prisoners  now  illegally  confined  in  jail." 
Judge  Winchell:  '*For  what?"  **A  writ  of  habeas  corpus.'* 
**What  do  you  want  to  do  with  it?"  "To  bring  up  the  pris- 
oners  and  have  them  discharged."  "Is  there  any  law  for 
that?"  Morris  read  the  statute  regulating  the  writ  of 
habeas  corpus.  "That  act,  Mr.  Morris,  has  been  repealed 
long  ago."  .  "Your  honor  is  mistaken;  it  is  a  constitutional 
writ  as  long  as  Magna  Charta  itself."  "Well,  Mr.  Morris,  to 
cut  this  matter  short,  it  would  do  you  no  good  to  bring  out 
the  prisoners;  I. ironed  them  myself,  and  you  will  never  get 
them  irons  off  until  they  have  been  tried,  habeas  corpus  or 
no  habeas  corpus."  Per  curia,  "Motion  over-ruled."  Judge 
Wick  entered  and  took  his  seat  between  the  two  side  judges. 
**Call  the  grand  jury."  All  answer  to  their  names  and  are 
sworn.     Court  adjourned  for  dinner.     Court  met;  the  grand 


418  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 

jury  brought  into  court  an  indictment  for  murder  drawn  by 
Fletcher  against  Hudson.  Counsel  on  both  sides:  "Bring- 
the  prisoner  into  court."  The  Court:  ''Sheriff,  put  in  the 
box  a  jury."  Sheriff:  "May  it  please  the  Court,  Dr.  Highday 
just  handed  me  a  list  of  jurors  to  call  on  the  jury."  Judge 
Wick:  "Bring  Dr.  Highday  into  court."  "Did  your  honor  wish 
to  see  me?"  "Dr.  Highday,  is  this  your  handwriting?"  **I 
presume  it  is."  **Dr.  Highday,  we  have  no  jail  to  put  you 
in;  the  one  we  have  is  full;  hear  your  sentence:  It  is  the 
judgrfient  of  the  court  that  you  be  banished  from  these  court 
grounds  till  the  trials  are  over.  Sheriff,  see  the  judgment  of 
the  court  is  carried  strictly  into  execution." 

I  digress  to  give  here  the  scene  in  court,  published  by 
General  Sampson  Mason  in  a  Springfield,  Ohio,  paper:  "As- 
I  entered  the  court-room,  the  judge  was  sitting  on  a  blocks 
paring  his  toe-nails,  when  the  sheriff  entered,  out  of  breath, 
and  informed  the  court  that  he  had  six  jurors  tied  and  his^ 
deputies  were  running  down  the  others."  General  Mason,  with 
all  his  candor,  uuquestionably  drew  upon  his  imagination  in 
that  instance. 

Hudson,  the  prisoner,  was  brought  into  the  court  by  the 
deputy  sheriff  and  two  of  the  guard.  His  appearance  had 
greatly  changed  since  I  first  saw  him  in  the  long  pen  with 
his  comrades  in  crime.  He  was  now  pale,  haggard  and 
downcast,  and  with  a  faltering  voice  answered,  upon  his  ar- 
raignment, "Not  guilty."  The  petit  jury  w^re  hardy,  honest 
pioneers,  wearing  moccasins  and  side  knives.  The  evidence 
occupied  but  a  single  day  and  was  positive,  closing  every 
door  of  hope  to  the  prisoner.  The  prosecuting  attorney  read 
the  statute,  creating  and  aflBxing  the  punishment  to  the 
homicide  and  plainly  stated  the  substance  of  the  evidence. 
He  was  followed  for  the  prisoner  in  an  able,  eloquent  and 
powerful  speech,  appealing  to  the  prejudice  of  the  jury 
against  the  Indians;  relating  in  glowing  colors  the  early 
massacres  of  white  men,  women  and  children  by  the  Indians; 
reading  the  principal  incidents  in  the  history  of  Daniel 
Boone  and  Simon  Kenton;  relating  their  cruelties  at  the  bat- 
tle of  Blue  Lick  and  Bryant's  Station,  and  not  forgetting  the 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA.  419 

defeat  of  Braddock,  St.  Clair  and  Harmar.  General  James 
Noble  closed  the  argfument  for  the  state  in  one  of  his  forcible 
speeches,  holding:  up  to  the  jury  the  blood}'  clothing  of  the 
Indians  and  appealing:  to  the  justice,  patriotism  and  love  of 
the  law  of  the  jur}',  not  forgetting  that  the  safety  of  the  set- 
tlers might  depend  upon  the  conviction  of  the  prisoners,  as 
the  chiefs  and  warriors  expected  justice  to  be  done.  The 
speech  of  the  General  had  a  marked  effect  upon  the  crowd,  as 
well  as  the  jury.  Judge  Wick  charged  the  jury  at  some 
length,  laying  down  the  laws  of  homicide  in  its  different  de- 
grees and  distinctly  impressing  upon  the  jury  that  the  law 
knew  no  distinction  as  to  nation  or  color;  that  the  murder  of 
an  Indian  was  equally  criminal  in  law  as  the  murder  of  a 
white  man.  The  jur}'  retired  and  next  morning  brought  into 
court  a  verdict  of  *'Guilty  of  murder  in  the  first  degree."  The 
moiion  for  a  new  trial  was  over-ruled,  the  prisoner  was 
brought  into  court  and  sentence  of  death  pronounced  in  the 
most  solemn  manner  b}-  Judge  Wick.  The  time  for  ihe  exe- 
cution was  fixed,  as  is  usual,  for  a  distant  day  In  the  mean- 
time Hudson  made  his  escape  from  the  guardhouse  one  dark 
night  and  hid  himself  in  a  hollow  log  in  the  woods,  where  he 
was  found  and  arrested. 

Time  rolled  on  and  the  fatal  day  for  execution  arrived. 
Multitudes  of  people  were  there.  Among  them  were  several 
Senecas,  relatives  of  the  murdered  Indians.  The  gallows 
was  erected  just  above  the  falls  on  the  north  side.  The  peo- 
ple covered  the  surrounding  hills,  and  at  the  appointed  hour, 
Hudson,  by  the  forfeiture  of  his  life,  made  the  last  earthly 
atonement  for  his  crimes.  Such  was  the  result  of  the  first 
case  on  record  in  America  where  a  white  man  was  hung  for 
killing  an  Indian.  The  other  cases  were  continued  until  the 
next  term  of  court. 

TRIAL   OF   SAWYER. 

Monday  morning  came.  Court  met.  Judge  Eggleston, 
in  fine  health,  on  the  bench  in  the  center;  Adam  Winchell  on 
his  left  and  Samuel  Holliday  on  his  right;  Moses  Cox  at  the 
clerk's  desk;  Samuel  Cory  on  the  sheriff's  platform,  and 
Colonel  John  Berry,  captain  of  the  guard,  leaning  against  the 


420  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 

log's.  The  grand  jury  was  called,  sworn  and  charged  and 
court  adjourned  for  dinner.  In  the  afternoon  the  evidence  of 
the  main  witnesses  were  heard.  I  had  prepared  the  indict- 
ments in  my  office  and  had  them  with  me.  The  foreman 
signed  the  bills  on  his  knee  and  they  all  returned  into  court 
before  the  adjournment.  That  night  Col.  John  Johnston, 
the  Indian  agent,  called  at  my  room  and  offered  me  one  hun- 
dred dollars  on  behalf  of  the  United  States.  I  informed  him 
that  I  was  a  state  officer  and  could  not  accept  the  money, 
however  tempting  it  might  be  under  other  circumstances. 

The  court  met  in  the  morning.  We  agreed  to  try  Saw- 
yer first  for  shooting  one  of  the  squaws.  The  prisoner  was 
brought  into  court  by  the  sheriff.  He  appeared  so  haggard 
and  changed  from  his  long  confinemant  that  I  scarcely  knew 
him.  The  court-room  was  crowded.  Greneral  James  Noble, 
Philip  Sweetzer  and  myself  for  the  state;  James  Rariden;  Lot 
Bloomrield,  William  R.  Morris  and  Charles  H.  Test  for  the 
prisoner.  Judge  Eggleston:  ''Sheriff,  call  the  petit  jury." 
Judge  Winchell:  **Sheriff,  call  Squire  Makepiece  on  the 
jury;  he  will  be  a  good  juror;  he  will  not  let  one  of  these 
murderers  get  away."  Judge  Eggleston,  turning  to  Judge 
Winchell:  *'This  will  never  do.  What!  the  couit  pack  a  jury 
to  try  a  capital  case?"  The  jury  was  soon  impaneled.  The 
evidence  was  conclusive  that  the  prisoner  had  shot  one  of  the 
squaws  at  the  camp  with  his  rifle,  after  the  killing  of  Ludlow 
and  Mingo  by  Harper  and  Hudson  in  the  woods.  The  jury 
were  a  hardy,  heav} -bearded  set  of  men  with  side  knives  in 
their  belts  and  not  a  pair  of  shoes  among  all  of  them; 
they  wore  moccasins.  Mr.  Sweetzer  opened  for  the  state 
with  a  strong,  matter-of-fact  speech,  which  was  his  forte. 
He  was  followed  in  able  speeches  by  Mr.  Morris,  Mr.  Test 
and  Mr.  Rariden  for  the  prisoner.  General  Noble  closed  for 
the  prosecution  in  a  powerful  speech.  The  General  was  one 
of  the  strongest  and  most  effective  speakers  before  a  jury  or 
promiscuous  assembly  I  have  ever  heard.  The  case  went  to 
the  jury  under  an  able  charge  from  Judge  Eggleston  and 
court  adjourned  for  dinner. 

At  the   meeting   of   the  court  in  the  afternoon,  the  jury 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA.  421 

returned  the  verdict  of  ''Guilty  of  manslaughter  —  two  years 
at  hard  labor  in  the  penitentiary."  Mr.  Rariden  sprang  to 
his  feet:  *'If  the  court  please,  we  let  judgment  go  on  the 
verdict  and  are  ready  for  the  case  of  Sawyer  for  killing  the 
Indian  boy  at  the  camp."  '*Ready  for  the  state."  The  same 
jury  were  accepted  by  both  sides  —  being  in  the  box.  They 
were  immediately  sworn.  The  evidence  was  heard,  again 
conclusive  against  the  prisoner.  General  Noble  opened  for 
the  prosecution,  and  was  followed  by  Charles  H.  Test,  Wil- 
liam R.  Morris  and  James  Rariden  with  powerful  speeches^ 
The  jury  were  referred  to  their  verdict  in  the  previous  case 
and  their  judgments  were  warmly  eulogized.  This  was,  by 
arrangement,*my  case  to  close.  I  saw  my  position,  and  the 
only  point  which  I  had  to  meet  was  to  draw  the  distinction 
between  the  two  cases,  so  as  to  justify  the  jury  for  finding  a 
verdict  for  manslaughter  in  one  case  and  of  murder  in  the 
case  before  them.  In  law  there  was  no  difference  whatever. 
They  were  both  cold-blooded  murders.  The  calico  shirt  of 
the  murdered  boy,  stained  with  blood,  lay  upon  the  table.  I 
was  closing  a  speech  of  an  hour.  Stepping  forward  I  took  up 
the  bloody  shirt  and  holding  jt  to  the  jury:  **Yes,  gentle- 
men of  the  jury,  the  case  is  very  different.  You  find  the 
prisoner  guilty  of  only  manslaughter  in  using  his  rifle  on  a 
grown  squaw — that  was  the  act  of  a  man;  this  was  the  act  of 
a  demon.  Look  at  this  shirt,  gentlemen,  with  the  bloody 
stains  upon  it.  This  was  a  poor  helpless  boy,  who  was  taken 
by  the  heels  by  this  fiend  in  human  shape  and  his  brains 
knocked  out  against  a  log!  If  the  other  case  was  man* 
slaughter,  is  not  this  murder?"  The  eyes  of  the  jury  were 
filled  with  tears.  Judge  Eggleston  g^ve  a  clear  and  able 
charge  upon  the  law.  The  jury,  after  an  absence  of  only  a 
few  minutes,  returned  a  verdict  of  **Murder  in  the  first  de- 
gree."   The  prisoner  was  remanded  and  the  court  adjourned. 

TRIAL  OF  BRIDGB — SCENES  AT  THE  EXECUTION. 

The  next  morning  the  case  of  Bridge,  Sr.,  for  shooting  a 
little  Indian  girl  at  the  camp,  was  called.  The  prisoner  en- 
tered with  the  sheriff.     He  was  more  firm  in  his  step  and. 


422  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 

looked  better  than  Sawyer,  though  a  much  older  man. 
A  jury  was  impaneled.  The  proof  was  positive.  The  case 
was  argued  by  Mr.  Morris  and  Mr.  Rariden  for  the  prisoner, 
and  Mr.  Sweetzer  and  myself  for  the  state.  The  charge  was 
given  by  Judge  Eggleston,  and  after  a  few  minutes'  absence, 
the  jury  returned  the  verdict  of  '*Murder  in  the  first  de- 
gree." The  only  remaining  case  —  of  the  stripling,  Bridge, 
Jr.,  for  the  murder  of  the  other  Indian  boy  at  the  camp — 
came  on  next.  The  trial  was  more  brief,  but  the  result  was  the 
same — verdict  of  murder  in  the  first  degree  -  with  a  recom- 
mendation, however,  to  the  Governor  for  a  pardon,  in  conse- 
quence of  his  youth,  in  which  the  court  and  bar  joined.  Pro 
forma,  motions  for  new  trials  were  over-ruled,  the  prisoners 
remanded  to  be  brought  up  for  sentence  next  morning,  and 
the  court  adjourned. 

Morning  came  and  with  it  a  crowded  court-house.  As  I 
walked  from  the  tavern,  I  saw  the  guard  approaching  with 
Sawyer,  Bridge,  Senior,  and  Bridge,  Junior,  with  downcast 
eyes  and  tottering  steps  in  their  midst.  The  prisoners  en- 
tered the  court-room  and  were  seated.  The  sheriff  com- 
manded silence.  The  prisoners  arose,  the  tears  streaming 
down  their  faces  and  their  groans  and  sighs  filling  the  court- 
room. I  fixed  my  eyes  on  Judge  Eggleston,  I  heard  him 
pronounce  sentence  of  death  on  Fuller  for  the  murder  of  War- 
ren, and  upon  Fields  for  the  murder  of  Murphy.  But  here 
was  a  still  more  solemn  scene:  An  aged  father,  his  favorite 
son  and  his  wife's  brother — all  standing  before  him  to  receive 
the  sentence  of  death.  The  face  of  the  judge  was  pale,  his 
lips  quivered,  his  tongue  faltered,  as  he  addressed  the  prison- 
ers. The  sentence  of  death  by  hanging  was  pronounced,  but 
the  usual  conclusion,  '*and  may  Gk)d  have  mercy  on  your 
souls,"  was  left  struggling  for  utterance. 

The  time  for  the  execution  was  fixed  at  a  distant  day, 
but  it  soon  rolled  around.  The  gallows  was  erected  on  the 
north  bank  of  Fall  Creek;  just  above  the  falls  at  the  foot  of 
the  rising  grounds  one  may  see  from  the  cars.  The 
hour  for  the  execution  had  come.  Thousands  surround- 
ed   the    gallows.       A    Seneca     chief,     with     his     warriors, 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA.  423 

ivas  posted  near  the  brow  of  the  hill.  Sawyer  and  Bridg^e, 
Senior,  ascended  the  scaffold  together,  were  executed  in 
quick  succession  and  died  without  a  struggle.  The  vast  au- 
dience was  in  tears.  The  exclamation  of  the  Senecas  was  in- 
terpreted, "We  are  satisfied."  An  hour  expired.  The  bodies 
were  taken  down  and  laid  in  their  coffins,  when  there  was  seen 
ascending  the  scaffold,  Bridge,  Junior,  the  last  of  the  con- 
victs. His  step  was  feeble,  requiring  the  aid  of  the  sheriff; 
the  rope  was  adjusted;  he  threw  his  eyes  around  upon  the 
audience  and  then  down  upon  the  coffin  where  lay  exposed  the 
bodies  of  his  father  and  uncle.  From  that  moment  his  wild 
gaze  showed  too  clearly  that  the  scene  had  been  too  much  for 
his  3'outhful  mind.  Reason  partially  left  her  throne  and  he 
stood  looking  at  the  crowd,  apparently  unconscious  of  his  po- 
sition. The  last  minute  had  come,  when  James  Brown  Ray, 
Governor  of  the  state,  announced  to  the  immense  crowd  that 
the  convict  was  pardoned.  Never  before  did  an  audience 
more  heartily  respond,  while  there  was  a  universal  regret 
that  the  executive  authority  had  been  deferred  until  the  last 
moment.  Thus  ended  the  only  trials  where  convictions  of 
murder  were  followed  by  the  execution  of  white  men  for  kill- 
ing Indians,  in  the  United  States  up  to  that  period. 

The  following  story  is  also  from  Mr.  Smith's  '*Early 
Sketches": 

Manj'  years  ago  while  our  frontier  counties  were  a 
ivilderness,  the  settlers  lived  far  apart.  It  had  been  whis- 
pered about  in  private  circles  that  some  boys  had  seen  a 
panther  looking  out  of  a  hole  in  a  black  walnut  tree.  The 
story  was  doubted  by  many,  still  it  was  sufficiently  alarming 
to  induce  settlers  to  prepare  themselves  with  rifles  and  large 
packs  of  hounds.  Among  the  settlers  there  was  a^an,  for 
the  sake  of  a  name  I  call  Doderidge  Alley,  a  neighborhood 
leader.  He  had  often  been  elected  captain  of  one  side  at 
log-rollings  and  corn-shuckings.  Doderidge  had  one  of  the 
severest  packs  of  hounds  in  the  settlement,  of  which  he  often 
boasted,  especially  of  **01d  Ring."  The  county  in  which 
Doderidge  resided  was  entitled  to  a  Representative  in  the  State 
Legislature.     A   number  of   candidates   brought  themselves 


424  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 

out,  Doderidge  among  them.  There  were  no  caucuses  nor 
conventions  in  that  day;  every  one  ran  upon  his  own  hook  and 
mounted  his  own  hobby.  Doderidge  believed  strongly  in  love 
at  first  sight  and  in  early  marriages.  He  selected  the  idea  of 
authorizing  constables  in  their  several  townships  to  solemn- 
ize marriages,  so  as  to  tie  the  hymeneal  knot  before  the  first 
love  could  have  time  to  cool  while  they  were  sending  to  town 
for  a  preacher.  Doderidge  had,  no  doubt,  seen  the  first  verse 
of  *'Love  at  First  Sight,"  but  had  not  read  the  last. 

The  contest  was  very  close,  but  Doderidge  triumphed.. 
The  session  of  the  Legislature  was  approaching — a  new  suit 
of  clothes  would  be  needed;  the  yarn  was  spun,  the  cloth 
woven  and  colored  with  butternut  bark,  a  kind  of  yellowish 
brown.  The  neighboring  tailor  had  cut  and  made  the  suit, 
coat,  vest  and  pantaloons;  they  hung  in  folds  upon  him,  but 
still  he  looked  pretty  well  and  felt  right  comfortable,  as  his 
blood  had  free  circulation.  All  things  were  ready  for  his  de- 
parture for  the  capital;  business  required  him  to  go  to  one  of 
the  upper  settlements.  He  dressed  up  in  his  fine  butternut 
suit  for  the  first  time,  promising:  to  be  back  for  supper.  Time 
passed  on  and  no  Doderidge.  His  lady  became  uneasy;  the 
story  of  the  panther  came  fresh  in  her  mind;  the  clock  struck 
ten,  still  no  Doderidge.  The  dogs  had  not  been  seen  for  an 
hour  before  dark.  Hark!  the  sound  of  hounds  is  heard  in  the 
distant  forest.  A  panther,  no  doubt.  Night  wore  away, 
morning  dawned,  no  Doderidge.  The  lady  left  her  cabin  and 
directed  her  course  through  the  woods  by  the  distant  baying. 
The  spot  was  reached  at  last.'  There,  perched  upon  a  lean- 
ing tree,  some  fifty  feet  up,  sat  Doderidge  in  his  butternut 
suit,  the  very  image  of  a  panther,  old  Ring  tearing  the  bark 
from  the  root  of  the  tree  and  the  rest  of  the  pack  baying  at 
the  top  of  their  lungs.  A  word  from  the  voice  of  their  well- 
known  mistress  was  enough;  Doderidge  came  down,  old  Ring 
took  the  lead  for  home  and  away  went  the  whole  pack,  leav- 
ing Doderidge  and  his  rescuer  to  walk  home  together,  deadly 
enemies  to  butternut  bark  while  there  were  panthers  in  the 
woods. 

Weeks  afterward,  Doderidge  arises  in  the  Legislature: 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA.  425 

• 

*'Mr.  Speaker,  I  hold  in  my  hand  a  bill  to  authorize  con- 
stables to  solemnize  marriages;  it  is  laid  off  into  sections  of 
four  lines."  A  member  I  call  Hugh  Barnes,  with  a  powerful 
sing-song  voice:  **I  am  opposed,  Mr.  Speaker,  to  that  bill. 
Marriage  is  a  solemn  thing;  it  ought  never  to  be  entered  into 
without  the  greatest  deliberation  and  the  maturest  reflection. 
Why  all  {his  haste  to  tie  the  knot?  Constables  ought  to  have 
nothing  to  do  with  it  except  when  they  get  married  them- 
selves." As  the  speaket  progressed,  he  became  more  and 
more  animated;  his  voice  rose  to  the  highest  tones,  not  unlike 
Old  Hundred.  As  he  closed,  all  eyes  were  upon  Doderidge; 
the  speech  sounded  very  much  like  the  funeral  services  of  the 
bill  and  Doderidge  looked  like  chief  mourner.  Doderidge 
sprang  to  his  feet  as  quick  as  thought:  **Mr.  Speaker,  would 
it  be  in  order  now  to  sing  a  hymn?"  The  Speaker  hesitated, 
the  house  roared,  the  triumph  of  Doderidge  was  complete, 
the  session  closed,  the  bill  was  left  for  the  next  Legislature. 
Doderidge  returned  home,  the  hounds  were  disposed  of,  and 
there  was  never  an  ounce  of  butternut  bark  used  for  dyeing 
purposes  in  the  family  of  Doderidge  afterward. 

In  1822  (Governor  Hendricks,  in  a  message  to  the  Legis- 
lature, recommended  that  as  fast  as  the  state  was  able,  it 
should  make  many  improvements  that  were  much  needed.  He 
named  improvements  for  the  falls  of  the  Ohio,  also  the 
Wabash  and  White  rivers,  making  them  navigable  for  keel 
and  flatboats;  also  the  construction  of  the  national  road 
through  the  state. 

These  recommendations  were  among  the  first  which  were 
afterward  carried  out,  of  the  great  system  of  internal  im- 
provements engaged  in  by  our  state.  The  most  expensive  of 
all  of  these  was  the  construction  of  the  Wabash  and  Erie 
canal.  The  act  of  Congress  granting  land  for  its  construc- 
tion was  passed  in  1827.  It  was  more  than  twenty  years  after 
this  before  it  was  completed.  An  account  of  this  work  will 
be  given  in  another  chapter. 

At  an  election  of  182S  James  B.  Ray  was  elected  Gov- 
ernor. At  this  time  the  revenue  of  the  state  to  pay  its  ex- 
penses was  a  little  over  thirty-six  thousand  dollars,  and  this 


426  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 

was  the  average  amount  received  for  that  purpose  until  about 
1830.  In  1825  the  state  government  was  moved  from  Cor)-- 
don  to  Indianapolis,  a  distance  of  about  one  hundred  and 
twenty-five  miles. 

In  1826  there  was  a  treaty  held  with  the  Pottawattamie 
Indians.  The  commissioners  in  this  case  were  Governor  Ray, 
General  John  Tipton  and  Governor  Cass.  At  that  treaty  a 
strip  of  land  ten  miles  wide  on  the  north  line  of  the  state, 
also  a  small  tract  between  the  Wabash  and  Eel  rivers,  was 
purchased. 

From  1826  the  prices  of  land  and  produce  improved  and 
continued  to  improve  for  the  next  six  or  seven  years.  Confi- 
dence was  restored  in  the  business  circles  and  everything" 
gradually  kept  on  improving.  There  was  a  large  increase  in 
the  population  during  the  years  1825  and  1826.  At  the  close 
of  1826  there  were  250,000  people  in  Indiana;  this  from  1800, 
when  there  were  5,000  persons  in  the  state,  was  a  gain  of 
245,000. 

In  the  year  1825  Governor  Ray  in  his  message  to  the  Legis- 
lature urged  upon  them  the  necessity  of  adopting  a  system  of 
internal  improvements,  such  as  building  canals,  railroads  and 
plank  roads.  The  policy  that  he  urged  was. not  attempted  to 
be  carried  out  until  ten  years  later. 


CHAPTER  XVII. 


ANIMALS  OF  EARLY  INDIANA. 


Game  Animals  —  Game  Birds  —  Ferocious  Animals  —  Fur- 
Bearing  Animals  —  Birds  of  Prey. 


BUFFALO. 

The  buffaloes  varied  in  height  from  five  to  five  and  one- 
half  feet.  They  differed  from  our  domestic  cattle  in  beingf 
longerof  limb  and  shorter  bodied  and  in  having  a  large  hump 
on  the  back.  The  males  had  a  long  mane  and  much  longer 
hair  on  their  heads,  backs  and  shoulders.  Their  bodies  were 
the  largest  just  back  of  their  fore  legs  and  graduall}'  tapered 
back  and  diminished  in  height.  They  had  a  long  neck;  head 
and  eyes  small.  Their  build  denoted  speed  and  their  general 
appearance  was  fierce  and  dangerous.  The}'  had  a  very 
acute  sense  of  smell  and  could  scent  danger  a  long  way  off. 
These  animals  migrated  from  south  to  north  in  the  summer 
season,  aod  from  north  to  south  in  the  winter  season,  across  the 
great  western  plains  that  nature  had  provided  with  buffalo 
grass  for  them.  Many  small  herds  did  not  migrate  and  remained 
in  the  same  sections  winter  and  summer;  even  as  far  north  as 
North  Dakota  this  was  true.  Whether  there  was  a  difference 
or  what  caused  small  isolated  herds  to  remain  in  the  same 
section  all  the  time,  is  not  known. 

On  the  great  western  plains,  from  Texas  to  the  Dakotas, 
until  only  a  few  years  ago,  the  buffaloes  were  in  such  count- 
less numbers  that  the)'  had  to  spread  over  an  immense  terri- 
tory to   find    food    for  their  sustenance.     The  males  and  fe- 


428  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 

males  herded  separately,  except  in  the  coupling  season^ 
which  was  in  June  and  July.  The  males  at  this  time  con- 
tended for  the  mastery.  Hundreds  of  them  would  eng^age  in 
fightingf  at  the  same  time.  The  roar  from  these  conflicts 
was  deep,  loud  and  most  terrible,  and  in  many  cases  they 
gored  each  other  to  death  with  their  strong,  sharp  horns. 
The  cows  brought  forth  in  March  and  April.  They  were 
very  much  attached  to  their  calves,  and  to  protect  them  from 
the  many  animals  that  were  always  prowling  around  for  an 
opportunity  to  catch  a  laggard  calf,  the  cows  at  night  would 
form  a  circle,  the  cows  lying  down  with  their  horns  outward, 
the  calves  on  the  inside  of  the  circle.  The  usual  weight  of 
these  animals  was  from  ten  to  fourteen  hundred  pounds.  Some- 
times, as  in  our  domestic  cattle,  there  would  be  some  whicli 
would  weigh  two  thousand  pounds.  A  buffalo  cow  in  the 
northwest  has  been  known  to  defeat  and  kill  a  grizzly  bear 
with  her  horns,  in  defending  her  young  calf.  The  flesh  was 
better,  if  possible,  than  the  best  stall  fed  beef.  It  may  be 
owing  to  the  food  they  ate,  which  was  fresh  young  grass  of 
the  plains  and  in  Indiana,  when  in  the  timbered  sections, 
young  cane.  The  flesh  had  a  wild,  venison  taste  that  gave 
it  an  excellent  flavor.  The  hump  was  considered  the  choice 
piece.  The  buffalo  of  this  country  were  hard  to  domesticate, 
not  tractible  as  the  buffalo  in  the  old  country.  When  they 
were  domesticated,  they  became  valuable  in  drawing  im- 
mense loads.  There  were  no  such  numbers  of  these  animals 
in  southern  and  southwestern  Indiana  when  the  pioneers  first 
came  to  it,  as  was  described  by  Daniel  Boone  when  he  first 
traversed  the  wilds  of  Kentucky,  nor  were  there  so  many  as 
there  were  at  a  much  later  date  in  northern  and  northwestern 
Indiana,  on  the  prairies  and  around  the  Kankakee  country. 
The  reason  for  this  was  probably  that  the  southern  section  of 
the  state  was  a  dense  wilderness  and  the  home  of  the 
panther,  which  was  the  only  animal  in  Indiana  that  could 
contend  successfully  with  the  buffalo.  The  panther,  from  a 
perch  in  a  tree,  near  a  lick,  would  land  on  the  buffalo's  back 
and  could  not  be  shaken  off,  but  would  retain  his  hold,  and 
with  his  long,  sharp  claws,  cut  the  jugular  vein.    In  this  way 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA.  429 

untold  numbers  of  buffalo  were  killed. 

The  settlers  who  were  in  the  state  before  1810  did  kill 
some  buffalo.  All  the  country  in  southwestern  Indiana, 
along  the  rivers  and  branch  bottoms  and  the  foothills,  were 
covered  with  a  rich  growth  of  cane.  On  this  the  buffalo 
could  live  in  the  winter  and  have  the  shelter  of  the  timber 
and  brush  for  protection;  but  they  were  so  very  wild  it  was 
very  hard  to  get  near  enough  to  shoot  at  them  with  any 
certainty. 

THE   ELK. 

The  elk  was  of  the  deer  species  and  between  the  red  deer 
of  this  country  and  the  moose  of  the  northeastern  states  in  ap- 
pearance. In  the  shape  of  the  body  they  resembled  the  deer,  but 
were  many  times  larger.  The  male  had  a  pair  of  very  large, 
branching  antlers.  It  has  been  known  when  standing  on  the 
point,  that  a  man  six  feet  tall  could  walk  under  them.  It  would 
seem  impossible  that  they  could  make.any  speed  through  the 
woods  with  such  an  enormous  pair  of  horns;  but  they  would 
lay  them  back  on  their  shoulders  and  run  very  fast.  Hunters 
who  moved  to  Indiana  from  the  south  claimed  that  the  elk 
were  not  nearly  so  large  there  as  the  ones  which  they  found 
here.  Those  that  were  in  this  section  were  much  inferior  in 
size  to  those  in  Minnesota  and  the  Dakotas.  There  they 
were  said  to  be  the  size  of  a  horse.  Hunters  with  the  Lewis 
and  Clark  expedition  to  Oregon  claimed  to  have  killed  an  elk 
on  the  headwaters  of  the  Missouri  river  that  was  twice  the 
size  of  those  that  were  in  Indiana,  Illinois  and  Missouri. 

The  flesh  of  the  elk  is  dark  and  coarse,  like  that  of  the 
buffalo,  but  very  nutritious.  They  are  very  shy  animals,  and 
when  disturbed  will  run  three  and  four  miles  without  stop- 
ping. An  old  male  elk,  when  wounded,  will  fight  most  des- 
perately, and  anything  that  comes  within  range  of  his  horns 
is  sure  to  be  badly  hurt.  The  skin  of  these  animals  was  used 
for  many  useful  purposes.  The  elk  is  easily  domesticated 
and  has  been  known  to  pull  a  sled  over  frozen  ground  two 
hundred  miles  in  one  day. 

THE  DEER. 

The  red  deer  is  one  of  the  most  beautiful  creatures  of  all 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA.  430 

the  animal  kingdom.  They  were  in  such  number^  in  all  sec- 
tions of  Indiana  up  to  1840,  that  a  hunter  with  any  sort  of 
skill  could  kill  two  or  three  each  day.  Many  old  hunters, 
after  the  Indians  had  gone  away,  which  allowed  them  to 
hunt  in  security,  would  kill  eight  and  ten  a  day. 

The  deer  undergoes  three  distinct  colors  during  the 
3'ear — red  in  the  spring,  blue  in  the  fall,  and  grey  in  the  win- 
ter. The  fekin  is  best  when  red  or  blue;  when  grey  it  is  of 
little  value.  The  meat  is  the  most  easily  digested  of  any, 
and  when  cooked  in  the  fat  of  the  bear  or  in  hog's  lard,  it 
was  the  most  delicious  steak  of  any.  Venison,  cooked  in  its 
own  fat,  is  not  so  good,  as  the  fat  makes  tallow,  and  when  so 
cooked,  the  meat  is  dry. 

The  deer  lives  on  vegetable  food  and  has  one  peculiar- 
it}' — that  of  having  no  gall,  as  they  did  not  require  that 
agent  to  help  in  digesting  their  food.  The  skin,  as  well  as 
the  meat,  was  used  for, so  many  purposes  by  the  first  settlers 
in  Indiana,  that  it  was  almost  indispensable,  and  many  of  the 
scant  comforts  that  the  pioneers  did  have  would  have  been 
materially  lessened  if  there  had  been  no  deer.  The  does  have 
their  fawns  in  the  middle  of  the  spring,  usually  two.  These 
little  creatures  were  of  a  pale,  red  color,  with  white  spots, 
and  it  is  said  that  there  was  no  odor  about  them  which  would 
attract  the  wolf  or  the  wildcat  to  the  beds  where  they  were 
hidden  by  their  mothers.  They  would  bleat  much  like  a 
young  lamb,  and  when  the  mother  heard  them  she  would  run 
to  them.  Many  an  old  mother  doe  has  been  killed  by  the 
hunters  who  could  imitate  the  bleat  of  the  fawn.  When 
three  months  old  they  can  follow  their  mother  and  run  very 
fast.  The  male  deer,  or  **bucks,"  as  the  hunters  call  them, 
shed  their  horns  each  year  about  ihe  first  of  spring.  At  that 
time  they  separate  from  the  does  and  go  into  seclusion. 
Where  they  drop  their  old  horns  has  been  a  very  hard  ques- 
tion for  the  hunters  to  decide,  for  but  very  few  of  them  are 
ever  found.  As  soon  as  the  old  horns  are  off,  the  new  ones 
commence  to  grow;  in  fact,  it  is  believed  that  the  new  ones 
crowd  the  old  ones  oflf.  The  new  horn  is  covered  all  over 
with  a  thick  coat  which  looks  like  velvet  and  it  grows  verv 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA.  431 

• 

*  fast.  In  sixty  to  ninety  days  the  new  horns  are  fully  formed. 
As  soon  as  the  horn  has  its  growth,  the  velvety  skin  begins 
to  break  open  and  peel  off.  The  deer  help  get  it  off  by  rub- 
bing their  horns  against  small  saplings  and  brush.  The 
one-year-old  male  fawn  grows  a  short,  sharp  spike  on  each 
side  of  its  forehead.  When  it  is  two  years  old  it  will  grow  a 
forked  horn,  and  at  three  years  old,  three  pointed  horn,  and 
so  on  up — one  for  each  year  to  seven  or  eight  year.  Nine 
points  on  the  horn  of  the  red  deer  species  have  been  seen. 

The  deer  are  very  fleet  of  foot  and  can  run  for  a  long  dis- 
tance at  a  time  when  pursued  by  dogs  or  wolves.  They  are 
lightning-quick  motioned.  In  their  hind  legs  they  seem  to 
have  the  strength  of  a  much  larger  animal,  although  a  small 
hand  can  easily  reach  around  their  ankle,  but  the  man  who 
attempted  such  a  thing  was  sure  to  come  to  grief.  In  the 
middle  of  the  fall,  when  the  mating  season  comes  on,  the 
deer  are  very  fat.  During  this  period  the  male  deer  run  very 
much  and  have  the  most  terrible  combats,  trying  to  gore  each 
other  with  their  sharp  horns,  often  interlocking  them  so 
tightly  together  that  they  cannot  loosen  the  hold  and  remain 
in  this  condition  until  they  are  starved  to  death.  During 
this  running  period  the  bucks  become  very  poor  and  their 
necks  swell  and  their  meat  is  not  fit  to  be  used,  as  it  has  a 
very  disagreeable,  musky  odor.  During  the  winter  months, 
the  deer  go  in  droves  like  sheep,  and  unless  there  is  a  large 
mast  of  acorns  or  they  are  in  the  blue  grass  country  where 
the  grass  is  green,  under  that  which  has  fallen  down,  they 
become  very  thin. 

In  the  early  spring  droves  of  these  deer  would  come  into 
the  wheat  fields  when  the  wheat  first  began  to  show  and  bite 
it  down  even  with  the  ground.  They  were  hard  to  keep  out 
and  were  too  thin  in  flesh  to  be  of  any  use  to  the  hunters, 
who  resorted  to  the  notched  hickory  rattle,  which  made  a 
fearful  noise,  and  would  try  to  drive  them  away.  They  would 
run  to  the  side  of  the  field  farthest  from  the  rattle  and  com- 
mence again  to  nip  the  short  wheat.  A  deer  would  kill  any 
sort  of  a  snake  so  quickly  that  you  could  hardly  see  their  mo- 
tions until  they  had  torn  it  all  to  pieces.      On   discovering  a 


432  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 

snake  they  would  go  near  it,  when  it  would  coil  up  in  a  bunch 
ready  for  battle.  The  deer  would  bound  into  the  air  and 
come  down  with  all  of  its  feet  on  that  coil  and  with  lightning- 
like  stamps  and  strokes,  tear  it  into  shreds.  After  deer  be- 
came less  plentiful  in  Indiana,  they  were  much  harder  to  find 
and  the  hunters  resorted  to  many  ways  of  killing"  them.  The 
saline  licks  that  Nature  distributed  at  convenient  places  for 
all  wild  animals  to  secure  the  needed  salt  for  their  health, 
were  often  watched,  and  as  the  deer  in  the  night,  would  come 
to  these  licks,  the  hunter  from  a  screen  would  shoot  them. 
These  "licks,"  as  they  were  called,  were  provided  by  the 
Great  Giver  of  all  things  for  the  bovine  creation,  and  as  the 
need  of  them  has  passed,  it  is  doubtful  if  any  exist  now  in 
Indiana  that  have  any  saline  taste  about  them.  The  deer 
was  an  inquisitive  animal  and  the  hunter  would  shine  their 
eyes  with  a  torch  and  slip  upon  them.  Both  these  modes  of 
killing  deer  were  considered  by  the  real  hunters  as  taking 
unfair  advantage  of  these  harmless  animals. 

The  black  tailed  deer,  sometimes  called  the  mule  deer 
(this  term  I  suppose  comes  from  the  fact  that  they  are  a  spe- 
cies between  the  elk  and  the  red  deer  in  appearance,  and  par- 
take of  some  of  the  peculiarities  of  both)  has  meat  in  taste 
and  color  between  that  of  the  red  deer  and  the  elk,  but  there 
is  no  doubt-  that  they  propagate  their  own  species.  The 
black  tailed  deer  are  found  only  west  of  105  west  longitude 
and  goes  north  to  about  54  north  latitude.  In  all  the  vast 
belt  south  and  west  of  these  lines  it  is  and  has  been  in  vast 
numbers,  to  the  Pacific  Ocean. 

THE   BLACK   BEAR. 

The  bear  stood  at  the  head  of  all  the  game  animals  for 
general  use  by  the  pioneers  in  Indiana.  They  were  not  so 
plentiful  as  the  deer,  but  were  in  such  numbers  that  all 
could  be  supplied  with  their  meat  and  grease  for  more  than 
twenty-five  years  after  Indiana  began  to  be  settled.  From 
1800  up  to  1815  or  1820  they  were  so  plentiful  that  it  was  im- 
possible to  raise  pigs,  as  the  bears  would  carry  them  off  in 

the  daytime. 

The  bear  is  a   peculiar   species   andl  there   is   no  other 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA.  433 

animal  that  in  any  wa}'  resembles  them  in  habit  or  appear- 
ance. When  full-grown  and  fat,  the  usual  weight  is  from 
350  to  400  pounds.  Their  flesh,  when  properly  cooked,  is  the 
most  delicious,  as  well  as  nutritious,  of  any  animal  that  was 
found  in  this  countr}-.  Their  meat  when  killed,  after  taking 
off  the  hide,  was  formerly  cut  up  much  as  we  do  that  of  the 
hog  now,  salted  and  bacon  made  out  of  it.  The  lard  or 
grease  was  used  as  hog's  lard  is,  for  all  purposes  in  preparing 
the  food.  The  bear  is  not  a  vicious  animal,  only  when 
wounded  or  in  defending  their  young;  then  they  will  fight  to 
the  last,  and  are  very  dangerous.  They  have  great  skill  in 
using  their  fore  arms  and  used  to  parry  the  blow  of  a  toma- 
haw^k  by  this  means. 

In  an  article  about  a  bear  recently,  the  writer  claimed 
that  the  hugging  so  much  talked  of  was  never  brought  into 
use  only  when  the  bear  had  a  pig  too  heavy  to  carry  away  in 
its  mouth,  as  it  would  then  rear  on  its  hind  legs  and  carry  it 
off  in  its  arms.  This  writer,  possibly,  had  never  had  a  battle 
with  a  bear.  In  1819  a  young  man  named  John  Deputy,  from 
Ken  tuck)',  was  in  the  neighborhood  of  the  place  where 
Hazelton,  Indiana,  now  is,  visiting  some  friends.  One  day 
While  out  hunting  he  caught  a  young  bear  cub;  before  he 
could  get  away,  the  old  mother  was  on  him.  In  fighting  her 
with  his  tomahawk  he  broke  her  under  jaw.  She  caught  him 
in  her  arms  and  hugged  him  to  death,  breaking  his  ribs  as  if 
they  had  been  pipe-stems.  This  incident  was  given  to  the 
author  by  Mrs.  Nancy  Gullick. 

There  could  be  fifty  instances  given  where  the  bear,  in 
fighting  both  Indians  and  white  men,  came  near  squeezing 
the  life  out  of  them  with  their  strong  arms.  It  used  to  be  a 
common  saying  with  old  hunters,  that  they  had  no  fear  of  a 
bear  so  long  as  they  could  keep  from  being  pounded  to  death 
with  its  strong  arms  or  squeezed  to  death.  There  are  but 
very  few  instances  on  record  where  the  bear  has  been  known 
to  attack  a  man  unless  wounded  or  their  cubs  disturbed,  and 
this  continued  to  be  the  case  in  most  sections  of  the  country. 
After  Braddock's  defeat  at  Fort  Duquesne  in  1755,  where  so 
many  men  were  killed  and  left  for  the  animals  and  vultures 


434  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 

to  feast  on,  the  bears  in  that  section  became  so  used  to  eatingr 
human  flesh  that  afterward  thev  were  ferocious  and  would 
attack  a  man  at  si^ht.  The  same  was  true  in  1791  at  St. 
Clair's  defeat  and  in  the  everglades  of  Florida  where  Major 
Dade's  army  was  murdered  and  slaughtered  by  the  Seminole 
Indians.  The  bears  in  that  section  for  many  years  afterward 
would  attack  every  human  being  they  saw. 

Bears  look  to  be  awkward  and  clumsy,  but  such  is  not 
the  case.  It  can,  with  ease,  climb  the  tallest  tree,  and  when 
lean,  can  run  very  fast.  They  eat  nearly  every  sort  of  food,, 
but  beechnuts,  chestnuts  and  acorns  are  the  food  on  which 
they  fatten  very  fast.  At  times  in  early  autumn,  just  before 
the  nuts  begin  to  fall,  they  will  climb  the  oak  and  beech, 
trees  and  pull  the  limbs  to  secure  the  nuts.  This  the  old 
hunters  called  **lopping."  After  becoming  very  fat  in  the 
late  fall  or  early  winter,  they  will  seek  for  a  suitable  hollow 
tree  and  go  into  a  long  sleep,  called  hibernating,  and  do  not 
wake  up  until  spring,  when  the  frost  is  gone.  It  was.  always 
thought  that  they  sucked  their  paws  during  this  long  period 
of  rest  and  subsisted  on  the  oil  they  drew  out  of  them.  At 
those  times  when  they  have  been  smoked  out  of  their  dens 
and  killed  during  the  winter  months,  in  dressing  them  there 
was  a  large  amount  of  pure  oil  found  in  the  alimentary  canaU 
sometimes  as  much  as  two  gallons.  There  has  been  much 
•speculation  as  to  how  the  oil  came  there.  The  most  accepted 
theory  is  that  nature  has  provided  the  animal  with  absorbent 
vessels  which  gather  the  oil  from  the  fat  of  the  body  into  the 
stomach  for  sustenance  during  the  long  sleep. 

They  raised  cubs  each  year,  usually  two.  At  first  these 
cubs  are  not  larger  than  small  kittens  and  are  quite  helpless 
for  some  time.  When  ihey  commence  to  grow  they  are  the 
most  playful  of  all  animals.  They  remain  with  their  mother 
until  about  one  year  old,  when  they  commence  to  care  for 
themselves.  There  is  something  in  the  formation  of  the 
bones  or  muscles  of  the  bear  different  from  any  other  animaU 
They  will  let  go  all  hold  and  fall  from  the  top  of  a  tall  tree 
to  the  ground  all  in  a  bundle  and  bound  up  two  or  three  feet 
without  doing  them  the  least  harm.     Like  the  hog,  they  had 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OP  INDIANA.  435 

a  wallow  in  the  mud  and  water  where  they  resorted  during^ 
the  hot  days  of  summer  and  spent  much  of  their  time  there. 
When  the  first  cornfields  were  planted,  the  bears  made  them- 
selves at  home  when  the  roasting  ears  were  ready — in  many 
cases  destroying  the  entire  field.  Their  skins  were  dressed  on 
the  fleshy  side,  leaving  the  hair  on,  and  were  used  by  many  a 
mother  for  a  pallet  for  her  young  children,  and  in  many  cases 
they  were  all  the  doors  or  shutters  that  many  families  had 
for  some  time,  after  building  their  first  cabin. 

THE   GREY   AND   FOX-SQUIRRELS. 

These  squirrels  are  both  natives  of  this  country  and  have 
up  to  a  few  years  past  been  very  plentiful  and  filled  a  needed 
place  in  the  bill  of  fare  on  every  hunter's  table.  They  be- 
came at  times  a  very  great  pest  in  cornfields,  and  if  not 
killed  or  the  field  guarded,  would  destroy  a  large  amount  of 
corn.  In  the  early  times  the  farmers  organized  hunting 
parties,  with  three  or  four  on  a  side,  and  set  a  day  to  meet  at 
a  stated  place  and  count  the  scalps  of  the  squirrels  which 
they  had  killed.  The  side  having  the  most  scalps  was  to  en- 
joy a  dinner  or  supper  of  good  things  prepared  by  the  de- 
feated ones.  In  these  round-ups  they  would  have  several 
hundred  scalps  each,  representing  a  few  days'  hunting  only. 
This  may  seem  to  have  been  cruel  sport  to  the  people  of  this 
date,  but  it  had  to  be  done  or  the  cornfields  would  have  been 
ruined.  The  squirrel  is  the  most  active  and  graceful  of  all 
the  rodent  family,  and  when  in  such  numbers  as  they  were  in 
all  parts  of  Indiana  up  to  1850.  competent  to  do  the  corn  crop 
more  harm  than  all  the  other  animals.  The  meat  of  these 
little  animals,  when  properly  prepared  for  food,  is. most  de- 
licious. These  little  rodents  at  times  would  migrate  from 
one  section  to  another.  What  the  cause  of  this  was,  was 
hard  to  tell,  but  at  such  times  the  farmers  would  be  very 
much  alarmed  for  fear  they  would  destroy  their  corn.  When 
they  started,  nothing  would  change  their  course.  They 
would  climb  over  mountains  and  cross  wide  and  deep  rivers. 
When  it  was  known  that  they  were  on  the  go,  the  hunters 
and  farmers  would  kill  thousands  of  them.    The  squirrel  was 


436  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 

a  great  tell-tale  on  other  animals.  The  hunter  has  often  lain 
in  wait  for  the  approaching  bear  or  deer  who  he  knew  was 
coming  toward  him  by  the  noise  of  the  squirrels  as  they,  up 
in  the  trees,  could  be  heard  chattering  away  back  on  the 
course  the  animal  had  come,  and  would  begin  to  chatter  as 
soon  as  it  had  passed  the  tree  the}^  were  on. 

RABBITS. 

The  rabbit  is  a  domestic  animal  and  hardly  worthy  of 
mention  in  the  game  list.  They  were  very  few  in  Indiana  in 
an  early  day.  Whether  the  animals  which  would  eat  them 
kept  the  numbers  down  or  whether  they  increased  more  as 
the  country  became  settled  up,  is  not  known,  but  there  are 
twenty  here  now  where  there  was  one  in  1840.  They  are 
very  poor  meat  in  comparison  with  the  squirrel,  and  people 
would  not  eat  them  when  game  was  plentiful. 

ANTELOPE. 

This  is  a  very  beautifully  formed  anim?il  and  probably 
the  swiftest  of  all  the  deer  family.  They  are  very  shy  and 
constantly  on  the  watch  for  an  enemy.  After  the  Ameri<:ans 
came  to  Indiana,  they  were  not  often  seen,  as  they  inhabited 
the  prairie  sections  around  Terre  Haute  and  in  the  north  and 
northwestern  part  of  the  state. 

The  soldiers  on  Indian  campaigns  tell  of  seeing  the  an- 
telope in  small  herds,  which  were  always  on  the  run.  In  the 
northwestern  portion  of  the  state  the  antelope  was  killed  as 
late  as  1840,  but  since  that  date  there  is  no  account  of  any 
having  been  seen  in  Indiana.  The  plains  of  the  great  west 
were  roamed  by  thousands  of  herds  of  these  animals  as  late 
as  the  middle  of  the  '80s.  There  are  yet  many  herds  of  them 
seen  on  the  plains  of  North  Dakota. 


GAME  BIRDS. 

THE   TURKEY. 

The  turkey  was  the  most  important  of  the  game  birds, 
and  furnished  to  many  families  the  largest  portions  of  their 
meat  rations.     When  Indiana  was  first  hunted  over  by  the 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA.  437 

white  man,  turke3^s  were  in  such  numbers  that  in  one  da3''s 
hunt  there  would  be  seen  many  flocks  of  these  birds,  number- 
ing from  fifty  to  seventy-five  in  each  flock.  They  were  con- 
tinually roaming  over  the  country  for  their  food,  and  each 
day  would  travel  many  miles,  usually  in  a  circular  form,  at 
night  returning  to  the  same  section  for  roosting  in  the  tallest 
trees  high  up  from  the  ground.  They  gathered  all  sorts  of 
insects  for  their  food,  also  the  sassafras,  dogwood  and  black- 
gum  berries,  which  were  their  choicest  foods. 

They  hid  their  nests  in  a  secluded  spot  and  laid  from 
twelve  to  sixteen  eggs  and  were  four  weeks  setting  before 
they  hatched.  During  this  period  of  incubation  the.  old  tur- 
key hen  did  not  leave  her  nest  but  a  very  few  times,  hunting 
for  food  and  water.  When  the  young  birds  were  hatched,  the 
mother  was  very  careful  not  to  expose  them  to  the  wet  until 
the  downy  stage  had  passed  and  they  had  feathers  which 
would  shed  the  water.  This  fine  game  bird  was  easily  do- 
mesticated. The  wild  ones  have  almost  been  exterminated 
in  this  state. 

There  is  a  good  story  told  of  how  the  turkey  fooled  the 
eagle  to  keep  from  being  carried  off.  The  eagle  catches  its 
prey  on  the  wing,  and  as  it  would  swoop  down  to  catch  the 
turkey,  it  would  squat  down  on  the  ground  and  spread  out  its 
wings  and  turn  its  long  tail  up  perpendicularly.  The  eagle 
would  hit  the  tail  and  fail  to  strike  the  body.  A  hunter  re- 
lated the  story  of  having  watched  a  pair  of  eagles  trying  to 
catch  turkeys  one  evening  until  they  wore  themselves  out, 
without  succeeding.  When  hunting  for  a  national  emblem, 
Dr.  Franklin  expressed  a  wish  that  the  turkey  rather  than 
the  eagle  should  be  taken  for  it.  '  • 

In  hunting  for  turkeys  at  certain  seasons  of  the  year, 
they  were  easily  fooled.  The  hunter,  during  the  molting 
season,  would  locate  where  an  old  gobbler  was  gobbling  and 
go  as  near  without  being  seen  as  he  thought  safe,  and  then 
would  commence  to  *'cawk,"  using  a  bone  taken  from  the  tur- 
key's wing  for  that  purpose,  with  which  he  could  very  closely 
imitate  the  calling  noise  made  by  the  hen  turkey.  The  old 
gobbler  would   go   to   the   Sound,  continuing  to  gobble,  and 


438  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 

when  the  hunter  had  thus  lured  the  bird  near  enough,  he 
would  kill  it. 

The  turkey  is  a  high-headed  bird  and  formerly  many  of 
them  were  caught  in  pens.  A  trench  was  dug  under  the  side 
of  the  pen  and  corn  sprinkled  in  the  trench.  The  turkeys 
would  pick  up  the  corn  and  thus  enter  the  pen,  and  when  he 
had  eaten  the  corn  would  elevate  its  head  and  try  to  get  out 
at  the  cracks  between  the  logs,  never  thinking  of  stooping 
down  and  going  out  the  way  it  came  in. 

THE  RUFFLED  GROUSE  OR  PARTRIDGE. 

This  bird,  known  to  old  people  in  Indiana  as  pheasant,  is 
a  beautiful  bird  sixteen  or  eighteen  im:hes  long,  bulky  and 
heavy  to  its  looks.  It  is  of  a  brownish  color,  very  much  re- 
sembling'the  dry  leaves  where  it  has  its  home.  There  is  a 
small  bunch  of  dark  feathers  on  each  side  of  its  neck  called 

the  ruff  and  a  dark  band  near  the  end  of  its  broad  tail.    They 
» 

are  a  very  shy  bird  and  can  easily  hide  so  as  not  to  be  distin- 
guished from  the  general  appearance  of  the  surroundings. 
When  disturbed  and  not  finding  a  suitable  hiding  place,  they 
will  take  wing  and  fly  very  fast,  making  a  peculiar  whirring 
sound  that  is  so  noticeable,  that  any  one  ever  hearing  it 
would  recognize  it  again. 

This  fine  game  bird  has  no  superior  when  prepared  for 
the  table.  Like  all  of  its  class  of  birds,  one-third  of  it  is 
breast  or  white  meat.  In  the  spring  they  make  their  nests 
very  much  the  same  as  the  common  partridge  or  quail,  as  it 
is  now  called.  When  the  young  birds  are  hatched,  in  a  very 
short  time  they  follow  the  old  birds  wherever  they  go.  In 
the  springtime  the  male  bird  of  this  species  drums  on  logs 
with  his  wings  and  makes  a  very  loud  noise  that  can  be 
easily  heard  a  mile  away.  They  commence  to  drum  very 
slowly  at  first,  but  soon  drum  so  fast  that  it  is  hard  to  deter- 
mine if  it  is  not  a  continuous  sound.  This  noise  has  often 
been  taken  for  thunder.  There  are  several  theories  as  to  how 
this  bird  makes  this  noise.  One  is  that  the  drumming  noise 
is  caused  by  the  quick  motion  of  the  wings  against  the  air. 
Another  theory  is  that  there  is  an  accommodation  of  nature 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA.  439 

under  its  wings  that  it  can  inflate  with  wind  at  its  pleasure 
and  the  drumming  sound  is  caused  by  short  and  quick  strokes 
with  the  wings  against  this  inflated  drum.  To  a  '*Hoosier" 
who,  when  a  boy,  has  seen  this  fine  bird  on  old  logs,  drum- 
ming and  thumping  with  its  wings,  either  of  the  above  theo- 
ries is  hard  to  accept. 

PRAIRIE    HEN. 

The  prairie  hen  was  quite  common  up  to  forty  years  ago 
in  the  prairie  sections  of  the  state  and  in  the  timbered  regions 
for  many  miles  around  the  prairies,  but  now  there  are  very  few 
to  be  seen.  They  are  a  very  fine  bird,  about  two-thirds  the 
size  of  the  domestic  hen,  and  are  of  the  pheasant  family. 

THE   QUAIL   OR    *'bOB   WHITE." 

This  bird,  called  in  the  central  western  states  partridge, 
is  the  great  game  bird  now  in  all  sections  of  the  middle  west. 
While  not  easily  domesticated,  yet  in  most  cases  it  makes  its 
home  in  the  grass  and  weeds  on  the  farms.  It  supplies  its 
own  food  from  insects  of  all  sorts  and  from  the  wild  peas  and- 
from  pulse.  When  the  fields  are  harvested  it  raises  its  fam- 
ily in  them  by  gleaning  the  scattered  grains  and  heads  left 
on  the  ground.  In  winter  it  lives  on  the  wild  seeds  of  grass 
and  weeds;  also  on  the  berry  of  different  sorts  of  trees  and 
bushes  and  in  the  cornfields,  gathering  up  the  scattered 
grain.  It  can  make  its  own  living  unless  the  winter  is  too 
severe  and  the  snow  is  deep.  Then  the  covey  will  hover  to- 
gether in  a  round  circle  with  their  heads  outward,  and  unless 
the  farmer  scatter  grain  within  their  reach  at  such  times, 
many  of  them  will  starve. 

These  birds  roost  in  a  huddle  under  bunches  of  grass  or 
under  a  log.  They  make  their  nests  in  grass  and  lay  from 
ten  to  fifteen  eggs.  The  young  birds  in  a  few  minutes  after 
they  are  out  of  the  shell  can  run  like  the  wind;  in  fact,  when 
the  nest  has  been  disturbed  in  hatching,  the  little  birds  have 
i>een  seen  running  with  a  part  of  the  shell  adhering  to  them. 

THE   PIGEON. 

In  an  early  day  the  wild  pigeons  were  so  plentiful  in  the 


440  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 

fall  of  the  year  in  all  sections  of  this  state  as  to  be  a  menace 
to  the  safety  of  those  traveling  along"  the  narrow  road  or 
hunting  in  the  woods.  They  were  after  the  bitter  mast  that 
grew  on  the  red  or  ridge  oak.  These  trees  were  mostly  of  a 
shrubby  growth  and  the  wood  was  very  brittle.  At  night 
these  birds  by  countless  thousands  would  roost  in  these  trees. 
They  would  settle  on  their  roost  in  such  numbers  as  to  break 
off  large  limbs,  and  sometimes  the  tree  itself  would  break 
down.  Hunters  at  times  would  be  after  them  with  torches, 
and  when  they  would  fire  at  a  cluster,  the  pigeons  would  rise 
to  fly  from  the  surrounding  timber,  and  "there  would  be  a 
crash  of  limbs  and  falling  tree-tops  such  as  was  never  heard 
only  in  the  most  severe  tornado.  They  were  also  found 
where  there  was  beech  timber,  as  they  were  very  fond  of  the 
beechnut.  They  would  remain  in  sections  until  most  of  the 
nuts  and  acorns  were  gathered  and  then  fly  away  to  other 
woods  to  gather  food.  In  many  places  in  Indiana  there  were 
what  were  known  as  '^Pigeon  Roosts."  where  the  pigeons,  by 
countless  thousands,  would  gather  year  after  year,  covering 
several  miles  of  territory  for  their  roosts.  Two  of  the  largest 
of  these  roosts  were  in  Scott  and  eastern  part  of  Marion 
Counties.  In  the  fall  of  the  year,  as  these  birds  were  making 
their  flight  from  the  cold  north  to  the  warmer  climate  of  the 
southland,  they  were  seen  in  such  immense  numbers  and  cov- 
ered such  a  large  territory  in  their  flight,  that  the  sun  would 
be  darkened  for  an  hour  at  a  time.  Their  meat  is  not  re- 
garded as  of  much  value.  It  is  very  dark  and  has  a  strong 
pigeon  odor  about  it  that  injured  its  value  for  food. 

THE  TURTLE   DOVE. 

This  innocent  bird  has  been  regarded  as  an  emblem  of 
constant  and  faithful  attachment,  expressing  its  affection  by 
billing  and  cooing  in  the  gentlest  and  most  soothing  accents. 
Wilse,  the  great  naturalist,  said:  *'This  is  a  favorite  bird 
with  all  who  love  to  wander  among  the  woods  and  fields  in 
the  spring  and  listen  to  the  varied  harmony.  They  will  hear 
many  a  sprightly  performer  but  none  so  mournful  as  the 
dove.      The   hopeless  woe   of   settled   sorrow   swelling   the 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA.  441 

heart  of  the  female,  innocence  itself  could  not  assume 
tones  more  sad.  more  tender  and  affecting."  There 
is,  however,  nothing  of  real  distress  in  all  this.  It  is 
the  voice  of  love  for  which  the  whole  family  of  doves  are 
celebrated.  The}'  are  a  very  tame  bird,  found  mostly  near 
the  farms  or  habitations  of  man.  They  have  never  been 
chairged  with  doing  any  harm  to  the  crops  or  anything  else, 
but  they  do  destroy  many  insects,  and  are  so  constantly  about 
the  farm,  winter  and  summer,  that  they  are  regarded  as  real 
friends. 

In  making  their  nests,  but  little  care  is  taken,  as  it  is 
quite  common  to  find  them  on  top  of  a  stump  or  on  the  end  of 
projecting  fence  rails.  The  young  birds  have  but  little  pro- 
tection from  the  elements  or  security  from  the  hawk  or 
prowling  mink.  They  raise  from  two  to  three  sets  of  young 
birds  during  the  spring  and  summer  months.  Some  people 
class  these  harmless  birds  with  game  birds.  This  certainly 
is  wrong.  Anyone  who  can  find  pleasure  in  murdering  the 
innocent  doves  must  have  a  heart  seared  with  avarice  or 
meanness. 


FEROCIOUS   ANIMALS. 

THE   PANTHER. 

The  panther  stands  at  the  head  of  ferocious  animals 
which  inhabited  Indiana.  They  were  in  such  numbers  in  all 
the  timbered  sections  that  the  Indians  regarded  them  as  very 
dangjerous.  They  would  attack  a  man  and  did  kill  many 
Indians,  as  well  as  white  persons.  They  were  very  destruc- 
tive to  elk  and  deer  and  would  attack  the  buffalo.  Its  usual 
height  was  about  three  feet,  its  length  about  six  feet,  ex- 
clusive of  the  tail,  which  was  from  two  to  two  and  a  half  feet 
long.  This  animal  was  equipped  with  a  most  formidable 
and  sharp  set  of  claws,  that  it  could  extend  two  inches  from 
the  end  of  its  toes.  Like  all  the  cat  tribe,  it  caught  all  of  its 
prey  by  stealing  on  it  unawares.  These  animals  caught  most 
of  their  food  hiding  in  the  trees  near  a  saline  lick,  and  as  the 
elk,  deer  and  buffalo  would  pass  going  from  or  to  the  lick,  it 


\ 


442  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 

would  land  on  its  back.  The  animal,  unless  it  was  a  small 
deer,  would  run  for  a  long  distance  with  ihe  panther  on  its 
back  before  bleeding  to  death  from  the  lacerations  made  with 
its  claws.  In  color  it  was  tawny  to  a  dark-brown  on  its  back 
and  sides  and  was  of  a  pale  yellow  color  on  its  under  parts. 

They  raised  their  kittens  in  a  large  hollow  tree  or  in  a 
cave,  from  three  to  six  at  a  birth.  It  is  disputed  whether 
they  have  more  than  one  set  of  kiitens  during  the  year. 
DeLome  says  that  he  has  seen  the  kittens  in  the  early  spring 
and  late  fall.  After  killing  a  deer  or  other  animal  and  eating 
all  they  wanted,  they  would  drag  the  carcass  to  a  secluded 
place,  cover  it  up  with  grass,  brush  and  leaves  and  watch  it. 
If  any  other  animal  attempted  to  interfere,  it  would  fight  for 
the  carcass  to  the  death.  Their  hides,  when  tanned,  made 
good  clothing  and  moccasins. 

The  panther  would  not  attack  a  human  being  as  long  as 
the  face  was  toward  it,  but  would  stand  near,  turning  its 
head  from  side  to  side  as  if  trying  to  avoid  the  gaze,  patting 
its  tail  cat-like,  but  the  moment  the  back  was  turned  it  would 
spring  upon  its  victim.  When  traveling,  they  went  in  a  long 
leap  as  fast  as  a  horse  could  run,  and  at  short  intervals  made 
a  whining  cry,  seemingly  not  loud,  but  which  could  be  heard 
a  mile  away. 

In  1830  in  Washington  County,  Indiana,  a  dagger  trap 
was  set  for  a  small  animal.  Sometime  during  the  night  a 
panther  was  nosing  around  the  trap  trying  to  get  the  bait, 
when  it  sprung  the  trap  and  the  dagger  went  through  its 
ears  into  its  socket  in  the  trap.  The  next  day  the  panther 
was  killed  about  one  mile  from  Sullivan,  Indiana  with  the 
dagger  still  fast  in  its  ear. 

The  Puma  of  the  country  west  of  the  Rocky  mountains 
is  a  little  longer  in  body  and  heavier  than  the  panther  which 
was  known  in  the  central  west.  The  latter  was  of  a  darker 
color  and  if  possible  more  ferocious  and  vicious. 

THE  WOLF. 

The  wolf  is  of  the  canine  species  and  was  regarded  by 
the  pioneers  as  a  despicable,  mean  sneaking  snarling  animal. 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA.  443 

They  were  very  prolific  and  went  in  largfe  packs,  securing 
their  food  from  the  lesser  animals  which  they  could  run 
•down.  When  a  very  large  pack  of  wolves  had  been  together, 
they  have  been  known  to  surround  a  buffalo  and  worry  it 
until  almost  exhausted  by  the  continual  rushes  made  by 
the  pack  from  different  parts  of  the  circle,  until  they  killed 
it.  Notwithstanding  this  they  were  regarded  as  very  cow- 
ardly and  would  only  attack  when  in  large  numbers  and  had 
the  decided  advantage.  The  first  settlers  in  this  country 
who  tried  to  raise  sheep,  found  it  a  very  difiicult  proposition. 
They  had  to  pen  them  every  night  or  they  would  have  been 
killed  by  the  wolves  which  would  congregate  near  the  farms 
upon  which  the  sheep  had  been  placed  in  pens  and  keep  up  a 
continuous  howl  for  hours  at  a  time. 

The  grey  or  timber  wolf  which  was  a  native  of  the  tim- 
ber sections  of  Indiana  was  about  as  large  as  a  good  sized 
dog,  without  possessing  any  of  the  redeeming  qualities  of  his 
brother.  On  the  prairie  sections  of  the  State  were  immense 
numbers  of  what  were  known  as  prairie  wolves.  These  de- 
spicable creatures  would  set  up  such  a  noise  as  soon  as  night 
came  on,  that  when  near  a  camp,  would  drown  out  all  other 
sounds.  They  had  a  kind  of  tremulo  in  their  voices  so  that 
one  could  make  a  sound  as  if  a  dozen  were  howling.  •  When 
the  soldiers  on  Indian  campaigns  were  in  the  section  of  the 
state  where  these  wolves  lived,  and  in  camp,  the  odor  of  the 
cooking  would  gather  around  their  camp  hundreds  of  these 
animals. 

General  Scott,  of  Kentucky,  at  one  time  had  a  camp  on 
one  of  our  prairies.  He  had  his  horses  picketed  out  and 
these  wolves  set  up  such  a  howl  that  his  horses  stampeded, 
pulling  their  stake  pins  and  it  was  some  time  before  all  of 
them  were  found  again. 

THE    BOB   CAT  OR   WILD   CAT. 

This  animal  was  very  plentiful  in  all  sections  of  Indiana 
and  was  not  regarded  as  dangerous  to  man  as  it  would  not 
attack  unless  hemmed  in;  then  it  attacked  with  a  fur_v  that 
no    other   animal   ever   had.       The   wild   cat    has    a    body 


444  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 

about  three  feet  long  and  a  little  over  two  feet  high  with 
only  a  very  short  tail.  The  head  is  short  and  broad.  Its 
mouth  is  armed  with  long  and  very  sharp  teeth.  Its  legs, 
long  for  its  body,  are  thick  and  strong.  It  is  armed  wnth 
long  and  sharp  claws.  This  animal  has  been  known  to 
defeat  six  dogs  in  a  battle,  killing  two  of  them  and  scratch-* 
ing  the  eyes  out  of  tw^o  more  of  them.  It  secures  food 
from  smaller  animals  and  birds  and  will  cajry  off  small 
shoats  and  it  is  very  destructive  to  all  sorts  of  poultry, 
chickens,  turkeys  and  geese. 


FUR  BEARING  ANIMALS. 

THE    BEAVER 

The  American  beaver  once  dwelt  in  great  numbers  in  all 
the  rivers,  lakes  and  creeks  of  North  America  and  in  no  part 
of  it  more  than  along  the  many  streams  and  lakes  of  Indiana. 
The  mound  builders  in  many  parts  of  North  America  have 
left  monuments  to  commemorate  the  beaver,  which  have 
stood  the  test  of  countless  centuries.  The  Indians  who  in- 
habited all  parts  of  the  United  States  have  some  legend  by 
which  their  association  with  this  intelligent  animal  is  noted. 
Bancroft,  the  historian,  said  in  an  article  that  in  cleanliness, 
thrift  and  architectural  skill  the  beaver  was  far  superior  to 
the  Red  Man. 

The  beaver  is  an  amphibious  quadruped  which  cannot 
live  more  than  a  short  period  under  water.  It  is  asserted 
they  can  live  without  water  all  the  time  if  occasionally  pro- 
vided with  a  chance  to  bathe.  The  largest  beaver  is  nearly 
four  feet  long  and  will  weigh  nearly  sixty  pounds.  It  has  a 
round  head  like  the  otter  only  larger,  small  eyes  and  short 
ears.  Its  teeth  are  very  long  and  so  shaped  in  its  mouth  as 
to  be  best  suited  to  cut  down  trees  and  for  cutting  the  logs  of 
proper  length  for  building  or  repairing  a  dam.  Its  fore  legs 
are  not  more  than  four  or  five  inches  long.  The  hind  legs 
are  longer.  The  tail  of  the  beaver  seems  to  have  no  relation 
to  the  rest  of  the  body  except  the  hind  feet.     The  tail  is  cov- 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA.  445 

ered  with  skin  on  which  there  are  scales  which  resemble  a 
fish  and  is  from  ten  to  twelve  inches  long  and  about  four 
inches  broad  in  the  middle. 

The  color  of  the  beaver  differs  according  to  the  climate 
in  which  it  is  found.  Those  to  the  far  south  are  much 
lighter  brown  than  the  ones  found  in  the  north,  which  are 
almost  black.  The  fur  is  of  two  distinct  sorts  all  over  the 
body.  The  longest  is  generall}^  about  one  inch;  on  the  back 
sometimes  it  is  more  than  two  inches,  diminishing  in  length 
toward  the  head  and  tail.  This  part  of  the  fur  is  coarse  a(nd 
of  but  little  value.  The  und^r  fur  is  very  thick  and  is  really 
a  very  fine  down,  about  three-quarters  of  an  inch  in  length. 
This  is  the  fur  that  makes  the  beaver  skin  so  valuable  in 
market. 

The  intelligence  of  this  animal  in  building  their  dams 
and  constructing  their  houses  and  providing:  their  food  is 
wonderful.  When  they  are  to  choose  a  place  for  a  new  dam, 
they  assemble  several  hundred,  apparently  holding  a  conven- 
tion. After  their  deliberations  are  over,  they  repair  to  the 
place  agreed  on,  always  where  there  is  plenty  of  such  timber, 
needed  for  the  construction  of  their  house,  dams,  and  for 
their  provisions,  usually  poplar,  cottonwood,  willow,  linden 
and  catalpa,  all  of  these  being  soft  woods.  Their  houses  are 
always  in  the  water,  and  when  they  cannot  find  a  lake  or 
pond,  the}'  will  supply  the  deficiency  by  damming  a  creek, 
sometimes  good-sized  rivers.  In  this  way  they  raise  the 
water,  held  by  their  strong  dams  to  the  required  depth.  They 
then  commence  to  fell  large  trees.  They  cut  the  trees  that 
grow  above  the  place  where  they  want  to  build,  so  they  can 
float  them  down  with  the  current.  From  three  to  five  beavers 
will  set  about  cutting  the  tree  down  with  their  strong,  sharp 
teeth.  They  select  such  trees  as  will  fall  toward  the  lake  or 
creek,  so.  as  to  lessen  their  labor.  After  the  log  is  in  the 
water,  two  or  three  beaver  manage  so  that  it  floats  to  a 
point  where  they  want  to  use  it.  To  sink  the  log  into  the 
water,  the  beaver  uses  a  large  amount  of  mud,  carrying  it  on 
their  tails  and  piling  it  on  the  log  until  there  is  a  sufficient 
amount    to   sink    it.     When  they  have    it    in    place  and  the 


446  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 

framework  of  the  dam  is  completed,  they  will  chinck  the 
opening  with  rocks,  if  they  can  get  them — if  not,  with  small 
pieces  of  timber  and  limbs.  Then  they  make  a  mortar  by 
tramping  it  with  their  feet,  then  plastering  the  dam  all  over, 
using  their  tails  for  mortar  carriers  and  trowels  until  it  is 
strong  and  water-tight. 

In  building  their  houses,  after  they  have  the  dam  com- 
pleted, they  show  evidence  of  great  skill.  Selecting  a  place 
in  the  water  held  by  the  dam,  they  first  make  a  foundation 
on  the  bottom  of  the  dam  or  lake  with  logs  and  poles.  Upon 
this  they  build  their  houses^  which  are  circular  in  shape  and 
oval  at  the  top.  There  is  always  enough  of  the  house  which 
stands  above  any  possible  overflow  of  the  stream,  so  that  the 
beaver  can  have  his  home  always  dry  and  cozy.  Each  cabin 
is  large  enough  to  hold  from  six  to  ten  beavers,  and  built  so 
that  they  can  have  easy  communication  with  each  others*^ 
houses.  There  are  usually  quite  a  number  of  their  houses  at 
each  dam.  They  are  so  constructed  and  held  together  with 
timber  and  brush,  limbs  and  rocks,  all  of  which  is  plastered 
inside  and  out  as  perfectly  as  the  best  masons  could  do  it. 
The  entrance  to  these  houses  is  from  below,  which  they  swim 
to.  When  these  houses  are  opened  they  are  found  to  be 
models  of  neatness.  The  floor,  which  is  made  with  a  network 
of  small  limbs  and  twigs,  intertwined  together  and  nicely 
plastered  over,  is  carpeied  with  dry  grass  and  leaves. 

It  is  said  that  winter  never  overtook  these  intelligent 
animals  unprepared,  as  their  stock  of  provisions  was  always 
securely  laid  up  in  their  store  houses,  consisting  of  small 
pieces  of  wood  such  as  limbs  and  saplings  of  poplar,  willow^ 
asp,  and  linden.  These  small  pieces  were  cut  an  even  length 
and  piled  so  they  would  retain  their  moisture.  The  beaver 
eats  the  bark  from  these  sticks  and  a  small  portion  of  the 
soft  wood  next  to  the  bark  and  uses  the  balance  of  it  for 
chincking  and  mending  their  dams  and  houses.  Volumes 
could  be  written  about  these  wonderful  animals. 

In  every  part  of  Indiana  where  there  was  water  and  tim- 
ber, the  beaver  was  in  unusual  numbers,  and  the  places 
where  they  had  dams   can    be   easily  traced.     About  twenty 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OP  INDIANA.  44r 

years  Rgo  the  author  was  having^  the  spread  of  a  creek, 
which  the  beavers  had  dammed,  ditched  so  that  the  water 
would  follow  the  channel,  and  found  the  entire  distance  from 
where  the  channel  stopped  to  where  it  was  found  ag^ain,  more 
than  a  quarter  of  a  mile,  to  be  a  continuous  set  of  beaver 
dams  and  houses,  made  of  catalpa  timbers  which  were  per-^ 
fectly  sound.  The  stumps  they  had  cut  the  trees  from  were 
sound,  showing  the  marks  of  their  teeth. 

THE   OTTER 

This  animal  is  aquatic  and  secures  its  food  from  fish.  Its 
body  is  about  three  feet  in  length,  from  the  head  to  the  tail. 
The  tail  is  about  eighteen  or  twenty  inches  long  and  flat- 
tened in  shape,  and  is  used  in  swimming.  The  otter  fur  is 
very  valuable.  It  is  a  brown  color,  the  under  part  being 
brighter.  These  animals  are  very  playful  and  have  slides 
wherever  there  is  a  long  sloping  bank.  They  go  to  the  top, 
spread  out  their  feet  and  slide  head  first  into  the  water. 
When  they  come  up  they  swim  to  the  shore  and  are  ready  for 
another  slide.  They  have  been  known  to  make  regular  to- 
boggan slides,  selecting  a  place  suitable  for  the  slide  at  a 
sloping  high  bank  on  the  river  or  lake  in  which  they  live  if 
one  is  to  be  had;  if  not  they  select  a  suitable  place  as  near 
their  home  as  possible  and  make  a  regular  toboggan  slide  of 
it.  As  many  as  four  have  been  seen  at  a  time  coming  down 
a  long  slope  enjoying  the  fun  as  much  as  school  boys  with 
their  sleds.  The  otter  is  easily  domesticated  and  whei^made 
tame  shows  more  real  attachment  for  its  master  than  a  dog. 
The  Indians  living  near  the  lakes  had  many  tame  otters  and 
would  take  them  where  there  was  the  best  fishing  ground 
and  have  the  otter  fish  for  them.  It  is  said  that  a  fish  very 
seldom  got  away  from  them,  havinjg:  once  been  sighted. 

THE   RACCOON. 

This  valuable  animal  was  in  all  sections  of  the  state  of 
Indiana  in  vast  numbers.  Their  skins  are  covered  with  a 
heavy  suit  of  fur  of  a  gray  color,  much  darker  in  the  winter 
months   than   in  the  summer.      The  length  of  the  body  is- 


448  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 

about  twenty-four  inches,  with  a  long  bush}'  tail,  alternating" 
black  and  white  rings  upon  it.  They  are  nocturnal  in  their 
habits  and  secure  their  food  from  many  sources;  various  sorts 
of  roots  that  they  dig,  small  animals,  frogs  and  birds,  often 
robbing  the  nests.  They  are  skillful  chicken  thieves,  rob- 
bing the  hen  roost  at  night.  The  coon  skin  in  an  early  day 
was  a  legal  tender,  and  paid  for  many  of  the  comforts  of  the 
home,  ammunition  and  needed  articles  for  the  early  settlers 
and  also  for  many  thousands  of  acres  of  land  first  entered 
in  Indiana. 

They  were  hunted  in  two  ways.  One  was  to  track  them 
in  the  snow  and  find  a  tree  in  which  they  had  a  colony.  The 
other,  the  one  resorted  to  most  often  by  our  fathers,  was  to 
hunt  for  them  at  night  with  dogs  trained  for  that  purpose. 
The  coon  would  take  a  tree  as  soon  as  the  dogs  on  the  trail 
got  close  to  it.  If  there  was  a  good  moon  and  ammunition 
was  not  scarce,  the  hunter  would  locate  the  coon  in  the  tree, 
and  going  to  a  point  where  its  body  was  between  him  and 
the  moon,  he  would  shoot  it.  Most  of  the  time  the  tree  was 
cut  down  and  the  dog  would  catch  the  coon.  Many  stories 
can  be  told  about  coon  hunting.  A  laughable  one  is  told  by 
Finley  in  his  "Earl}-  Footnotes"  on  a  clerical  friend  of  his 
who,  when  a  young  man,  was  out  with  a  party  coon  hunting. 
The  dog  treed  the  coon,  and  as  the  embryo  minister  was 
known  to  be  good  at  climbing  trees,  it  was  decided  that  he 
should  climb  the  tree  and  shake  the  coon  out.  Accordingly 
he  ascended  the  tree,  carefully  looking  for  the  coon.  Finally 
he  located  it  high  up  on  one  of  the  topmost  branches.  Pro- 
ceeding cautiously,  he  succeeded  in  reaching  the  limb  just 
below  the  one  which  the  coon  was  on.  Raising  himself  to  a 
standing  position,  that  he  might  reach  the  limb,  the  limb 
was  heard  to  crack  and  began  to  give  way.  He  was  fully 
thirty  feet  from  the  ground,  and  realizing  the  danger  he  was 
in,  he  cried  out  to  his  companions  below,  '*!  am  falling." 
Knowing  that  it  would  most  likely  kill  him,  they  called  to 
him  to  pray.  *'Pray!"  said  he,  *'I  haven't  time."  '*But  you 
must  pray — if  you  fall,  )^ou  will  be  killed."  He  commenced 
repeating  the  only  prayer  he  knew,  '*Now  I  lay  me  down  to 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA.  449 

V 

sleep."  He  could  get  no  further,  but  called  out  at  the  top  of 
his  voice,  "Hold  the  dog^s,  I'm  coming."  And  he  Jdid  come 
with  a  crash  that  came  near  killing  him.  The  dogs,  thinking* 
it  was  the  coon,  could  with  difficulty  be  restrained^from  at- 
tacking the  coon  hunter. 

THE  OPOSSUM 

The  opossum  is  a  small  animal  about  twenty  inches  long, 
with  a  long  tail  that  is  entirely  bare  and  rough  like  the  com- 
mon rat  tail.  It  is  very  destructive  to  tame  poultry.  The 
females  have  a  sack  or  pocket  in  which  they  carry  their 
young  before  they  are  able  to  run  about.  If  you  strike  at 
one  he  will  lie  down  on  his  sid^  and  appear  as  if  dead;  as 
soon  as  your  back  is  turned,  jumping  up  and  hurrying  away; 
hence  the  expression — **playing  'possum."  Their  tails  are 
used  to  make  their  hold  secure  when  they  are  climbing  along 
the  limbs  of  small  trees.  The  Indians  regarded  the  'possum 
as  making  one  of  the  best  dishes  they  had.  The  white  peo- 
ple have  always  used  them  for  food.  When  dressed  they 
look  much  like  a  young  pig.  When  baked  with  a  liberal 
supply  of  sweet  potatoes  it  is  a  dish  fit  for  an  epicure.  The 
skin  is  covered  with  a  fur  and  long  white  hair.  When  the 
hair  is  removed  it  leaves  a  very  nice  soft  fur,  out  of  which 
many  articles  of  wearing  apparel  are  made. 

THE   FOX. 

The  grey  and  red  fox  were  two  varieties  which  were  very 
plentiful  in  the  history  of  early  Indiana.  There  were  other 
varieties  on  the  northern  borders  of  the  United  States.  They 
are  of  the  canine  species  arid  are  regarded  as  the  shrewdest  of 
all  animals.  They  are  not  so  tall  in  proportion  to  their 
length  as  the  rest  of  the  canine  family.  Their  usual  length 
is  about  thirty  inches  and  they  are  about  eighteen  inches  tall; 
having  a  slim,  trim  body,  slender  legs,  small  roundish  head, 
with  a  sharp  nose,  short  ears,  eyes  close  together  and  a  long, 
bushy  tail.  They  burrow  in  the  ground  and  are  nocturnal  in 
their  habits.  They  live  on  small  animals  and  are  the  worst 
of  the  poultry  thieves,  carrying  off  full-grown  chickens  and 
^eese.     They  can  kill  and  carry  away  a  twenty-pound  pig. 


450  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 

These  animals  have  furnished  much  sport.  They  will 
run  all  day  when  pursued  by  a  pack  of  fox  hounds.  It  is 
known  that  a  large  red  fox  will  give  a  pack  of  hounds  a  three 
days'  run.  When  being  pursued  they  resort  to  many  tricks 
to  lead  the  dogs  from  their  trail — such  as  doubling  back  on 
their  track,  then  springing  upon  the  top  of  low  bushes  where 
grape  vines  are  matted  over  them  and  running  as  far  as  the 
mat  extends^  then  jumping  off  and  running  at  right  angles  to 
their  former  course.  Another  device  was  brought  to  the  au- 
thor's notice.  A  red  fox  in  the  eastern  part  of  Knox  county 
was,  during  the  hunt,  a  long  way  ahead  of  the  dogs.  It 
turned  on  its  trail,  ran  back  to  a  place  that  it  bad  chosen, 
jumped  up  a  leaning  log  and  climbed  up  for  some  distance, 
where  it  hid  among  a  mat  of  vines  until  the  dogs  and  hunters 
had  passed.  It  then  ran  down  and  back  on  its  own  trail 
which  the  dogs  had  come  over  and  escaped. 

When  the  water  fowls  were  on  the  small  lakes  and  ponds- 
which  are  so  numerous  in  northern  and  northwestern  Indiana, 
the  fox  would  secure  a  bunch  of  large  green  leaves  and  vines- 
and  so  arrange  them  in  its  mouth  that  they  would  hide  its- 
body;  then  it  would  slowly  swim  out  to  the  fowls,  letting  its- 
body  stay  low  in  the  water,  and  when  very  near  them  would 
let  the  leaves  go  and  sink  under  the  water,  catching  the  duck 
or  goose  by  the  leg,  then  s^im  with  it  to  the  shore. 

Lincoln  has  related  a  story,  illustrating  the  fox's  cun- 
ning, which  is  as  follows: 

It  seems  that  the  lions,  tigers  and  panthers  were  kill- 
ing* so  many  animals  it  was  resolved  to  hold  a  convention  of 
all  species.  In  that  convention  it  was  agreed  that  the  lions, 
tigers  and  panthers  would  abstain  from  killing  all  other  ani- 
mals  only  when  such  animals  were  guilty  of  such  crimes  as 
lying,  deceitfulness  and  slander.  As  the  lion  and  other  ani- 
mals lived  by  their  expertness  in  catching  such  animals  as. 
they  used  for  food,  the  conditions  of  the  convention  were 
hard  on  them,  and  seemed  to  hit  the  lion  worse  than  the 
others;  so  he  resolved  to  see  if  he  could  not  cause  some  of  the 
animals  to  violate  some  of  the  conditions  of  the  compact. 
Stationing  himself  near  a  watering  place,  he  waited  to  see 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA,  451 

what  animals  would  come.  The  first  was  the  innocent,  un- 
suspecting sheep.  The  lion  said,  '*Good  morning:,  Mr. 
Sheep."  The  sheep  returned  the  salutation.  The  lion  said, 
*'Mr.  Sheep,  I  am  afraid  that  I  am  going  to  be  sick,  and  as  a 
favor  to  me  I  wish  you  would  smell  my  breath  and  see  what 
you  think  ails  me."  The  sheep,  glad  to  accommodate  his  big 
neighbor,  did  so,  and  said,  *'Mr.  Lion,  you  are  in  a  very  bad 
way.  I  never  sraelled  so  bad  a  breath  and  I  think  you  will 
have  to  be  very  careful  of  yourself.  The  Lion  said,  *'I  will 
kill  you,  Mr.  Sheep^  for  being  a  liar,"  which  he  did.  He 
was  soon  hungry  again  and  the  next  to  come  was  a  cow.  The 
lion  accosted  her:  '*Grood  morning.  Miss  Cow,  I  am  mighty 
glad  to  see  you;  I  feel  very  bad  and  I  thought  I  would  ask  if 
you  could  tell  me  what  is  the  matter  with  me  by  smelling  my 
breath."  This  she  did  and  said,  "Mr.  Lion,  you  are  certainly 
not  very  badly  ailing,  for  I  never  in  all  my  life  smelled  so 
sweet  a  breath."  *'That  is  all  right.  Miss  Cow,  but  I  will 
kill  you  for  being  a  flatterer."  The  lion  was  soon  waiting 
again,  and  the  next  to  come  along  was  the  fox.  The  lion  put 
the  same  question  to  him  as  he  had  to  the  others  and  asked 
him  to  smell  his  breath.  The  fox  replied,  ''Brother  Lion,  I 
do  feel  greatly  flattered  by  your  showing  me  such  distin- 
guished attention,  and  it  would  afford  me  the  very  greatest 
pleasure  if  I  could  in  the  smallest  degree  add  to  your  comfort. 
But,  Mr.  Lion,  the  fact  is  I  have  been  running  about  so  much 
of  late  to  secure  food  for  my  family  that  I  have  taken  a 
dreadful  cold  and  it  is  impossible  for  me  to  smell  anything." 

The  skins  of  the  foxes  are  sold  the  furriers  and  are 
made  into  caps  and  other  articles  of  wearing  apparel.  The 
fox  is  a  very  playful  animal  and  very  easily  domesticated. 

THE    MINK. 

The  mink  is  a  long,  slender  animal,  with  a  long,  bushy 
tail.  It  has  a  gland  connected  with  its  system  where  a  sub- 
stance is  secreted  that  has  a  very  disagreeable  odor.  They 
secure  their  food  from  small  animals,  birds  and  all  sorts. of 
fowls,  to  which  they  are  very  partial.  Their  skin  is  covered 
with  a  rich  black  fur,  which  makes  a  very  shiny  and  glossy 


452  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 

g'arment,  and  is  very  hig^h-priced.  There  are  a  number  of 
persons  eng^ag^ed  in  raising:  them  for  the  value  of  their  fur. 
The  mink  is  very  prolific  and  the  venture  is  proving:  to  be  a 
valuable  one. 

THB  WBASBL. 

7his  small  animal  is  native  to  all  parts  of  Indiana.  It  is 
covered  with  a  rich  brownish  fur.  It  secures  its  food  from 
mice,  rats  and  birds.  They  can  kill  from  twenty  to  thirty 
chickens  in  a  n]g:ht,  sucking  the  blood  from  them  by  making: 
a  small  wound  just  below  the  ear.  Their  one  redeeming: 
quality  is  that  they  are  very  destructive  to  rats. 

THE   GROUND-HOG. 

This  animal  that  so  many  weather-wise  persons  have 
taken  their  cue  from  as  to  the  condition  of  the  weather  in  the 
eariy  spring:,  lives  in  the  g:round  by  making:  burrows  in  the 
side  of  a  hill,  always  slanting:  upward,  that  they  may  shed 
any  water  that  may  accumulate.  The  animal  is  from  sixteen 
to  eighteen  inches  long,  of  a  dark  greyish  color  above  and  a 
pale  reddish  color  below.  It  has  a  thick,  round  body,  a 
broad,  flat  head,  with  no  neck  apparently,  short  legs  and 
bushy  tail.  It  lives  on  vegetables  and  is  especially  fond  of 
red  clover.  It  spends  the  winter  in  its  burrow  in  a  lethargic 
state,  and  is  said  to  be  wide  awake  only  a  very  few  times  from 
the  beginning  of  the  first  cold  weather  in  the  fall  until  early 
spring. 

THE    MUSK-RAT. 

The  musk-rat  is  a  nativ^e  to  all  parts  of  Indiana,  and  is 
very  destructive  to  any  sort  of  vegetables  that  grow  near  its 
den  in  the  bank  of  a  creek  or  a  pond.  This  is  a  very  peculiar' 
animal  and  the  only  one  of  its  kind.  In  shape  it  looks 
much  like  the  field  rat.  Its  head  and  body  together  are  about 
sixteen  inches  long;  its  tail  ten  inches.  It  is  covered  with  a 
dark-brown  fur.  In  some  of  its  characteristics  it  agrees  very 
well  with  the  beaver.  It  is  an  aquatic  animal  and  seldom 
wanders  far  from  the  creeks,  ponds  or  lakes.  Its  skin  is  in 
great  demand  in  the  European  market,  and  countless  thou- 
sands of  them  are  exported  each  3'ear  from  the  United  States. 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA.  453 

It  burrows  in  the  bank  for  a  home  near  where  there  is  plenty 
o*f  water  and  it  builds  itself  a  sort  of  house,  lining:  it  with 
grass  and  making:  room  in  each  house  for  two  or  three  musk- 
rats. 

THE  SKUNK. 

This  animal  is  of  the  weasel  family,  but  larger  than 
either  the  mink  or  the  weasel,  and  in  size  about  the  same  as  a 
house  cat,  but  of  a  much  more  compact  build.  In  color  it  is 
black  or  brown;  with  white  stripes  or  streaks  along  its  sides. 
It  has  a  long,  bushy  tail,  which  in  traveling  is  extended  the 
full  length,  straight  up.  This  animal,  like  the  mink,  has  an 
offensive  odor  about  it,  many  times  stronger  than  any  other 
animal.  It  has  a  sack  near  the  root  of  its  tail  which  con- 
tains a  fluid.  When  assailed,  it  will  discharge  this  fluid  with 
great  precision  at  its  adversaries,  and  woe  be  to  a  man  or  dog 
.  who  receives  the  full  force  of  the  discharge,  for  the  odor  is  so 
intolerable  it  will  make  one  deathly  sick.  Itxis  a  very  tame 
animal,  owing  to  its  power  of  defense.  The  skins  are  used 
by  furriers  for  making  many  articles  of  dress. 


BIRDS  OF  PREY,  NATIVE  TO  INDIANA. 

THE   EAGLE. 

The  eagle  is  not  only  the  largest  bird  native  to  Indiana, 
but  is  the  most  powerful  and  courageous  of  all  birds  of  prey. 
It  has  a  very  strong  beak,  which  is  of  considerable  length, 
being  straight  most  of  th€  length  and  curved  near  the  end, 
making  it  the  weapon  for  tearing  the  flesh  on  which  they 
live.  Their  legs  are  strong  and  covered  with  feathers  to 
their  toes,  which  have  a  strong,  crooked  claw.  The  bald 
eagle,  the  most  common  in  Indiana,  the  male  bird  is  three 
feet  long  and  the  female  three  and  a  half  feet.  When  the 
wings  are  outstretched  it  measures  about  eight  feet  across* 
The  female  is  not  only  larger,  but  possesses  more  courage,  if 
that  is  possible. 

The  eagle  will  soar  to  great  heights.  Their  enormous 
strength  enables  them  to  withstand   the  severest  storm  of 


454  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 

wind.  This  g^reat  bird,  with  its  bold  and  defiant  g^lance, 
proud  aerial  flights  and  strength  of  limb,  combines  so  many 
of  the  qualities  which  are  esteemed  noble  that  it  was  called 
by  the  ancients  "The  Celestial  Bird,"  and  in  their  mythology 
was  the  messenger  of  Jupiter  and  the  bearer  of  his  thunder- 
bolts. Its  figure  in  gold  or  silver  upon  the  ends  of  spears  was 
the  military  ensign  of  the  Romans  and  Persians.  Young 
America  followed  their  example  and  the  figure  of  the  eagle 
was  accepted  as  an  emblem  of  power.  It  is  not  a  common 
bird,  but  it  has  its  home  in  all  parts  of  the  world,  building  its 
nest  on  high  rocky  craigs,  where  it  is  almost  impossible  to 
reach  them.  It  makes  a  very  crude  nest  out  of  long  sticks 
and  limbs  covered  over  with  long  grass  and  m6ss.  The  mother 
bird  lays  two  eggs,  sometimes  three.  The  young  birds  are 
fed  on  the  flesh  of  rabbits,  birds,  lambs,  fish  and  all  sorts  of 
animals.  The  young  birds  remain  near  their  nesting  place 
and  are  cared  for  by  the  parent  bird  until  the  next  nesting 
season  comes  around.  Then  they  look  out  for  their  own  food 
and  it  is  three  years  before  they  obtain  their  full  growth. 
The  eagle  has  one  redeeming  trait  which  is  not  followed  by 
the  bird  family  generally;  that  is,  they  choose  their  mates 
for  life. 

THE   HAWK. 

There  are  a  great  number  of  the  hawk  family  that  are 
native  to  Indiana,  but  only  three  varieties  that  are  the  most 
conspicuous  of  that  great  family  are  here  given.  The  largest 
of  the  hawks  are  what  is  known  as  the  hen  hawk.  This  bird 
is  of  a  grey  color,  with  a  red  tinge  about  its  wings  and  tail. 
Its  breast  is  of  a  red  brick  color;  the  under  part  of  the  body 
is  of  a  lighter  color,  with  dark  spots  over  it.  These  large 
hawks  are  very  common  in  all  parts  of  our  state.  They 
make  their  nests  in  trees,  using  brush  and  sticks  for  that 
purpose.  The  young  birds  are  fed  on  the  flesh  of  birds  and 
small  animals.  The  young  rabbit  is  their  most  common 
food.  These  hawks  will  carry  a  full-grown  chicken  away  with 
perfect  ease.  The 7  will  catch  a  rabbit  and  carry  it  to  the  nest. 
If  the  young  are  large  enough  they  will  hold  the  live  rabbits 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA.  455 

and  have  the  little  hawks  practice  learning:  how  to  kill  their 
prey. 

A  man  who  raised  a  variety  of  rabbits  had  among:  them 
3.  g^reat  many  small  white  rabbits.  The  hawks  beg^an  to 
prey  upon  them,  catching-  one  of  his  favorite  ones  every  day. 
He  tried  in  many  ways  to  kill  the  hawk,  but  without  success. 
He  finally  adopted  the  following  plan:  He  secured  several 
white  cats  and  put  them  in  place  of  the  rabbits.  The 
hawk  made  its  usual  trip.  Catching  one  of  the  white  cats  in 
its  talons,  it  started  to  fly  away.  All  went  well  for  awhile, 
but  presently  there  was  seen  a  commotion  in  the  air.  Hawk 
feathers  were  flying  in  every  direction.  Finally  hawk  and 
cat  fell  to  the  earth,  the  hawk  with  its  throat  cut. 

THE   CHICKEN   HAWK. 

The  chigken  hawk  was  so  named  because  it  was  so  won- 
•derfully  adept  at  catching  chickens.  These  hawks  are  about 
half  the  size  of  the  common  large  hen  hawk,  of  dark  color  on 
.their  back  and  wings,  and  of  a  liglit  mottled  color  on  their 
•bodies.  These  hawks  can  fly  very  fast  and  are  very  brave 
and  determined  in  their  attacks  upon  chickens  and  young  tur- 
keys. In  their  attempt  to  catch  young  birds,  the  mother 
•chicken  and. turkeys  have  many  a  battle  with  them.  They 
knock  them  down,  flop  them  with  their  wings  and  feet,  but 
the  hawk  seldom  fails  to  secure  the  young  fowl.  These 
birds  live  on  all  sorts  of  small  animals  and  birds  and  make 
their  nests  in  the  tree  tops,  living  through  the  winter  months 
sheltered  in  the  timber. 

THE   SPARROW   HAWK. 

This  bird  is  of  a  slate  color  except  on  its  back,  which  is 
a  chestnut  color.  The  lower  part  of  its  body  and  under  its 
wings  are  of  a  beautiful  light-grey  color.  It  can  fly  very 
4swiftly  and  lives  on  field  mice  and  small  birds.  It 
will  catch  any  sort  of  young  fowl.  As  the  country  grows 
older  they  become  more  plentiful;  as  they  are  so  small  they 
are  hard  to  hit  with  target  rifles. 

THE   HORNED  OWL. 

The  great  horned  owls  have  large  grey  eyes,  long  feathery 


456  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 

ears,  and  arc  very  pretty  mottled  birds  of  brown  color.  The 
under  part  of  the  bird  is  white,  barred  with  black  stripes. 
The  eyes  are  large,  as  are  those  of  all  owls,  and  are  so  con- 
structed that  they  cannot  see  in  the  daytime,  but  can  see  at 
nig^ht. 

The  home  of  these  birds  is  in  the  dense  forest.  From 
there  it  visits  the  farms  in  the  neig^hborhoqd  around  its  home 
and  is  regarded  as  a  great  poultry  thief.  This  bird  catches 
its  prey  on  the  wing,  and  when  visiting  the  old-fashioned  hen 
roost  where  the  chickens  roost  in  the  apple,  peach  and  plum 
trees,  it  could  not  strike  the  chicken  while  flying  on  account 
of  the  limbs,  but  would  light  in  the  tree  and  sidle  up  to  a  hen 
and  crowd  her  off  the  limb  and  as  she  fell  or  flew  would  catch 
her.  These  large  birds  build  their  nests  in  the  hollow  trees 
and  in  the  daytime  remain  in  these  warm  homes.  This  bird's 
note  of  challenge  is  Who!  who!  who! — sounded  at  short  in- 
tervals.    Aside  from  this  noise  it  can  scream  very  loudly. 

THE  who!  who!  wah!  owl. 

This  bird  inhabited  all  sections  of  Indiana  in  the  or- 
chards and  woods  and  at  times  would  get  into  the  barn^lofts. 
They  would  commence  their  notes  with  a  screaming  sound 
something  like  Yi!  yi!  yah!  who!  who!  wah!  These  birds  are 
not  so  large  as  the  horned  owl.  They  catch  all  sorts  of  birds 
and  prey  at  night,  the  field  mice  and  rabbits.  They  will 
light  in  a  tree  near  a  chicken  roost  and  set  up  that  screaming 
noise,  which  sounds  very  fierce.  They  are  not  large  enough 
to  carry  away  a  full-grown  hen,  but  can  easily  carry  off  a 
half-grown  chicken.  They  have  been  known  to  light  among 
the  chickens  and  kill  a  hen,  eating  what  they  wanted  of 
her  and  then  flying  away  to  their  nest  in  the  valley.  They 
make  their  nests  in  hollow  trees,  the  same  as  the  horned  owl, 
and  remain  in  them  during  the  day,  only  in  vei^  dark  for- 
ests— they  hide  in  the  thick  foliage  of  trees  and  come  out  at 
night. 

THE  SCREECH  OWL. 

This  is  a  very  common  night  bird  of  a  red  hue.  It  flies 
at  all  hours  of  the  night,  but  remains  in  its  den  in  some  hoi- 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA.  457 

low  tree  during:  the  day.  These  little  birds  have  tufts  of 
feathers  which  look  like  small  ears  on  the  side  of  their  head,, 
which,  with  their  big:  round  eyes,  g^ive  them  a  very  comical 
look.  They  sound  a  whistling:  note,  and  if  their  nests  are 
approached  at  nig^ht,  will  fight  to  the  last.  They  catch  all 
sorts  of  insects,  mice  and  small  birds,  but  are  reg^arded  as 
harmless  and  are  encourag^ed  to  nest  in  bams. 


CHAPTER  XVIII. 


SCHOOLS  OF  EARLY  INDIANA. 


Houses — Books — Dangbk    From    Wild    Animals — Opposi- 
tion TO  Free  Schools. 


The  Legrislature  of  1821,  both  houses  concurring,  raised 
the  following  committee — John  Badollet  and  David  Hart  of 
Knox  County,  William  W.  Martin  of  Washington  County^ 
James  Welch  of  Switzerland  County,  Daniel  I.  Casswell  of 
Franklin  County,  Thomas  C.  Screal  of  JeflFerson  County,  and 
John  Todd  of  Clark  County,  for  the  purpose  of  drafting  a  bill 
to  be  reported  to  the  next  Legislature  of  Indiana,  providing 
for  a  general  system  of  education.  They  were  particularly 
instructed  to  guard  well  against  any  distinction  between  the 
rich  and  the  poor.  The  report  of  this  committee  was  incor- 
porated in  the  first  general  school  law  of  Indiana  which  is  a 
part  of  the  statute  of  1824. 

There  has  been  a  deep  interest  in  the  people  of  the  state 
from  its  very  first  organization  for  the  education  of  rising 
generations.  In  one  form  and  another  this  educational  ques- 
tion was  before  every  legislature  from  the  first  in  territorial 
days,  either  asking  aid  to  establish  schools  or  in  carrying  out 
the  provisions  of  the  incorporated  acts  by  the  National  Con- 
gress for  the  government  of  the  Northwest  Territory  or  for 
special  privileges  to  build  academies  and  seminaries  in  many 
parts  of  the  state. 

Education  was  a  favorite  theme  with  all  our  legislatures 
and  always  commanded  attention  in  both  houses  of  our  Gen- 
eral Assembly. 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA.  459 

The  following  descriptiofl  of  the  schools,  school-houses, 
and  the  school  teachers  is  probably  as  nearly  correct  as  could 
be  given  at  this  later  period.  The  incidents  connected  with 
this  chapter  were  gathered  from  the  personal  experience  of 
the  author  and  from  incidents  which  he  well  knows  to  be 
true. 

The  first  schools  taught  in  Indiana  Territory  from  180S 
up  to  1815  were  very  primitive.  The  country  was  sparsely 
settled,  in  fact  in  only  a  few  places  were  there  any  people. 
A  half  dozen  settlers  located  two  or  three  miles  apart  were 
<:onsidered  at  that  time  quite  a  settlement.  In  that  number 
of  families  there  was  usually  some  one  qualified  to  give  in- 
struction to  the  children  in  the  first  principles  of  reading  and 
spelling  and  sometimes  could  teach  writing  and  the  four  sim- 
ple rudiments  of  arithmetic,  addition,  subtraction,  multipli- 
•cation  and  division. 

The  first  few  years  of  this  period  the  teacher  was  em- 
ployed to  go  to  the  houses  and  spend  about  one-third  of  the 
day  with  the  family  instructing  the  children.  In  this  way 
with  six  families  he  could  give  three  lessons  each  week  to  all 
the  children.  These  circulating  teachers  as  they  were  called 
did  a  good  work. 

When  it  became  less  dangerous  from  the  Indians  and  wild 
animals  the  children  would  congregate  at  the  home  of  the 
family  most  centrally  located  in  the  neighborhood,  in  a  lean- 
to  built  at  the  side  or  end  of  the  pioneer  cabin. 

Late  in  the  twenties  many  neighborhoods  became  strong 
•enough  to  support  a  subscription  school  of  two  or  three 
months  in  the  year.  The  patrons  of  the  proposed  school 
would  meet  at  a  site  which  had  been  selected  if  possible  near 
a  good  spring  of  water  and  as  convenient  to  all  as  possible, 
and  build  a  school  house.  These  first  school  houses  were  very 
simple  and  easily  built  structures  and  at  this  date  would  be  a 
curiosity,  but  they  were  up  to  the  times  in  which  they  were 
built. 

Round  logs  were  cut  and  hauled  to  the  site  and  a  rectan- 
gular pen  usually  sixteen  by  eighteen  feet  and  about  eight 
feet  high  was  raised  and  covered  with  four  foot  boards  held  in 


460  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 

• 

place  by  weight 'poles  tied  to  the  ridge  poles  with  strong- 
hickory  withes.  The  only  opening  was  the  door  and  about 
two-thirds  of  the  length  of  a  log  cut  out  of  one  end  of  the 
building  for  a  window.  Cross  slats  were  put  in  that  opening 
and  greased  paper  was  pasted  on  the  slats.  This  kept  out 
the  wind  and  gave  light  to  the  room. 

A  puncheon  was  hewed  out  as  thin  as  needed  to  fit  in  the 
window  opening.  This  puncheon  rested  on  pins  which  were 
put  into  the  log  below  the  one  cut  out,  and  slanting,  thus 
making  a  good  rest  to  write  on,  but  was  usually  covered  with 
baskets  and  reticules  in  which  the  scholars  had  brought  their 
dinners.  This  puncheon  or  shelf  was  made  so  that  it  could 
be  fitted  into  the  window  opening  and  when  pinned  there 
nothing  could  get  in  at  it.  If  the  school  ran  into  the  late  fall 
or  winter  months,  the  openings  between  the  logs  were  chinked 
with  the  hearts  of  the  board  cuts  and  then  daubed  with  clay 
mortar. 

In  the  other  end  of  the  room  a  very  large  fireplace  was 
made.  In  building  the  house,  when  the  wall  at  that  end  was 
about  five  feet  high  a  log  was  put  across  about  three  feet 
from  the  end  wall  and  short  logs  were  put  from  this  log  to 
the  end  wall  and  carried  on  up  to  the  comb  of  the  house* 
These  short  logs  were  about  eight  feet  apart,  making  the 
throat  of  the  chimney,  which  was  drawn  in  as  it  was  raised 
higher,  so  that  at  the  top  it  was  about  four  feet.  Along  the 
end  wall  under  the  opening  made  for  the  chimney,  a  back 
wall  of  clay  was  made  up  about  four  feet  high,  then  the 
cracks  in  the  chimney  and  wall  were  chinked  and  daubed. 
For  a  floor,  sometimes  split  puncheons  were  used,  but  of tener 
it  was  made  out  of  mother  earth. 

The  dirt  was  put  inside  the  room  until  it  was  up  to  the 
middle  of  the  first  side  logs  that  lay  on  the  ground.  The 
dirt  was  pounded  with  a  mall  until  it  was  well  packed.  For 
the  last  two  or  three  inches,  clay  was  made  into  a  thick  mor- 
tar, then  put  over  the  floor  and  evenly  smoothed  down.  This 
soon  dried  and  made  a  good,  substantial  floor.  For  seats,  a 
log  ten  or  twelve  inches  through  at  the  top  end  and  about 
twelve  feet  long  was  split  in  the  middle  and   the  split  sides 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA.  461 

were  hewn  so  as  to  take  the  splinters  off.  Then  two  auger 
holes  were  bored  at  each  end  on  the  round  side  of  the  slab 
and  solid  hickory  pins  for  legs  were  driven  into  the  holes, 
thus  making:  a  sut>stantial  bench. 

I  can  yet  remember  that  some  of  the  hewing  to  take  the 
splinters  from  the  top  of  these  benches  was  not  perfectly 
done,  as  the  seat  of  many  a  l>oy's  pantaloons  gave  unmistak- 
able evidence.  The  door  shutter  was  made  out  of  split  pieces 
of  white  oak  fastened  on  hinge  buttons. 

The  teachers  were  often  men  of  families  that  had  im- 
pi^)ved  the  opportunity  for  an  education  in  the  older  settled 
sections  before  coming  to  the  wilderness  of  Indiana.  Some 
were  young  men.  The  teacher,  unless  he  had  a  home  in  the 
neighborhood,  would  board  around  among  the  scholars,  stay- 
ing a  week  at  a  time  at  one  place. 

The  subscription  school  was  the  only  kind  then  taught.  . 
Each  family  would  subscribe  as  many  scholars  as  they 
thought  they  could  send  during  the  three  months  that  the 
school  was  in  session.  The  time  that  each  scholar  attended 
was  kept,  as  some  families,  having  subscribed  two  scholars, 
would,  part  of  the  time,  send  three.  If,  at  the  end  of  the 
term,  they  had  sent  more  than  they  had  subscribed,  the  extra 
time  was  paid  for. 

The  usual  price  per  scholar,  if  the  teacher  txiarded 
around  among  his  patrons,  was  one  dollar  and  seventy-five 
cents  a  term.  If  the  teacher  l>oarded  himself,  he  got  two 
dollars  and  fifty  cents. 

The  school  teachers  of  that  early  period  desei*ve  more 
than  a  passing  notice.  Many  who  write  about  the  pioneer 
schools  and  their  teachers,  indulge  in  unwarranted  criticism, 
asserting  they  were  unqualified  and  cruel  monsters.  No 
doubt,  there  were  exceptional  cases,  but  as  a  class,  these  old 
teachers  were  a  blessing  to  that  generation,  and  they  did  the 
best  they  could  with  the  very  limited  advantages  it  was  pos- 
sible for  them  to  have.  They  left  their  impress  on  the  chil- 
dren of  the  early  pioneer  who  transmitted  life  to  a  generation 
now  passing  away  which  has  done  so  much  for  the  betterment 
of  the  country  in  which  they  have  lived  and  for  the  advance- 


462  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 

ment  in  every  way  of  the  g^eneration  they  leave  in  charg^e. 

The  first  several  years  after  schools  were  taug^ht  in 
school  houses,  books  were  very  scarce,  hig^h-priced  and  hard 
to  get.  In  many  cases  where  there  were  several  members  of 
the  same  family  who  went  to  school,  some  of  them  did  not 
know  their  letters,  others  were  commencing  to  spell  in  one 
and^two  syllables,  and  still  others  were  farther  advanced. 
The  parents  would  take  Webster's  spelling  book  and,  cutting 
the  leaves  out  of  the  first  part  of  it,  paste  the  letters  on  a 
board  made  for  that  purpose  and  the  words  of  one  and  two- 
syllables  on  another  board  for  the  younger  members  of  the 
family,  and  then  give  the  balance  of  the  book  to  those  further 
advanced.  In  this  way  many  children  were  taught  the  first 
principles  of  an  education. 

Many  sorts  of  books  were  used  for  readers  —  the  New 
Testament,  the  Bible,  the  English  Reader  (the  hardest  ta 
read  of  all),  Grimshaw's  History  of  England,  Flint's  Natural 
History,  and  Emma  Willard's  History  of  the  United  States. 

When  any  of  the  scholars  were  far  enough  advanced  and 
the  teacher  could  teach  it,  Kirkham's  grammar  was  used. 
Smiley's  Arithmetic  was  used,  but  the  complicated  rules  in 
that  work  were  very  hard  for  a  beginner  in  that  science. 

Lessons  in  penmanship  were  given  by  the  teacher  setting 
a  copy  at  the  head  of  a  sheet  of  fools-cap  paper.  For  this 
purpose  he  used  a  goose  quill  pen,  as  they  had  no  other.  The 
ink  then  used  was  made  from  the  ooze  of  different  kinds  of 
bark  that  in  that  day  were  used  to  color  thread  and  cloth 
black.     The  ooze  from  the  maple  bark  was  the  most  used. 

In  that  day  every  scholar  was  in  a  class  by  himself.  If 
there  were  twenty-five  scholars,  there  were  twenty-five 
classes,  from  A,  B,  C,  to  those  studying  Kirkham's  wonderful 
grammar.  When  one  pupil  had  recited,  the  teacher  called 
the  next,  and  so  on  until  the  entire  school  had  recited.  It 
never  seemed  to  dawn  on  the  teacher's  mind  that  he  could 
group  his  pupils  and  that  several  could  learn  the  same  thing 
at  the  same  time  and  learn  it  better  by  being  in  a  class  and 
hearing  each  other's  recitation. 

The  spelling  lesson  in  the  latter  part  of  the  afternoon 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA.  463 

was  eng^aged  in  by  all  the  pupils  who  could  spell.  Sometimes 
they  had  a  larg^e  and  a  small  class.  In  studying:  the  spelling- 
lesson  the  scholars  were  permitted  to  '*study  aloud."  At 
times  when  this  lesson  was  being  learned  the  noise  was  so 
great  that  nothing  outside  the  school  house  could  be  heard. 

I  here  submit  a  contribution  from  a  friend.  With  the  ex- 
ception of  th^  Christmas  treat,  the  crazy  teacher  and  the  fam- 
ily quarrel,  gives  a  very  good  description  of  the  schools  as 
they  were  in  the  early  forties: 

**The  door  was  usually  on  the  south  side  of  the  building, 
so  as  to  have  the  advantage  of  the  sun^s  heat  when  the  door 
was  open,  and  that  was  most  of  the*  time,  A  very  large  fire- 
place was  in  one  end  of  the  house.  There  was  a  detail  of 
pupils  made  each  day  by  the  teacher  to  cut  and  carry  wood 
for  the  fire  when  it  was  cold  weather.  Wood  was  very  plen- 
tiful near  the  school  house.  Those  detailed  were  the  larger 
boys,  and  they  looked  forward  to  this  recreation  with  pleas- 
ure, glad  of  a  little  time  away  from  their  arduous  studies. 

**I  will  not  attempt  to  describe  the  school  house,  but  will 
give  some  details  of  the  way  the  first  two  or  three  schools 
which  I  attended  were  conducted.  They  were  all  what  was 
termed  'loud  schools,'  the  scholars  studying  their  lessons  out 
loud,  making  a  singing  sound  all  over  the  house — so  loud  one 
could  scarcely  hear  one's  own  voice,  especially  when  it  came 
time  to  prepare  our  spelling  lessons. 

**One  Christmas  morning  our  teacher  brought  a  jug  of 
whisky,  to  which  he  added  some  eggs  and  sugar;  he  then 
shook  it  up  and  called  it  *egg-nog."  When  noon  came  he 
made  us  a  little  speech  and  said  that  the  egg-nog  was  his 
treat  to  us;  that  we  must  not  drink  too  much  of  it  and  must 
be  good  children  while  he  went  home  to  take  dinner  with  his 
wife  and  some  invited  friends.  We  were  good,  but  we  did 
not  leave  any  of  the  egg-nog  for  the  teacher  and  his  friends 
who  came  to  the  school  with  him  in  the  afternoon. 

**There  were  sometimes  family  feuds  which  grew  out  of 
some  things  that  took  place  at  school.  I  remember  of  two 
families  meeting  at  a  school  house  in  front  of  the  door  when 
the  school  was  in  session  and  hearing  one  of  the  most  terrible 


464  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 

-quarrels  I  ever  heard.  There  were  several  members  of  each 
family  and  they  all  took  part  in  the  fig:ht. 

'*At  another  school  house  another  boy  and  myself  were 
sent  for  a  bucket  of  water,  which  we  had  to  carry  from  a 
creek  a  half-mile  away.  We  overstayed  the  time  the  teacher 
allotted  us,  He  was  very  angary  and  when  we  got  back  gave 
us  a  terrible  whipping,  raising  welts  on  my  back  as  large  as 
my  finger.  I  thought  he  was'  very  cruel.  The'  teacher  was  a 
seceder  preacher,  who  was  crazy  at  that  time  and  afterwards 
became  very  violent,  burning  up  several  of  the  scholars'  hats." 

Mrs.  Nancy  Gullick  related  to  the  author  the  following 
incide;it,  showing  the  danger  from  wild  animals: 

In  the  Major  David  Robb  settlement  near  where  the  town 
of  Hazelton  now  stands,  they  had  built  a  school  house  not  far 
from  White  river  and  school  was  being  held  there.  One  of 
the  patrons  of  the  school  had  started  out  hunting  and  gone 
by  the  school  to  see  one  of  his  boys  at  the  time  of  noon  re- 
cess. While  there  the  hunter's  dogs  treed  a  young  panthei;, 
not  far  from  the  school  house.  The  children  went  out  to  see 
what  the  dog  was  barking  at,  and  the  hunter,  on  coming  up, 
saw  it  was  a  panther  kitten  about  one-third  grown.  He  shot 
it  out  of  the  tree  and  told  his  boy  to  drag  it  near  the  school 
liouse  and  when  school  was  out  in  the  evening  to  take  it 
home  and  save  the  hide. 

A  short  time  after  * 'books  were  taken  up"  the  teacher 
and  pupils  were  startled  by  the  awful  scream  of  the  old 
mother  panther,  as  she  came  bounding  along  the  way  the 
young  one  had  been  dragged.  They  had  forethought  enough 
to  close  the  door  and  put  the  window  bench  in  place  and 
fasten  it  there.  The  furious  animal  rushed  up  to  the  carcass 
or  her  kitten  and  when  she  found  it  was  dead  she  broke  forth 
in  terrible  screams  and  howls  of  lamentation.  Looking 
around  for  something  on  which  to  avenge  its  death,  she  made 
a  rush  for  the  school  house,  ran  two  or  three  times  around  it 
and  then  leaped  on  top  of  and  commenced  tearing  across 
the  roof  from  side  to  side  as  if  hunting  some  place  where  she 
could  get  in  to  the  imprisoned  teacher  and  scholars.  After  a 
while  she  gave  three  or  four  most  terrible  screams;  presently 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA.  465 

the  answering  screams  of  another  panther  were  heard  some 
distance  off.  It  was  but  a  short  time  until  her  mate  came 
rushing:  up  and  the  two  went  to  the  dead,  kitten  and  seemed 
to  be  examining  it.  They  then  gave  several  screams,  one 
after  another,  and  made  a  rush  for  the  building,  bounded  on 
top  of  it  and  for  the  next  half  hour  kept  up  a  screaming  such 
as  the  helpless  scholars  and  frightened  teacher  had  never 
heard  before. 

Major  Robb  had  several  men  working  for  him  at  that 
time.  They  heard  the  fearful  noise,  and  by  the  direction 
were  sure  that  it  came  from  near  the  school  house.  Three 
men  took  their  rifles  and  hurried  to  the  rescue.  Several  dogs 
had  followed  the  men  and  they  set  up  a  loud  barking  and 
•lushed  at  the  school  house.  A  panther  could  easily  kill 
the  largest  dog  with  one  stroke  of  its  terrible  claws,  but  for 
some  reason  they  are  dreadfully  afraid  of  a  dog  and  could  be 
easily  treed  by  a  small  feiste.  The  panthers  jumped  to  the 
ground  and  ran  up  a  large  tree  which  stood  near  the  school 
house  and  were  soon  shot  tp  death  by  the  hunters. 

The  teacher  was  a  full-blooded  Irishman,  but  a  short 
time  from  Ireland.  He  had  wandered  out  into  the  wilds  of 
Indiana.  Coming  into  that  neighborhood  and  learning  that 
Major  Robb  was  from  Ireland,  he  had  been  staying  at  his 
house  for  some  time.  Having  the  necessary  qualifications, 
he  was  employed  to  teach  the  school.  After  the  panthers 
were  killed  he  dismissed  the  school  and  went  back  to  the 
Major's,  but  refused  to  teach  any  longer.  He  said  he  would 
not  live  in  a  country  that  was  on  the  frontier  of  **hades"  and 
was  inhabited  by  such  pesky,  screaming,  screeching  varmints 
as  this  country  possessed^    ^ 

In  1825  a  young  man  by  the  name  of  Joseph  Breeding, 
from  the  city  of  Philadelphia,  came  to  Indiana,  hoping  to  re- 
gain his  health.  He  had  been  rambling  over  the  wild  coun- 
try hunting  and  trapping  for  a  livelihood.  He  made  his 
home  at  Henry  Hopkins'  for  a  time.  While  there  he  was 
employed  to  teach  school  in  the  neighborhood  two  or  three 
miles  southwest  of  '^here  Lynnville,  in  Warrick  County,  now 
stands. 


466  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 

The  school  house  was  not  quite  finished  when  Breeding: 
commenced  to  teach.  It  had  a  puncheon  floor.  One  nig^ht 
an  old  bear  and  two  young:  cubs  were  hunting  around  the 
house  for  scraps  of  food  left  by  the  school  children.  The 
little  bears  got  under  the  house  and  in  hunting  around 
smelled  some  meat  scraps  which  had  been  thrown  down  by 
the  children  in  the  house.  One  of  the  cubs  pushed  a 
puncheon  up  far  enough  to  get  inside,  when  the  puncheon 
fell  back  into  its  place,  thus  imprisoning  the  cub.  The  next 
morning  ^hen  Breeding  came  near  the  school  house  he  heard 
a  noise  in  the  building.  Slipping  up,  he  could  see  the  little 
bear  through  a  crack.  About  that  time  he  discovered  the  old 
mother  bear  coming  for  him  in  a  hurry,  and  he  had  only  time 
to  climb  a  small  tree  a  little  way  from  the  house.  Fortun- 
ately the  tree  was  too  small  for  the  bear  to  climb.  The 
teacher  kept  a  good  lookout  for  the  children,  and  when  he 
could  see  or  hear  any  of  them  he  would  call  to  them,  telling 
them  of  the  danger.  Finally  one  of  the  large  scholars  came 
with  his  gun  and  killed  the  old  bear.  The  cub  in  the  house 
was  killed,  as  was  its  mate. 

.  At  the  county  seats,  towns,  and  wherever  the  country 
was  more  thickly  settled,  there  were  usually  better  schools 
than  those  I  have  described,  but  as  a  rule  I  h^ve  given  a  true 
description  of  them  as  they  were. 

I  feel  warranted  in  asserting  that  our  schools  have  kept 
well  to  the  forefront  as  our  state  has  made  rapid  marches  to 
its  present  greatness.  From  these  primitive  schools  have 
come  some  of  the  greatest  men  this  nation  has  produced. 

From  the  organization  of  the  Territorial  Legislature  up 
to  1850  every  assembly  had  a  message  from  the  Governor  ask- 
ing that  the  interest  of  the  people  should  be  well  looked  after 
and  ample  provision  made  for  the  education  of  the  children. 
By  the  wise  provision  of  the  ordinance  of  1787  and  the  laws 
passed  afterwards  by  the  Territorial  and  State  Legislature, 
the  foundation  for  our  large  and  ever-increasing  school  fund. 
The  common  school  fund  in  182S  consisted  of  680,207  acres  of 
land,  estimated  at  two  dollars  per  acre,  making  $1,360,414.00. 

There  are  always  those  to  be  found  who  are  against  any 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA.  467 

public  policy,  and  this  was  true  when  free  schools  were  first 
advocated  by  our  law-makers.  When  it  was  submitted  to  a 
vote  in  1852  whether  we  should  have  free  schools  or  not, 
there  was  a  strong  minority  opposed  to  it.  They  had  many 
objections  to  its  becoming  a  law.  One  was  that  it  would 
largely  increase  the  taxes  to  keep  up  the  schools,  and  another 
was  that  it  imposed  a  heavy  burden  on  persons  who  had  used 
economy  and  had  accumulated  property  to  pay  taxes  to  edu- 
cate the  children  of  those  who  were  poor,  in  many  cases  by 
their  own  vicious  habits  and  a  want  of  industry.  Those  ob- 
jecting lost  sight  of  the  great  blessing  which  would  come  to 
all  the  people  by  having  an  opportunity  to  educate  the  rising 
generation.  Fortunately,  the  majority  of  Indiana's  voters 
were  not  so  narrowly  constructed,  and  the  law  that  placed 
Indiana  in  the  front  rank  in  educational  matters  was  passed. 

Notwithstanding  the  interest  manifested  by  our  law- 
makers, education  in  most  sections  of  the  state  in  1850  was  at 
a  low  standard.  The  schools  were  all  subscription  or  private 
ones. 

After  the  free  school  system  came  into  operation  in 
April,  1853,  by-  the  election  of  trustees  for  each  township, 
which  committed  into  their  charge  the  educational  interests 
of  their  respective  township,  the  trustees  had  to  organize 
school  districts  and  then  to  provide  houses  to  teach  in. 

In  many  townships  in  Indiana  there  was  not  a  single 
house  of  any  sort  to  teach  in.  Most  of  the  houses  used  were 
found  to  be  old,  dilapidated  buildings  that  a  farmer  of  this 
date  would  not  house  his  sheep  in.  It  took  a  good  while  to 
make  all  these  necessary  arrangements,  but  after  a  while 
things  began  to  run  smoothly  and  the  townships  were  toler- 
ably well  provided  with  school  houses. 

Another  serious  difl&culty  was  the  lack  of  efficient  school 
teachers.  This  want  was  cured  by  a  new  law  authorizing^  the 
appointment  of  deputy  superintendents  in  each  county  to  ex- 
amine applicants  for  license  to  teach;  the  deputies  by  lower- 
ing the  standard  were  enabled  to  secure  teachers  for  most  of 
the  schools.  The  Legislature  in  1853  enacted  a  law  that 
made  a  standard  of  qualification  and  authorized  the  county 


468  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 

commissioners  to  license  teachers,  that  all  schools  mi^fht  be 
supplied  with  a  teacher,,  for  fear  there  mig^ht  not  be  a  suf- 
ficiency of  properly  qualified  teachers. 

County  commissioners  were  authorized  to  give  temporary 
licenses  to  those  takingr  charge  of  schools  that  did  not  require 
a  hifi^h  grade  of  teaching.  It  would  seem  a  reasonable  con- 
clusion that  all  parents  would  be  glad  to  avail  themselves  of 
the  opportunity  of  giving  their  children  an  education,  since 
it  was  free,  but  such  was  not  the  case  then  any, more  than  it 
is  now. 

In  1854  our  common  school  fund  was  $2,460,600.  This 
amount  has  been  increased  from  many  sources,  until  now  we 
have  a  magnificent  fund  of  more  than  ten  million  dollars  and 
an  average  school  year  of  six  months.  All  can  be  educated, 
if  they  will,  and  be  sufficiently  advanced,  free  of  charge,  to 
enter  any  college. 


CHAPTER   XIX. 


The  Noble  Act  of  Returning  Soldiers  of  the  Battle  of 
Tippecanoe  —  Aaron  Burr's  Conspiracy  and  the  Mis- 
fortunes Attending  It  —  Difficulty  of  Procuring 
Salt  and  Desperate  Battle  with  Two  Bears  —  Inci- 
dents OF  Burr's  Conspiracy — Governor  Jennings'  Tem- 
perance Lecture  —  Battle  Between  Two  Bears  and 
Two  Panthers — Panthers  Killing  Indians — A  Her- 
mit —  Panthers  Kill  a  Man  and  Boy  —  Early  Days 
Near  Petersburg,  Indiana  —  Panthers  Killing  One 
AND  Desperately  Wounding  Another  Man  of  a  Sur- 
veying Party  —  Wild  Hogs  —  Shooting  Matches  — 
Early  Days  in  Dubois  County,  Indiana  —  Killing  of 
Eight  Indians  —  Hunting  —  Early  Days  Near  Sprin- 

KLKSBURG,  Now  NeWBURG,  WaRRICK  CoUNTY,  INDIANA — 

A  Young  Woman  Killed  by  Panthers  —  Hunting 
Wolves  —  Hunting  Deer  —  An  Amusing  Incident  of 
AN  Irishman  and  the  Hornet's  Nest. 


As  hunting  was  the  only  means  of  obtaining  a  liveli- 
hood, for  there  was  no  money  to  pay  for  anything  that  was 
to  sell  and  nothing  to' barter  but  the  venison  hams,  skins  and 
furs,  these  were  exchanged  for  a  few  indispensable  articles 
such  as  powder,  lead,  flints  and  salt,  that  were  bought  at  a 
trading  post  far  away. 

Later  on  when  more  people  were  here  and  there  was  less 
danger  from  the  Indians,  this  produce  was  bought  up  in 
large  quantities  and  carried  to  market  at  New  Orleans  in 
flatboats,  where  it  was  sold  for  Spanish  coin.  When  these 
traders  returned,  probably  six  or  eight  months  after  starting, 
they  would  pay  out  the  coin  for  the  produce  they  had  bought 


470  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 

on  credit,  thus  enabling  all  who  were  industrious  to  have 
some  of  the  money  coming  to  them. 

The  hunters  would  kill  many  deer,  salt  their  hams  and 
smoke  them,  thus  having  them  ready  when  the  time  came  for 
the  produce  men  to  again  receive  them.  They  also  saved  the 
deer  hides,  bear  skins,  and  nearly  every  night  went  hunt- 
ing for  coons  and  other  fur-bearing  animals.  By  the  time 
the  dealers  in  produce  were  ready  to  load  their  boats,  they 
would  find  an  immense  quantity  of  produce  that  had  been  se- 
cured by  the  chase  to  load  their  boats  at  many  points;  some- 
times two  or  three  boats  would  be  laden  down.  On  the  return 
of  these  produce  merchants,  they  would  pay  out  a  large 
amount  of  money  to  their  creditors.  Many  men  in  each 
neighborhood  would  have  money  to  enter  forty  acres  of  land; 
others  would  have  half  enough  and  would  commence  to  pre- 
pare produce  for  the  next  winter.  The  greater  portion  of  all 
the  land  entered  in  the  settled  sections  of  Indiana  from  1815 
to  1835  was  paid  for  by  money  that  came  from  the  chase. 

After  the  bear  became  less  numerous,  farmers  commenced 
to  raise  hogs  and  fatten  them  on  the  abundant  mast  which 
was  everywhere. 

They  would  make  the  pork  into  bacon  or  sell  it  to  be  salted 
the  boats  in  bulk  by  the  produce  dealers.  After  the  people  in 
commenced  to  raise  hogs,  for  several  years  they  had  to  keep 
them  in  close  pens  at  night,  as  if  they  were  allowed  to  run  at 
will  they  would  nearly  all  be  killed  by  bears.  The  price  they 
received  for  a  hundred  pounds  of  pork  was  one  dollar  and 
fifty  cents,  net. 

When  the  game  in  the  older  sections  became  thinned  out, 
the  men  would  organize  themselves  into  a  party  of  eight  or 
ten,  go  to  some  place  where  it  was  known  there  was  an 
abundance  of  game  and  make  themselves  a  faced  camp,  and 
have  a  man  to  take  care  of  it  and  cook  for  the  party.  Then 
they  commenced  in  a  systematic  way  to  hunt  over  the  sur- 
rounding country.  Before  these  men  would  break  camp  they 
would  kill  several  hundred  deer  and  probably  fifteen  or  twenty 
bears. 

Captain  Spier  Spencer's  company  at  the  battle  of  Tippe- 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OP  INDIANA.  471 

canoe  was  in  the  thick  of  the  fig^ht.  The  Captain  and  a  num- 
ber of  the  men  were  killed  and  wounded.  Among  the  num- 
ber was  a  man  named  Davis,  who  had  moved  from  one  of  the 
older  states  only  a  few  weeks  before  the  call  was  made  for 
volunteers.  Leaving  his  family  in  one  of  the  settlements,  he 
enlisted  and  was  killed  at  the  battle  of  Tippecanoe. 

After  the  remnant  of  the  company  got  home,  those  who 
were  neighbors  of  the  widow  of  their  dead  comrade  held  a 
meeting  and  resolved  to  assist  her.  They  therefore  organized 
a  hunting  party  and  sold  the  results  of  their  hunt  for  enough 
to  enter  forty  acres  of  land,  and  as  they  entered  land  for 
themselves,  kept  the  widow  provided  for  until  her  sons  were 
old  enough  to  take  their  part  in  the  chase  and  in  clearing  up 
the  farm. 

AARON  burr's  CONSPIRACY  AND  THE  MISFORTUNE  ATTENDING  IT. 

In  the  fall  of  1806  a  conspiracy  was  discovered,  in  which 
Colonel  Aaron  Burr  was  the  chief  actor,  for  revolutionizing 
the  territory  west  of  the  Alleghany  mountains  and  the  estab- 
lishment of  an  independent  empire,  with  New  Orleans  for  its 
capital  and  himself  for  its  chief  ruler. 

To  this  end  (it  having  been  contemplated  for  some  time) 
all  the  skillful  cunning  of  which  Burr  possessed  so  much,  was 
directed.  If  this  project  should  fail,  he  planned  the  conquest . 
of  Mexico  and  the  establishment  of  an  empire  there.  The 
third  project  was  the  settlement  of  the  Washita  country 
which  Baron  Bastrop  claimed.  This  last  was  to  serve  as  a 
pretext  for  Burr's  preparation  and  allurement,  for  his  mis- 
guided followers  really  wished  to  secure  land  for  homes.  If 
he  should  be  defeated  in  his  first  two  projects,  he  could  claim 
the  last  as  his  real  object.  He  and  his  agents  influencedimany  of 
the  restless  and  dissatisfied  elements  which  were  then  on  the 
borders  of  the  settled  portions  of  the  United  States  and  of  those 
who  were  always  hunting  for  adventure,  to  join  his  force.  Col. 
Burr,  by  assuring  many  well  meaning,  loyal  persons  that  he 
had  the  secret  influence  of  the  Government  back  of  him,  in- 
duced them  to  leave  their  homes  and  follow  hisjstandard. 

Not  alone   was  Herman  Blennerhassett  (who  {possessed 


472  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 

himself  of  a  beautiful  island  in  the  upper  Ohio  on  which  he 
had  builded  a  palatial  home  and  surrounded  himself  with  alt 
comforts,  conveniences  and  adornments  which  money  could 
purchase  at  that  day),  ruined  by  listening  to  the  seductive 
and  fascinating  address  of  that  arch  traitor  and  the  Paradise 
with  which  he  and  his  beautiful  and  accomplished  wife  had 
surrounded  themselves  was  turned  into  a  very  hell  and  they 
fugitives  from  justice,  but  hundreds  of  others  were  influenced 
to  forsake  good  homes  and  follow  after  this  traitor,  all  of 
them  becoming  fugitives,  hunted  down  by  ofl&cers  of  the  Gov- 
ernment. 

These  people,  while  floating  down  the  Ohio  in  boats, 
learning  that  they  were  being  hunted  as  traitors  to  their 
country  and  that  the  lower  Ohio  was  patrolled  by  soldiers  to 
apprehend  them,  left  their  boats  and  scattered  over  the 
wilderness  of  southern  Indiana.  William  Henry  Harrison, 
then  Governor,  had  these  injured  people  hunted  up  and  as- 
sured them  that  they  were  in  no  danger  of  arrest,  but  that 
they  must  prepare  forts,  into  which  they  could  repair  when  in 
danger  from  the  Indians. 

In  many  portions  of  southern  Indiana  these  refugees 
formed  the  first  nucleus  around  which  early  settlements  were 
made.  They  raised  families,  improved  the  country,  and  ever 
since  have  added  their  full  portion  to  the  prosperity  of  the 
state. 

There  was  a  family  of  five  persons  connected  with  the 
Burr  expedition  who  located  in  what  is  now  Perry  County, 
Indiana,  five  or  six  miles  north  of  Flint  Island,  in  1806.  It 
consisted  of  two  large  boys,  a  grown  daughter,  the  mother 
and  father.  Through  the  misrepresentations  of  Aaron  Burr 
and  his  aides,  these  people  had  been  induced  to  leave  a  good 
home  in  Virginia  and  go  on  the  ill-fated  expedition  with  the 
assurance  that  great  wealth  and  fame  would  accrue  to  them 
for  their  portion  of  the  gains.  These  people  had  come  down 
the  Ohio  in  a  boat.  When  they  arrived  at  Louisville,  Ky., 
they  learned  that  Burr  and  his  followers  were  being  hunted 
by  the  Government  as  traitors  to  their  country.  They 
floated  on  down  the  Ohio  until  they  came  to  the  mouth  of  Oil 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA.  473 

creek,  then  ran  as  far  up  the  creek  as  they  could  and  sunk 
their  boat.  Then  taking  their  plunder,  they  went  some  dis- 
tance  farther*  into  the  wilderness,  where  they  selected  a  place 
which  suited  their  fancy  and  built  their  cabins,  with  a  brave 
determination  to  start  the  battle  of  life  over  again.  Joseph 
Bowers,  who  was  the  head  of  this  family,  and  his  eldest  son, 
James,  hunted  most  of  their  time,  killing  much  game.  They 
had  located  at  a  point  which  was  some  distance  from  any  of 
the  traveled  traces  which  the  Indians  used,  and  began  to  feel 
hopeful  they  would  have  no  trouble  from  them. 

On  one  ol  their  hunting  excursions  the  two  men  had  lo« 
cated  a  patch  of  hazel  brush  which  was  covered  over  with  a 
thick  matting  of  grape  vines  loaded  with  very  fine  large 
grapes.  The  daughter  and  younger  brother  accompanied  the 
two  hunters,  intending  to  gather  the  fruit,  and  in  the  evening 
when  the  hunters  returned  they  would  carry  it  home.  They 
had  not  been  long  gathering  grapes  before  they  saw  a  large 
animal  slipping  through  the  brush,  coming  towards  them* 
The  young  boy,  sixteen  years  old,  had  armed  himself  with  an 
Indian  tomahawk.  They  tried  to  slip  away  in  the  direction 
of  their  homes,  but  got  only  a  short  distance  when  they  heard 
the  awful  scream  of  the  vicious  animal  as  it  came  bounding 
after  them.  Mary  Bowers  had  heard  that  a  panther  would 
not  attack  a  human  as  long  as  they  faced  it  and  kept  their 
eyes  on  the  panther's  eyes.  This  she  attempted  to  do,  at  the 
same  time  walking  backwards,  with  the  animal  slowly  follow- 
ing her,  patting  its  tail  on  the  ground  at  each  step.  In  her 
excitement  she  was  not  cautious  of  her  steps  and  was  tripped 
by  a  vine,  when  the  vicious  animal  bounded  onto  her  pros* 
trate  body  and  tore  her  into  pieces  with  its  terrible  claws. 
The  young  boy  rushed  at  the  beast  with  his  tomahawk  and 
sank  the  blade  into  its  head,  but  was  unable  to  pull  it  out  of 
its  skull.  The  panther  caught  both  of  his  arms  with  his 
fore  claws  and  in  its  dying  agony  tore  the  flesh  from  his  legs 
with  its  hind  claws.  Mr.  Bowers  and  his  son  were  a  mile 
away  when  they  heard  the  scream  of  the  panther.  They  ran 
as  fast  as  they  could  to  the  point  the  children  had  been  left, 
where  they  found  Mary  dead  and  the  arms  of  Joseph  still  in 


474  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 

the  clutches  of  the  dead  panther,  and  it  was  man}"  months 
before  he  was  able  to  walk  again. 

DIFFICULTY    IN    PROCURING    SALT    AND    A    DESPERATE    BATTLE 

WITH    BEARS. 

The  early  settlers  in  Indiana  from  1800  up  to  1820  experi- 
enced great  difficulty  in  procuring  a  sufficiency  of  salt  for 
their  culinary  purposes  and  to  save  their  meats.  It  was  high- 
priced  and  hard  to  get,  usually  selling  for  twelve  to  twenty 
cents  a  pound  in  skin  currency  or  backwoods  currency,  which 
was  all  they  had  to  pay  with. 

A  good  late  fall  or  early  winter  bear  skin  was  worth  fifty 
cents,  a  deer  skin  twenty  cents,  and  a  coon  skin  from  fifteen 
to  twenty  cents,  in  salt.  They  often  made  these  skins  up  in 
packs  of  seventy-five  to  a  hundred  pounds  and  would  carry 
them  from  twenty-five  to  thirty  miles  to  find  a  sale  for  them. 

They  made  large  meat  troughs  out  of  poplar  trees.  The 
meat  was  placed  in  the  trough  and  salted.  After  all  the  salt 
had  gone  into  the  meat  that  was  required,  the  rest  would 
melt  and  become  brine  in  the  bottom  of  the  trough.  After 
the  meat  was  hung  to  smoke,  every  portion  of  the  surplus  salt 
was  saved  to  use  again. 

Captain  Alfred  Miler,  of  Grandview,  Spencer  county, 
during  the  war  of  the  sixties,  related  to  me  some  early  experi- 
ences of  his  people.  He  said  the  greatest  difficulty  they  had 
to  contend  with  was  to  have  salt  for  their  food.  They  had 
several  boys  in  the  family  and  they  would  time  about  getting 
all  the  bear,  deer  and  coon  skins  ready  and  going  to  Louis- 
ville— sometimes  to  Vincennes — and  selling  them  for  salt. 
Sometimes  it  was  too  dangerous,  on  account  of  Indians,  to  go 
to  either  place,  and  they  would  have  to  resort  to  many  ex- 
pedients to  have  salt  for  their  fresh  meat. 

There  was  a  large  deer  lick  not  far  from  their  home. 
They  would  gather  a  large  amount  of  saline  dirt  from  the 
lick,  put  in  an  old-fashioned  ash  hopper,  put  water  on  the 
dirt  and  after  it  had  leached  through  the  dirt  the  salty  water 
was  caught  in  a  trough  at  the  bottom  of  the  hopper.  Often  a 
quantity  of  hickory  ashes  would  be  put  in  with  the  dirt.     In 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA.  475 

this  way  the  substance,  after  it  was  boiled  down,  would  ^- 
come  very  strong  and  penetrating. 

When  there  was  less  danger  from  the  Indians,  the  people 
who  lived  in  the  southwestern  part  of  the  state  would  go  to 
the  saline  section  of  southern  Illinois  and  make  salt,  but  not 
until  after  the  war  of  1812  was  over  was  it  safe  to  make  such 
venture  unless  in  large  parties. 

In  the  early  winter  the  turkeys  were  very  fat.  Many 
persons  would  kill  them  in  large  numbers,  clean  them  and 
split  them  in  halves  and  salt  in  a  trough.  When  they  were 
suflBciently  salted  they  were  taken  out,  washed  clean  and 
hung  up  and  cured  with  smoke. 

At  such  times  as  the  hunters  were  busy  the  turkey 
-would  be  cooked  with  bear  bacon,  and  was  rich,  wholesome 
food.  For  several  years  after  there  were  no  buffaloes  in  the 
older  section  of  the  state  they  were  seen  on  prairie  lands  of 
northwestern  Indiana.  Up  to  1825  buffalo  were  found  feed- 
ing on  the  rich  prairie  grasses  bordering  on  the  Kankakee 
swamps.  The  deer  were  never  so  plentiful  in  that  section  of 
the  state  as  they  were  in  the  country  where  the  timber  and 
underbrush  grew.  The  prairie  wolves  were  in  such  numbers 
in  the  open  country  that  most  of  the  young  fawns  were  killed 
by  them  before  they  could  run  fast  enough  to  keep  out  of  the 
way.  The  black  bear  was  at  home  in  all  parts  of  the  state. 
The  last  that  were  killed  in  Indiana,  in  numbers,  were  near 
where  the  city  of  Hammond  is  now  located. 

At  a  point  not  far  from  English  lake  two  young  men, 
named  John  Miller  and  Jean  Vought  (in  the  employ,  of 
Alexis  Coquillard,  the  manager  of  John  Jacob  Astor's  fur 
company  in  the  country  about  the  Great  Lakes),  had  a  camp 
and  had  spent  several  months  at  the  place.  One  evening  in 
the  latter  part  of  March,  1832,  as  these  hunters  were  round- 
ing out  their  very  successful  winter's  hunt,  they  yet  had  a 
large  tree  which  they  intended  to  cut  that  was  in  a  small 
strip  of  timber  nqt  far  from  their  cabin  and  near  the  border 
of  what  is  now  Starke  county,  in  which  they  thought  a  col- 
ony of  raccoons  made  their  home.  They  had  laid  their  guns 
rto  one   side  .and  commenced   to  chop  on  the  tree,  when  two 


476  PIONEER  HISTORY  OP  INDIANA. 

large  bears  came  rushing  at  them.  They  had  no  time  to  se« 
cure  their  guns  before  the  bears  were  on  them.  They  tried  ta 
defend  themselves  with  their  axes.  At  the  first  pass  Miller's 
ax  was  knocked  out  of  his  haads  and  beyond  his  reach.  Be- 
fore he  could  get  away  he  was  caught  and  came  near  having 
the  life  squeezed  out  of  him  by  the  vise-like  hug  the  bear 
gave  him. 

Vought  had  been  more  successful  in  his  battle  and  had 
crippled  his  bear  so  that  it  was  disabled.  He  ran  to  Miller's 
aid  and  stuck  the  blade  of  an  axe  into  the  bear's  head,  when 
it  fell  dead,  but  carried  Miller  with  it,  still  holding  the  death- 
like grip  on  him,  and  he  could  not  be  released  until  Vought 
had  chopped  off  one  of  the  bears'  arms.  Miller  was  carried 
back  to  their  cabin  and  it  was  many  weeks  before  he  could 
travel.  They  found  that  the  tree,  instead  of  being  the  home 
of  coons,  had  two  large  openings  in  it,  one  above  the  other, 
and  the  two  bears  had  occupied  it  for  winter  quarters,  and 
probably  the  first  time  they  had  been  down  during  the  winter 
was  the  evening  of  the  battle.  The  tree  was  cut  down  and 
two  small  cubs  were  found.  Miller  and  Vought  were  old 
trappers  and  were  well  acquainted  with  the  people  in  the 
neighborhood  of  the  White  river,  as  they  trapped  for  years  on 
that  river  and  its  tributaries  before  going  north.  In  the  fall 
of  1812  they  had  a  camp  about  one  mile  east  of  White  Oak 
Spring,  now  Petersburg,  Pike  County,  and  had  traps  set  at 
many  places. 

Late  one  evening/  while  engaged  in  setting  some  traps 
above  and  between  the  forks  of  White  river,  they  heard  the 
chattering  of  squirrels  some  distance  to  the  east,  which  con- 
tinued to  come  closer.  Soon  the  squirrels,  but  a  short  dis- 
tance away,  set  up  a  terrible  chattering.  The  hunters,  think- 
ing it  was  a  bear  or  a  panther  that  was  causing  the  excite- 
ment among  the  squirrels,  placed  themselves  in  hiding  to  see 
what  was  coming.  Soon  two  Indians  came  out  on  the  bank 
of  the  river,  one  of  them  on  horseback. 

The  hunters,  knowing  the  Indians  were  not  there  for  any 
good  purpose,  held  a  whispered  council  and  determined  ta 
kill  them.     Miller  killed   the  one  on  foot.    Vought's  gun 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OP  INDIANA.  477 

flashed  in  the  pan  and  his  Indian  turned  his  horse  and  ran 
away. 

The  dead  Indian  had  a  scalp  in  a  leather  pouch  hanging- 
to  his  girdle;  the  hair  of  a  beautiful  light  color,  which,  un- 
wound, was  over  four  feet  in  length.  They  also  found  a 
notched  stick  on  him  that  had  several  peculiar  engravings  on 
it  as  well  as  notches,  which  a  friendly  Indian  afterwards  told 
them  meant  that  he  had  killed  six  white  persons  and  four  In- 
dian enemies. 

AN   INCIDENT    OF   AARON   BURR'S  CONSPIRACY. 

The  Indian  that  Miller  killed  was  very  fantastically 
dressed  and  carried  a  heavy  silver-mounted  rifle  which  had  a 
large  silver  plate  on  the  side  of  the  breech  with  this  engrav- 
ing on  it: 

**This  rifle  is  presented  to  James  Jones  as  a 
small  token  of  my  great  appreciation  of  his  brav- 
ery and  for  personally  risking  his  life  to  save  mine 
in  a  battle  with  the  Indians  north  of  the  Ohio 
river.     Louisville,  Kentucky,  December  12,  1805. 

John  Caldwell." 

The  night  after  the  killing  of  the  Indian  at  the  forks  of 
White  river.  Miller  and  Vought  were  in  Hargrove's  camp 
showing  their  trophies.  Sergeant  Bailey,  who  was  in  camp 
not  far  from  White  Oak  Springs  with  Colonel  Hargrove, 
looked  at  the  gun  and  became  greatly  excited.  When  shown 
the  scalp  above  referred  to,  his  grief  was  almost  heart- 
breaking, exclaiming:  "Mary,  Mary,  my  beautiful  twin  sis- 
ter, how  I  loved  you — and  when  I  think  of  the  awful,  cruel 
fate  which  befell  you,  it  is  almost  more  than  I  can  bear." 

Afterwards  Bailey,  relating  this  strange  story,  said 
James  Jones  was  a.  brave,  fearless  soldier,  and  had  been  in 
many  engagements  with  the  Indians.  In  the  one  referred  to 
by  the  plate  on  the  rifle,  the  Indians  had  cut  Jones  and  Cald- 
well off  from  the  main  army  while  they  were  dressing  a  deer. 
In  the  running  battle  that  followed  Caldwell's  leg  was  broken 
by  a  ball  and  he  could  retreat  no  farther.  Jones  carried  him 
to  a  secure  position  between  two  large  logs  and  they  both 
used  the  logs  for  a  breastwork.  In  this  way  they  killed  sev- 
eral Indians  and  held  the  others  in   check   until   a   troop  of 


478  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 

their  company,  hearing  the  firing,  came  to  their  relief.  Ini 
In  1805  Jones  was  married  to  his  twin  sister,  Mary,  a  beauti- 
ful woman  with  a  most  wonderful  suit  of  light  hair,  so  long 
that  when  let  down  it  would  veil  her  person  to  within  a  few 
inches  of  the  floor.  An  agent  of  Aaron  Burr's  had  come 
to  their  peaceful  home  on  the  Monongahela  river  and  per- 
suaded them  to  go  with  the  ill-fated  expedition.  In  1806^ 
President  Jefferson  issued  a  proclamation  against  many  per- 
sons who  had  attached  themselves  to  Burr's  chimerical  con- 
spiracy and  they  fled  in  many  directions.  Jones,  Bailey  and 
others  from  that  section  started  down  the  Monongahela  and 
into  the  Ohio  river. 

They  had  gone  one  hundred  miles  west  of  the  falls  of  the 
Ohio,  when  their  boat  struck  a  snag  and  was  sunk,  settling 
in  deep  water.  The  occupants  were  landed  by  the  aid  of  a. 
canoe  on  the  Indiana  side  about  forty  miles  west  of  the  mouth 
of  Blue  river.  They  went  back  north  into  the  country  about 
fifteen  miles,  where  they  built  their  cabin.  The  cabin  was 
about  ten  miles  east  of  the  old  Indian  trace  running  north 
from  Yellow  Banks,  Rockport,  Spencer  County,  Indiana,  to- 
White  river.  After  staying  there  during  the  winter  of 
1806-07,  Jones  and  Bailey's  sister  determined  to  go  back  by 
the  Ohio  river  to  Louisville,  Kentucky,  where  they  hoped  to 
make  them  a  home.  Bailey,  a  few  days  before  they  were  to 
start,  went  to  another  band  of  these  refugees  where  two 
hunting  companions  of  his  were  living.  He  and  his  two 
friends  were  on  the  first  hunting  trip  when  they  were  found 
by  Captain  Hargrove's  scouts  and  went  with  him  to  Vin- 
cennes  and  enlisted  in  the  United  States  army.  Bailey  re- 
mained in  the  service  until  after  the  battle  of  Tippecanoe. 
Bailey  sent  several  letters  to  Louisville,  but  never  received 
any  answer  to  them,  and  this  was  the  first  time  that  he  had 
any  idea  of  what  became  of  Jones  and  his  sister.  The  two 
hunters  offered  to  give  the  gun  and  scalp  to  Bailey,  The 
scalp  he  accepted  as  a  precious  gift,  but  said  that  Miller 
should  keep  the  gun  and  he  wished  he  were  able  to  give  him 
a  thousand  times  its  value  for  killing  the  hated  savage  who 
murdered  his  sister. 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OP  INDIANA.  479* 

GOVERNOR  JENNINGS  AND  TOM  OGLESBY. 

Governor  Jennings  used  to  tell  a  story  of  his  early  elec- 
tioneering  days  in  which  he  said  that  panthers  were  good 
temperance  lecturers.  Once  while  he  was  traveling  over  the 
thinly  settled  hills  of  Dearborn  county  electioneering  for 
congress,  he  met  a  man  he  was  well  acquainted  with,  Tom 
Oglesby,  who  was  just  getting  over  a  protracted  drunk.  Jen- 
nings was  up  to  his  work  and  commenced  to  electioneer  with 
Tom  for  his  vote.  The  half  sober  fellow  looked  at  him  and 
said — "Jen,  don't  you  think  that  a  man  just  out  of  a  panther 
fight  and  getting  sobered  up  for  the  first  time  in  twelve 
months  ought  to  be  electioneered  in  a  more  royal  style  than 
this?  I  am  just  from  the  grave.  I  was  awakened  a  little 
while  ago  by  a  panther  putting  leaves  and  grass  over  me.  It 
kept  this  up  until  I  was  entirely  covered.  I  lay  still  for  a 
while  and  then  raised  up  and  found  the  panther  gone.  I 
knew  I  was  not  safe  there  so  I  took  my  gun  and  climbed  inta 
a  tree  to  see  what  the  panther  intended  to  do.  In  a  short 
time  I  heard  her  coming  and  she  had  he;*  kittens  with  her. 
Every  few  steps  she  would  jiynp  a^  is  catching  something 
and  the  little  ones  would  go  through  the  same  maneuvers.^ 
She  was  teaching  them  how  to  attack  their  prey.  She  kept 
this  up  until  she  got  near  to  the  bed  of  leaves  that  I  had 
been  covered  with.  She  made  a  spring  on  the  pile  and  then 
looked  just  as  I  felt  when  I  found  I  was  covered  up  for  dead. 
She  made  a  mewing  noise  and  the  little  panthers  scampered 
back  the  way  they  had  come.  She  then  started  in  to  investi- 
gate the  cause  of  my  disappearance  and  before  she  located 
me  I  shot  her."  Jennings  after  hearing  this  said:  *'Well, 
Tom,  I  do  believe  I  should  treat  you  as  one  from  the  dead, 
and  since,  Tom,  we  were  school  boys  together  in  old  Pennsyl- 
vania and  you  are  a  finished  civil  engineer  and  very  well  ed- 
ucated, if  you  will  quit  drinking  I  will  see  that  you  have  a 
good  place  on  the  surveying  corps"  Tom  Oglesby  did  quit 
drinking,  Jennings  was  elected  and  put  his  old  school  mate 
in  a  good  place  in  the  engineerig  department  and  he  became 
one  of  the  greatest  engineers  in  the  United  States. 


480  PIONEER  HISTORY  OP  INDIANA. 

P\NTHERS,  BEARS  AND  A  DEER  IN  BATTLE. 

In  the  fall  of  1823  David  Johnson  shot  a  large  deer  with 
a  heavy  pair  of  many  pointed  horns  and  had  followed  on  its 
trail  for  some  distance,  hoping:  to  get  another  shot.  The 
deer  was  not  dangerously  wounded,  but  just  enough  to  put  it 
in  good  fighting  humor. 

He  had  followed  the  deer  for  some  time  over  the  hills  in 
Washington  township,  Gibson  County.  The  deer  had  left 
many  signs  of  its  anger  by  tearing  small  bushes  and  saplings 
to  pieces  with  its  horns  in  the  route  that  he  had  traveled. 
Coming  to  the  top  of  a  hill,  Johnson  heard  a  loud  noise  down 
in  the  hollow  at  the  foot  of  the  hill  that  sounded  as  if  many 
angry  animals  were  in  a  terrible  combat. 

Slipping  up  so  he  could  see  what  was  making  such  a 
racket,  when  within  about  eighty  yards  he  could  see  several 
animals  in  a  regular  free-for-all  fight.  Two  black  bears  (one 
of  them  a  very  large  one),  two  panthers,  and  a  little  to  one 
side,  his  wounded  buck.  The  two  bears  were  standing  on 
their  hind  feet,  dealing  blows  with  their  arms,  right  and 
left,  when  the  pantliers  would  get  in  reach  of  them.  The 
panthers  were  much  more  active  than  the  bears,  but  were 
<:areful  to  keep  out  of  reach  of  the  bears'  arms.  Every  little 
while  they  would  jump  clear  over  the  bears,  as  if  trying  to 
attack  them  at  their  back,  but  Mr.  Bruin  would  turn  around 
as  if  on  a  pivot.  The  deer  was  standing  some  little  distance 
away  looking  at  the  combatants  as  if  he  would  like  to  take 
part  in  the  fray,  but  there  was  so  much  of  it  he  did  not  know 
how  to  commence.  In  one  of  the  rushes  made  by  the 
panthers,  in  jumping  over  the  bear,  one  of  them  attempted 
to  land  on  the  buck's  back,  but  the  deer  was  too  quick  for  it 
and  it  fell  on  the  sharp  points  of  the  deer's  horns,  and  was 
evidently  injured  in  the  tussle  which  followed.  After  the 
panther  got  oflf  the  horns  it  ran  up  a  tree  which  stood  near. 

Mr.  Johnson  said  the  fight  was  so  furious  and  the  noise 
so  terrible  that  he  never  was  so  thoroughly  scared  in  his  life 
before,  and  did  not  know  what  to  do.  There  were  so  many 
animals  that  he  could  not  kill  all  of  them.  He  was  at  a  loss 
as  to  what  was  the  best  plan  to  pursue,   but  as  soon  as  the 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA.  481 

panther  run  up  the  tree  he  determined  to  shoot  it.  It  fell  to  the 
ground,  not  dead,  but  so  disabled  that  it  could  not  stand  on 
its  feet,  but  tore  the  ground  and  growled  and  snarled.  The 
other  animals  did  not  seem  to  hear  the  shot.  If  they  did, 
the}'  paid  no  attention  to  it,  but  kept  up  the  fight.  The  other 
panther  would  ever}^  little  while  spring  over  the  bears,  high 
above  their  heads.  The  deer  didn't  seem  to  paj'^  any  attention 
to  the  bears,  but  followed  the  movements  and  kept  his  horns 
between  his  body  and  the  panther.  The  panther,  in  avoiding 
a  blow  aimed  at  his  head  by  the  smaller  bear,  got  in  reach  of 
the  big  one  and  received  a  blow  that  sent  it  ten  feet  away.  It 
was  more  careful  to  keep  out  of  reach  after  this  and  soon 
climbed  up  a  tree  for  thirty  feet  and  lay  stretched  out  on  a 
large  limb.  Johnson  made  up  his  mind  that  it  was  more 
dangerous  than  all  three  of  the  others  and  shot  at  it.  Instead 
of  tailing,  it  jumped  twenty  or  thirty  feet  into  a  thick  clump 
of  brush  and  ran  off^  The  bear  and  deer  stood  their  ground 
as  if  uncertain  what  to  do,  but  before  Johnson  could  load  his 
gun  again  they  all  ran  off  down  the  hollow. 

He  found  that  the  cause  of  the  trouble  was  that  the 
panthers  had  killed  a  small  deer,  and  no  doubt  the  bears  com- 
ing up  at  this  time  determined  to  take  it  away  from  them. 

After  killing  the  wounded  panther,  he  then  went  to 
where  the  other  had  alighted  when  it  jumped  out  of  the  tree 
and  found  a  little  blood,  but  thought  the  animal  was  not  seri- 
ously hurt.  He  said  he  could  have  killed  the  deer  or  either 
of  the  l?ears.  but  was  afraid  to  leave  the  panthers,  as  they 
would  have  attacked  him. 

A   WOUNDED   DEER    HORNING   OXENS   AND   A    HORSE. 

Following  is  a  little  story  showing  the  fury  of  a  wounded 
buck:  Major  John  Sprinkels,  who  settled  Sprinklesburg  (now 
Newburg),  was  out  hunting  and  wounded  a  large  five  point 
buck  and  had  been  following  it  for  some  time.  Finally  the 
deer  came  to  a  cornfield,  jumped  the  fence  and  was  passing 
through  it  when  it  came  to  an  ox  team  hitched  to  a  wagon 
with  an  old  North  Carolina  schooner  bed  on  it.  Three  men 
were  with  the  wagon  gathering  corn.     The   first   they  knew 


482  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 

of  the  deer  the  oxen  commenced  to  run.  They  found  the 
deer  was  goring  one  of  the  oxen  with  its  sharp  horns.  In 
running,  the  wagon  became  fast  on  a  stump.  The  men  ran 
to  the  oxen,  thinking  to  scare  the  deer  away,  but  it  attacked 
them  and  seriously  hurt  one  of  the  men,  who  saved  his  life  by 
rolling  under  the  wagon.'  The  other  two  got  up  into  the 
schooner  bed.  The  deer,  after  trying  to  get  at  the  man  un- 
der the  wagon,  went  around  and  attacked  the  other  ox, 
goring  it  fearfully.  Major  Sprinkles,  hearing  the  bellowing 
of  the  oxen  and  the  halooing  of  the  men,  went  to  find  out 
what  was  the  matter  and  succeeded  in  killng  the  deer. 

In  1827  Andrew  McFaddin,  of  Posey  County,  went  hunt- 
ing on  horseback.  There  was  a  heavy  wet  snow  on  the 
ground  and  he  found  that  his  horse  balled  so  badly  he  had  to 
leave  it,  and  after  securely  tying  it,  he  went  on  hunting. 

He  shot  a  large  buck,  severely  wounding  it,  but  it  ran 
away.  McFaddin  followed  it  for  several  miles.  The  deer 
commenced  to  circle  around  and  come  back  to  the  neighbor- 
hood where  it  had  been  wounded.  After  nearing  the  place 
where  he  had  hitched  his  horse,  he  heard  the  horse  making  a 
terrible  noise  as  if  in  distress.  Thinking  that  a  panther  had 
attacked^  his  horse,  he  ran  in  that  direction  and  found  the 
deer  goring  it  with  its  sharp  horns.  McFaddin  killed  the 
deer,  but  found  that  his  horse  wes  ruined. 

PANTHERS   KILLING   INDIANS. 

While  three  young  men  from  Kentucky,  southwest  of 
Louisville,  were  traveling  over  the  old  trace  from  Clarkesville 
to  Vincennes  in  1800,  where  they  intended  to  enlist  in  the 
army,  they  reached  a  place  in  the  neighborhood  of  where 
French  Lick  Springs  is  now  located  and  were  ambushed  and 
attacked  by  seven  Indians,  two  of  the  young  men  being  killed 
at  the  first  fire.  The  other  one,  named  George  Davis,  was 
grazed  by  a  ball  along  his  temple  and  fell  to  the  ground.  He 
was  up  quickly  and  attempted  to  run  to  cover,  but  ran  into 
the  hands  of  the  Indians  and  was  captured.  They  took  him 
with  them,  going  in  the  direction  of  the  head  waters  of  the 
White  river,  and  reached  a  country  where  there  were  many 
Indians  and  Indian  towns. 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA.  483 

One  night  as  they  were  lying  in  camp  asleep,  young- 
Davis  managed  to  slip  his  arms  out  of  the  buckskin  thongs 
with  which  they  were  tied.  Waiting  until  he  felt  sure  they 
were  all  asleep,  he  selected  his  own  gun  which  was  standing 
with  others  against  a  tree  near  the  fire  and  slipped  away. 

He  started  east,  feeling  sure  that  the  Indians  would  go 
southwest  on  their  back  trail  to  hunt  for  him.  The  moon 
was  very  bright  and  he  made  good  use  of  his  time  before 
daylight. 

About  daylight  he  found  a  leaning  tree  lodged  against 
another  very  large  tree  which  had  a  hole  in  it  just  above 
where  the  leaning  tree  lodged.  Going  up  the  leaning  one,  he 
found  the  hole  large  enough  for  him  to  hide  in.  It  no  doubt 
was  the  winter  home  of  a  bear. 

Resting  and  sleeping  all  that  day,  as  soon  as  night  came 
on  he  was  down.  Shaping  his  course  so  as  to  have  the  North 
star  at  his  back,  he  traveled  all  night.  Being  very  hungry, 
he  fortunately  found  a  large  fat  opossum,  killed  it  and  carried 
it  with  him. 

Just  before  day  he  found  a  cliff  which  had  a  shallow  cave 
running  back  twenty  feet  from  the  entrance.  Securing  wood, 
he  went  into  the  cavern.  He  was  at  his  wits'  ends  how  to 
get  any  fire,  as  he  had  only  the  one  charge  of  powder,  which 
was  in  his  gun.  He  was  a  backwoodsman  and  knew  a  good 
deal  of  their  craft.  Securing  two  sound,  dry  sticks,  he  com- 
menced to  rub  them  together  until  he  brought  fire  from  one 
of  them.  Preparing  his  opossum,  he  baked  it  to  a  nicety  and 
ate  it  with  a  relish  without  salt  or  condiments. 

As  soon  as  night  had  come  again  he  started  and  had 
been  traveling  two  or  three  hours,  when  he  heard  a  slight 
noise  behind  him  as  of  some  small  animal  running.  Stepping 
out  of  his  course  a  short  distance  and  into  a  clump  of  bushes, 
he  stopped  to  see  the  cause  of  this.  He  had  been  in  his  place 
only  a  few  moments  when  he  discovered  three  Indians  follow- 
ing his  trail.  They  passed,  missing  his  track,  and  were  run- 
ning around  trying  to  find  it,  when  a  most  terrible  scream 
was  heard  from  one  of  them. 

Two  panthers  were  in  a  tree,  and  the  Indians  getting  un- 


484  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 

der  them,  the  animals  pounced  onto  them,  knocking  two  of 
them  down  and  terribly  lacerating  them.  The  third  Indian 
killed  one  of  the  panthers,  when  a  shot  from  the  other  side 
killed  the  Indian,  and  in  a  short  time  another  shot  from  the 
same  direction  killed  the  other  panther. 

In  a  short  time  a  man  with  long  white  hair  and  beard 
and  dressed  in  skins  came  to  where  the  combat  had  taken 
place,  calling  to  Davis,  whom  he  had  seen  slipping  into  hid- 
ing, to  come  out. 

The  combat  had  taken  place  near  a  large  deer-lick  and 
the  panthers  had  been  in  the  tree  waiting  for  some  unfortun- 
ate deer.  The  old  man  was  there  for  the  same  purpose  and 
did  not  know  that  the  panthers  were  in  the  tree.  He  had 
seen  Davis  when  he  stopped  and  saw  him  slip  into  the  clump 
of  bushes  and  saw  the  Indians  coming  on  his  trail.  By  this 
he  felt  sure  that  he  was  a  white  man. 

The  Indians'  guns  and  other  things  of  value  were  taken. 
Young  Davis  was  supplied  with  ammunition,  hunting  knife 
and  tomahawk.  The  Indians  lacerated  by  the  panthers  soon 
bled  to  death.  They  were  dragged  to  a  deep  place  in  a 
nearby  hollow  or  branch  and  put  into  it.  Brush  was  piled 
over  them. 

The  old  man  told  Davis  to  follow  him  and  he  would  have 
something  prepared  for  him  to  eat,  and  after  they  had  gone 
for  about  a  mile  the  old  man  told  him  to  sit  down  and  rest,  as 
they  were  in  no  further  danger  from  the  Indians.  In  an  hour 
he  returned  with  plenty  of  dried  venison  and  fresh  bear's 
meat,  which  was  broiled.  After  eating  all  they  wanted,  they 
prepared  a  camp  and  stayed  there  for  two  days.  During  this 
period  the  old  man  was  gone  several  times  for  an  hour  at  a 
time.  He  would  not  talk  of  himself  or  of  what  he  was  doing 
there.  Their  camp  was  near  a  very  large  spring  of  gushing 
water  not  far  from  the  Blue  river  (no  doubt  the  large  spring 
a  few  miles  west  of  Corydon,  Ind.) 

After  preparing  plenty  of  provisions  for  the  trip,  Davis 
bade  his  benefactor  good-bye  and  started  for  the  mouth  of  the 
Blue  river,  as  directed  by  the  old  patriarch,  and  finally  got 
back  to  Kentucky. 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA.  485 

DeLome,  in  his  interesting  narrative  of  his  capture  and 
his  life  among  the  Indians,  relates  the  killing  of  the  two  men 
on  the  old  trace  and  the  capture  of  Davis.  He  says  he  was 
adopted  into  the  family  of  an  Indian,  and  that  one  of  the 
men  who  went  back  for  Davis  was  his  adopted  brother. 
He  says  the  four  Indians  reached  home,  but  that  the  three 
wha  w^ent  after  Davis  were  never  heard  of  afterward.  He 
tells  of  the  old  patriarch  having  a  home  in  a  cave  not  far 
from  the  big  spring;  that  no  one  knew  who  he  was,  where  he 
came  from  or  what  became  of  him;  but  it  was  believed,  from 
the  little  information  obtained  by  Davis,  that  he  was  a  po- 
litical exile  from  some  foreign  country  and  that  he  had  gone 
into  seclusion  in  the  wilds  of  Harrison  County,  Indiana. 

EARLY    DAYS   NEAR    PETERSBURG,    INDIANA. 

In  1807  or  '08,  James  Gurney  left  Jefferson  County,  Ken- 
tucky, and  came  to  Indiana  Territory,  He  had  a  wife  and 
two  children.  They  put  all  their  possessions  in  a  large  bag 
made  of  hemp  or  flax  and  fastened  it  to  the  back  of  the  horse. 
The  mother  and  smaller  child  rode  on  its  back  —  the  father, 
with  his  gun,  keeping  a  lookout  for  Indians.  The  older  boy, 
twelve  years  old,  led  the  horse. 

Crossing  the  river  at  Louisville,  they  started  west  on  the 
old  Indian  trace,  which  was  a  regular  traveled  way  from 
Louisville  to  Vincennes,  most  of  the  way  being  a  good  road. 
When  they  had  traveled  some  thirty  miles  they  found  the 
road  was  patroled  by  rangers  under  young  John  Tipton.  He 
furnished  an  escort  as  far  as  his  boundary  reached,  only  a 
little  west  of  the  Blue  river.  They  were  compelled  to  remain 
at  that  point  until  the  rangers  on  the  western  division  should 
come  on  their  regular  trip,  which  was  only  a  day  or  two. 
The  men  on  the  western  division  were  commanded  by  Captain 
Wm.  Hargrove.  The  Gurney  family  accompanied  them  on 
their  return  trip  to  White  Oak  Springs,  where  Woolsey  Pride 
had  a  fort.  They  were  in^iiructed  by  W.  H.  Harrison  to  re- 
main in  a  blockhouse  built  inside  the  heavy  stockade  Pride 
had  built  around  his  fort,  until  late  in  the  fall.  He  could 
then  build  a  house  after  the  Indian  raids  were  over. 


486  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 

Gurney  was  of  a  restless,  roving-  disposition,  and  had  but 
little  regard  for  Governor  Harrison's  orders.  He  would  not 
follow  the  advice  of  the  old  hunters  at  the  fort,  but  left,  say- 
ing that  he  was  going  back  to  the  mud  holes,  which  were 
near  where  Portersville,  in  Dubois  County,  was  afterward  lo- 
cated, and  they  heard  nothing  more  of  him  for  some  time. 

The  winter  had  gone  and  warm  weather  had  come  again. 
One  day  a  woman,  carrying  a  small  bundle  and  a  little  girl, 
were  found  by  the  two  McDonalds — John  and  William — who 
were  early  settlers  in  the  mud-hole  region.  They  had  been 
wandering  around  in  the  woods.  The}^  took  them  to  their 
home.  These  two  persons  were  Mrs.  Gurney  and  her  little 
daughter.  She  said  that  the  fall  before,  with  her  husband 
and  two  children,  she  had  left  the  White  Oak  Springs  fort 
and  had  gone  in  a  southeasterly  direction  ten  or  fifteen  miles, 
when  they  came  upon  a  place  which  suited  their  fancy.  Here 
they  built  a  little  cabin  and  spent  the  winter  in  comfort. 
There  was  all  sorts  of  game  in  abundance,  and  with  hickory 
and  beech  nuts  and  white  oak  acorns,  of  which  they  made 
pones  and  baked,  they  managed  to  live  in  comfort  and  were 
in  perfect  health.  With  the  coming  of  spring  they  com- 
menced to  prepare  a  small  patch  for  corn  and  vegetables  and 
had  a  little  field  brushed  off.  The  horse  was  kept  at  night  in 
a  pen  covered  over  with  bark  and  brush.  During  the  day  he 
ran  out  and  fed  as  he  could  from  the  range.  One  morning, 
along  the  first  of  May,  Mr.  Gurney  had  started  out  with  his  rifle 
to  kill  a  turkey,  and  had  not  gone  more  than  a  hundred  yards 
when  his  wife  heard  him  calling  aloud.  His  wife  ran  in  the 
direction  he  had  gone,  and  when  she  got  within  sight  of  his 
body,  which  was  lying  in  the  edg^e  of  the  clearing,  she  saw  a 
large  panther  spring  onto  a  limb  of  a  tree  which  stood  near 
him.  She  did  not  know  what  to  do,  and  thinking  that  the 
horse  would  scare  the  animal  away,  they  led  the  horse  out  of 
the  stable  and  turned  him  loose,  driving  him  toward  the  place 
where  the  body  of  Mr.  Gurney  lay.  When  the  horse  saw  the 
body  it  became  scared  and  ran  near  the  tree  the  panther  was 
in,  whereupon  the  latter  sprang  from  the  tree  to  the  horse's 
back  and  that  was  the  last  ever  seen  of  the  horse. 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA.  487 

They  buried  Mr.  Gurnej'  near  the  cabin  and  after  this 
the)^  had  a  very  hard  time.  They  could  not  do  anything^ 
with  the  corn  patch,  as  the  horse  was  g^one,  but  they  could 
kill  game,  as  the  little  boy  and  his  mother  could  both  use 
a  g^un. 

The  springy  from  which  they  obtained  their  water  was 
sevent)'^  or  eighty  yards  from  the  cabin.  The  boy  was  carry- 
ing water  from  it  early  one  morning  when  he  was  killed  by  a 
panther.  The  mother,  hearing  his  scream,  took  the  gun  and 
shot  the  animal  as  it  was  preparing  to  spring  on  her.  She 
buried  her  boy  and  then  determined  to  try  to  find  her  way 
back  to  the  road  and  to  Kentucky.  She  had  been  wandering 
around  over  the  woods  for  more  than  a  week  when  found  by 
the  two  men  who  had  killed  a  bear. 

»  Mrs.  Gurney  went  back  to  her  people  in  Kentucky.  This 
experience  was  told  to  me  more  than  fifty  years  ago  by 
Elijah  Malott,  who  lived  in  the  same  neighborhood  as  did 
Mrs.  Gurney's  people,  and  he  often  heard  her  tell  of  her 
awful  experience.  He  said  he  had  been  preparing  to  come  to 
southern  Indiana  to  the  neighborhood  of  White  Oak  Springs, 
but  after  hearing  of  the  terrible  experience  above  related,  he 
had  many  misgivings.  He  said  it  was  never  known  exactly 
where  Mr.  Gurney  had  made  his  cabin,  but  eight  or  ten  years 
after  he  was  killed  some  hunters  found  a  small  floorless  cabin 
near  where  the  White  Sulphur  Springs  are  now,  near  where 
Velpen,  Pike  County,  Indiana,  now  stands. 

Elijah  Malott  moved  to  the  neighborhood  of  Petersburg, 
Indiana,  in  1817.  This  same  Mr.  Malott  in  his  younger  days 
was  very  fond  of  playing  pranks.  One  evening  while  hunt- 
ing he  found  a  latge  buck  which  had  been  killed  the  day 
before  and  was  frozen  hard.  He  dragged  it  up  to  a  sapling, 
raised  it  up  to  a  standing  position  and  tied  it  there.  That 
night  he  went  to  see  his  nearest  neighbor,  Mr.  Jesse  Alexan- 
der, and  invited  him  to  go  hunting  with  him  the  next  morn- 
ing. They  started  out  and  the  route  Mr.  Alexander  took 
brought  him  in  plain  view  of  the  dead  buck  with  the  large 
pair  of  horns.  In  a  short  time  Mr.  Malott  heard  Alexander 
commence  shooting  and  he  took  seven  shots  in  all  at  the 


488  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 

deer.     After  this  he  concluded  to  investigate  and  found  that 
he  had  put  seven  balls  into  the  deer. 

In  1850  one  df  >Ir.  Alexander's  daughters  was  married. 
Before  the  wedding  something  was  said  about  a  charivari. 
Mr.  Alexander  said  if  they  attempted  it,  his  two  big  bulldogs 
would  eat  them  up.  The  night  of  the  wedding  Hiram 
Malott,  Resin  Malott,  Captain  James  E.  Chappell  and  many 
others,  carrying  with  them  three  dumb-bulls,  as  many  hick- 
ory rattles  and  many  noisy  things,  and  beginning  the  most 
hideous  noise  ever  heard,  went  three  or  four  times  around  the 
house,  when  they  were  invited  in.  Mr.  Alexander  the  next 
morning  found  his  dogs  a  mile  away,  at  Stanton  Lamb's. 

PANTHERS   KILLING   ONE    MAN    AND    SERIOUSLY  WOUNDING   AN- 

ANOTHER   OF   A   SURVEYING   PARTY. 

In  1805  the  surveyors  were  doing  some  work  in  town  one 
north,  range  nine  west,  in  what  is  now  Clay  township,  Pike 
County,  Indiana,  that  had  been  left  from  the  survey  in  the 
fall  and  winter  of  1804  owing  to  water  being  in  the  way. 
The  camp  was  located  on  section  18,  town  one  north,  range  9 
west,  a  little  way  from  Harvey  creek  and  near  a  pond  or 
bayou  that  is  now  owned  by  Hon.  Jasper  N.  Davidson.  They 
had  been  in  that  section  for  several  weeks. 

Two  young  men  were  camp-keepers,  one  of  them  keeping 
the  camp  supplied  with  game.  Their  names  were  George 
Tate  and  Thomas  Shay  and  they  had  for  some  years  before 
this  made  their  home  in  Clark's  Grant,  near  Jeffersonville, 
Indiana.  The  surveying  crew  had  come  into  camp  at  noon 
on  Saturday  so  they  could  make  their  field  notes  and  were  not 
intending  to  go  out  again  until  the  following  Monday. 

The  two  young  camp-keepers  availed  themselves  of  this 
opportunity  to  go  to  a  bluff  bank  not  far  away  and  to  en- 
deavor to  kill  a  bear,  which,  they  thought,  had  its  den  in  the 
bluff.  Just  before  reaching  the  den  they  saw  two  young  ani- 
mals that  were  gamboling  around  over  logs  and  running  up  an 
old  stump  six  or  eight  feet  high  and  jumping  off.  The)^  were 
having  a  lively  play  and  did  not  see  the  hunters,  who  got  up 
as  close  as  they  could,  and  hiding  behind  trees,  they  watched 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA.  48^ 

their  antics  for  some  time.  Slipping  up  still  closer,  they  in- 
tended to  scare  the  animals,  to  see  them  run,  and  so  rushed  at 
them,  making  a  great  noise.  The  old  mother  panther  was 
lying  asleep  only  a  little  way  from  where  the  kittens  were 
playing  and  she  at  once  rushed  at  the  hunters,  striking  Shay 
down  before  he  could  use  his  gun  and  almost  severed  his  head 
with  hei"  terrible  claws.  Tate,  not  knowing  Shay  was  dead, 
would  not  shoot  for  fear  of  hitting  him,  as  the  panther  was 
biting  and  scratching  him.  He  rushed  upon  the  animal  and 
felled  it  with  his  gun  and  then  one  of  the  very  bloodiest 
fights  ever  recorded  of  this  nature  took  place.  The  panther, 
regaining  her  feet,  rushed  at  Tate,  who  was  trjung  to  shoot, 
but  found  that  the  priming  had  fallen  out  of  the  pan  of  his 
flintlock  gun  when  he  knocked  the  panther  down.  As  she 
came  at  him  he  thrust  the  muzzle  of  the  gun  into  her  mouth 
and  thus  held  her  at  bay  for  a  little  while.  She  tore  the  gun  out 
of  her  mouth  with  her  claws  and  again  rushed  at  Tate.  He 
clubbed  his  gun  and  broke  one  of  her  fore  legs,  but  she  caught 
one  of  his  arms  in  her  mouth  and  they  both  fell  to  the  ground. 
The  hunter  as  yet  was  but  little  hurt,  and  drawing  his  hunting 
knife,  he  plunged  it  in  the  panther's  side  time  after  time,  but 
not  before  she  had  torn  the  flesh  off  his  legs  in  a  terrible 
manner  with  her  hind  claws.  The  men  at  the  camp  heard  the 
noise  that  the  panther  made  as  she  was  rushing  at  the  hunter, 
and  three  men,  with  two  dogs,  hurried  in  that  direction. 
They  had  not  gone  far  before  the  dogs  set  up  a  terrible  bark- 
ing and  a  large  panther  sprang  into  a  tree  not  far  off.  They 
shot  it  to  death.  Thomas  Shay  was  quite  dead  and  Tate 
was  almost  dead  from  loss  of  blood.  The  carcass  of  the 
panther  that  he  had  stabbed  to  death  was  lying  on  him  and 
the  two  little  kitten  panthers  were  nestled  down  by  the  side 
of  their  dead  mother.  The  panther  the  rescuing  party  had 
killed  was  not  in  the  battle,  but  came  in  answer  to  the  scream 
of  its  mate.  It  had  nearly  covered  the  body  of  Shay  with 
leaves,  as  is  their  habit  when  killing  game.  When  they  have 
eaten  all  they  want,  they  cover  the  remainder  until  they  are 
hungry  again. 

They  carried  Tate  to  the  camp  and  dressed  his  wounds  as 


490  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 

best  they  could,  but  it  was  several  months  before  he  was  able 
to  g^o  about. 

Shay  was  buried  near  the  place  where  he  was  killed  and 
a  history  of  his  death  was  cut  by  the  surveyors  with  their 
tools  on  a  beech  tree  near  his  g^rave.  The  surveyors  sent  for 
David  Johnson,  who  had  been  with  them  the  year  before,  to 
hunt  for  their  camp  again.  While  there  he  had  an  adven- 
ture near  where  the  old  Indian  road  crosses  White  river.  He 
had  shot  a  small  deer  and  dressed  and  prepared  it  so  he  could 
carry  it  shot-pouch  fashion  to  the  camp,  when  he  heard  a 
noise  of  something  which  was  in  a  tree  not  far  off.  Bending 
down  a  sapling  and  cutting  off  a  limb  he  hung  his  deer  on  it 
and  when  the  sapling  straightened  up,  it  went  out  of  the 
reach  of  any  animal.  Slipping  up  to  the  point  where  he 
heard  the  noise,  he  saw  a  bear  cub  which  would  weigh  about 
one  hundred  pounds.  He  shot  and  broke  its  shoulder.  It  set 
up  a  terrible  noise  and  in  a  moment  out  came  the  old  bear 
from  a  tree  all  in  a  pile.  She  jumped  up  and  ran  to  the  cub 
and  was  trying  to  get  it  away  by  going  off  and  expecting  it 
to  follow,  but  the  little  fellow  could  not  walk  and  kept  up 
the  squealing  noise.  Johnson  was  trying  to  load  his  gun  but 
in  the  hurry,  as  he  was  pulling  his  gun  stick  out,  it  went  out 
^f  his  hand  and  some  distance  to  one  side.  In  stepping  from 
behind  the  tree  to  get  it,  the  old  bear  saw  him  and  came  at 
him  full  drive.  There  was  a  large  tree  standing  but  a  Jittle 
way  from  him.  He  ran  to  this  and  got  behind  it,  intending 
to  finish  loading  his  gun  but  the  bear  was  after  him  and  he 
ran  around  that  tree  many  times,  the  bear  in  close  pursuit. 
The  little  bear  commenced  to  make  a  very  loud  noise  and  the 
old  bear  ran  to  the  place  where  it  was,  when  Johnson  finished 
loading  his  gun  and  shot  the  old  bear. 

In  1854  when  Mr.  Johnson  told  me  this  story  he  said  that 
sometime  in  the  early  twenties  he,  with  a  hunting  party,  had 
a  camp  near  the  place  where  the  panther  fight  took  place  and 
that  while  the  beech  tree  had  been  blown  down.  Shay's  grave 
was  yet  to  be  seen. 

WILD   HOGS. 

When  it  became  so  that  the  people  could  turn  their  hogs 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA.  491 

on  the  range  all  the  time,  some  of  them  ^would  stray  off  and 
become  so  wild,  they  would  run  from  a  man.  They  were  very 
prolific.  A  sow  would  usually  raise  two  litters  of  from  six  to 
€ight  pigs  each  year.  In  a  short  time  the  surrounding  wood 
was  full  of  wild  hogs.  The  pigs  which  were  raised  in  the 
woods  were  as  wild  as  other  animals  and  equally  as  hard  to 
domesticate.  An  old  saying  among  the  early  people  was,  '*A 
wild  hog  once,  a  wild  hog  all  the  time."  The  country  was 
•covered  over  with  a  heavy  growth  of  timber  and  a  large  por- 
tion of  it  was  nut-bearing  and  acorn  trees.  In  the  more  open 
or  barren  wood  there  were  immense  thickets  of  hazel  bushes 
and  on  these  bushes  a  large  quantity  of  hazel  nuts  were  pro- 
duced each  year.  In  the  fall  and  winter  the  ground  was  cov- 
ered with  the  different  sorts  of  nuts  and  acorns.  Not  one- 
half  of  it  could  be  eaten  by  the  animals.  All  winter,  except 
when  there  was  a  deep  snow,  there  was  an  abundance  of  food 
for  everything  that  would  eat  mast.  The  hogs  would  at  all 
times  keep  in  good  living  order,  and  in  the  fall  and  winter 
would  get  very  fat.  The  farmers  in  early  times  marked 
their  stock  by  cutting  ^heir  ears  in  many  shapes,  such  as  an 
upper  bit  in  the  right  ear,  and  a  crop  off  the  left  ear;  an  un- 
der bit  in  both  ears,  a  crop  and  a  split  in  the  right  ear,  and 
so  on. 

These  marks  were  recorded  in  a  book  kept  by  the  County 
Recorder  for  such  records.  The  law  protected  them  against 
an  infringement  on  these  marks  as  much  as  the  trade-marks 
of  manufacturers  are  protected  now.  There  was  a  sacred  re- 
gard for  the  marks  of  each  other's  stock  by  the  old  settlers. 
Some  of  the  sows  that  were  marked  would  stray  away  and 
raise  a  litter  of  pigs  and  stay  away  with  them.  The  owner 
and  others  would  see  them  once  in  a  while,  and  the  range  she 
staid  in  was  noted  by  the  hunters,  and  the  hogs  in  that  range 
of  woods  were  called  after  the  man  who  owned  the  marked 
sow.  Nearly  all  the  farmers  would  have  some  hogs  which 
became  wild,  and  their  claim  on  the  hogs  that  came  from  the 
marked  sow  was  respected. 

The  old  hunter  who  first  settled  in  this  country  regarded 
the  meat  of  the  bear  as  very  much  superior   to   that  of  the 


i 


492  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 

hog.  It  was  more,  easily  kept  and  required  less  salt  and  when 
made  into  bacon  was  regarded  by  him  as  superior  to  the  best 
cornfed  pork  made  into  bacon.  The  oil  of  the  bear  was  much 
richer,  more  penetrating  and  better  flavored  than  hog  lard. 
The  time  soon  came,  however,  when  there  were  but  few  bears  in 
the  country,  then  the  hog  was  brought  into  general  use  for 
bacon.  When  a  tracking  snow  would  fall,  the  farmer  would 
take  his  boj^s  and  some  of  his  hunting  companions  and  go  to 
the  range  where  his  wild  hogs  ran,  taking  two  or  three  good 
dogs  with  them  who  understood  how  to  guard  against  the 
terrible  tusks  of  the  old  male  hogs.  When  the  hogs  were 
found,  a  regular  battle  was  on,  and  all  that  would  do  for 
meat  were  killed.  Sometimes  the  fights  between  the  old 
male  hogs  and  the  men  and  dogs  were  terrible.  There  never 
was  a  more  vicious  animal  on  this  continent  than  these  old 
hogs.  When  once  attacked,  they  fought  to  a  finish.  They 
had  tusks  which  were  often  four  inches  long  sticking  out 
three  inches  on  each  side  of  their  mouths  and  as  sharp  as  a 
knife.  With  one  stroke  of  their  tusks  the}'  could  kill  a  dog, 
cut  a  man's  legs  half  off  or  ruin  a  horse.  Wild  hogs  have 
been  known  to  give  battle  to  a  dozen  wolves  and  put  them  to 
flight.  One  evening  two  hunters  who  had  their  homes  in 
southern  Davis  County,  not  far  from  White  river,  had  been 
out  hunting  and  were  returning  to  their  homes  loaded  down 
with  turkeys  just  a  little  while  before  sundown.  They  found 
themselves  near  a  large  thicket  in  which  hazel  bushes  were 
the  principal  growth.  They  heard  a  pig  commence  to  squeal 
not  far  from  where  they  were  and  soon  heard  hogs  making  a 
terrible  noise  as  if  they  were  attacking  some  animal  or  were 
holding  one  at  bay.  The  hunters,  thinking  it  was  a  panther 
or  wildcat  which  had  caught  the  pig,  slipped  up,  intending  to 
shoot  it,  and  they  advanced  as  far  as  they  felt  it  was  safe  to 
go.  Owing  to  the  thickness  of  the  brush,  they  could  not  see 
what  it  was  the  hogs  were  fighting,  but  they  could  tell  there 
was  a  desperate  fight  of  some  sort  on.  Not  far  to  one  side  a 
dead  tree  had  fallen  and  lodged  in  the  fork  of  another  tree. 
They  climbed  up  the  log  to  where  it  was  ten  or  twelve  feet 
from    the   ground    and    saw  a   large    black   bear  backed  up 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA.  4^3 

against  a  log.  He  was  using  both  arms,  boxing  right  and 
left,  as  he  -was  being  held  at  bay  by  twenty  or  twenty-five 
hogs.  The  hunters  said  they  had  never  seen  such  a  furious 
fight  and  they  watched  it  to  a  finish.  There  were  several 
large  male  hogs  with  terrible  tusks  and  thej' would  charge  in 
pairs,  intending  to  tusk  him  in  each  side,  but  the  bear  was  on 
the  defensive  and  would  knock  them  right  and  left.  After  a 
long  fight  the  hogs  changed  their  mode  of  attack  and  rushed 
at  the  bear  four  and  five  at  a  time.  In  this  way  they  soon 
got  in  their  work.  They  literally  tore  the  bear  to  pieces  and 
were  eating  it  up  when  the  two  hunters  were  glad  to  slip 
away  without  attracting  attention. 

SHOOTING   MARCHES. 

In  an  early  daj'  the  rifle  was  indispensable.  It  was 
necessary  to  carrj'  a  gun  everywhere.  The  rifles  were  very 
high-priced  and  it  was  often  very  difficult  to  secure  them,  and 
it  was  many  years  after  this  country  commenced  to  settle  be- 
fore any  were  manufactured  in  this  territory.  The  guns  with 
which  the  settlers  drove  the  Indians  away  were  made  in  Vir- 
ginia and  North  Carolina.  Some  were  made  in  Kentucky. 
The  rifle  was  naturally  regarded  as  a^  princely  treasure. 
They  became  very  proficient  in  repairing  their  rifles.  When 
they  did  not  shoot  correctly,  the)'  moved  the  sights  until  they 
were  correct. 

The  men  who  in  this  day  have  high-priced  guns  and  use 
them  only  a  few  weeks  in  the  hunting  season  can  form  no 
idea  how  the  old  pioneer  hunters  regarded  their  guns,  keep- 
ing them  at  all  times  in  perfect  order  and  ready  for  use  at 
any  moment.  When  in  the  calkins  the  guns  were  hung  in  a 
crotch  over  the  door  or  on  the  side  of  a  joist,  with  the  point 
of  a  deer's  horn  for  a  rack.  They  did  not  have  the  percussion 
caps  at  that  time  to  fire  the  powder,  but  had  a  gun  flint  which 
was  fitted  between  two  plates  in  the  end  of  the  hammer  of  the 
gun-lock  and  securely  fastened  there.  When  the  trigger  that 
threw  the  hammer  was  touched,  the  hammer  or  flint,  in  com- 
ing down,  struck  against  an  upright  piece  of  hardened  steel 
which  was   fastened   to  the  lid  of  the  pan  which  covered  the 


494  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 

powder  and  threw  the  pan  open.  The  sparks  made  by  the 
flint  coming  in  contact  with  the  hardened  steel  fell  in  the 
powder  which  was  in  the  pan,  which  was  connected  with  the 
powder  in  the  gun  barrel  through  a  touch  hole,  and  fired  the 
gun.  In  damp  weather  the  powder  in  the  pan  would  become 
a  little  damp  and  the  gun  would  make  long  fire,  as  it  was 
termed,  so  the  old  hunters  became  adepts  at  holding  their 
guns  very  steady,  always  prepared  for  the  long  fire. 

The  pioneers  learned  to  shoot  with  great  accuracy  with 
these  old  flint-lock  guns.  Eight  times  put  of  ten  they  would 
shoot  a  panther's  eye  out  sixty  and  eighty  yards  away. 
When  powder  and  lead  became  more  plentiful  the  hunters 
would  practice  shooting  at  a  mark,  both  with  a  rest  which 
was  lying  down  and  resting  the  gun  on  a  log  or  chunk  or 
standing  up  and  shooting  off-hand.  They  made  a  target  by 
taking  a  board  and  blackening  a  spot  on  it  with  wet  powder; 
then  two  marks  were  made  with  a  knife  that  crossed  each 
other  in  the  black  spot.  Then  taking  a  small  piece  of  paper 
about  two  inches  square,  cutting  a  square  out  of  the  center 
about  one-half  inch  in  size,  tacked  it  on  the  board  so  that  the 
cross  would  be  in  the  center  of  the  small  square.  It  was  not 
considered  a  very  difficult  feat  for  a  marksman  to  shoot  the 
center  out  five  times  out  of  ten,  sixty  yards  off-hand  or  one 
hundred  with  the  rest. 

The  rifle  shooting  was  one  of  the  main  sources  of  amuse- 
ment that  the  old  hunters  had.  Shooting  matches  were  very 
common  in  all  parts  of  settled  Indiana  up  to  the  last  of  the 
forties. 

A  shooting  match  was  usually  arranged  for  Saturday. 
Some  one  who  owned  a  ste^r  or  heifer  that  was  good  beef 
would  send  out  word  that  on  a  certain  day  there  would  be  a 
shooting  match  at  his  place.  Everyone  who  cared  to,  at- 
tended, and  there  was  usually  a  large  number  in  attendance. 
The  beef  was  seen  and  valued  at  what  was  considered  a  fair 
price.  If  it  were  worth  twelve  dollars,  it  would  be  divided 
into  one  hundred  and  twenty  chances  at  ten  cents  each.  The 
men  wanting  to  engage  in  the  contest  could  take  as  many 
chances  as  they  wanted,  so  long  as  it  was  not  more  than  one- 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA.  49S 

fifth  of  the  whole  number.  When  all  had  taken  and  paid  for 
their  chances,  the  next  thing  to  do  was  to  select  two  men  to- 
act  as  judges  who  prepared  the  boards  for  targets  and  cut  the 
name  of  each  man  who  was  to  shoot  on  his  board.  Some 
times  the  chances  would  not  all  be  taken — then  the  owner  of 
the  beef  could  take  the  remaining  chances  if  there  were  not 
more  than  one-fifth  of  them  and  shoot  out  his  chances,  or  he 
could  select  some  one  to  shoot  them  out  for  him.  Often  some 
one  who  had  chances  of  his  own  would  be  selected  to  shoot 
out  the  owner's  chance.  Some  times  when  the  owner  had 
one-fifth  of  the  chances  and  a  good  shot  selected  to  shoot  for 
him,  the  whole  beef  would  be  won.  The  judges  had  charge 
of  the  boards  and  they  were  placed  against  the  tree  that  the 
lead  was  to  lodge  in,  and  when  the  chances  had  all  been  shot 
out,  the  judges  took  each  board  and  made  a  correct  record  of 
the  shooting  in  this  manner: 

First — So  many  plumb-centers  which  were  determined  by 
holding  two  strings  over  each  mark.  In  this  way  they  could 
determine  if  the  middle  of  the  ball  hit  the  center.  Second — 
So  many  centers  cut  out.  Third  —  So  many  centers  lead^ 
which  meant  that  the  ball  jnst  grazed  the  center,  but  did  not 
cut  it  quite  out.  Then  a  record  of  the  distance  of  the  balls 
which  did  not  hit  the  center  was  made  by  measurement. 
When  the  records  had  been  made  up,  the  awards  were  made 
by  first,  second,  third,  fourth  and  fifth  choices,  which  us- 
ually meant  the  hide  tallow  and  lead  which  had  been  shot 
into  the  tree  was  the  first  choice;  the  second  choice,  one  of 
the  hind  quarters;  third  choice,  the  other  hind  quarter;  the 
fourth  choice,  one  of  the  fore  quarters;  the  fifth  choice,  the 
other  fore  quarter.  If  it  were  not  too  late  in  the  day,  the  in- 
terested parties  would  butcher  the  beef,  hanging  up  the  meat 
to  cool  and  the  next  morning  send  for  it. 

This  gathering  of  woodsmen  was  a  day  of  recreation  and 
pleasure,  spent  in  talking  over  the  old  hunting  experiences 
they  had  had  together.  There  was  alwaj^s  the  most  scrupu- 
lous exactness  by  all  in  determining  distances  and  shooting 
not  to  show  a  semblance  of  cheating.     These  men,  though 


4%  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 

» 

rough  and  uncouth  in  manner  and  dress,  were  the  souls  of 
honor. 

EARLY   TIMES   IN    WHAT    IS    NOW    DUBOIS   COUNTY,    INDIANA. 

John  and  William  McDonald  were  the  first  permanent 
settlers  in  Dubois  Count}',  Indiana.  Thej^  moved  from 
Clark's  Grant  in  1802  and  settled  near  what  was  then  called 
the  Mud  Holes,  where  Porters ville  was  afterwards  located 
and  became  the  first  seat  of  justice  for  the  county.  The  two 
McDonalds  builded  cabins  and  cleared  each  a  small  farm  or. 
field.  During  the  summer  of  1804  the  Indians  became  so 
threatening-  thej^  took  their  families  back  to  Clark's  Grant, 
now  Jeffersonville,  Indiana.  The  two  men  returned,  and 
while  one  of  them,  with  his  gun,  was  secreted  in  a  place 
where  he  could  have  a  good  view  of  the  surroundings,  watch- 
ing for  the  Indians,  the  brother  cultivated  their  small  fields. 
The)'  had  no  feed  ,for  their  horses,  but  turned  them  out  at 
night  to  graze  on  the  range,  hunting  them  up  in  the  morning 
to  plow. 

In  the  last  of  the  summer,  one  of  their  horses  took  the 
tires  and  died;  the  remaining  one  was  still  turned  on  the 
range  at  night.  One  morning  the}'  failed  to  hear  the  bell, 
when  William  McDonald  started  to  hunt  for  the  horse.  Af- 
ter hunting  for  some  time,  he  found  the  horse's  track  and 
found  that  it  had  gone  in  a  southeasterly  direction.  Follow- 
ing along  the  track  for  several  miles,  the  horse  having  gone 
in  a  straight  course,  McDonald  decided  some  one  had  stolen 
the  animal.  He  continued  on  the  trail,  coming  near  the  big 
bend  in  the  Patoka  river  a  few  miles  west  of  where  Knox- 
ville,  Dubois  County,  now  stands.  When  he  got  near  the 
bank  of  the  river  he  could  see  a  smoke  across  the  end  of  the 
bend.  Creeping  up  through  the  underbrush  he  came  in 
sight  of  a  camp  and  saw  three  Indians  moving  around,  and  a 
little  to  one  side  his  horse  tied  to  a  sapling.  Secreting  him- 
self in  the  thick  brush,  intending  to  watch  awhile  and  see 
what  the  Indians  were  doing  there,  he  had  not  long  been  in 
hiding  when  he  heard  the  voice  of  a  woman  crying  and 
pleading  with   some  one  not  to  kill  her  child.     Getting  in  a 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA.  497 

position  to  see  the  camp  ag^ain,  he  saw  a  burly  Indian  holding 
a  little  child  two  or  three  years  old  by  the  hair  with  one  hand 
and  a  club  drawn  back  in  the  other  as  if  to  strike  it  and  mak- 
ing pretended  blows  as  if  intending  to  kill  the  child,  the  poor 
mother  all  the  time  pleading  for  its  life.  Another  Indian 
came  to  them  and  said  something  in  the  Indian  tongue,  when 
the  little  child  was  restored  to  its  mother.  There  seemed  to 
be  several  persons  around  a  bark  shed  or  camp,  but  McDonald 
did  not  dare  expose  himself  so  he  could  get  a  good  view  of 
them.  He  quietly  slipped  back  the  way  he  had  come  until  he 
was  out  of  sight  of  the  smoke  and  then  hurried  back  to  his 
cabin.  When  he  arrived  there  he  found  eight  men  eating 
their  meal  around  a  fire  built  a  little  way  to  one  side  of  the 
cabin.  McDonald  hurriedly  told  his  brother  of  his  discovery. 
When  the  other  men  were  informed  of  it  they  became  greatly 
excited  and  asked  William  McDonald  to  pilot  them  to  the 
place  where  he  had  seen  the  Indians.  They  started,  taking 
the  trail  made  by  the  horse  and  followed  it  to  about  one- 
fourth  of  a  mile  of  the  place  at  which  McDonald  had  left 
them  three  hours  before.  It  was  then  about  one  o'clock  in  the  af- 
ternoon. They  held  a  consultation,  agreeing  that  McDonald 
should  pilot  them  to  a  point  as  near  the  Indians  as  it  was  safe 
to  go,  if  they  were  still  there,  which  he  did.  They  were  still 
in  camp  and  the  horse  was  tied  to  the  sapling.  Several  per- 
sons were  seen,  some  of  them  walking  around,  others  lying  on 
the  ground. 

The  Kentuckians  said  there  ;^ere  seven  Indians  and  that 
the  leader  or  chief  was  very  large,  nearly  twice  the  size  of  an 
ordinary  man,  and  that  they  had  two  women  and  two  chil- 
dren prisoners  whom  they  had  captured  six  days  before  about 
thirty  miles  south  of  the  Ohio  river,  crossing  the  river  at 
Yellow  Banks,  now  Rockport,  Indiana,  and  they  had  followed 
their  trail  about  twenty-five  miles  north  on  the  trace  which 
led  to  the  old  Delaware  town  at  the  forks  of  White  river. 
Two  nights  before  they  had  traveled  all  night  on  that  trace 
and  had  lost  the  trail  of  the  Indians.  They  had  been  to 
White  river  and  up  and  down  it,  but  failed  to  find  any  trace 
of  them.     The  Kentuckians  held  a  final  consultation  and  it 


498  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 

was  ag^reed  they  would  circle  around  the  camp,  which  was 
near  the  bank  of  Patoka  river,  leaving  the  men  so  there 
would  be  a  space  of  about  seventy-five  yards  between  them. 
The  leader,  Captain  John  Enloe,  when  he  should  g^et  into  a 
position  near  the  river  on  the  opposite  side  of  the  camp  so  he 
could  keep  the  Indians  from  passing:  between  him  and  the 
river,  wa«  to  imitate  the  scream  of  a  panther,  which  he  could 
do  to  perfection.  This  would  brings  the  Indians  to  their  feet. 
Then  they  were  to  shoot  at  every  Indian  in  sig^ht.  They  were 
about  a  half  an  hour  g^etting^  around  the  camp  and  slipping^  up  to 
it  before  the  terrible  scream  was  heard.  The  Indians  rushed 
for  their  g^uns  and  started  to  find  the  animal,  when  the  rifles 
of  the  Kentuckians  commenced  to  crack.  There  were  four 
Indians  in  sight  with  guns.  Three  of  them  were  killed  and 
the  fourth  ran  down  the  bank  of  the  river,  when  young  John 
Risley  rushed  up  to  the  bank  of  the  river  to  keep  the  Indian 
in  sight  until  he  could  load  his  gun,  but  he  was  shot  through 
the  thigh  and  badly  disabled.  Captain  Enloe  ran  up  and 
killed  the  Indian  before  he  could  get  out  of  the  water;  After 
the  battle  was  over  the  men  cautiously  advanced  on  the  bark 
tepee.  One  of  the  white  women  came  running  to  where  the  men 
were  and  told  them  that  three  Indians  were  in  the  bark  hut;^ 
that  an  Indian  doctor  was  giving  them  a  sweat  bath;  that  the 
three  men  were  desperately  wounded,  but  the  doctor  was  un- 
hurt. The  men  surrounded  the  hut  and  tore  it  down.  They 
found  the  Indian  doctor  dressed  in  the  most  outlandish  ap- 
parel they  had  ever  seen  and  the  three  wounded  men,  one  of 
whom  was  the  big  chief.  The  woman  said  that  two  nights 
before  they  had  camped  in  a  rough  place  where  there  were 
many  deep  gorges  and  that  during  the  night  several  panthers 
had  attacked  the  party  while  they  were  asleep,  terribly 
lacerating  three  of  the  men  before  they  could  beat  them  oif . 
They  had  carried  the  three  wounded  Indians  some  distance  to- 
that  place,  made  a  camp  and  sent  a  runner  for  an  Indian  doc- 
tor, who  had  arrived  that  morning  riding  McDonald's  horse^ 
There  were  two  brothers  of  the  women  prisoners  in  the  res- 
cuing party  and  they  were  determined  to  kill  the  Indian  doc- 
tor and  wounded  Indians,   which   they  did.     The  eight  dead 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA.  499 

Indians  were  thrown  into  a  gulch  that  ran  into  the  Patoka 
river  and  covered  with  rocks,  logs  and  brush.  The  rescuing 
party  then  went  back  to  McDonald's  cabin  and  remained  over 
night.  Young  Risley  rode  McDonald's  horse  and  it  was  sev- 
eral months  before  he  was  able  to  walk  again.  During  the 
night  the  shoe  pacs  of  the  women  and  the  moccasins  of  the 
men  were  mended  and  put  in  good  shape,  and  next  morning 
they  took  their  departure  for  their  Kentucky  homes.  The 
two  women  were  widows,  living  together,  their  husbands 
having  been  killed  the  year  before  in  a  battle  with  the  In- 
dians. There  was  a  young  lady  friend  visiting  the  widows 
who  was  not  in  the  house  when  the  Indians  came.  She  hid 
in  a  thicket  until  the  Indians  were  gone,  then  hurried  to  the 
nearest  neighborhood  and  gave  the  alarm.  It  was  a  day  be- 
fore a  sufficient  number  of  men  could  be  gotten  together  to 
follow  so  large  a  number  of  Indians. 

HUNTING  WOLVES. 

The  sneaking,  snarling  wolves  were  the  most  despised  of 
all  animals  by  the  old  hunters.  They  were  treacherous  and 
cowardly  and  never  could  be  seen  unless  they  were  in  such 
numbers  as  to  have  a  decided  advantage.  They  seldom  at- 
tacked a  larger  animal  than  a  deer  or  a  calf,  but  when  hun- 
gry, they  would  attack  a  cow  and  kill  her. 

A  farmer  who  lived  on  the  head  waters  of  Pigeon  creek, 
in  Warrick  County,  Indiana,  turned  his  horse  out  to  graze  at 
night.  The  next  morning  he  found  the  bones  only  a  little 
way  from  his  stable. 

Often  when  following  a  wounded  deer  the  hunter  would 
find  a  dozen  wolves  had  cut  in  on  the  trail  ahead  of  him. 
They  were  such  a  menace  that  the  hunters  induced  the 
county  commissioners  to  offer  a  reward  for  each  scalp,  big  or 
little.  This  soon  thinned  them  out  and  provided  a  source  of 
revenue  to  the  hunters.  Manv  of  them  would  have  ten  or 
fifteen  scalps  at  a  time.  Early  in  the  forties  Jacob  W.  Har- 
grove found  a  wolf  den  in  the  hollow  of  a  large  tree  in  west- 
ern Pike  County  near  the  Patoka  river.  There  were  six  pup- 
pies  in  the  den.     He  had  watched  several  days  for  a  chance 


SOO  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 

to  kill  the  old  ones,  but  could  never  see  them.  He  went  to  the 
bed  one  evening  and  marked  the  puppies'  ears  with  his  mark. 
That  night  the  old  wolves  moved  them  and  the  next  day  the 
two  old  ones  were  killed  on  Smith's  Fork  of  Pigeon  Creek,  at 
least  ten  miles  as  the  bird  flies  from  their  den  on  the  Patoka 
river.  They  were  killed  by  Jacob  Skelton  and  his  son  John. 
They  found  the  puppies,  scalped  them  and  took  the  eight 
scalps  to  Princeton,  where  they  received  eight  dollars  for 
them.  Then  they  went  to  the  Recorder's  office,  found  the 
marks  of  Mr.  Hargrove  recorded,  took  out  one  dollar  for  their 
trouble  and  sent  five  dollars  to  him  for  the  scalps  of  the  six 
puppies  which  he  had  marked. 

David  Bilderback  and  Peter  Ferguson,  who  lived  in 
Monroe  township.  Pike  county,  went  to  a  wolf's  den  they 
knew  of,  intending  to  kill  the  puppies  and  get  the  reward 
then  paid  for  them.  Bilderback  stationed  himself  beside  a 
tree  at  the  entrance  of  the  den,  to  shoot  any  old  wolves 
should  they  be  attracted  by  the  cries  of  their  puppies.  Fer- 
guson entered  the  den  and  began  the  work  of  killing  the  pup- 
pies and  cutting  oflF  their  ears.  The  old  wolves  came  at  him 
in  a  terrible  fury,  having  heard  the  puppies' cries,  but  no  shot 
was  heard,  and  Ferguson  barely  escaped  with  his  life.  He 
rushed  for  his  gun,  standing  against  a  tree,  and  saw  Bilder- 
back up  a  sapling  calling  to  the  wolves,  *'Be  gone!  Be  gone!" 
They  drove  the  old  wolves  away  without  succeeding  in  kill- 
ing any  of  them.  Ferguson  finished  scalping  the  puppies 
and  received  the  reward. 

Along  in  the  ^'forties"  there  was  a  class  of  hunters  who 
took  to  the  sporting  side  of  the  chase.  In  every  neighbor- 
hood solneone  would  own  a  pack  of  long-eared  fox  hounds.  In 
hunting  with  them  a  large  number  of  men  and  sometimes 
women,  too,  would  follow  the  hounds,  imitating  the  old 
English  fox  hunt.  On  the  trail  of  the  red  and  grey  fox  the 
dogs  would  continuously  give  ven,t  to  the  old  hound  *'balloo!" 
which  could  be  heard  for  miles.  Many  of  these  hunts  would 
take  in  a  large  territory.  The  dogs  would  run  thirty  or  forty 
miles  in  a  zig-zag  direction  across  the  country.  These  dogs 
were  used  for  coon-hunting  in  the  night  and  the  woods  were 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA.  .  501 

in  an  uproar  almost  every  night.  The  dogs  would  often  go 
out  of  their  own  accord  and  chase  deer,  foxes  and  other  ani^ 
mals  for  hours  at  a  time.  It  was  not  long  after  these  dogs 
became  common  in  this  country  until  the  deer  were  all  gone 
or  nearly  so.  The  incessant  noise  in  the  woods  drove  the 
deer  back  to  the  wilder  sections  of  the  country.  The  hounds 
thinned  out  the  foxes,  to  the  great  advantage  of  those  raising 
chickens  and  geese,  which  was  a  very  difficult  proposition  at 
that  time.  People  did  not  house  their  chickens  at  night,  as 
they  do  now,  but  let  them  roost  on  the  fence,  in  the  apple 
trees  and  other  places,  as  they  chose. 

At  this  time  geese  were  raised.  Nearly  every  family  itt 
the  country  would  have  from  twenty  to  fifty  head,  and  unless 
they  were  penned  up  every  night,  the  foxes  and  wildcats 
would  carry  them  oif .  At  that  date  they  were  very  valuable 
property  in  several  ways.  Their  feathers  were  in  large  de- 
mand and  they  yielded  a  large  amount  each  year.  Every  six 
weeks  they  were  ready  for  plucking,  and  many  a  woman  car- 
ried black  and  blue  marks  on  her  arm  from  one  plucking  to 
the  next,  pinched  there  by  the  goose  as  he  was  being  robbed 
of  his  downy  coat.  The  feathers  brought  a  good  price  at  the 
trading  places.  In  remote  sections  the  peddlers  carried  their 
wares  around  in  wagons  and  exchanged  their  goods  for 
feathers.  Many  families  purchased  the  greater  portion  of 
their  needed  supplies  with  them.  Transition  from  the  leaf, 
brush,  straw  and  skin-covered  couches  to  the  soft  featherbed, 
the  most  luxurious  couch  man  ever  lay  on,  was  a  great  ad- 
vancement in  the  comforts  of  life.  At  an  earlier  date  there 
were  a  great  many  of  these  people  who  resorted  to  many  ex- 
pedients to  have  a  better  bed  than  was  in  general  use,  and  in. 
some  cases  they  succeeded  very  well.  ^ 

Mrs.  Nancy  Davis,  who  lived  to  be  more  than  a  hundred 
years  old  and  resided  in  Pike  County,  Indiana,  tells  how  she 
obtained  a  good  bed  in  the  early  days.  After  she  moved  to- 
the  section  where  she  raised  her  large  family,  they  had 
nothing  but  brush  and  skin  beds.  There  were  five  boys  in. 
the  family,  who  spent  most  of  their  time  during  the  fall  and 
winter  in  hunting,  and  each  day,  by  agreement  with  their 


502  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 

mother,  would  brings  home  one  or  more  turkeys.  The  mother 
picked  the  fine  feathers  off  and  in  a  short  time  had  several 
gfood  beds  for  her  family.  In  after  years,  when  they  could 
raise  g^eese,  she  had  as  many  as  two  hundred  at  a  time,  and 
with  the  money  she  received  from  the  sale  of  the  feathers,  en- 
tered three  forty-acre  tracts  of  land. 

EARLY  DAYS  AROUND  SPRINKLESBURG,  NOW  NEWBURG,  INDIANA. 

Major  John  Sprinkles  made  the  first  settlement  in  south- 
western Warrick  County  in  1803.  At  that  time  there  was  a 
settlement  at  Redbanks,  now  Henderson,  Kentucky,  and  a 
few  people  scattered  along  the  south  bank  of  the  Ohio  river 
in  Kentucky.  A  little  above  where  the  Major  settled  was  a 
Shawnee  Indian  town  which  was  scattered  for  several  miles 
up  and  back  from  the  river.  This  band  of  Shawnees  was  un- 
der the  control  of  Chief  Seeteedown,  who,  for  an  Indian,  was 
very  well-to-do,  having  large  droves  of  horses  and  cattle. 
These  Indians  at  that  time  were  very  peaceable  with  the  few 
white  persons  who  lived  in  that  section.  During  the  year 
1807  two  young  cousins  of  the  Major's  came  down  the  Ohio 
river  in  a  boat,  intending  to  make  a  visit'  and  then  go  on  to 
the  Illinois  country.  The  two  young  men  were  there  for 
some  time  with  the  Major,  roaming  through  the  woods. 
They  had  come  from  the  old  settled  section  of  Pennsylvania 
and  everything  seemed  new  and  strange  to  them. 

In  the  fall,  when  the  deer  were  at  their  best  and  the  bear 
fat  upon  the  mast,  the  Major  and  his  two  kinsmen  weilt  a 
little  way  back  from  the  river  and.  made  a  camp,  intending  to 
have  a  week's  hunting.  They  had  been  hunting  two  or  three 
days  when  the  two  boys  had  an  experience,  the  marks  of 
which  they  carried  to  the  end  of  their  lives.  They  had  been 
following  a  drove  of  deer  for  some  time,  when  they  came 
upon  an  old  bear  and  two  cubs  eating  acorns  under  a  white 
oak  tree.  One  of  the  boys  shot  one  of  the  small  bears,  knock- 
ing it  down.  The  old  mother  and  the  other  little  one  ran  off. 
It  seemed  that  the  little  bear  was  only  stunned  and  was  not 
fatally  injured  and  was  soon  up,  staggering  around.  The 
young  men  ran  up  to  it,  intending  to  finish   it   with   their 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA.  503 

"hunting  knives.  They  laid  their  guns  down,  but  had  not 
quite  reached  the  place  where  the  young  bear  was  until  the 
old  mother  came  at  them  savagely. 

They  attempted  to  get  their  guns,  but  before  they  suc- 
ceeded, the  old  bear  knocked  one  of  them  down.  The  other 
got  his  gUTl,  but  it  was  empty,  and  rushing  at  the  bear  that 
was  fighting  his  brother,  he  struck  it  on  the  head  with  the 
gun  barrel.  The  bear  knocked  the  gun  out  of  his  hands  with 
such  force  that  it  broke  his  arm.  The  other  brother,  though 
l)adly  wounded,  got  his  gun  and  attempted  to  shoot  the  bear 
in  the  head  as  it  was  biting  his  brother,  but  his  aim  was  so 
bad  that  he  only  slightly  wounded  it,  and  it  then  turned  on 
him  and  knocked  him  down,  biting  his  legs  in  a  fearful  man- 
ner. The  boy  with  the  broken  arm  stabbed  the  bear  many 
times  with  his  hunting  knife  and  finally  hurt  it  fatally.  It 
started,  however,  to  follow  its  two  cubs,  but  had  gone  only 
about  a  hundred  yards  when  it  laid  down  and  died.  The 
young  men  were  found  by  the  Major  and  taken  to  camp  and 
then  to  his  cabin,  where  they  were  for  several  months  before 
they  were  able  to  be  out.  This  experience  satisfied  them  and 
cured  their  roving  dispositions  and  they  returned  to  their 
Pennsylvania  homes. 

In  1812  the  Indians  were  very  bad  and  everybody  had  to 
live  in  forts.  The  one  which  was  in  the  neighborhood  where 
Major  Sprinkles  lived  had  a  number  of  families  in  it,  consisting 
of  the  Hayes,  Lynns,  Sprinkles,  Alexanders,  Darbys,  Frames, 
Wests  and  Roberts — in  all,  more  than  thirty-five  persons.  It 
was  not  regarded  as  safe  for  any  to  live  outside  of  the  forts 
during  that  year  from  the  first  of  June  to  the  last  of  No- 
vember. 

There  was  a  young  girl  who  lived  with  one  of  these 
families  who  was  expecting  a  sister  from  central  Tennessee. 
She  was  very  uneasy  about  her,  fearing  she  had  been  cap- 
tured by  the  Indians.  Late  one  evening,  just  before  dusk,  a 
whining,  piteous  cry  was  heard,  which  did  not  seem  like  the 
scream  of  the  panther,  as  it  was  continuous.  This  girl 
heard  the  noise  and  declared  it  was  the  cry  of  her  sister,  and 
nothing  could  stop  her  from  going  out  to  it.    Before  the  men 


504  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 

in  the  fort  realized  her  intentions,  she  was  running  in  the  di- 
rection of  the  noise.  Three  of  the  men  got  their  rifles  and 
hurried  after  her.  They  were  uncertain  what  it  was,  think- 
ing it  might  be  the  ruse  of  the  Indians  trying*  to  imitate  the 
cry  of  a  woman  or  child  to  draw  some  of  the  people  into  an 
ambush.  The  men  had  gone  nearly  a  quarter  of  a  mile 
when  they  heard  the  most  terrible  scream  of  a  panther 
mingled  with  the  outcry  of  the  unfortunate  girl.  Hurrying 
as  fast  as  they  could,  when  they  located  the  scream,  they 
were  very  cautious  in  their  advance.  Coming  to  an  open 
space,  they  saw  several  animals  which  were  biting  and 
scratching  at  the  body  of  the  girl  they  had  killed.  The  men 
killed  the  old  panther  and  two  of  the  young  ones  that  she,  no 
doubt,  was  trying  to  teach  to  scream,  which  was  the  cause  of 
the  peculiar  noise  they  heard.  After  she  had  killed  the  girl, 
she  was  teaching  the  young  ones  how  to  attack  their  prey, 
and  she  would  bound  onto  the  prostrate  form  and  bite  and 
scratch  it.  The  kittens  would  go  through  the  same  motions, 
and  thus  had  torn  her  to  pieces. 

In  1816  Major  Sprinkles  laid  out  the  town  of  Sprinkles- 
burg,  which  is  now  known  as  Newburg,  Warrick  County, 
Indiana. 

HUNTING  DEER. 

The  deer  were  so  plentiful  that  they  were  to  be  seen 
every  little  distance  in  passing  through  the  forest,  sometimes 
in  large  droves.  The  reason  they  were  not  exterminated 
sooner  by  the  hunters  in  the  rush  to  secure  their  hams  and 
hides,  as  were  the  buifaloes  on  the  open  plains  of  the  north- 
west, was  that  the  greater  portion  of  Indiana  was  a  dense 
wilderness,  having  many  thickets  of  underbrush  "So  dense 
that  they  could  safely  hide  in  them.  There  was  great  skill  in 
hunting  them.  Some  would*  kill  three  deer  to  his  neighbor's 
one,  who  hunted  equally  as  faithfully. 

Early  in  the  twenties  Andrew  McGregory  moved  to  the 
neighborhood  of  what  is  now  Somerville,  Indiana.  The  next 
year  the  two  oldest  boys,  CJeorge  and  John,  put  in  all  their 
time  hunting.  Thart  winter  they  sold  enough  venison  hams 
to  come  to  $75.00.     The. hams  at  that  time  were  worth  only 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA.  SOS 

twenty-five  cents  a  pair.  They  entered  forty  acres  of  land 
and  had  enough  to  purchase  their  ammunition,  salt  and  other 
indispensable  supplies  for  the  family. 

The  next  year  Georg^e,  the  oldest  son,  killed  deer,  caught 
coons  and  paid  for  eighty  acres  of  land,  for  which  he  was 
nicknamed  '*George,  the  Deer  Killer."  The  father  of  these 
boys  was  from  Ireland,  coming  to  this  country  after  he  was 
sixty  years  old.  The  old  gentleman  could  never  become  used 
to  the  many  strange  things  he  found  on  every  hand. 

After  his  son  John  had  a  family,  the  father,  who  lived  to* 
be  nearly  a  hundred  years,  old,  made  his  home  there.  He  was 
a  very  industrious  man  and  wanted  to  be  at  work  all  the  time^ 
When  there  was  nothing  else  to  do  he  would  wander  through 
the  surrounding  forest  looking  at  the  many  strange  things  so 
different  from  his  old  home  in  the  north  of  Ireland.  In  his- 
wanderings  one  day  he  saw  a  hornets'  nest  hanging  to  the 
under  side  of  an  elm  limb  some  twenty  feet  from  the  ground. 
The  old  man  thought  it  was  a  jug  and  made  up  his  mind 
that  he  would  have  it.  Relating  the  experience  himself,  he 
said:  '*Now,  just  look  there — see  what  strange  kind  of  peo- 
ple we  have  in  this  country,  go  and  hang  a  jug  way  up  in  a 
tree.  Maybe  it  has  a  nip  of  the  creature  in  it;  I  will  see."^ 
Pulling  oif  his  shoes,  he  climbed  the  tree  like  a  squirrel,  and 
when  he  got  out  on  the  limb  over  the  nest  and  was  reaching 
under  to  get  the  jug,  the  hornets  swarmed  out  and  stung  him 
fearfully.  The  old  man  let  all  holds  go  and  fell  to  the 
ground,  which  came  near  killing  him.  Dinner  time  came 
and  the  old  man  had  not  yet  returned.  His  son,  becoming 
uneasy  at  his  absence,  started  out  to  find  him.  After  a  long 
hunt  he  found  him  near  where  he  had  fallen,  sitting  against 
a  log  with  his  shoes  off  and  badly  battered.  His  son,  on 
coming  up,  said,  "Father,  what  in  the  world  is  the  matter?"^ 
The  father  said,  *'John,  this  is  a  fine  country.  Just  see  that 
fine  jug  hanging  up  there!  John,  I  saw  it  and  I  thought  it 
such  a  pretty  jug  and  that  it  might  have  a  wee  drop  in  it,  I 
climbed  up  to  get  it,  and  while  reaching  under  the  limb  I 
pulled  the  cork  out  and  a  lot  of  nasty  little  varmints  bit  me 
all  over  my  hands  and  face  and  knocked  me  off  the  limb. 


506  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 

Here,  John,  is  your  old  dad,  all  battered  and  bruised.  Just 
think  what  a  mean  country  this  is  —  some  joking^  fellow  to 
play  such  an  impish  trick  on  a  poor  old  Irishman!" 

All  hunters  at  this  time  had  dog^s,  usually  of  the  cur 
breed.  When  on  hunting  trips  the  dogs  would  go  with  their 
masters  and  were  used  to  slow-track  the  game,  but  never 
made  any  outcry  and  would  only  go  as  fast  as  the  hunter  when 
slow-tracking.  In  this  way  they  were  very  useful,  and  often, 
in  a  bear  fight,  indispensable. 

About  eighty  years  ago  a  man  named  Grigsby  was  re- 
turning from  a  hunt  to  his  home  in  the  northeast  part  of 
Spencer  County.  The  pigeons  were  settling  on  their  roosts  on 
the  low  scrubby  ridge  oak  timber,  the  acorns  of  which  was 
their  food.  As  he  was  passing  along  he  heard,  a  little  way 
oif,  pigeons,  rising  and  flying  and  the  timber  crashing,  their 
weight  causing  large  limbs  to  break  off,  and  sometimes  tree 
tops.  As  Grigsby  got  nearer  the  noise,  he  heard  the  whining 
cry  of  some  animal.  Gk)ing  quietly  up,  he  saw  an  old  bear 
and  a  cub  which  seemed  to  be  trying  to  move  a  heavy  limb 
that  had  fallen.  He  shot  at  the  bear,  but  only  hit  her  in  the 
top  of  the  shoulder,  not  disabling  her.  Before  he  could  re- 
load, she  came  rushing  at  him.  His  dog  caught  the  bear  by 
the  hind  leg,  but  only  stopped  her  for  a  moment,  and  then 
she  came  at  the  hunter  with  all  the  fury  that  a  wounded  bear 
could.  The  hunter  clubbed  his  gun  and  there  was  a  battle 
royal  for  some  time,  the  dog  doing  his  best  to  help  his  master 
in  the  fight. 

Finally  the  bear  knocked  the  dog  down  and  attempted  to 
catch  him  by  ihe  throat  with  her  mouth,  when  the  hunter 
thrust  his  hunting  knife  into  her  heart. 

Jacob  Zenor,  an  early  settler  in  Harrison  County,  went  to 
watch  a  lick  for  a  deer  in  the  early  part  of  the  night,  leaving 
his  two  large  cur  dogs  at  home.  Selecting  a  location  in  a  thick 
cluster  of  saplings  a  short  distance  from  a  bushy  beech  tree, 
he  took  his  stand  to  watch.  He  had  been  there  but  a  short 
time  when  a  panther  sprang  from  the  place  where  it  was 
watching  the  lick  in  the  beech,  intending  to  light  on  the 
hunter,  but  the  saplings  were  so  thick   that   its  body  was 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA.  507 

stopped  before  reaching  the  hunter.  At  that  instant  his  two 
^ogs  came  up,  having^  followed  his  tracks.  The}'  rushed  at 
the  panther,  which  sprang  back  into  the  beech  tree,  and  was 
killed  by  Mr.  Zenor.  Had  it  not  been  for  his  two  faithful 
-dog^,  the  hunter  would  have  been  torn  to  pieces. 


CHAPTER  XX. 


FLAT-BOATING. 


After  produce  of  any  amount  was  raised  in  this  country 
it  was  sold  to  produce  merchants,  who  took  it  to  New  Orleans 
on  flat-boats. 

To  make  one  of  these  boats  was  quite  an  undertaking^. 
The  first  things  to  do  was  to  procure  two  g^unwales.  They 
were  usually  made  out  of  large  poplar  trees  and  were  from 
sixty  to  eig:hty  feet  in  length.  A  fine  large,  straight  tree 
was  selected,  and  after  it  was  cut  down,  two  faces  of  it  were 
hewn,  leaving  it  about  twenty-four  inches  thick.  Then  it 
was  turned  down  on  large  logs  and  split  in  halves,  hewn 
down  to  from  twelve  to  fifteen  inches  in  thickness,  thus  making 
both  the  gunwales  out  of  one  tree.  The  two  ends  were 
sloped  from  six  to  eight  feet,  so  that  when  the  bottom  was 
on,  it  had  a  boat  shape,  that  would  run  much  faster  in  the 
water.  The  gunwales  were  then  hauled  to  the  .boatyard  and 
placed  on  rollers.  The  distance  apart  which  was  wanted  for 
the  width  of  the  boat  was  usually  from  fourteen  to  sixteen 
feet.  Strong  sills  or  girders  were  framed  into  the  gunwales, 
every  eight  or  ten  feet  and  securely  fastened  there  by  strongs 
pins.  Small  girders  or  sleepers,  to  receive  the  bottom  of  the 
boat,  were  pinned  into  the  cross  sills  or  girders  every  eighteen 
inches  and  even  with  the  bottom  of  the  gunwales.  The  bot- 
tom was  made  of  one  and  a  half  inch  lumber,  the  length  ta 
reach  from  outside  to  outside  of  the  gunwales,  where  it  was 
securely  nailed  and  then  calked.  The  old  Indiana  flat-boat 
builders  used  hemp  for  calking,  driving  it  into  the  cracks  be- 
tween the  edges  of  the  planks  with  a  calking  chisel  made  for 
the  purpose.     When  this  was  done,  another  bottom  of  inch 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA.  509 

lumber  was  made  over  this  that  held  the  calking:  in  place  and 
made  the  bottom  stronger.  When  the  bottom  was  finished, 
it  was  ready  for  launching.  This  was  done  by  having  large 
auger  holes  in  the  round  logs  the  bottom  rested  on  and  turn- 
ing them  with  handspikes.  The  ground  was  always  sloping 
toward  the  river  and  it  did  not  require  much  turning  until  the 
logs  would  roll  down  the  slope  and  carry  the  boat  into  the 
water.  The  boat,  having  been  made  bottom-upward,  had  to 
be  turned.  A  large  amount  of  mud  and  dirt  was  piled  on  the 
edge  of  the  bottom,  which  was  intended  to  sink  it.  Then  a 
check  line  was  fastened  to  the  farthest  edge  and  near  the 
middle  the  line  was  carried  over  a  large  limb  or  the  fork  of  a 
tree  and  two  or  three  yoke  of  oxen  hitched  to  it.  When 
everything  was  ready,  the  boat  was  turned  right  side  up.  It 
was  then  full  of  water,  which  had  to  be  baled  out.  The  up- 
per framework  for  the  body  of  the  boat  was  made  very  se- 
curely and  well  braced  and  the  siding  was  nailed  on.  Strong 
joist*  were  put  on  top  of  the  framework  from  side  to  side  to 
hold  the  decking.  A  center  girder  ran  lengthwise  of  the 
boat  and  this  rested  on  a  post  every  six  or  eight  feet.  This 
girder  was  a  little  higher  than  the  outer  walls,  so  that  the 
water  would  run  oif  the  deck.  A  strong  post  was  fastened  in 
a  framework  made  on  the  false  bottom  which  came  up 
through  the  decking  about  three  feet  near  each  end  of  the 
boat.  Holes  were  bored  in  these  check  posts,  so  that  it  Could 
be  turned  around  with  long  wooden  spikes.  The  check  rope 
was  securely  fastened  to  these  posts  and  one  end  of  it  was 
carried  to  the  bank  and  fastened.  By  using  the  spikes  the 
check  post  would  take  up  the  slack  and  the  boat  could  be  se- 
curely landed  as  near  the  bank  as  wanted.  There  were  three 
long  oars,  the  steering  oar  had  a  wide  blade  on  the  end  and 
was  fastened  to  a  post  near  the  back  of  the  boat.  This  oar 
was  used  as  a  rudder  in  guiding  the  direction  of  the  boat. 
The  other  two  oars  were  used  as  sweeps  to  propel  the  boat 
and  to  pull  her  out  of  eddies.  This  crudely  fashioned  boat 
would  carry  a  large  amount  of  produce.  The  pork  was  us- 
ually packed  in  the  boat  in  bulk;  flour,  wheat  and  corn  were 
stored  on  raised  floors  so  as  to  keep  them  dry.     On  small 


SIO  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 

rivers  when  the  water  was  at  floodtide,  two  hundred  thou- 
sand pounds  of  pork,  one  thousand  bushels  of  corn  and  many 
other  articles  of  produce  would  be  carried. 

The  pioneers  made  their  location  where  there  was  plenty 
of  g^ood  spring  water,  but  at  a  later  date  they  had  two  ob- 
jects in  selecting  their  homes:  First,  to  be  near  a  mill  or  a 
place  where  there  was  a  good  mill-site;  second,  to  be  not  far 
from  a  river  where  a  flat-boat  could  be  loaded  with  produce. 
The  money  paid  for  the  produce  to  load  the  boats  brought 
great  prosperity  to  the  country.  On  the  lower  Mississippi, 
where  the  great  sugar  plantations  were,  there  was  a  great 
demand  for  this  provision.  A  boat  would  tie' to  the  bank 
near  one  of  these  immense  plantations  and  would  sell  the 
owner  a  half  boat-load  of  meat,  corn  and  flour. 

It  took  one  of  these  boats  a  month  to  run  out  of  the 
Wabash  down  to  New  Orleans.  They  would  sell  their  load  of 
produce  and  then  sell  the  boat.  These  old  boatmen  were  a 
jolly,  generous,  light-hearted  set  of  men,  and  would  often 
lash  their  boats  together  and  float  for  several  days  and  nights 
in  that  way  on  the  lower  Mississippi. 

This  description  does  not  apply  to  the  Pittsburg  flat-boat 
men  or  those  from  the  upper  Ohio,  running  coal  barges  down 
the  river.  These  were,  in  many  instances,  a  lot  of  despera- 
does. 


CHAPTER   XXI. 


General  Joseph  Lane — A  Short  Biography — Letters. 


General  Lane  contributed  his  full  share  to  the  military 
gflory  which  has  been  won  by  Indiana  soldiers.  He  was  born 
in  North  Carolina  in  1801  and  removed  with  his  father  to 
Henderson,  Kentucky,  when  he  was  six  years  old.  Here  he 
remained  for  several  years,  helping  his  father.  In.  1818  he, 
with  his  father,  moved  to  Vanderburg:  County,  Indiana. 
They  settled  on  a  farm  up  the  Ohio  river  not  far  from  the 
town  of  Newburg.  Young  Joseph  was  hired  by  Judge  Glass 
to  take  charge  of  a  store  for  him  at  Rockport,  Indiana.  He 
was  a  very  popular  young  man  and  made  friends  with  every 
one.  He  had  a  very  kind,  genial  disposition,  and  understood 
the  rules  of  business  very  well  for  that  day.  After  remaining 
there  for  a  while  he  purchased  a  keel-boat  and  cut  cordwood, 
which  he  loaded  into  the  boat  and  sold  to  steamboats.  The 
passing  boat  would  take  his  keel-boat  in  tow  and  haul  it  up 
dr  down  the  river  until  all  the  wood  that  was  wanted  was 
taken  oif  and  then  the  boat  was  cast  loose  and  rowed  to 
where  he  wanted  it  anchored. 

He  engaged  extensively  in  farming,  stock  raising  and 
stock  buying.  His  produce  he  sold  in  lower  Mississippi  and  in 
New  Orleans,  carrying  it  there  by  flat-boats,  of  which  he  ran 
a  great  many  out  of  the  Ohio  river.  He  carried  on  farming 
and  stock  dealing  until  the  Mexican  war.  He,  with  others, 
raised  the  Second  Indiana  Regiment.  The  regiment  was 
placed  in  a  division  commanded  by  General  Zachary  Taylor 
and  went  with  that  division  to  Mexico  and  was  there  engaged 
in  several  battles  of  the  Mexican  war. 

For  gallantry  and  meritorious  conduct  he  was  made  a. 


512  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 

brigadier-general.  After  the  war  he  was  appointed  Governor 
of  Oregon.  From  that  state  he  was  elected  United  States 
Senator.  He  was  also  a  candidate  for  the  Vice-Presidency  on 
the  Breckinridge  ticket  in  1860.  He  died  at  Roseburg,  Ore- 
j^on,  in  1881. 

Three   letters   are    here   introduced   from  General  Lane 
i«rhich  will  be  of  interest,  it  is  thought: 

Roseburg,  Oregon, 

May  15,  1878. 
Col.  W.  M.  Cqckrum, 

Oakland  City,  Ind. 

Dear  Sir:     I  don't  remember  of  ever  having 
seen  you,  as  you  must  have  been  a  very  small  boy 
the  last  of  the  thirties  and  up  to  1842,  the  last  time 
I  visited  your  father  at  his  Eastern  Gibson  County    • 
home. 

After  the  war  with  Mexico  I  was  never  in 
Indiana  except  short  periods  at  a  time.  As  I  read 
the  Indiana  papers,  I  know  of  you  and  that  you 
won  an  honorable  title  in  the  war  of  1861  and  '65. 
Your  father  and  I  were  friends — yes,  real  chums. 
I  recall  so  many  things  of  his  life  and  worth  that 
it  affords,  me  real  pleasure  to  thus  bear  testimony 
to  his  noble  manhood  and  integrity.  Many  times 
we  have  run  side  by  side  with  our  flat-boats  lashed 
together,  in  the  lower  Mississippi,  for  days  at  a 
time,  having  a  real,  old-fashioned  social  visit.  We 
were  not  of  the  same  political  faith,  but  I  don't 
know  that  politics  were  ever  mentioned  when  we 
were  together.  I  was  on  the  boat  at  the  time  you 
ask  about.  The  cause  of  the  contention  was  about 
a  bill  due  the  boat  for  freight  from  New  Orleans 
•  for  the  Davis  plantation.  As  I  now  recall,  it  was 
owned  by  two  brothers,  Joseph  and  the  Hohorable 
Jefferson  Davis.  The  man  who  caused  all  the 
trouble  was  a  hot-headed  manager  of  the  planta- 
tion for  the  Davis  brothers. 

There  was  a  wood-yard  on  the  plantation  and 
your  father's  boat,  the  Otsego,  had  taken  on  wood, 
and  when  the  bill  was  presented  the  clerk  for  pay- 
ment, the  freight  bill  was  given  in  part  payment. 
This  manager  was  a  very  important  fellow.  He 
raved  like  a  maniac,  saying  that  it  was  an  insult  to 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA.  513 

thus  force  collection  for  any  of  their  bills  and  he 
intended  to  see  that  the  boat  did  not  loose  her 
cable  or  raise  her  stag^e  until  the  bill  was  paid  in 
full  and  the}-  would  paj-  the  freight  bill  at  their 
pleasure. 

About  this  time  your  father,  who  was  captain 
of  the  boat,  ordered  the  mate  to  loose  the  cable  and 
raise  the  stage.  The  fool  manager  was  rushing  up 
and  down  along  the  side  of  the  boat  and  on  the 
stage  with  a  Daringer  pistol  in  his  hand,  ordering 
his  wood-yard  slaves  not  to  allow  the  men  to  loose 
the  cable.  The  Colonel  came  running  down  to  the 
lower  deck  with  a  monstrous  gun  in  his  hand, 
and  leveling  it  at  the  threatening  fellow,  ordered 
him  to  put  up  his  weapon  and  leave  the  gangway, 
which,  after  looking  into  that  gun,  he  concluded  to 
do.  All  the  history  of  myself  that  would  be  of 
importance  to  the  general  public  is  easily  secured 
b)'  )'ou  and  you  can  use  such  of  it  as  will  be  in  line 
with  your  work.  The  other  questions  you  asked 
about,  I  will  answer  in  the  near  future. 

Very  truly  yours, 

Joseph  Lane. 


RosEBURG,  Oregon, 

June  21,  1878. 
Col.  W.  M.  Cockrum, 

Oakland  City,  Ind. 

Dear  Sir:  The  first  time  I  was  ever  on  the 
site  of  where  the  city  of  Evansville  now  stands, 
was  in  1815.  Col.  Hugh  McGary  lived  there  in 
what  was  called  a  faced  camp.  Soon  after  this  he 
built  a  hewed  log  house,  which  was  a  very  good 
one  for  that  day.  The  Colonel  was  a  very  gen- 
erous man  and  his  latch-string  hung  on  the  outside 
at  all  times  for  everybody. 

I  spent  hours  going  over  with  him  what  he 
was  pleased  to  call  a  fine  town-site.  At  that  time 
the  evidence  of  there  having  been  a  large  Indian 
town  at  that  place  was  very  plain.  The  ground  on 
which  the  tepees  stood  was  plainly  marked.  At 
Sprinklesburg,  now  known  as  Newburg,  there  had 
been  another  Indian  town.  The  Shawnee  Indians, 
who  were  under  Chief  Seeteedown,  had  a  scattering 
town  farther  up  the  river.     The  western  end  was 


S14  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 

just  above  the  Newcome  coal  mines  and  there  were 
wigfwams  over  a  considerable  territory  up  and  back 
from  the  river. 

There  was  no  cause,  except  treachery,  which 
all  Indians  were  full  of,  for  the  Shawnee  Indians 
murdering  Althea  Meeks.  He  was  a  very  harm- 
less man.  It  was  always  believed  by  those  in  a  po- 
sition to  know  that  the  murder  was  done  by  a  few 
discontented  members  of  that  band,  aiming"  to  re- 
move all  trace  of  that  family.  At  the  time  Chief 
Seeteedown  heard  of  the  murder  he  had  a  large 
herd  of  cattle  and  horses  on  the  range  about  where 
Boonville  now  stands,  which  were  all  left  in  their 
hurry  to  get  away. 

A  runner  was  sent  up  the  river  to  a  keel-boat 
crew  for  help  and  they  volunteered  to  a  man. 
Bailey  Anderson  organized  a  posse  and  Ratclifife 
Boone  was  put  in  command  of  both  detachments. 
The  Indians  were  encumbered  with  their  women 
and  children  and  could  not  make  the  speed  the 
well-mounted  soldiers  could,  and  it  was  generally 
believed  that  but  few  of  them  ever  lived  to  cross 
White  river.  There  was  always  an  undertalk 
that  Boone  did  a  good  deed  and  the  country  was 
well  rid  of  the  lazy  vagrants.  For  months  after 
the  hasty  retreat  of  the  Indians,  horses  and  cattle 
were  found  near  old  Seeteedown's  home.  On  the 
return  of  the  soldiers  all  the  cattle  and  horses  that 
they  could  round  up  were  gathered  and  thirty-five 
head  of  cattle  and  ten  ponies  were  given  to  the 
widow  of  Althea  Meeks. 

Very  truly  yours, 

Joseph  Lane. 

RosEBURG,  Oregon, 

June  27,  1878. 
Col.  W.  M.  Cockrum, 

Oakland  City,  Ind. 

Dear  Sir:  The  adventure  you  asked  me  about 
that  had  been  told  you  by  your  father  was  one  of 
many  which  I  told  him,  and  I  yet  remember  many 
of  a  like  character  which  he  related  to  me  during 
our  long  acquaintance. 

At  an  early  day  —  I  think  it  was  in  1817  —  I, 
with  several  other  young  men,  took  a  contract  to 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA.  515 

raft  several  hundred  logs  down  the  Ohio  to  Mr. 
Audubon,  who  afterward  became  the  great  ornith- 
ologist. He  had  a  steam  sawmill  at  Henderson, 
Kentucky.  It  was  said  that  this  mill  was  one 
among  many  other  failures  that  put  him  out  of  a 
business  life,  and  he  turned  his  attention  to  the 
branch  of  science  and  literature  in  which  he  after- 
ward became  so  famous. 

We  had  landed  a  fine  raft  of  poplar  logs  near 
the  mill.  Dinner  time  came  on  before  the  logs 
were  measured.  We  all  left  the  mill — went  up  to 
a  little  boarding  shanty  to  get  our  dinners.  Mr. 
Audubon  was  to  measure  the  logs  when  he  returned 
from  dinner.  As  he  came  back  and  got  near  the 
mill,  two  large  black  bears  and  a  small  one  ran  out 
of  the  mill  and  into  a  clump  of  bushes  nearby.  The 
engineer  started  the  mill  up.  The  saw  was  of  the 
old  'sash  frame  kind,  making  its  strokes  up  and 
down,  governed  by  the  gear  attachment  to  a  large 
wheel.  When  the  men  got  ready  to  commence 
sawing,  they  discovered  that  a  young  bear  was  un- 
der the  carriage  with  its  head  fast  in  a  pot,  which 
was  much  smaller  at  the  top  than  in  the  middle. 
This  old  dinner  pot  had  grease  in  it  to  grease  the 
machinery.  The  bear  got  its  head  in  the  pot  by 
crowding  and  could  not  get  it  out.  One  of  the  men 
attempted  to  catch  it  by  its  leg,  when  it  set  up  a 
screaming,  strangling  noise.  In  a  minute  here 
came  the  two  old  bears,  full  of  fight  at  the  men  in 
the  mill.  They  first  passed  near  the  engineer, 
when  he  struck  out  for  a  safe  place.  All  of  the 
employes  made  it  convenient  to  get  out  of  danger. 
I  recollect  yet  that  I  climbed  up  a  center  post  to  a 
cross-beam,  which  was  ten  or  twelve  feet  from  the 
floor.  The  bears  had  the  mill  all  to  themselves. 
They  tried  to  get  the  young  bear  away,  would  roll 
it  and  try  to  make  it  go,  without  much  success. 
The  engine  and  saw  were  running,  the  sash  going 
up  and  down  as  when  sawing.  In  their  efforts  to 
get  the  cub  away,  the  larger  bear  was  rubbed  by  the 
sash.  As  soon  as  it  touched  him  he  turned  around 
and  threw  his  arms  around  the  sash  and  the  frame 
it  ran  in,  and  such  a  pounding  as  that  bear  gotl 
He  kept  his  hold  until  almost  exhausted,  fell  down 
near  the  saw  blade,  when  the  back  of  the  saw  was 


516  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 

rubbing  ag^ainst  his  shoulder.  He  got  up  and 
made  a  grab  for  it,  as  if  intending  to  hug  the 
saw.  In  less  than  a  minute  his  life  was  sawed  out 
of  him.  The  old  mother  was  frantic  in  her  efforts 
to  release  the  little  cub,  pushing  it  and  trj'ing  to 
get  it  out  of  the  mill.  Finally  she  pushed  it  off  the 
platform  where  the  logs  were  put  when  being 
brought  in  to  saw.  The  bear  fell  three  oi  four  feet 
onto  a  pile  of  logs  and  broke  the  pot.  The  little 
*  fellow  jumped  up  and  ran  off  with  the  top  rim  of 
the  kettle  around  its  neck. 

Mr.  Audubon  was  a  very  just  man.  In  measur- 
ing our  raft,  he  was  very  careful  to  see  that  every 
inch  in  it  was  given  us.  The  sawmill  venture  was 
a  failure,  but  he  paid  every  farthing  which  was 
due  and  then  commenced  his  lifework  which  was  so 
successful.  If  it  had  not  been  for  his  failure  in 
that  sawmill,  the  world  might  have  been  poorer  by 
not  having  the  many  works  of  the  great  naturalist. 

Very  truly  yours, 

Joseph  Lane. 


CHAPTER  XXII. 


The  State  Bank  and  Other  Interesting  Matter — Coun- 
ties Organized  —  Michigan's  Attempted  Theft  — 
Speech  of  Hon.  Isaac  Montgomery — Land  Sharks — 
Land  Speculators — Brave  Women. 


In  1828  the  following  counties  were  organized: 
Hancock  County,  containing  308  square  miles. 
Warren  County,  containing  360  square  miles. 
Carrol  County,  containing  376  square  miles. 

Cass  County  was  formed  in  1829,  containing  420  square 
miles. 

The  following  counties  were  organized  in  1830: 
Boone  County,  containing  408  square  miles. 
Clinton  County,  containing  432  square  miles. 
Elkhart  County,  containing  460  square  miles. 
St.  Joseph  County,  containing  468  square  miles. 

In   1831   Grant   County  was  organized,  containing  416 
square  miles. 

In  1832  the  following  counties  were  organized: 
Huntington  County,  containing  384  square  miles. 
LaGrange  County,  containing  396  square  miles. 
LaPorte  County,  containing  562  square  miles. 
Miami  County,  containing  384  square  miles. 
Wabash  County,  containing  420  square  miles. 
White  County,  containing  504  square  miles. 

The  population  of  the  State  in  1830  was  a  little  over 
343,000. 

The  expenditures  up  to  1830  to  1835  to  carry  on  all  inter* 


518  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 

est  of  the  State  of  Indiana,  were  so  small  in  comparison  to 
the  extraordinary  expenses  that  are  now  made,  that  it  is 
often  brought  into  question  whether  the  appropriations  made 
for  the  legitimate  expenses  were  not  better  applied  then  than 
now.  True,  the  expenses  for  the  Legislature  of  Indiana  in 
1817  were  only  a  little  over  $7,000.00.  This  amount  covered  all 
the  expenses  of  the  first  General  Assembly.  More  particu- 
larly itemized,  there  was  $5,220.00  for  the  pay  and  mileage  of 
forty  members;  $1,157.00  for  clerks,  fuel  and  stationery,  and 
$947.00  for  printing  and  distributing  the  laws.  The  cost  of 
the  session  in  1818  (the  same  number  of  members)  was 
$10,054.00;  the  next  General  Assembly  in  1819  was  $4,350.00 
for  the  same  number  of  members.  In  1825  the  total  expenses 
of  the  State  Government  were  $16,000.  The  expenses  for  the 
members  of  the  General  Assembly  for  sixty  days,  1903,  were 
very  near  $120,000.  These  statements  are  not  made  in  the  way 
of  criticism,  but  show  the  great  increase  in  expenditures. 
What  the  expenditures  for  that  last  named  Legislature  were 
is  not  known  by  the  author,  but  probably  more  than  all  the 
expenditures  for  the  ten  first  Legislatures  in  Indiana. 

Michigan's  nullification. 

In  1834  Michigan,  led  by  some  of  her  very  smart  set,  at- 
tempted to  steal  a  strip  of  Indiana,  ten  miles  wide,  which  lay 
along  the  southern  border  of  Michigan,  thus  attempting  to 
take  from  Indiana  her  very  valuable  harbors  on  Lake  Michi- 
gan. This  claim  was  set  up  long  after  the  constitutions  of 
Indiana,  Illinois  and  Ohio  had  been  accepted  and  approved 
by  the  National  Congress.  This  was  kept  up  by  Michigan 
for  more  than  two  years,  until  one  of  the  principal  agitators, 
while  making  a  furious  speech  against  Indiana  and  breathing 
out  many  threats  of  what  he  intended  to  do,  became  so 
wrought  up  and  so  angry  that  the  blood  rushed  to  his  head 
and  he  fell  dead.  In  this  attempted  steal,  a  few  hot  heads 
caused  the  State  of  Michigan  to  act  equally  as  badly  as 
South  Carolina,  except  there  was  a  slight  difference  in  their 
attempted  nullification. 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA.  519 

In  1836  the  following  counties  were  org-anized: 
Brown  County,  containing  320  square  miles. 
DeKalb  County,  containing  365  square  miles. 
Fulton  County,  containing  357  square  miles. 
Adams  County,  containing  336  square  miles. 
Jay  Count}',  containing  378  square  miles. 
Kosciusko  County,  containing  567  square  miles. 
Marshall  County,  containing  441  square  miles. 
Noble  County,  containing  432  square  miles. 
Porter  County,  containing  415  square  miles. 

In  1837  the  following  counties  were  organized: 
Blackford  County,  containing  169  square  miles. 
Delaware  County,  containing  394  square  miles. 
Jasper  County,  containing  975  square  miles. 
I^ake  County,  containing  468  square  miles. 
Stark  County,  containing  432  square  miles. 
Wells  County,  containing  272  square  miles. 
Steuben  County,  containing  324  square  miles. 

STATE    BANK   OF   INDIANA. 

This  bank  was  established  in  1834.  Its  charter  was  simi- 
lar to  the  old  United  States  Bank  in  many  particulars.  It 
was  adapted  to  the  local  conditions  of  the  State.  There 
were  twelve  districts,  all  having  branch  banks  in  Indianapo- 
lis, Terre  Haute,  Ft.  Wayne,  Michigan  City,  Richmond,  New 
Albany,  Madison,  Lawrenceburg,  Evansville,  Lafayette, 
Vincennes  and  Bedford.  The  bank  was  a  State  institution 
and  the  president  was  elected  by  the  Legislature  to  serve  five 
years,  with  a  salary  not  less  than  one  thousand  dollars  or  over 
fifteen  hundred.  The  time  the  charter  was  to  run  was  until 
the  first  of  January,  1859.  The  capital  stock  was  $1,600,- 
000.00,  divided  into  fifty  dollar  shares.  One-half  of  the 
stock  was  subscribed  for  by  the  State.  The  branches  were 
each  to  have  a  capital  of  $160,000.  One-half  of  this  was  sub- 
scribed by  the  State.  During  the  life  of  the  State  Bank 
there  would  not  any  other  banking  institution  be  permitted 
to  be  incorporated  by  the  State.  The  charter  provided  that 
•every  stockholder  who  would  pay  eighteen  dollars  and  sev- 


520  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 

enty-five  cents  on  a  fifty  dollar  share  of  stock,  the  State  (if 
he  wanted  it)  would  loan  him  $31.25  on  each  share  of  stock, 
so  that  the  stock  would  be  paid  up.  This  loan  was  secured 
by  good  collateral  security.  The  stockholder  borrowing  to 
pay  his  stock  was  charged  by  the  State  five  per  cent  on  the 
amount  borrowed  and  was  credited  with  whatever  dividend 
there  was  declared  on  the  stock.  In  this  way  the  loan  was 
paid  back  to  the  State  and  the  stock  was  free  to  those  sub- 
scribing it,  less  $18.75  on  each  fifty  dollars.  After  it  had 
paid  out,  the  dividend  was  paid  directly  to  the  holder  of  the 
stock.  Not  only  did  the  stockholder  receive  the  dividends, 
but  was  paid  his  share  of  the  surplus  which  accumulated. 

The  bank  loaned  money  on  real  estate  at  its  appraised 
value  for  taxation.  T.his  was  always  safe,  as  real  estate  was 
rapidly  advancing  in  value.  To  enable  the  State  to  pay  for 
its  share  of  the  stock  and  to  enable  it  to  make  advances  to 
the  stockholders,  the  State  issued  five  per  cent  bonds,  to  run 
for  as  long  a  period  as  the  banks  were  chartered  for.  These 
bonds  were  very  favorable  security  and  were  sold  in  all  the 
money  markets  of  this  country  and  in  Europe. 

The  State  Bank  and  its  branches  were  soon  established.. 
All  the  stock  that  each  was  entitled  to  was  subscribed  and 
they  went  on  their  mission  of  great  prosperity  and  did  untold 
good  to  the  people  of  the  State  of  Indiana.  The  management 
was  so  perfect  there  was  not  a  single  dollar  lost  by  an  indi- 
vidual during  the  long  life  of  the  banks.'  Those  owning 
stock  or  having  money  deposited  in  the  bank  were  perfectly 
secure.  The  confidence  that  this  security  brought  about  in 
all  business  circles  added  greatly  to  the  rapid  strides  made  by 
the  people  in  advancing  the  interests  of  our  State  on  every 
hand. 

STATE   BANK,   WITH   ITS   BRANCHES   AND   THEIR   OFFICERS,    OR* 

GANIZEB   IN   1834. 

Indianapolis  Branch — Harvey  Bates,  president;  Bethuel 
F.  Morris,  cashier, 

Lawrenceburg  Branch — Omer  Tousey,  presfdent;  Enoch 
D.  John,  cashier. 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA.  521 

Richmond  Branch — Achilles  Williams,  president;  Elijah 
Coffin,  cashier. 

Madison  Branch — James  F.  D.  Lanier,  president;  John 
Sering,  cashier. 

New  Albany  Branch — Mason  C.  Fitch,  president;  James 
R.  Shields,  cashier. 

Evans vill^  Branch — John  Mitchell,  president;  John  Doug- 
las, cashier. 

Vincennes  Branch — David  S.  Bonner,  president;  John 
Ross,  cashier. 

Bedford  Branch — William  McLane,  president;  Daniel  R. 
Dunihue,  cashier. 

Terre  Haute  Branch — Demas  Deming,  president;  Aaron 
B.  Fontaine,  cashier. 

Lafayette  Branch — T.  T.  Benbridge,  president;  William 
M.  Jenners,  cashier. 

Fort  Wayne  Branch — Allen  Hamilton,  president;  Hugh 
McCulloch,  cashier. 

Michigan  City  Branch  (organized  February,  1839) — Jo- 
seph Orr,  president;  A.  P.  Andrews,  Jr.,  cashier. 

There  was  a  provision  in  the  laws  authorizing  the  State 
Bank  of  Indiana  to  appropriate  the  State's  surplus  of  the  pro- 
ceeds of  the  bank  for  a  school  fund.  **This  wise  legisla- 
tion," so  says  Gkn.  John  Coburn,  of  Indianapolis,  **was  pro- 
posed by  John  Beard,  of  Montgomery  County,  and  has  yielded 
many  millions  for  the  permanent  school  fund  of  our  State." 
The  interest  on  this  fund  has  added  untold  blessings  to  the 
youths  of  our  State  for  the  last  sixty  years. 

Another  wise  legislative  provision  was,  that  the  fines  for 
misdemeanors  should  be  appropriated  to  the  same  noble  pur- 
pose. Those  who  violated  the  laws  paid  for  the  violation  in 
building  up  a  fund  to  educate  the  young  and  influence  them 
to  become  law-abiding  citizens  instead  of  law-breakers.  From 
these  two  sources  above  named,  and  from  many  others  which 
have  favorably  come  to  Indiana  in  the  interest  of  education, 
our  immense  school  fund  has  been  secured. 

'   The  banks  w^re  authorized' to  issue  notes  and  the  prop- 
erty of  all  the  banks  was  responsible  for  the  redemption  of 


522  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 

these  notes.  The  law  governing  the  management  of  these 
banks  was  such  that  only  five  hundred  dollars  could  be 
loaned  to  any  one  person,  and  before  the  loan  of  this  amount 
could  be  made  it  had  to  be  recommended  by  five  of  the  seven 
directors  which  each  branch  had.  The  banks  were  specie 
paying  institutions,  and  it  was  in  direct  opposition  to  their 
charter  not  to  do  so.  When  the  volume  of  business  that  each 
of  these  banks  transacted  and  the  small  amount  of  specie 
which  was  in  circulation  at  that  time  is  noted,  one  is  forced 
to  conclude  that  the  bank  notes  were  regarded  as  good  as 
specie,  which  at  that  time  was  mostly  silver. 

In  1837,  when  the  hard  times  came,  the  banks  for  several 
years  had  to  suspend  paying  coin,  but  this  was  not  regarded 
as  a  hardship,  for  the  bank  notes  were  so  well  secured,  and 
notwithstanding  the  uncertainty  of  the  times,  people  re- 
garded them  as  good. 

The  United  States  Government  in  1836  directed  that 
after  a  certain  period  in  the  near  future,  nothing  would  be 
received  at  the  land  office  but  coin  or  Virginia  land  scrip,  ex- 
cept from  those  purchasing  the  land  to  settle  and  improve. 
The  pow-wow  made  by  the  Federal  authorities  against  United 
States  banks  was  the  real  cause  of  the  financial  trouble  all 
over  the  country,  at  least  adding  much  to  it. 

HON.    ISAAC   MONTGOMERY. 

(The  speech  of  Hon.  Isaac  Montgomery,  delivered  in  the 
State  House  at  Indianapolis,  on  the  8th  of  January,  1841, 
while  he  was  representing  Gibson  County  in  the  State  Legis- 
lature, was  sent  to  the  Southwestern  Sentinel,  published  at 
Evansville.  Whether  it  was  published  or  not,  I  do  not  know. 
John  Hargrove  was  a  Democratic  member  of  the  Senate  at 
the  same  time,  and  most  likely  furnished  this  copy  to  the 
Sentinel,  as  his  name,  in  his  handwriting,  is  on  the  lower 
corner  of  the  old  manuscript) : 

**For  the  Southwestern  Sentinel. 

Mr.  Editor:  On  the  8th  of  January,  1841,  the  Hon.  E. 
M.  Chamberlain  delivered  a  very  able  but  offensive  address 
to  the  Whig  party  in  the  State  Capitol  jit  Indianapolis,  in 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OP  INDIANA.  523 

consequence  of  which  the  Whigs  met  at  6  o'clock  P.  M. 
«ame  day,  to  make  a  rejoinder,  called  the  Hon.  S.  R.  Stan- 
ford to  the  chair  as  president  of  the  meeting.  The  Hon.  R. 
W.  Thompson  of  Lawrence  county  was  called  on  to  address 
the  meeting  by  way  of  reply  to  Mr.  Chamberlain.  After  two 
long  hours  of  denunciation  and  abuse  of  the  most  bitter  kind 
against  the  administration  of  Pres.  Jackson  and  VanBuren, 
he  finally  came  to  a  close,  when  on  motion  the  Venerable 
Isaac  Montgomery,  representative  from  Gibson  county  was 
called  to  the  chair  as  vice-president  of  the  meeting,  in  conse- 
quence of  his  age  and  having  served  with  General  Harrison 
in  the  Tippecanoe  campaign.  On  being  conducted  to  the 
chair  he  addressed  the  meeting  in  the  following  language: 

"  'Gentlemen:  I  am  an  old  man  and  no  great  speaker, 
having  but  little  learning.  I  was  raised  in  a  time  and 
country  where  there  was  a  bad  chance  to  get  learning.  I 
was  raised  partly,  gentlemen,  in  the  State  of  Kentucky.  Yes, 
gentlemen,  I  was  there  in  an  early  day  when  the  Indians 
were  as  thick  as  seed  ticks  and  we  had  to  fort  up  and  get 
along  the  best  way  we  could  for  a  long  time  before  we  got 
rid  of  them.  There  was  no  time  nor  chance,  gentlemen,  to 
get  schooling. 

"  'But  gentlemen,  if  I  am  no  great  speaker,  I  know  one 
thing.  I  am  as  true  a  Whig  as  ever  breathed  the  breath  of 
life  and  in  an  early  day  I  moved  to  this  state,  then  a  wilder- 
ness territory,  in  1805  with  my  wife  and  a  few  little  children 
and  I  brought  with  me  all  the  way  here  in  my  pocket  a  rec- 
ommendation from  Col.  Crockett,  my  mother's  brother,  to 
General  Harrison,  then  the  governor  of  this  territory  calling 
on  him  to  give  me  some  assistance  in  purchasing  a  piece 
of  land. 

"  *I  showed  my  recommendation  to  the  General  (then 
Gk)vernor)  and  he  promised  that  he  would  give  me  some  help 
when  the  land  came  into  market  but  through  my  own  integ- 
rity and  strict  economy,  yes,  gentlemen,  by  my  own  sweat 
and  labor  I  procured  enough  money  to  buy  me  a  quarter  sec- 
tion of  land  near  where  I  now  live,  and  have  raised  a  large 
family,  six  sons  and  with  one  exception  all  larger  men  than  I 


524  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 

am.  Yes,  gentlemen  and  every  one  of  them  honest  men  and 
as  true  Whigs  as  ever  walked  on  earth  or  ever  the  sun  shown 
upon  and  who  are  ready  and  willing  at  any  time  to  lift  up 
their  hands  high  to  heaven  and  swear  by  Him  who  lives  for- 
ever and  ever,  that  they  would  do  nothing  wrong.  No,  gen- 
tlemen, nothing  wrong,  and  who  are  as  good  marksmen  as 
ever  pulled  a  trigger.  This  thing  of  being  called  tories  and 
cowards,  gentlemen,  there  is  nothing  of  it  with  them.  As 
old  as  I  am  I  am  now  ready  and  willing  to  march  out  in  de- 
fense of  my  country. 

*'  'Gentlemen,  we  have  heard  a  great  deal  said  about 
the  battle  of  Tippecanoe  and  about  the  Indians  choos- 
ing General  Harrison's  camping  ground.  Now,  gentle- 
men, I  was  there  myself,  on  that  very  same  spot,  and  I 
know  all  about  it.  I  know  there  have  been  a  great  many 
things  said  that  are  not  so.  Now,  gentlemen,  I  can  tell  you 
all  about  this  matter. 

"  'General  Taylor  and  General  Clark  are  the  very  men 
who  picked  out  that  camping  ground.  General  Harrison  sent 
them  ahead  about  one  hour  by  the  sun  in  the  evening.  Now^ 
gentlemen,  I  know  this  to  be  so  for  I  was  with  General  Har- 
rison and  by  his  side  at  the  time.  These  men,  after  being 
gone  ahead  about  a  half  an  hour  returned  and  reported 
that  they  had  found  a  very  suitable  place  to  camp,  and 
a  prettier  or  more  suitable  place  could  not  have  been  found, 
I  know.  So  we  went  into  camp  and  it  was  a  dark^ 
drizzly  night.  Yes,  gentlemen,  you  could  not  see  your  hand 
in  front  of  you,  only  as  the  burning  of  the  powder  gave  light 
from  the  guns  of  the  enemy's  fire,  which  was  squirting  and 
streaming  out  in  almost  every  direction  and  the  bullets  would 
whiz  and  whistle  all  about  in  every  direction,  and  they  would 
just  as  soon  have  shot  us  right  in  the  head  as  any  other 
place. 

"Yes,  gentlemen,  there  was  no  time  there  for  dodging. 
Many  brave  and  good  men  there  fought  and  died  in  defense 
of  these  principles  which  we  now  advocate  and  defend.  Yes, 
gentlemen,  the  very  identical  things  which  we  as  a  Whig 
party  now  hold  to. 


» »» 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA.  525 

Honorable  Isaac  Montg^omer)'  was  a  lieutenant  in  Cap- 
tain Wm.  Hargrove's  companj^  which  took  part  in  the  battle 
of  Tippecanoe  on  Nov.  7.  1811.  Lieutenant  Montgomery  and 
Captain  Jacob  Warrick  who  was  killed  at  the  battle  of  Tip- 
pecanoe were  brothers  in  law,  Warrick  having  married  Jane 
Montgomery'  in  Kentuckj'  in  1795.  On  the  march  from  Vin- 
cennes  to  the  Tippecanoe  battle  ground,  the  daj'  before  the 
battle,  Capt.  David  Robb's  compan}'  had  the  advance,  the  army 
had  halted  in  some  prairie  land  for  dinner.  Three  Indians  on 
horse  back  were  seen  manoeuvring  back  and  forth  some  dis- 
tance in  front  of  the  advance.  Each  time  they  circled  a  lit- 
tle nearer  to  the  army.  Several  shots  had  been  fired  at  the 
three  without  anv  effect. 

Finally  Lieutenant  Isaac  Montgomery  was  sent  for  to  try 
the  range  of  his  heavy  rifle,  which  he  had  had  made  on  pur- 
pose to  kill,  bear  with.  The  Lieutenant  had  the  reputation 
of  being  the  best  shot  in  Gibson  county.  When  he  came  up 
he  took  deliberate  aim  and  fired  without  any  visible  effect. 
He  then  loaded  his  gun  with  an  extra  charge  of  powder  and 
taking  careful  aim,  fired  again.  One  of  the  Indians  was  seen 
to  pitch  forward  off  his  horse.  They  all  soon  disappeared. 
From  two  Indians  captured  late  that  evening  it  was  learned 
that  the  last  shot  killed  one  of  the  Indians. 

The  General  Clark  referred  to  in  the  speech  was  not 
General  George  Roger.-  Clark,  but  General  Maston  Clark, 
who  was  one  of  General  Harrison's  aides  on  this  campaign. 

LAND    SHARKS. 

The  first  settlers  who  came  to  Indiana  were  here  before 
the  land  was  surveyed.  They  selected  such  places  as  pleased 
them  and  built  their  cabins  with  the  intention  of  purchasing 
the  land  when  it  was  for  sale.  In  most  cases  the  settlers  had 
an  understanding  with  each  other  as  to  the  land  each  wanted 
and  mutually  agreed  to  protect  each  other  in  these  rights. 

Most  of  the  people  secured  the  land  which  they  had  set- 
tled on  but  there  were  cases  where  great  injustice  was  done 
by  those  who  were  able  and  had  the  disposition  to  be  mean. 
This  meanness  was  always  resented  by  the  old  pioneers  in  a 


526  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 

way  that  those  who  purchased  the  homes  of  others  were 
looked  on  with  contempt. 

A  man  named  McCpy  had  squatted  on  a  nice  piece  of 
land  in  the  eastern  part  of  Warrick  county  and  had  made 
substantial  improvements,  but  up  to  that  time  had  been  un- 
able to  secure  all  the  money  needed  to  pay  for  the  first  forty 
acres  of  the  quarter  section  which  he  wanted.  His  wife  went 
a  long:  way  to  an  uncle  of  hers  and  borrowed  the  balance 
needed  to  make  fifty  dollars.  The  husband  went  to  Vin- 
cennes  to  purchase  the  forty  acres. 

When  he  got  there  he  found  that  a  man  living  about  twa 
miles  away  had  purchased  the  land  that  his  improvements 
were  on.  He  went  home  with  the  sad  news  to  his  wife.  The 
neighbors  found  out  the  mean  treatment  that  had  been  im- 
posed on  him,  and  a  number  of  them  went  in  a  body  and  told 
the  man  that  one  of  two  things  would  have  to  be  done.  He 
had  to  then  and  there  deed  the  forty  acres  to  McCoy  for  the 
fifty  dollars  or  they  would  give  him  such  a  thrashing  as  he 
would  never  forget  and  gave  him  two  hours  in  which  to  de- 
cide what  he  would  do. 

The  fellow  was  so  avaricious  that  it  was  hard  for  him  to 
give  up  the  nice  property  he  had  so  wrongfully  entered,  but 
his  determined  neighbors  were  so  threatening  that  he  made 
the  deed.  McCoy  paid  the  fifty  dollars  and  finally  bought 
the  quarter  section.  This  fellow  was  treated  with  such  con- 
tempt by  his  neighbors  that  he  sold  his  property  and  moved 
to  the  Illinois  country. 

Two  farmers  in  Gibson  county  coveted  a  forty  acre  tract 
that  lay  between  them.  Neither  of  them  had  the  money  to 
enter  it  but  both  were  working  hard  to  secure  it.  One  of  the 
men  owned  one-hundred  and  sixty  acres  and  his  neighbor  only 
forty  but  was  intending  to  buy  the  forty  referred  to  and  fin- 
ally the  balance  of  the  quarter  section. 

It  finally  came  to  the  ear  of  the  man  owning  the  forty 
acres  that  his  neighbor  had  gone  to  Princeton  and  intended 
to  go  to  Vincennes  the  next  day  to  enter  the  land.  He  did 
not  know  what  to  do  as  he  only  had  part  of  the  money.  A 
neighbor  advised  him  to  go  that  night  to  Major  David  RobbV 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OP  INDIANA,  527 

who  lived  near  Hazleton  ferry  over  White  river,  and  he  felt 
sure  the  Major  would  lend  him  the  money.  To  make  it  sure 
the  neighbor,  who  was  a  friend  of  Major  Robb's,  would  go 
with  him  and  go  his  security  if  needed.  This  they  did  and 
Robb  let  him  have  the  money  and  had  him  ferried  over  and 
on  his  way  to  Vincennes  two  hours  before  day  the  next  morn- 
ing. 

The  land  was  entered  and  when  he  got  to  the  ferry  com- 
ing home  he  found  his  neighbor  on  the  south  bank  waiting 
to  cross.  When  the  man  learned  that  the  land  was  pur- 
chased he  showed  that  he  had  some  good  traits  in  him  by 
proposing  to  his  neighbor  that  as  he  had  procured  the  land, 
there  was  another  forty  of  the  quarter  section  which  he  had 
better  enter  and  then  the  last  forty  was  not  so  desirable  and 
he  could  purchase  that  at  his  leisure  and  that  he  would  loan 
him  the  money  to  make  the  entry.  This  offer  was  accepted. 
He  took  the  money  and  went  back  to  Vincennes  and  entered 
the  land.  These  two  men  lived  on  adjoining  farms  the  best 
of  friends.  Their  families  intermarried  and  their  descend- 
ants are  among  our  best  citizens. 

LAND  SPECULATION. 

Along  in  1832  there  was  a  flood  of  land  warrants  and 
land  scrip  which  had  been  bought  up  by  an  eastern  syndi- 
cate. The  syndicate  had  a  large  number  of  agents  in  the 
settling  portions  of  Indiana  and  Illinois,  selecting  the  land 
they  wanted.  There  were  usually  quite  a  number  of  these 
agents  together.  If  there  were  not  a  sufficient  number  of 
agents,  they  hired  men  to  go  with  them  so  they  would  be  in 
sufficient  numbers  to  defend  themselves.  There  was  not 
thought  to  be  much  danger  from  Indians,  although  there  was 
quite  a  stir  in  Northwest  Indiana  and  many  reports  about  the 
Indians. 

There  was  a  neighborhood  in  western  Montgomery 
County  which  had  a  fine  body  of  land  that  fifteen  or  twenty 
men  had  settled  on,  and  all  of  them  had  purchased  part  of 
the  land  that  they  wanted  and  built  their  cabins  and  cleared 


528  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 

up  a  portion  of  the  land,  with  a  view  of  purchasing  the  rest 
of  the  land  which  each  had  selected. 

It  was  found  out  there  was  a  number  of  men  who  had 
be(*n  at  Crawfordsville  hunting  for  lands  which  were  located 
in  neighborhoods  that  were  being  settled.  This  news 
alarmed  the  men  who  had  settled  in  the  western  part  of 
Montgomery  County,  and  they  sent  several  parties  to  find  out 
what  the}'  could  about  these  agents  and  to  keep  a  watch  on 
their  proceedings. 

One  of  these  spies  learned  of  them  that  they  were  intend- 
ing to  purchase  a  large  bod}^  of  land  in  the  immediate  vicin- 
ity of  every  settlement  in  that  section  of  the  country.  He 
also  learned  the}'  had  already  examined  several  pieces  of  land 
in  neighborhoods  southeast  of  where  he  was  located,  and  he 
further  learned  that  in  obedience  to  the  instruction  of  their 
employers,  every  piece  of  land  they  recommended  had  to  have 
their  personal  examination  and  they  had  to  describe  it  so 
minutely  as  to  timber,  springs,  branches,  hills  and  hollows, 
that  it  could  be  easily  located.  The  spy  also  learned  that 
these  agents  intended  to  be  in  his  neighborhood  at  a  certain 
time  a  few  days  off.  He  agreed  to  show  them  the  land  in 
his  part  of  the  country,  telling  them  he  was  well  acquainted 
with  all  the  land  in  that  section.  Hurrying  home,  he  told 
the  neighbors  of  the  danger  they  were  in.  They  got  together 
and  canvassed  many  plans  of  how  to  best  get  rid  of  these  ob- 
noxious agents.  They  sent  to  their  surrounding  neighbors 
and  procured  all  the  help  they  could  and  determined  to  give 
the  agents  a  scare,  or  try  it. 

The  day  the  agents  went  to  the  settlement,  they  met 
their  pretended  friends,  who  were  showing  them  the 
land  outside  of  their  neighborhood.  They  had  been  some 
time  engaged  in  going  over  the  land,  when  behind  the  party 
several  Indians  were  seen  coming  on  their  trail.  This 
startled  them.  Soon  on  the  north  another  party  appeared, 
on  the  west  another  party — in  all,  thirty  or  forty  full-dressed 
Indians.  Giving  a  blood-curdling  war-whoop,  the  Indians 
started  for  the  agents,  who  made  a  rush  for  the  south  to  get 
out,  as  they  were  surrounded  on  every  other  side.    The  guide 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA.  529 

lying  down  on  his  horse  led  the  party.  The  Indians  were 
shooting:  and  whooping:  at  a  fearful  rate,  the  balls  whistling* 
uncomfortably  close  around  their  heads.  The  Indians  made  it 
a  point  not  to  overtake  them,  but  to  keep  up  the  running 
fight,  and  every  now  and  then  a  party  of  Indians  would  dash 
around  the  side  as  if  they  intended  to  surround  them.  This 
running  fight  was  kept  up  for  several  hours,  the  guide  lead- 
ing them  out  of  Montgomery  County  and  down  into  Park 
County.  They  kept  up  a  good  gait  until  they  reached  Terre 
Haute. 

The  excitement  created  by  this  Indian  scare  raised  a 
wonderful  excitement  all  over  that  section  of  the  State.  The 
alarming  reports  of  the  speculators  were  the  cause  of  Gov- 
ernor Noble  ordering  General  Walker  to  call  out  his  com- 
mand. In  that  command  were  several  companies  from  Mont- 
gomery County.  Among  these  companies  were  a  number  of 
our  land  friends,  and  they  were  very  loud  in  telling  about  the 
attack  of  the  Indians  on  the  land  agents.  This  taking  place 
at  about  the  same  time  that  Black  Hawk  was  raising  trouble 
in  the  Illinois  country  not  far  away,  raised  a  tremendous  ex- 
citement all  over  a  large  part  of  Indiana.  Some  of  the  citi- 
zens went  to  repairing  old  forts  and  building  blockhouses, 
and  it  was  many  weeks  before  things  quieted  down.  It  is  not 
known  whether  the  men  who  organized  the  Indian  scare  got 
the  land  that  they  wanted  or  not,  but  they  certainly  de- 
served it. 

BRAVE   WOMEN. 

Many  startling  incidents  grew  out  of  the  Indian  scare 
when  the  defenders  of  the  land,  disguised  as  Indians,  drove 
the  agents  out  of  the  country,  as  recorded  in  a  previous  chap- 
ter, and  some  of  them  were  really  amusing.  Hundreds  of 
persons  flocked  into  Lafayette  and  Crawfordsville  and  other 
towns  near  that  section.  The  people  of  Tippecanoe,  Ver- 
million, Fountain,  Montgomery  and  Warren  counties  and 
parts  of  other  counties  were  in  a  great  state  of  excitement. 
The  militia  were  heroically  preparing  for  war. 

A  famil}'  which  lived  several  miles  west  of  Lafayette  had 
seven  children.     The   man   had   married  a  woman  who  had 


1 


530  PIONEER  HISTORY  OP  INDIANA. 

been  reared  in  southwestern  Indiana  and  had  been  used  to 
false  alarms  about  the  Indians,  but  her  brave  husband  had 
not  been  so  accustomed  to  these  blood-curdling  scares.  He 
was  out  shooting  prairie  chickens  when  a  neighbor,  with  his^ 
wife  riding  behind  him  on  horseback  and  a  small  child  in 
-arms,  came  hurriedly  up  to  the  chicken  hunter  and  told  him 
that  all  the  country  west  of  there  was  being  scalped  and  that 
the  Indians  were  headed  in  that  direction. 

Hurrying  to  the  house,  he  told  his  wife  the  awful  news 
and  commenced  to  get  things  in  shape  to  go  to  Lafa^^ette. 
Bringing  the  horse  and  cart  to  the  door  for  that  purpose,  he 
was  met  with  the  greatest  surprise  of  his  life.  His  wife  re- 
fused to  budge  an  inch,  saying  that  she  had  lived  all  her  life 
among  just  such  alarming  reports  and  had  been  dragged  out 
of  bed  at  all  hours  of  the  night  and  hurried,  half  asleep,  to  a 
fort,  and  all  these  scares  had  been  false  alarms,  and  that  she 
was  not  going  to  be  made  a  fool  of  in  any  such  way.  She 
told  him  if  he  wished  to,  he  could  go,  but  that  he  would  find 
her  at  the  same  old  cabin  after  he  recovered  from  his  Indian 
scare.  The  husband  did  not  feel  any  of  the  grit  his  wife 
possessed,  so  taking  the  six  oldest  children,  he  loaded  them 
into  the  chart,  bidding  his  wife  an  affectionate  good-bye,  say- 
ing he  felt  almost  certain  he  would  never  see  her  again  alive^ 
and  if  it  were  not  for  their  fine  children  he  would  stay  and 
die  with  her,  but  he  felt  that  it  was  suicidal  to  dare  danger 
as  she  was  doing.  She  said,  **You  take  the  children  and  go» 
If  I  never  see  you  again,  I  shall  die  with  the  satisfaction  of 
knowing  that  I  had  a  husband  who  thought  too  much  of  his 
scalp  to  permit  any  Indian  to  have  its  black  glossy  locks  as 
an  ornament  to  his  helmet." 

The  husband  and  children  remained  away  two  days  and 
nights.  No  Indians  having  been  seen  or  heard  of,  he  con- 
cluded to  return.  Loading  his  six  children  into  the  cart,  he 
drove  home,  where  he  found  everything  looking  much  the 
same  as  he  had  left  it.  Old  Bowser  and  Tige  were  there  to 
pay  the  proper  welcome  to  the  home-coming  family.  On 
going  into  the  house,  he  found  his  wife  silting  by  the  little 
wheel,  one   foot   on   the   treadle,  while  both  her  hands  were 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA.  531 

bus}^  evening  the  tow  that  she  pulled  from  the  distaff  before 
it  entered  the  flyers  and  was  spun  into  thread.  With  the 
other  foot  she  was  rocking  a  sugar  trough  in  which  her  small 
child  was  soundly  sleeping     She  was  singing: 

Rock-a-b3'e,  O,  Baby, 

Your  daddy's  gone  a-hunting 
To  get  a  big  Indian  skin 

To  wrap  the  Baby  Bunting  in. 

Looking  around  the  house,  the  brave  man  saw  a  fine,  fat 
gobbler,  dressed  and  ready  for  roasting,  and  on  the  wall 
was  a  large  fresh  coon  skin.  **Mandy.  why  in  thunderation 
have  you  been  using  my  powder  so  free?"  She  replied, 
'*Never  mind,  Ebenezer,  there  is  plenty  left.  If  you  hear  of 
an  Indian  crossing  the  Mississippi  river,  you  won't  need  it, 
for  you'll  be  on  the  go  to  Lafayette  again." 

In  a  section  of  southern  Indiana  in  Switzerland  County, 
not  far  from  the  Ohio  river,  a  very  quiet  and  inoffensive  man 
lived  with  his  wife  and  two  children.  They  owned  a  very 
nice,  well-improved  farm  and  had  plenty  of  everything. 
There  were  persons  living  in  that  section  who  wanted  their 
nice  property,  and  attempted  to  drive  them  away  from  it  in 
order  that  they  might  purchase  it  at  a  very  low  price. 

One  morning  they  found  a  bundle  of  switches  near  their 
door,  with  a  notice  on  it  from  some  unknown  party  telling 
the  man  there  was  one  of  two  things  that  he  had  to  do  leave 
that  section  and  never  return  or  they  would  whip  him  so  that 
he  would  be  convinced  that  he  was  no  longer  wanted  in  that 
section.  This  was  very  alarming  to  this  inoffensive  man, 
who  could  not  understand  why  he  was  so  treated,  but  as  he 
had  alwa^'s  been  a  peaceable  man  and  wanted  to  avoid  all 
trouble,  he  thought  it  would  be  best  for  them  to  sell  their 
home  and  move  to  some  other  place. 

His  wife,  who  was  made  of  very  different  sort  of  mettle, 
declared  that  she  would  not  go  and  would  live  on  that  farm 
or  die  in  the  attempt.  The  notice  gave  a  certain  time  for 
him  to  be  gone.  It  so  worried  him  that  it  was  feared  he 
would  lose  his  mind.     It  was  decided  that  he  should  go  back 


S32  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 

to  Ohio  for  awhile  and  leave  the  home  with  his  wife  and  the 
two  small  children,  thinking  that  no  man  would  be  so  lost  to 
manhood  as  to  attack  a  woman.  After  the  husband  was  g:one, 
a  sister  of  his  wife's  came  to  live  with  her. 

The  day  before  the  time  given  the  husband  in  the  notice 
expired,  there  was  another  bundle  of  switches  found  at  a 
spring  near  the  house  and  a  note  threatening  to  whip  and  tar 
and  feather  the  two  women  if  they  did  not  leave  by  a  certain 
time,  only  a  few  days  off.  They  determined  to  put  ever}'- 
thing  in  the  best  condition  for  defense  and  await  the  coming 
of  the  threatening  fellows.  They  had  a  large  dog  which 
they  kept  in  the  house  every  night.  The  time  arrived  as 
stated  in  the  notice  and  a  loud  knock  was  heard  at  the  door. 
The  woman  warned  them  to  go  away,  saying  that  if  they  at- 
tempted to  come  into  the  house,  they  would  regret  their  ac- 
tions. As  there  were  seven  or  eight  men  in  the  party,  they 
laughed  at  her.  Securing  a  heavy  rail,  they  broke  the  batton 
door  down.  The  3'ounger  woman  was  on  the  other  side  of  a 
table  from  the  door  and  had  an  old  musket  loaded  with  slugs 
lying  across  the  table  and  pointing  at  the  door.  As  several 
men  attempted  to  rush  into  the  house,  this  old  gun  was  fired 
into  their  faces.  There  was  a  loud  howl  of  pain.  Two  men 
were  seen  to  be  carried  away.  Soon  the  clatter  of  horses' 
hoofs  were  heard  going  down  a  nearb}'  road  and  there  was  no 
further  trouble.  Two  men  were  missing  out  of  that  section 
who,  it  was  said,  had  gone  down  the  river;  but  they  never  re- 
turned. 

The  man  returned  from  Ohio  to  his  family  and  they  con- 
tinued to  live  upon  the  farm  and  raised  a  large  family  of  re- 
spected and  honest  children,  whose  descendants  toda}^  own  a 
large  amount  of  territory  in  the  immediate  vicinity  of  where 
this  incident  took  place. 


I 


CHAPTER  XXIII. 


INTERNAL  IMPROVEMENTS. 


Canals  —  Railroads  —  State  Debt  —  Turnpike  Roads  — 
Wabash  Rapids  —  Pottawattamie  and  Miami  Indians 
Removed  From  the  State. 


If  the  wise  counsel  given  by  Governor  Hendricks  in  his 
message  to  the  Legislature  in  1822  had  been  followed,  a  great 
misfortune  to  the  financial  interests  of  the  State  would  have 
been  averted  and  a  great  many  of  the  attempted  improve- 
ments would  have  been  finished  and  become  paying  properties, 
from  which  the  State  would  have  derived  a  handsome  revenue, 
as  other  States  which  were  more  careful  in  the  construction 
of  their  public  works,  did.  Instead  of  attempting  to  con- 
struct ten  or  twelve  expensive  works  at  the  same  time,  if 
there  had  been  two  or  three  of  these  carried  on  and  finished 
and  placed  in  condition  to  be  operated,  all  that  was  needed  of 
the  many  which  were  attempted  to  be  constructed  would 
have  been  finished.  It  was  proved  to  the  satisfaction  of  all 
that  many  of  these  properties  would  have  been  made  paying 
investments. 

Governor  Ray,  in  his  first  message,  considered  the  con- 
struction of  roads  and  canals  as  necessary  to  place  the  State 
on  a  financial  footing  equal  to  the  old  States.  In  1829  he 
added:  "This  subject  can  never  grow  irksome  since  it  must 
be  the  source  of  the  blessing  of  civilized  life.  To  secure  its 
benefits,  it  is  a  duty  enjoined  upon  the  Legislature  by  the  ob- 
ligation of  the  social  compact." 


534  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 

In  1832  internal  improvement  works  were  put  under  way. 
That  year  the  Asiatic  cholera  had  caused  many  deaths  in 
various  parts  of  the  State  and  the  corn  crop  was  a  partial 
failurfe  all  over  the  State.  Notwithstanding  these  distressing* 
circumstances,  the  canal  commissioners  completed  their  sur- 
vey's and  estimates  and  had  prepared  the  bonds  for  the  con- 
j^truction  of  the  work,  which  they  sold  in  the  city  of  New 
York  to  the  amount  of  $1,000,000.00  at  a  large  premium. 
During  that  year  there  were  $54,000.00  spent  in  improving 
the  Michigan  road  and  $52,000.00  was  realized  from  the  sale 
of  land  appropriated  for  its  construction.  In  that  year  thirty- 
two  miles  of  the  Wabash  and  Erie  canal  were  placed  under 
contract  and  the  work  was  commenced.  In  compliance  with 
the  request  of  the  Legislature  of  the  State  of  Indiana,  where 
permission  was  asked  to  extend  the  canal  from  the  Ohio 
Stateiine  to  Lake  Erie,  the  Governor  of  Ohio  laid  the  sub- 
ject before  the  Legislature  of  that  State  and  a  resolution  was 
passed  declining  to  undertake  the  completion  of  the  work 
within  her  limits  before  the  time  fixed  by  the  act  of  Congress 
for  the  completion  of  the  canal.  She  would,  on  just  and 
equitable  terms,  enable  Indiana  to  avail  herself  of  the  bene- 
fit of  the  lands  granted  by  authorizing  her  to  sell  them  and 
invest  the  proceeds  in  the  stock  of  a  company  to  be  incor- 
porated by  the  State  of  Ohio  and  that  she  would  give  Indi- 
ana notice  of  her  final  determination  on  or  before  January  1, 
1838. 

The  Legislature  of  Ohio  authorized  and  invited  the 
agent  of  the  State  of  Indiana  to  select,  survey  and  set  apart 
the  lands  lying  within  the  State.  In  keeping  with  this  pol- 
icy, Gk)vernorNoble  in  1834  said:  '*With  a  view  of  engaging 
in  works  of  internal  improvement,  the  propriety  of  adopting 
a  general  plan  or  system  having  reference  to  the  several  por- 
tions of  the  State  and  the  connection  of  one  with  the  other, 
naturally  suggests  itself.  No  work  should  be  commenced  but 
such  as  would  be  of  acknowledged  public  utility.  In  view  ot 
this  object,  the  policy  of  organizing  a  board  of  public  works 
is  again  respectfully  suggested." 

In  1835  the  Wabash  and  Erie  canal  was  being  rapidly 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA.  535 

<onstructed.  The  middle  division  from  St.  Joseph's  dam  to 
the  Wabash  river,  thirtj^-two  miles,  was  completed  at  a  cost 
•of  $232,000.00,  including:  all  the  expenses  of  finishing:  up  the 
work  which  had  been  washed  awa}^  by  the  heavy  rains.  By 
the  middle  of  the  summer,  boats  were  running  on  this  part  of 
the  line. 

In  1836  the  first  meeting  of  the  Board  of  Internal  Im- 
provements was  convened  and  entered  upon  its  responsible 
duties.  Each  member  was  assigned  the  superintendency  of  a 
portion  of  the  work.  There  seemed  to  have  been  a  lack  of 
^engineers,  .there  being  so  many  works  in  progress,  and  a 
number  were  imported  from  other  sections  of  the  country. 
Under  their  management  the  work  progressed  favorably. 
The  canal  was  soon  navigating  the  middle  division  from  Ft. 
Wayne  to  Huntington.  Sixteen  miles  of  the  line  from  Hunt- 
ington to  LaFountain  creek  was  filled  with  water  this  year 
And  made  ready  for  navigation.  The  remaining  twenty 
miles,  except  a  portion  of  the  locks  from  LaFountain  creek  to 
iogansport,  was  under  construction.  From  Georgetown  to 
Lafayette  the  work  was  put  under  contract. 

That  same  year  about  thirty  miles  of  the  Whitewater 
canal,  from  Lawrenceburg  to  Brookville,  was  placed  under 
contract,  as  was  twenty-three  miles  of  the  Central  canal, 
which  passed  through  Indianapolis;  also  twenty  miles  of  a 
southern  division  of  this  work,  extending  from  Evansville 
into  the  interior,  was  placed  under  contract,  and  the  cross-cut 
canal  from  Terre  Haute  to  where  it  intersected  the  Central 
canal,  near  the  mouth  of  Eel  river,  was  all  under  contract 
for  construction.  That  same  year  the  engineer  examined  the 
route  of  the  Michigan  and  Erie  canal  and  reported  the  ex- 
pediency of  constructing  the  same.  A  party  of  engineers 
was  fitted  out  and  entered  upon  the  field  service  of  the  Madi- 
son and  Lafayette  Railroad  and  contracts  were  let  for  its 
construction  from  Madison  to  Vernon.  Contracts  were  let  for 
grading  and  bridging  the  New  Albany  and  Vincennes  road 
from  New  Albany  to  Paoli.  Other  roads  were  also  under- 
taken and  surveyed.  Indiana  evidently  had  an  immense 
amount  of  work  upon  her  hands. 


536  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 


Governor  Noble  said:  On  these  vast  undertakings  Indi- 
ana has  staked  her  fortune  and  she  has  gone  too  far  to  retreat." 

In  1837  David  Wallace  was  inaugurated  Governor  of  In- 
diana. At  that  time  the  vast  amount  of  work  in  progress 
and  the  immense  amount  of  money  needed  to  carry  it  forward 
was  becoming  a  severe  burden  in  many  parts  and  the  internal 
improvement  scheme  was  being  felt  by  all  the  people.  The 
State  debt  was  so  rapidly  increasing,  that  they  had  fears 
that  it  could  never  be  paid.  The  Governor  did  all  he  could 
to  keep  the  citizens  in  good  cheer  by  explaining  the  astonish- 
ing success  the  State  had  made  far  surpassing  the  hopes  of 
the  most  sanguine,  and  the  flattering  prospect  for  the  future. 
This  should  have  dispelled  every  fear.  Governor  Wallace 
was  a  very  popular  man,  but  the  rumblings  of  the  coming 
disaster  were  too  plainly  heard  by  the  sensible  business  peo- 
ple for  his  encouragement  to  have  the  desired  effect  of  quell- 
ing all  their  fears. 

During  the  several  years  that  so  much  work  was  in 
progress  in  Indiana,  wages  were  high  and  all  kinds  of 
produce,  forage  and  provisions  were  bringing  good  prices, 
and  the  vast  amount  of  money  that  was  paid  out  for  this 
labor  apparently  made  good  times  in  all  parts  of  the  country 
where  this  work  was  being  done,  but  this  was  a  fictitious  ap- 
pearance. The  people  had  run  into  extravagance  and  en- 
gaged in  many  speculations  for  which  fature  promissory 
note  were  given.  The  retail  merchants  contracted  debts  with 
their  wholesale  merchants  and  had  sold  vast  quantities  of 
goods  to  their  customers,  who  were  wholly  depending  on 
these  works  for  the  money  to  pay  for  them.  When  the  crash 
came  as  it  did,  there  was  a  general  suspension  of  every  sort 
of  business. 

The  State's  financial  ruin  was  very  great.  Thousands 
of  men  who  were  on  the  road  to  fortune  could  do  nothing  but 
stand  idly  by  and  see  their  fond  hopes  in  ruin.  So  wide  was 
this  disaster  in  the  country,  more  particularly  bordering  on 
the  works  of  the  various  undertakings  which  the  State  was 
trying  to  put  through,  that  it  was  indeed  distressing.  In 
1838  there  were  many  more  individuals  involved  in  the  ruin 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OP  INDIANA.  537 

which  was  so  disheartening  to  all  the  people. 

At  the  meeting  of  the  Legislature  that  year,  Governor 
Wallace  in  his  message  said:  **Never  before — I  speak  ad- 
visedly— never  before  have  you  witnessed  a  period  in  our 
local  history  which  more  urgently  calls  for  the  exercise  of  all 
the  soundest  and  best  attributes  of  grave  and  patriotic  legis-^ 
lation  tkan  the  present.  -iThe  truth  is,  and  it  would  be  folly 
to  conceal  it,  we  have  our  hands  full — full  to  overflowing — 
and  therefore,  to  sustain  ourselves  and  to  preserve  the  credit 
and  character  of  the  State  unimpaired  and  to  continue  her 
hitherto  unexampled  march  to  wealth  and  distinction,  we 
have  not  an  hour  of  time  nor  a  dollar  of  money  nor  a  hand 
employed  in  labor  to  squander  and  dissipate  upon  mere  ob- 
jects of  idleness  or  taste  or  amusements." 

In  the  last  of  the  summer  of  1839  work  was  suspended  on 
most  of  these  improvements  and  the  contracts  were  surren- 
dered to  the  State.  This  action  was  taken  by  the  direction 
of  an  act  of  the  Legislature  providing  for  the  compensation 
of  the  contractors  by  issuing  treasury  notes  to  pay  them. 
The  Legislature  of  1839  had  no  arrangements  for  the  pay- 
ment of  the  interest  on  the  State  debt  incurred  for  the  inter- 
nal improvements. 

The  State  had  borrowed  $3,827,000.00  for  internal  im- 
provements; $1,327,000.00  was  for  the  Wabash  and  Erie 
canal  and  the  balance  for  the  rest  of  the  works.  The  five 
per  cent  interest  on  debts  which  the  State  had  to  pay, 
amounting  to  nearly  $200,000.00,  had  become  very  burden- 
some, as  it  had  for  this  purpose  only  two  sources  besides 
direct  taxation — the  interest  on  what  was  due  for  canal  land 
and  the  proceeds  of  the  third  installment  of  the  surplus  reve- 
nue, bith  amounting  in  1838  to  about  $45,000.00.  By  the 
the  first  of  August,  1839,  all  works  ceased  on  these  improve- 
ments. 

It  had  become  evident  to  all  that  the  State  could  not 
finish  all  these  works.  The  Legislature  of  1841  passed  the 
law  authorizing  any  private  company  to  take  charge  of  and 
complete  any  of  the  work  except  the  Wabash  and  Erie  canal. 
It  was  thought  that  by  the  aid  of  the  Gk)vernment  the  State 


538  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 

•could  finisli  that  in  the  next  several  years.  The  State  had 
much  tQ  ^rain  by  turning  these  works  over  to  private  com- 
panies, as  these  corporations  agreed  to  pay  to  the  State 
in  its  bonds  an  amount  equivalent  to  what  the  State  had  paid 
on  the  work  turned  over  to  the  private  companies. 

The  company  that  took  the  Madison  and  Indianapolis 
Railroad  and  completed  it,  after  paying  the  State  back  what 
it  had  expended  on  that  work,  the  second  year  after  its  com- 
pletion, paid  to  its  stockholders  a  dividend  equal  to  eight  and 
a  half  per  cent  upon  their  investment. 

When  the  operations  ceased,  the  people  were  left,  in  a 
great  measure,  without  any  means  wherebj'  they  could  secure 
money  to  pay  their  debts.  This  condition  of  things  rendered 
direct  taxation  inexpedient,  hence  it  became  the  policy  of  Gov- 
pernor  Bigger  to  provide  some  way  to  pay  the  interest  on  the 
State  debt  which  would  not  increase  the  rate  of  taxation. 

In  1840,  in  the  internal  improvement  system,  of  which 
.there  were  ten  different  works,  by  far  the  most  important  was 
the  Wabash  and  Erie  canal.  The  length  of  the  lines  em- 
braced in  the  system  was  1,160  miles.  Of  this,  all  told,  140 
-miles  were  completed.  The  amount  that  had  been  paid  out 
for  this  work  was  $5,600,000.00,  and  by  estimates  it  would 
require  more  than  $14,000,000.00  to  complete  the  works. 

In  order  that  the  reader  may  understand  the  magnitude 
of  this  immense  undertaking  by  the  State,  a  statement  is 
here  given  showing  the  expenses  incurred  on  the  work  and 
the  arabunt  completed: 

1.  The  Wabash  and  Erie  canal,  from  the  State  line  to 
Tippecanoe,  129  miles  in  length;  completed  and  made  navi- 
gable the  whole  length  at  a  cost  of  $2,041,012.00.  This  sum 
included  the  cost  of  a  lock  for  steamboats  which  was  after- 
wards completed  at  Delphi. 

2.  The  extension  of  the  Wabash  and  Erie  canal  from 
the  mouth  of  the  Tippecanoe  river  to  Terre  Haute,  104  miles. 
The  estimate  of  this  work  was  $1,500,000.00  and  the  amount 
expended  for  the  same  was  $408,855.  The  work  was  opened 
from  Tippecanoe  down  as  far  as  Lafayette. 

3.  The  cross-cut   canal   from   Terre  Haute   to  Central 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA.  539 

canal,   49  miles  in  length.     The  estimated    cost  was  S718,- 
672.00.     There  was  paid  on  this  work  $420,679.00. 

4.  The  Whitewater  canal  from  Lawrenceburg  to  the 
mouth  of  Nettle  creek,  76  miles.  The  estimated  cost  was 
$1,675,738.00.  The  amount  expended  was  $1,099,867.00. 
Thirt3'-one  miles  of  the  work  was  navigable,  from  the  Ohio 
river  to  Brookville. 

5.  The  Central  canal  from  Wabash  and  Erie  canal  to 
Indianapolis,  including  the  Feeder  Bend  at  Muncie,  124 
miles  in  length,  to  cost  $2,299,853.00.  Amount  paid  on  con- 
struction, $568,046.  Eight  miles  was  completed  at  the  date 
of  this  statement  and  other  portions  near  completion. 

6.  Central  canal,  from  Indianapolis  to  Evansville,  194 
miles  in  length;  total  estimate,  to  cost  $3,532,394.00.  Amount 
paid  on  construction,  $831,302.00. 

7.  The  Erie  and  Michigan  canal,  182  miles  in  length. 
Estimated  cost,  $2,624,823.00.  Expended  on  construction, 
$156,394.00. 

8.  Madison  and  Indianapolis  Railroad,  85  2-3  miles  in 
length.  The  estimated  cost  for  construction  was  $2,046,- 
600.00.     Paid  on  construction  works,  $1,493,013.00. 

9.  Indianapolis  and  Lafayette  turnpike  road,  73  miles 
long.  Estimated  cost,  $593,737.  Amount  paid  for  works, 
$72,118.00.  The  bridging  and  most  of  the  grading  done  on 
27  miles. 

10.  New  Albany  and  Vincennes  turnpike  road,  105 
miles  long.  Estimated  to  cost  $1,127,295.00.  Amount  ex- 
pended, $654,411.00.  Forty-one  miles  macadamized  from  Pa- 
oli  to  New  Albany. 

11.  Jeffersonville  and  Crawfordsville  road,  164  miles 
long.  Estimated  to  cost  $1,551,800.00.  Amount  expended, 
$372,737.00. 

12.  To  improve  the  Wabash  rapids.  Work  to  be  done 
jointly  by  Indiana  and  Illinois.  Indiana^s  amount  of  the  cost 
to  be  $102,500.00.     Expended  by  Indiana,  $9,500.00. 

The  length  of  roads  and  canals,  1,289  miles,  281  of  which 
had  been  finished.  Estimated  cost  of  all  the  works,  $19,914,- 
400.00.    Paid  out  for  construction  of  the  works,  $8,164,528.00. 


540  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 

The  State  at  that  time  owed  in  round  numbers  S18,500,- 
000.00.  On  this  vast  sum  of  money  the  interest  ranged  from 
4  per  cent  to  7  per  cent. 

The  State  made  several  attempts  to  finish  the  Wabash 
and  Erie  canal.  In  1841  it  was  successfully  operated  from 
Ft.  Wayne  to  Lafayette  and  paid  a  fair  revenue  to  the  State* 
Cong^ress  in  that  year  made  the  second  grrant  of  lands  to  aid 
in  the  construction  of  the  canal,  and  in  1845  made  the  third 
errant,  which  embraced  half  of  the  Government  land  which  at 
that  time  remained  in  the  Vincennes  district.  All  these 
efforts  were  futile.  There  was  such  a  vast  expense  with  a 
very  small  income,  that  it  was  impossible  to  carry  on  the 
work. 

Everything  lay  quiet  until  1846,  when  Mr.  Charles  But- 
ler, who  represented  the  bondholders,  offered  to  take  the 
canal,  with  its  lands  granted  for  the  construction  of  it,  for 
one-half  of  the  improvement  bond  debt.  The  State  was  to 
have  the  right  of  redemption.  The  canal  under  this  manage- 
ment was  completed  to  Terre  Haute  in  1844  and  to  Evansville 
in  1852.  The  entire  length  in  Indiana  was  375  miles,  also  it 
extended  84  miles  into  Ohio,  making  a  total  length  of  459 
miles.  This  enormous  work,  which  cost  so  many  millions  of 
dollars,  only  lasted  for  a  few  years,  owing  to  its  being  par- 
alleled the  entire  length  by  railroads,  but  it  caused  a  large 
emigration  to  sections  for  many  miles  on  both  sides  of  it 
throughout  its  entire  length  and  gave  employment  to  many 
thousands  of  laborers  and  furnished  good  markets  for  a  large 
amount  of  produce  at  fair  prices. 

The  Legislature  of  Indiana  requested  the  Congress  of 
the  United  States  to  extinguish  all  the  Indian  titles  inside  of 
the  State.  The  request  was  granted  and  a  treaty  with  the 
Pottawattamie  Indians  ceded  to  the  Government  of  the 
United  States  six  million  acres  of  land,  being  all  they  owned. 
A  little  later  the  Miami  Indians  through  the  good  offices  of 
Col.  A.  C.  Pepper,  the  Indian  agent,  sold  a  considerable  part 
of  the  most  desirable  portion  of  their  reserve  to  the  United 
States. 

In  July,  1837,  Col.  A.  C.  Pepper  had  a  meeting  with  the 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA.  541 

Pottawattamie  Indians  at  Lake  Kewawna  for  the  purpose  of 
removing  them  to  the  west  of  the  Mississippi  river.  That 
fall  George  H.  Prophet,  of  Petersburg,  Indiana,  conducted  to 
the  west  of  the  Mississippi  river  a  portion  of  the  Pottawatta- 
mie Indians.  The  next  j'ear  Colonel  Pepper  and  General 
Tipton,  with  a  bod}"  of  United  States  soldiers,  conducted 
about  one  thousand  of  these  Indians  to  the  west  of  the  Mis- 
sissippi river. 

'*It  was  a  sad  and  mournful  spectacle  to  witness  these 
children  of  the  forest  slowly  retiring  from  the  home  of  their 
childhood,  which  contained  not  only  the  graves  of  their 
revered  ancestors,  but  also  many  endearing  scenes  to  which 
their  memories  would  ever  recur  as  sunny  spots  along  their 
pathway  through  the  wilderness.  They  felt  that  they  were 
bidding  farewell  to  the  hills,  valleys  and  streams  of  their 
infancy,  the  more  exciting  scenes  on  the  hunting  grounds  of 
their  advanced  yOuth,  as  well  as  the  sturdy  battlefields  where 
they  had  contended  in  riper  manhood,  on  which  they  had  re- 
<:eived  wounds  and  where  many  of  their  friends  and  loved 
relatives  had  fallen  covered  with  gore  and  glory.  All  these 
they  were  leaving  behind  them  to  be  desecrated  by  the  plow- 
share of  the  white  man.  As  they  cast  mournful  glances  back 
to  these  loved  scenes,  which  were  rapidly  fading  in  the  dis- 
tance, tears  fell  from  the  cheek  of  the  downcast  warrior,  old 
men  trembled,  matrons  wept,  the  swarthy  maiden's  cheek 
turned  pale  and  sighs  and  half-suppressed  sobs  escaped  from 
the  motley  groups  as  they  passed  along,  some  on  horseback 
and  some  on  foot  and  others  in  wagons,  sad  as  a  funeral  pro- 
cession. Several  of  the  aged  warriors  were  seen  to  cast 
glances  toward  the  sky  as  if  they  were  imploring  aid  from 
the  spirits  of  their  departed  heroes,  who  were  looking  down 
upon  them  from  the  clouds,  or  from  the  Great  Spirit,  who 
would  ultimately  redress  the  wrongs  of  the  red  man  whose 
broken  bow  had  fallen  from  his  hand  and  whose  sad  heart 
was  bleeding  within  him.  Ever  and  anon  one  of  the  party 
would  start  out  into  the  brush  and  break  back  to  their  old 
encampments  on  Eel  river  and  on  the  Tippecanoe,  declaring 
they  would  rather  die  than  be  banished  from  their  country. 


542  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 

Thus  scores  of  discontented  emigrants  returned  from  different 
points  on  their  journey,  and  it  was  several  years  before  they 
could  be  induced  to  join  their  countrymen  on  the  vJ^est  of  the 
Mississippi." 

These  two  nations  of  Indians,  the  Pottawattamies  and 
Miamis,  were  the  proudest  and  most  determined  of  all  the 
Indians  who  inhabited  northern  Indiana. 

In  1839  Pulaski  County  was  organized,  containing  342 
square  miles. 

In  1840  Benton  County  was  organized,  containing  360 
square  miles. 

In  1842  Whitney  County  was  organized,  containing  324 
square  miles. 

In  1844  the  following  counties  were  organized: 
Howard  County,  containing  279  square  miles. 
Ohio  County,  containing  92  square  miles. 
Tipton  County,  containing  264  square  miles. 
Newton  County  was  organized  in  1859. 

In  1840  the  population  of  Indiana  was  685,000,  lacking 
1,000  of  doubling  itself  since  1830. 

James  Whitcomb  was  elected  Governor  in  1843. 


CHAPTER  XXIV. 


PENAL,  BENEVOLENT  AND  EDUCATIONAL  INSTI- 
TUTIONS. 


State  Prison — Asylum  for  Deaf  and  Dumb — Asylum  for 
Blind — Hospital  for  the  Insane — State  Univer- 
sities— State  Library. 


THE  STATE  PRISON. 

Prior  to  1822  the  convicts  of  the  state  for  misdemeanors 
or  violation  of  the  law  were  held  in  the  county  prisons.  In 
some  desperate  cases  Indiana  had  to  borrow  from  other  states 
a  place  where  they  could  be  safely  held.  In  1822  the  Indiana 
State  Prison  was  located  at  Jeffersonville  and  four  acres  of ' 
ground  was  secured  for  the  purpose  of  erecting  suitable 
buildings.  It  was  supposed  that  the  labor  of  the  convicts^ 
could  be  advantageously  employed  in  constructing  a  canal 
around  the  Ohio  Falls  and  this  was  urged  very  strongly  to 
the  committee  which  was  appointed  to  select  a  site  for  the 
prison  and  had  much  weight  in  the  selection  of  Jeffersonville 
for  that  purpose. 

On  this  location  strong  buildings  were  erected  in  which 
secure  cells  for  the  convicts  were  made.  The  buildings  were 
made  as  near  fire-proof  as  possible.  Within  the  grounds  sev- 
eral other  extensive  buildings  were  erected,  such  as  cooper 
shops,  wagon  shops,  iron  foundries  and  shops  for  the  manu- 
facture of  many  sorts  of  articles.  All  this  material  was  sold 
in  the  interest  of  the  State  and  applied  on  the  prison  ex- 
penses, thus  making  the  violators  of   the   law,    while   they 


544  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 

were  held  in  prison   and  securely  gfuarded,  become  self  sup- 
porting by  their  own  labor. 

ASYLUM    FOR    THE   DEAF   AND   DUMB. 

The  initiatory  step  toward  establishing  this  benevolent 
institution  was  taken  by  the  State  Legislature  in  1842-'43  by 
levying  a  **tax  of  two  mills  on  each  one  hundred  dollars 
worth  of  property  in  the  State  for  the  purpose  of  supporting 
a  deaf  and  dumb  asylum."  At  the  same  session  an  appropri- 
ation of  two  hundred  dollars  was  made  to  James  McClain, 
who  had  for  several  months  been  instructing  a  school  of  deaf 
and  dumb  in  Park  County.  A  committee  was  appointed  and 
selected  a  location  near  Indianapolis,  where  the  buildings 
were  erected.  The  length  of  the  main  building,  including 
the  wing,  was  two  hundred  and  sixty-three  feet.  There  was 
another  building  erected  on  the  ground  in  which  the  class- 
rooms were  situated.  This  initiatory  step  of  Indiana  for  the 
protection  of  the  unfortunate  mutes,  by  providing  a  fine  home 
for  them  and  at  the  same  time  furnishing  them  with  a  good 
education,  was  in  the  line  of  progress  which  has  ever  been 
the  watchword  of  the  rulers  of  Indiana  since  the  organization 
of  its  territory.  The  great  blessings  to  humanity  and  the 
individual  blessing  given  to  so  many  of  its  people  is  some- 
thing that  ever)'^  citizen  of  the  State  should  feel  proud  of. 
This  benevolent  institution  is  just  in  its  infancy,  but  judging 
the  future  from  what  has  recentl)'  passed,  it  will  prove  one  of 
the  greatest  blessings  to  the  State  and  to  thousands  of  its 
unfortunate  people.  Pupils  are  received  into  this  institution 
between  the  ages  of  ten  to  thirty  years.  They  are  boarded, 
clothed  and  cared  for  by  the  State  without  charge  to  the  pupil. 

Indiana's  institution  for  the  education  of  its  blind. 

In  1847  the  Legislature  by  an  enactment  resolved  to 
erect  buildings  suitable  for  the  care  and  education  of  the 
blind  inhabitants  of  the  State.  The  committee  appointed  lo- 
cated that  institution  at  Indianapolis.  This  institution  has 
for  its  object  the  moral,  intellectual  and  phj'sical  training  of 

* 

the  blind  youths  of  both  sexes.     The  building  was  erected 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA.  545 

and  obedient  to  the  requirements  of  the  acts  of  the  Legisla- 
ture, by  which  the  trustees  of  .the  institution  were  appointed, 
they  put  an  advertisement  in  the  leading  papers  all  over  the 
State  that  they  were  ready  to  receive  application  from  those 
who  had  blind  youths  in  charge  who  wished  to  take  advan- 
tage of  this  opportunity  to  educate  them.  At  the  same  time 
they  sent  out  circulars  to  all  the  county  officers  and  to  the 
judges  of  the  various  courts,notifying  them  that  the  institution 
was  read)'  to  receive  pupils,  setting  forth  the  conditions,  etc. 
Those  received  into  this  institution  were  educated  at  the  ex- 
pense of  the  State.  The  institution  was  open  for  the  recep- 
tion of  pupils  in  the  fall  of  1847.  At  that  opening  there  were 
nine  pupils  and  at  the  next  opening  of  the  school  in  1848 
there  were  thirty  pupils. 

The  untold  blessings  that  the  work  of  this  noble  institu- 
tion has  brought  to  that  unfortunate  class  of  humanity  of 
our  State  is  beyond  estimate.  Were  it  not  for  this  effort  in 
the  interest  of  those  whose  eyes  are  darkened  to  the  beauties 
of  this  world,  their  minds  would  forever  remain  in  the  same 
darkened  and  benighted  condition,  but  this  institution  has 
taught  them  that  by  one  of  the  five  senses,  the  touch,  the 
mysteries  of  this  beautiful  world  are  unfolded  to  them  and 
the  history  of  all  countries  revealed  to  them  by  raised  letters 
and  figures  which  the  fingers  spell  out,  and  they  are  enabled 
to  understand  the  beautiful  creation  of  all  the  natural  things 
of  earth  and  to  learn  of  the  world  beyond,  and  all  things 
which  have  been  hidden  from  them  on  account  of  their 
dimmed  vision  are  made  as  plain  as  if  their  eyes  had  been 
open  and  they  could  see.  This  noble  work  will  go  on  shed- 
ding its  great  blessings  to  humanity  in  every  section  of  our 
State. 

THE   INDIANA   HOSPITAL   FOR   THE   INSANE. 

In  1843  the  Legislature  by  enactment  resolved  to  estab- 
lish a  hospital  for  the  insane.  Selecting  a  commission  for  the 
purpose  of  locating  a  site  for  this  benevolent  institution,  they 
secured  for  that  place  one  hundred  and  sixty  acres  of  ground 
within  two  miles  of  Indianapolis,  for  which  the  State  paid 
$5,500.00.     The  cost  for  erecting  the  building  was  $51,500.00. 


546  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 

This  building:  was  designed  to  accommodate  two  hundred 
patients,  with  oflScers,  attendants,  nurses,  etc.,  to  take  care  of 
them.  The  applications  for  admission  into  that  hospital 
were  in  four  classes:  First,  where  cases  of  disease  had  been 
for  less  than  one  year's  standing:.  These  should  have  prefer- 
ence before  others  in  the  county  sending  them.  The  second, 
chronic  cases  presenting  the  most  favorable  condition  for  re- 
covery. Third,  the  case  was  taken  from  those  whose  appli- 
cant had  been  longest  on  file.  The  fourth  ca^e  was  from 
counties  in  proportion  to  their  population.  These  patients 
are  cared  for  by  the  State  without  charge. 

The  State,  by  providing  for  this  helpless  and  unfortunate 
class  of  our  citizens,  has  done  credit  to  herself,  as  well  as 
added  a  great  blessing  to  many  communities  and  to  families 
which  hitherto  bad  to-  care  for  their  own  unfortunate  insane. 
There  can  be  no  question  as  to  the  State's  duty  in  this  mat- 
ter. When  reason  is  dethroned  and  the  subject  becomes  in- 
sane, there  is  no  security  for  those  who  come  in  contact  with 
him.  The  unfortunate  and  humiliating  position  which  so 
many  families  of  the  State  have  been  placed  in  by  being  com- 
pelled to  care  for  the  demented  "members  of  their  family,  and 
in  many  cases  they  were  ill-prepared  to  care  for  them.  Many 
of  these  poor  unfortunates  they  have  been  compelled  to  place 
in  buildings  securely  erected  for  that  purpose,  where  they 
were  tied.  In  many  cases,  members  of  families  have  not 
shown  the  human  sympathy  they  should  for  those  of  their 
own  blood,  but  these  unfortunates  have  been  tied  and  com- 
pelled to  remain,  day  in  and  day  out,  in  the  places  prepared 
for  them,  the  condition  of  which  it  is  not  best  to  mention 
here. 

The  State  has  the  means  and  can  care  for  these  un- 
fortunates, and  it  should  relieve  the  families  of  this  burden, 
thereby  adding  a  blessing  to  society  and  doing  a  noble  act  of 
humanity. 

STATE   LIBRARY. 

The  first  appropriation  for  a  State  Library  (which  is  in 
the  Capitol  Building  of  the  State)  was  in  1825,  when  there 
was  an  appropriation  of  fifty  dollars   made   for   binding  the 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA.  547 

records  of  the  State.  There  was  also  a  thirty  dollar  appro- 
priation to  be  made  annually  thereafter  for  the  purchase  of 
books. 

From  that  small  begfinning  the  library  of  the  State  has 
rapidly  increased  in  number  of  volumes  until  it  has  grown  to 
such  proportions  as  to  fill  a  very  large  room,  with  a  most  ex- 
cellent set  of  reference  and  historical  works  which  are  a 
great  credit  to  the  State  and  is  destined  to  become  of  great 
advantage  to  all  literary  students  who  are  seeking  informa- 
tion which  has  not  been  carefully  preserved  in  the  private 
libraries  of  our  country.  The  incidents  of  history  which  are 
of  daily  occurrence  taking  place  are  regarded  as  of  little  note 
and  as  commonplace  things,  but  when  a  generation  has 
passed  and  these  then  little  noticed  incidents  are  wished  to  be 
recalled,  as  a  rule  there  is  nothing  but  a  traditional  history 
of  these  occuirences  except  they  are  preserved  in  such  places 
as  this  State  Library.  It  is  to  the  credit  of  those  having  this 
grand  work  in  charge  that  they  are  making  every  effort  to  se- 
cure a  complete  record  of  the  many  historic  and  heroic  actions 
of  her  people  in  an  early  period  of- this  State's  history.  If 
this  is  carried  out  as  it  should  be,  and  no  doubt  will  be,  this 
institution  will  become  to  all  lovers  of  their  State's  history  a 
place  of  resort  when  in  search  of  information,  second  to  no 
Other  in  Indiana. 

STATE   EDUCATIONAL  INSTITUTIONS. 

Soon  after  the  organization  of  Indiana  Territory  a  town- 
ship of  land  in  Gibson  County  was  granted  to  that  territory  for 
the  establishment  and  endowment  of  a  college.  Al)out  four 
thousand  acres  of  this  land  was  sold  by  the  authority  of  the 
Territorial  Legislature  and  the  proceeds  applied  to  the  bene- 
fit of  the  Vincennes  University.  In  1816  the  second  town- 
ship of  land  situated  in  Monroe  County,  Indiana,  was  granted 
by  Congress  to  the  State,  which,  with  the  unsold  part  of  the 
township  in  Gibson  County,  was  directed  to  be  held  by  the 
State  for  the  purpose  of  establishing  a  college  or  university* 
In  carrying  out  this  trust,  the  Legislature  appointed  a  board 
of  trustees  and  authorized  them  to  sell  a  part  of  the  land  and 


548  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 

erect  suitable  buildings  and  to  establish  a  seminary  of  learn- 
ing. This  was  carried  out  in  1824,  when  the  State  Univer- 
sity at  Bloomington  first  opened  its  doors  for  the  reception  of 
students,  in  charge  of  a  president  and  two  professors.  From 
the  time  of  its  first  start  the  institution  was  well  patronized. 
In  1838  this  institution  was  chartered  as  a  universit)^  In  the 
meantime  the  number  of  professors  was  increased,  a  library 
and  philosophical  apparatus  were  procured  and  an  additional 
building  was  erected.  To  meet  these  accumulated  expenses, 
the  balance  of  the  land  situated  in  Gibson  County  and  that  in 
Monroe  County  was  sold  and  the  surplus  of  the  money, 
amounting  to  about  $80,000.00,  was  put  into  an  endowment 
fund,  from  the  interest  of  which  the  expenses  of  the  Univer- 
sity were  to  be  paid.  Since  these  institutions  were  author- 
ized and  endowed  by  the  State,  the  citizens  in  many  other 
portions  of  Indiana  have  built  and  endowed  many  private  in- 
stitutions of  learning. 

These  two  State  institutions  were  created  at  an  early 
period  and  were  fostered  entirely  by  the  State.  The  building 
of  the  University  at  Bloomington  and  the  appropriation  of 
the  township  of  land  in  Monroe  County  for  that  purpose 
would  seem  to  be  a  just  measure,  but  how  the  controlling  au- 
thorities of  this  State  could  have  so  far  been  influenced  by 
those  in  high  political  stations  as  to  have  taken  a  township 
of  land  out  of  the  best  portion  of  Gibson  County,  that  is  to- 
day worth  two  million  dollars,  and  sacrificed  it  at  a  nominal 
price  for  the  benefit  of  a  State  University  in  Monroe  County 
and  the  Universitj'  of  Vincennes  in  Knox  County  is,  at  this 
time,  hard  to  account  for. 


CHAPTER  XXV. 


THE  MEXICAN  WAR. 


INDIANS   IN   THE   MEXICAN   WAR. 

In  1800  Moses  Austin  went  to  Texas  and  from  that  time 
to  1820  was  engaged  in  lead-mining.  While  at  Bexar,  Texas, 
at  one  time  he  met  with  the  Mexican  Governor  of  that  prov- 
ince and  they  became  good  friends.  He  often  applied  to  the 
Governor  for  concessions  which  amounted  to  a  large  territory 
of  land  where  the  city  of  Austin,  Texas,  now  stands,  and  re- 
ceived permission  from  the  Governor  to  colonize  his  new  pos- 
sessions with  people  from  the  United  States,  consisting  of 
three  hundred  families.  Austin  started  this  work,  but  before 
he  had  the  settlement  completed  he  died,  and  his  son,  Stephen 
Austin,  was  made  head  of  the  Texan  colony.  Though  much 
annoyed  by  Indians,  he  was  very  successful  in  his  coloniza- 
tion  scheme  and  received  a  great  many  accessions,  amounting 
to  many  times  more  families  than  the  agreement  between  him 
and  the  Texas  Governor  specified.  There  were  so  many 
Americans,  they  concluded  to  form  a  government  for  them- 
selves, making  such  laws  as  would  be  suitable  for  their  in- 
terest. 

In  the  spring  of  1833  they  called  a  convention  and 
framed  a  code  of  laws  and  adopted  them  without  paying  any 
attention  to  the  Spanish  population.  They  sent  a  com- 
mission to  the  City  of  Mexico,  asking  the  Mexican  Govern- 
ment to  ratify  their  actions.  Mexico  was  at  that  time  in  a 
revolution  and  paid  but  little  attention  to  the  commission* 
While  in  Mexico,  Austin  sent  a  letter  back  to  Texa^  telling 
the  Americans  to  organize  all  of  their  settlements  and  form  a 
State.     For  this  advice  the  Mexican  authorities  made  him  a 


J 


SSO  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 

prisoner  and  held  him  for  three  months  in  a  vile  prison  and  a 
much  longer  time  than  that  he  was  held  under  close  scrutiny 
of  the  Mexican  police.  He  returned  to  Texas  in  1835  and  at 
once  orgfanized  a  revolutionary  army.  He  induced  Sanl 
Houston,  who  had  recently  emigrated  to  that  section  (after 
having  resigned  his  governorship  in  Tennessee  in  disgust)  to 
take  command  of  his  army,  while  he  (Austin)  went  to  the 
United  States  as  a  commissioner  for  the  purpose  of  creating 
an  interest  among  the  people  to  espouse  the  cause  of  the  new 
Republic  of  Texas,  which  had  adopted  the  '*Lone  Star"  as 
the  emblem  of  the  Republic. 

Austin  did  not  succeed  in  his  mission  as  well  as  he  ex- 
pected. He  returned  to  Texas  in  1836  and  died  very  soon  af- 
terward. 

After  the  death  of  Austin  there  was  no  head  of  the 
Texan  army.  The  members  of  the  provincial  government 
held  a  meeting  and  elected  Houston  as  Commander-in-Chief 
of  the  Texan  army.  Soon  after  this  he  received  a  letter 
from  Travis  from  the  Alamo  notifying  him  that  they  were 
besieged  by  a  large  army  of  Mexicans.  On  the  sixth  of 
March  a  letter  received  from  Colonel  Travis  was  read  in  the 
convention  and  was  the  last  express  which  ever  left  the 
Alamo.  Houston,  with  a  small  force,  immediately  started  to 
reinforce  the  besieged  army,  but  when  he  arrived  there,  the 
Alamo  had  fired  its  last  gun  and  its  brave  defenders  had  met 
their  fate,  among  whom  were  some  men  of  national  reputation. 

Soon  after  this,  Houston,  with  his  army,  was  attacked 
by  a  well-appointed  army  under  General  Santa  Anna  at  San 
Jacinto.  After  a  desperate  battle,  the  Americans  fighting 
the  enemy  ten  to  one,  routed  the  Mexican  army  and  captured 
Santa  Antta  and  his  chief  ofl&cers.  An  agreement  was  made 
with  Santa  Anna  and  his  ofl&cers,  who  were  prisoners,  that 
the  Mexican  army  should  evacuate  Texas,  and  the  independ- 
ence of  the  Republic  of  Texas  was  granted  by  the  fallen  chief  of 
the  Mexican  army.  The  Mexican  Congress  ignored  the  action  of 
Santa  Anna  and  its  provisions  were  left  unratified  on  the  part 
of  Mexico,  but  the  action  of  the  Mexican  Republic,  after  hav- 
ing to  submit  to  the  heroic  soldiers  of  Texas,  was  recognized  by 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA.  551 

the  powers  and  the  new  Republic  of  Texas  was  recognized  by 
many  nations,  and  subsequently  by  an  annexation  became  a 
part  of  the  United  States.  This  action  enragfed  the  Mexican 
people  and  they  sought  by  many  means  to  annoy  the  people 
•of  Texas,  which  had  become  part  of  the  United  States. 

President  James  K.  Polk,  being  aware  of  the  trouble  in 
*Texas  by  the  threatening  attitude  of  Mexico,  sent  General 
2achary  Taylor,  in  command  of  a  small  army,  into  the  south- 
west and  to  post  his  army  in  Texas  on  the  Mexican  border. 
At  the  same  time  the  American  war  vessels  were  sent  to  the 
•Gulf  of  Mexico. 

In  November,  1846,  General  Taylor' h^d  taken  his  posi- 
tion at  Corpus  Christi,  Texas,  with  about  four  thousand 
men.  He  was  ordered  to  advance  his  force  to  the  Rio 
Grande.  Accordingly  he  proceeded  and  stationed  himself  on 
the  north  bank  of  that  river  within  cannon  shot  of  the  Mexi- 
•can  town  of  Matamoris.  General  Taylor  had  actually  in- 
vaded the  Mexican  territory. 

INDIANA   OFFICERS   IN   THE   MEXICAN   WAR. 

First  Regiment — Colonel,  James  P.  Drake;  Lieutenant- 
Colonels,  Henry  S.  Lane,  Christian  C.  Nave;  Major,  William 
Donaldson;  Surgeon,  Caleb  V.  Jones;  Assistant  Surgeon,  Wil- 
liam Fosdick;  Adjutant,  William  E.  Pearsons. 

Second  Regiment — Colonels,  William  A.  Bowles,  Joseph 
Lane;  Lieutenant-Colonel,  William  R.  Hkddon;  Major,  James 
A.  Cravens;  Surgeon,  Daniel  S.  Lane;  Assistant  Surgeon, 
John  T.  Walker;  Adjutants,  Lucien  Q.  Hoggatt,  David  C. 
Shanks. 

Third  Regiment — Colonel,  James  H.  Lane;  Lieutenant- 
Colonel,  William  M.  McCarty;  Major,  Willis  A.  CJorman; 
Surgeon,  James  S.  Athon;  Assistant  Surgeon,  John  D.  Dunn; 
Adjutants,  Herman  H.  Barbour,  Harrison  Daily. 

Fourth  Regiment — Colonel,  Willis  A.  Gorman;  Lieuten- 
ant-Colonel, Ebenezer  Dumont;  Major,  William  W.  McCoy; 
Surgeon,  Isaac  Finley;  Assistant  Surgeon,  J.  M.  Brower;  Ad- 
jutants, Edward  Cole,  Martin  M.  Van  Deusen. 

Fifth  Regiment — Colonel,  James  H.  Lane;  Lieutenant- 


552  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 

Colonel,  Allen  May;  Major,  John  M.  Myers;  Assistant  Sur- 
geons, Philip  G.  Jones,  R.  A.  McClure;  Adjutant,  John  M. 

Lord. 

•:— From  History  of  the  Mexican  War, 

By  Gen.  Cadmus  M.  Wilcox. 


The  brilliant  career  of  General  Taylor  and  his  many  vic- 
tories over  the  Mexicans  will  be  left  for  the  reader  to  find  in 
the  histories  of  the  United  States. 

The  United  States  declared  war  with  Mexico  in  May^ 
1846.  Placing  $10,000,000.00  at  the  President's  disposal, 
authorizing  him  to  accept  50,000  volunteers.  The  greater 
part  of  the  summer  of  1846  was  spent  in  preparations  for 
war,  it  being  resolved  to  invade  Mexico  at  several  points. 

It  was  during  CJovernor  Whitcomb's  administration  that 
a  call  was  made  for  five  regiments  of  infantry  to  serve  for 
three  years  or  during  the  war.  The  record  made  by  the  sol- 
diers of  Indiana  in  that  war  was  honorable.  General  Joseph 
Lane,  the  commander  of  one  of  the  regiments,  was  made  a 
Brigadier-General  and  by  brevet te  a  Major-General  for  gal- 
lantry, and  after  returning  home  was  made  Governor  of  the 
State  of  Oregon.  He  was  elected  United  States  Senator  from 
that  State  for  one  term,  and  in  1860  was  nominated  for  Vice- 
President  on  the  ticket  with  John  C.  Breckinridge  from  Ken- 
tucky for  President.     He  died  in  1881. 

In  the  first  of  1848,  on  the  part  of  the  United  States,  war 
with  Mexico  was  brought  to  a  close.  The  President  of  the 
Mexican  Congress  assumed  provincial  authority  and  on  Feb- 
ruary 2d  that  body  at  Guadalupe  Hidalgo  concluded  peace 
with  the  United  States.  With  slight  amendments,  that 
treaty  was  ratified  by  the  Senate  of  the  United  States  on  the 
10th  of  March  and  by  the  Mexican  Congress  at  Queratero  on 
the  30th  of  May.  President  Polk  on  the  4th  of  July  follow- 
ing proclaimed  peace.  The  Americans,  under  the  terms  of 
the  treaty,  were  to  evacuate  Mexico  within  ninety  days  of 
that  date  and  paid  the  Mexican  Government  $3,000,000.00  in 
cash  and  $12,000,000.00  in  three  annual  installments  and  as- 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA.  553 

sumed  debts  for  $3,500,000.00  more,  due  from  Mexico  to 
American  citizens.  These  payments  were  made  in  considera-^ 
tion  of  new  accessions  of  territory,  which  gave  the  United 
States  not  only  Texas,  but  Arizona,  New  Mexico  and  Upper 
California.  The  war  had  cost  the  United  States,  approxi- 
mately, $25,000,000.00  and  25,000  men. 

While  these  negotiations  were  under  way,  Colonel  Sutter 
had  begun  the  erection  of  a  mill  at  Calona,  on  the  American 
branch  of  the  Sacramento  river.  On  the  third  day  of  Jan- 
uary  one  of  his  hands,  named  George  Marshall,  who  was  en- 
gaged in  digging  a  race-way  for  the  Colonel's  mill,  found  a 
metal  which  he  had  not  seen  before.  On  testing  it,  he  found 
that  it  was  gold.  This  was  sent  to  Sacramento  and  tested 
and  found  to  be  pure  gold. 

As  soon  as  these  discoveries  became  known,  throughout 
the  country  there  was  a  great  emigration  started  for  that 
part  of  California,  and  in  a  short  time  after  that  they  were 
arriving  in  vast  multitudes  from  all  parts  of  America  and 
from  many  places  in  foreign ,  countries.  Many  thousands 
crossed  the  great  western  plains  and  the  Rocky  mountains 
with  ox  teams  and  on  foot,  and  yet  many  more  thousands 
crossed  the  Isthmus  of  Dairen.  All  of  these  emigrants  en- 
countered extreme  diflBculties  before  they  arrived  in  that 
far-off  country.  While  these  emigrants  were  arriving,  there 
was  a  steady  procession  of  ships  full  of  emigrants,  provisions 
and  supplies  passing  around  the  horn  and  up  the  coast  of 
South  America  and.  Mexico  to  the  Eldorado.  In  less  than 
two  years  the  population  of  California  increased  100,000,  and 
still  they  were  coming  in  vast  numbers. 

During  these  exciting  days  from  1848  to  1852  there  were 
more  than  4,000  strong  and  sturdy  men  from  Indiana  who 
went  to  seek  their  fortunes  in  California.  Many  of  them 
underwent  great  privations  and  many  others  lost  their  lives 
in  encounters  with  the  wild  savage  on  the  plains.  In  the 
latter  part  of  the  fifties,  the  old  **forty-niners"  who  had  gone 
to  California  from  Indiana  were  found  in  every  town,  mining 
camp  and  on  many  ranches  in  California  and  Nevada.  Many 
of  these   men   were   successful    in  their  search  for  gold,  and 


554  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 

every  part  of  Indiana  has  men  yet  or  can  recall  those  who  re- 
turned home  with  a  competency  and  invested  their  means  in 
farms  or  business  ventures,  while  perhaps  a  majority  of  those 
who  went  from  Indiana  were  unsuccessful  or  spent  their 
hard-earned  means  in  dissipation  or  gambling,  as  every  other 
house  in  the  towns  of  California  and  Nevada  in  that  early 
day  was  a  gambling  den. 

This  new  acquisition  of  Territory  opened  the  slavery 
question,  in  which  Governor  Whitcomb  expressed  himself  as 
opposed  to  any  further  extension  of  slavery.  CJovernor  Whit- 
comb's  administration  was  in  the  interest  of  good  govern- 
ment, and  his  wise  actions  in  the  affairs  of  State  did  much  to 
redeem  the  public  credit,  and  his  management  of  the  compro- 
mise where  the  State  turned  over  the  incomplete  public  works 
in  payment  for  claims  against  the  government,  was  so  well 
managed  that  the  State  was  again  placed  upon  a  sound  finan- 
cial footing  in  the  nation.  Governor  Whitcomb  in  Decem- 
ber, 1848,  was  elected  to  represent  the  State  in  the  United 
States  Senate,  and  Lieutenant-Gk>vernor  Paris  C.  Dunning 
was  Acting  Governor  until  December,  1849,  when  Joseph  A. 
Wright  was  inaugurated.  During  his  administration  the  in- 
completed public  works  which  the  State  retained  were  again 
pushed  forward  with  vigor. 

In  1850  Governor  Wright  indorsed  the  compromise  meas- 
ure on  the  slavery  question,  and  in  his  message  that  year 
said:  ''Indiana  takes  her  stand  in  the  ranks  not  of  southern 
destiny  nor  yet  of  northern  destiny.  She  plants  herself  on 
the  basis  of  the  Constitution  and  takes  her  stand  in  the  ranks 
of  American  destiny." 

It  was  during  his  administration  that  the  second  Consti- 
tutional Convention  was  held  and  a  new  Constitution  adopted. 
Governor  Wright^s  administration  ranks  with  the  best  of 
Indiana's  (Governors.  During  the  time  he  was  Governor 
many  important  measures  were  placed  on  solid  footing  that 
have  proved  a  great  blessing  to  Indiana.  The  free  school 
system,  by  enactment  of  the  new  Constitution,  was  started  on 
its  great  mission  of  usefulness. 


CHAPTER  XXVI. 


Indian  Barbarity  and  the  Prodigal's  Return  —  This 
Chapter  is  Given  to  Show  One  of  Many  Spies  That 
THE  Anti-Slavery  People  Had  on  All  Strangers 
During  the  Fifties. 


INDIAN    barbarity.  ^ 

In  1798  a  party  of  Kickapoo  Indians  had  been  on  a  raid 
to  Kentucky  and  captured  two  young  men  and  a  negro  man 
who  belonged  to  one  of  the  white  prisoners.  On  their  return 
to  the  Kickapoo  town,  near  the  Wabash,  they  had  camped  at 
night  near  a  small  creek,  which  was  a  fork  of  Harvey's  creek, 
a  short  distance  north  of  where  Union,  Pike  County,  now 
stands.  During  the  night  a  large  hunting  party  of  Shawnee 
Indians  came  into  the  Kickapoo  camp.  The  next  morning 
the  Shawnees,  being  much  stronger,  demanded  that  the 
negro  be  turned  over  to  them.  There  was  a  long  wrangle 
about  this.  Finally  the  Shawnees  agreed  if  they  would  burn 
the  two  white  men  they  would  let  them  keep  the  negro. 
This  the  Kickapoos  consented  to  do,  but  it  was  stipulated 
that  they  should  have  charge  of  aU  the  ceremony  which  was 
used  when  the  prisoners  were  burned  at  the  stake.  The 
prisoners,  by  sign,  were  informed  of  the  ordeal  which  they 
had  to  undergo.  It  was  decided  that  the  two  men  should  run 
the  gauntlet,  and  if  they  got  through  alive,  they  would  then 
be  burned.  The  sub-chief  of  the  Kickapoos  in  charge  acted 
as  master  of  ceremonies. 

The  two  white  prisoners  were  taken  out  some  distance 
from  the  camp,  untied,  and  were  informed  by  signs  that  they 
had  to  run  between  the  two  lines  of  Indians  formed  and  to  a 
tree   near   the  camp.     Newton  Bowles  was  the  first  to  run. 


556  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 

After  being  severely  switched,  he  succeeded  in  getting  to  the 
tree.  The  other  j^oun^  man,  who  was  an  athlete,  was  or- 
dered by  motions  to  run.  He  made  two  or  three  t>ounds  to- 
ward the  line  of  Indians,  then  sprang  to  one  side  and  ran  as 
swift  as  a  deer,  outdistancing  the  Indians  and  got  home. 
After  the  angry  Indians  returned  from  the  chase,  his  partner 
in  misfortune  was  burned  at  the  stake  by  a  slow  fire. 

The  negro  was  sold  to  the  British  in  Canada,  made  his 
escape  and  returned  to  Kentucky. 

Some  years  afterward  John  Conger,  with  the  negro  who 
had  been  given  his  freedom  and  with  James  Bowles,  came 
from  Louisville  on  the  old  Indian  trace.  Arriving  at  White 
Oak  Springs,  now  Petersburg,  Indiana,  he  induced  Woolsey 
Pride,  ^  Mr.  Tislow  and  a  Mr.  Miley  to  go  with  them  and  lo- 
cate the  Indian  camp-where  the  young  man,  Newton  Bowles, 
was  burned.  After  getting  into  the  neighborhood  they 
spent  some  time  before  they  could  locate  Harvey  creek,  then 
went  up  the  creek  to  a  fork  which  ran  to  the  west;  then  up 
that  to  another  fork  not  far  from  where  Bethlehem  Church  is 
now  located.  They  found  a  camp  and  the  negro  showed 
them  the  place  where  Bowles  was  burned. 

The  writer  came  into  possession  of  this  data  showing  the 
creek  and  the  place  of  execution,  and  b}"  the  request  of  some 
persons  at  Evansville.  Indiana,  attempted  to  locate  the  exact 
spot,  so  that  the  relatives  could  erect  a  monument  to  the 
memory  of  Newton  Bowles. 

'*THE   prodigal's    RETURN." 

In  1858,  in  company  with  Mr.  Solomon  Peed,  the  writer 
went  to  the  Bethlehem  Church  and.  was  several  hours  in  that 
neighborhood  looking  over  the  country,  and  found  a  place 
which  corresponded  with  the  drawing,  but  could  not  find 
anything  which  located  the  exact  place.  They  were  resting 
and  sitting  on  a  log  when  Mr.  Peed  related  to  the  author 
this  story: 

Many  years  ago  James  Crow,  who  was  an  old  Indian 
fighter,  settled  on  a  small  tract  of  land  near  the  farm  of 
James  Oliphant,  now  belonging  to  Col.  W.  A.  Oliphant,  near 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA.  557 

Union,  Pike  County,  Indiana.  They  had  several  children, 
and  sometime  in  the  forties  James  Crow  died,  leaving  a  son 
and  three  daughters.  Young  Jim  was  a  shiftless  sort  of 
saj'-nothing  boy  and  did  not  provide  much  for  his  mother  and 
sisters. 

In  1849  the  California  gold  fever  ran  high  and  many 
went  from  all  sections  of  the  country.  One  morning  Jim  was 
missing.  No  one  knew  where  he  had  gone;  no  word  was 
heard  from  him  and  the  family  mourned  him  as  dead.  One 
Saturday  in  1854  an  elegantly  dressed  stranger,  with  a  black 
glossy  beard  which  came  down  to  his  waist,  came  to  the 
widow  Crow's  house  and  asked  for  lodging  for  the  night. 
After  some  parleying  he  was  permitted  to  stay.  He  was  very 
silent  and  did  not  say  anything  about  himself.  The  next 
morning  he  asked  permission  to  remain  until  Monday.  The 
Crows  were  devoted  church  people  and  they  invited  the 
stranger  to  accompany  them,  to  Bethlehem  Church  to  hear 
Rev.  Louis  Wilson  preach.  He  consented  to  go  and  went 
along  with  the  girls,  not  selecting  any  particular  one  of  them 
to  walk  with.  After  church  was  out  all  the  people  shook 
hands  and  inquired  after  each  other's  health  (as  persons  did 
in  those  days).  Many  inquired  of  the  girls  who  the  hand- 
some stranger  was,  to  which  they  answered  that  they  did  not 
know.  They  started  along  the  path,  the  stranger  walking 
along  by  the  side  of  the  youngest  girl,  who  was  about  sixteen 
years  old. 

At  that  time  there  was  great  excitement  in  southern  In- 
diana about  the  fugitive  slave  law  and  about  many  southern 
people  who  were  constantly  coming  to  Indiana  hunting  for 
their  negroes.  The  Rev.  Wilson  was  a  very  strong  anti- 
slavery  man  and  suggested  to  some  of  his  friends  that  the 
stranger  was  a  negro  hunter  and  it  would  be  well  to  keep  a 
watch  on  his  actions.  Two  gentlemen  volunteered  to  look 
after  him.  The  stranger,  with  the  youngest  of  the  Crow 
girls,  had  arrived  at  a  point  in  the  path  opposite  the  house  of 
•Colonel  Oliphant's  father.  He  took  this  time  and  oppor- 
tunity of  telling  her  that  he  was  her  brother  Jim  and  re- 
minded her  of  many  things  which  took  place  when  she  was 


558  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 

younger.  This  convinced  her  that  it  was  her  brother,  and 
with  a  cry  she  caught  him  around  the  neck  and  kept  on  call- 
ing out  that  it  was  her  brother.  The  two  older  girls  came 
running  back  and  the  two  men  who  were  to  keep  watch  over 
the  stranger  hurried  up.  The  girl  was  so  excited  that  she 
could  not  tell  anytliing  and  the  gathering  crowd  became  very- 
threatening.  One  man  took  a  hand-spike  and  was  in  the  act 
of  striking  the  supposed  stranger,  when  the  young  girl 
caught  his  arm  and  prevented  the  blow.  The  young  man 
finally  oonvinced  all  that  he  was  the  long  lost  Jim.  That 
day  at  the  widow  Crow's  the  fattlings  were  killed  and  the 
young  prodigal  was  welcomed  home  and  feasted  on  the  best 
that  could  be  procured.  He  gave  each  of  the  girls  two  fifty 
dollars,  eight  square  gold  slugs,  and  to  his  mother  he  gave 
six  of  the  slugs.  He  remained  at  his  mother's  a  month  or  so- 
and  as  quietly  as  before  slipped  away  and  never  was  heard  of 
again.  No  doubt  he  met  the  usual  fate  of  young  men  of  that 
period,  either  being  killed  by  Indians  or  murdered  for  his- 
money. 


CHAPTER  XXVII. 


The  Experience  of  Two  Young  Boys  with  Two  Bear 
Cubs  —  The  Amusing  Story  of  How  Hogs  Were  In* 
DucED  TO  Return  to  their  Own  Range. 


In  the  early  twenties  two  young  boys,  one  sixteen  and 
the  other  fourteen  years  old,  came  to  Princeton  with  their 
uncle,  Robert  Stockwell,  from  Pennsylvania,  as  he  returned 
from  one  of  his  trips  after  goods. 

Mr.  David  Johnson  was  often  about  Stockwell's  store  and 
the  boys  became  greatly  attached  to  him,  as  all  boys  did.  He 
told  them  of  many  hunting  adventures.  The  boys  would  go 
home  with  him  and  stay  for  weeks  at  a  time.  They  always 
wanted  to  go  on  a  hunting  tour  with  him,  but  he  kept  putting 
them  oflF.  Finally  he  told  them  that  if  they  would  wait  until 
the  mast  fell  and  the  bears  became  fat,  they  should  go  with 
him  on  a  regular  bear  hunt. 

The  time  came  at  last  and  the  three  started,  taking  two 
horses.  Uncle  Dave  rode  one  and  the  two  boys  the  other, 
double.  They  had  gone  five  or  six  miles  away,  when  a  large 
bear  was  seen  running  away  from  them.  Uncle  Dave  told 
the  boys  to  go  to  a  place  in  sight  and  not  to  leave  there  un- 
der any  circumstances  until  he  returned.  They  tied  their 
horse  and  had  been  waiting  for  a  long  time  when,  on  walking 
around,  they  saw  two  little  animals  wrestling  much  as  boys 
do,  rolling  and  tumbling  over  each  other.  They  did  not  have 
the  least  idea  what  they  were,  but.  slipped  up  as  close  as  they 
could  and  made  a  rush  to  catch  them,  which  they  found  hard 
to  do,  as  the  little  cubs  were  much  more  nimble  than  they 
looked.  They  chased  them  around  over  chunks  and  brushy 
Finally  one  of  them  ran  into  a  hollow  log  and  the  little  boy 


S60  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 

crawled  in  after  it;  The  older  boj^  was  still  chasing  the 
other  little  bear  and  finally  caught  it,  when  it  set  up  a  whin- 
ing noise  and  the  same  time  scratched  and  bit  him.  In  a  few 
minuies  he  heard  the  brush  cracking,  and  looking  up,  saw  the 
old  bear  coming  at  him  with  full  force.  He  let  the  cub  go 
^nd  climbed  up  a  little  tree,  fortunately  too  small  fpr  the 
bear  to  climb.  She  would  rear  up  on  the  tree  as  though  she 
intended  to  climb  it  and  snarl  and  snort  at  the  boy,  who  was 
dreadfully  scared.  About  this  time  the  boy  in  the  log  had 
squeezed  himself  so  he  could  reach  the  cub,  whereupon  it  set 
up  another  cry.  The  old  bear  left  the  treed  boy  and  ran  to 
the  log  and  over  and  around  it,  uncertain  where  the  noise 
■came  from.  She  commenced  to  tear  away  the  wood,  so  she 
<:ould  get  to  her  cub,  but  she  was  too  large  to  get  more  than 
her  head  in  the  hole.  The  boys  were  thus  imprisoned  for 
more  than  two  hours,  when  a  shot  was  fired  not  far  oflF.  The 
boy  up  the  tree  set  up  a  terrible  hallooing,  and  it  was  but  a 
little  time  until  Uncle  Dave  came  in  sight.  The  boy  ex- 
plained the  situation  to  him  and  soon  a  second  shot  killed  the 
old  bear.  The  young  bear  was  caught  and  tied  and  the  little 
boy  came  out  of  the  log,  dragging  the  other  cub,  which  they 
also  tied.  They  were  taken  home  and  the  boys  made  great 
pets  of  them. 

Mr.  Johnson  understood  the  ways  of  animals  other  than 
bear  or  deer.  About  sixty  years  ago  there  was  a  great 
amount  of  mast  in  his  neighborhood  and  he  was  fattening  a 
hundred  head  of  hogs  on  it.  A  Mr.  Young,  from  near 
Princeton,  was  in  that  section  hunting  and  saw  this  abund- 
ance of  mast  and  determined  to  have  the  benefit  of  some  of  it. 
He  went  home  and  brought  a  large  drove  of  hogs  and  turned 
them  loose  by  the  side  of  Mr.  Johnson's  farm.  This  was  a 
little  more  than  Uncle  Dave  would  put  up  with,  so  he  deter- 
mined to  get  rid  of  the  hogs  without  killing  them,  for  he 
and  Young  were  friends,  as  all  old  settlers  were.  The  hogs 
bedded  on  a  hill  not  far  from  the  house,  so  he  watched  them 
until  he  found  out  that  a  large  sandy  sow  was  the  leader  of 
the  gang.  Nicholas  Warrick,  a  boy  whom  he  had  brought 
up,  John  C.  White  and  William  Skelton  were  working  for 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INPIANA.  561 

him.  Late  one  afternoon  Uncle  Dave  went  to  the  place 
where  the  farm  hands  were  cribbing  corn  and  told  them  that 
they  need  not  go  out  for  another  load  that  evening.  He  said, 
*'Nick,  you  know  that  old  blue-spotted  hound,  Bounce,  has 
been  sucking  eggs  all  summer,  and  your  mother  has  com- 
plained to  me  several  times,  so  I  have  decided  to  kill  it.  You 
and  John  will  take  him  back  of  the  barn  and  after  you  have 
killed  him,  you  skin  him  as  carefully  as  if  you  intended  to 
stretch  and  dry  the  hide.  Be  sure  that  you  leave  the  long 
flap  ears  and  tail  on  tlie  hide.  Bill,  you  go  and  make  me  a 
good  number  of  strong  wax  ends  and  bring  the  sack  needle.'* 
After  everything  was  ready,  the  boys  with  the  dogs 
caught  the  old  sow  and  sewed  the  dog  skin  on  her  hard  and 
fast.  When  completed.  Uncle  Dave  said,  "Boys,  turn  her 
loose."  She  made  a  rush  Jo  get  away,  with  her  hotmd  ears 
and  tail  flopping.  She  ran  to  the  hogs  and  they  became 
frightened  and  ran  away  and  the  transformed  hog  after 
them.  The  next  morning  Mr.  Young  found  his  hogs  at 
home. 


CHAPTER  XXVIII. 


Kidnapping  Free  Negroes  —  Kidnapping  of  Reube  at 
Princeton  —  Liberating  Two  Negroes  Near  Prince- 
ton, Indiana — Kidnapping  Two  Free  Negroes  Three 
Miles  West  of  Princeton  —  Attempt  to  Kidnap  a 
Barber  at  Petersburg,  Indiana  —  Several  Attempts 
TO  Kidnap  Negroes  —  Dr!  John  W.  Posey  and  Rev,. 
Eldridge  Hopkins  Liberating  Two  Kidnaped  Ne- 
groes—  A  Slave  Hunter  Defeated  at  Kirks  Mill 
Bridge  in  Gibson  County — An  Attempt  to  Catch 
Runaway  Negroes  Ending  in  a  Desperate  Battle 
With  Wild  Hogs  —  Jerry  Sullivan  Raid  at  Dongola 
Bridge — Kidnapping  the  Gk)THARD  Boys— Rev.  Hiram 
Hunter  Relieving  Kidnaped  Negroes. 


In  all  of  the  territory  of  the  free  States  adjacent  to  the 
borders  of  the  slave  States  during*  the  time  after  the  passage 
of  the  last  fugitive  slave  law  in  1850  up  to  the  commencement 
of  the  War  of  the  Rebellion,  there  was  great  excitement^ 
and  many  thrilling  experiences  between  those  having  pro  and 
anti-slavery  views.  This  was  eminently  true  along  the  south- 
ern borders  of  Indiana,  Illinois  and  Ohio.  The  fugitive  slave 
law  of  1793  was  similar  to  the  agreement  made  in  1787,  when 
the  compact  was  accepted  to  forever  exclude  slavery  from  the 
Northwest  territory.  At  that  time  it  was  .considered  a  just 
agreement,  permitting  the  owners  of  slaves  who  lived  in  any 
of  the  thirteen  colonies  to  reclaim  their  slaves  who  had  run 
away  from  any  place  to  the  territory  that  the  votes  of  the 
South  had  made  it  possible  to  be  forever  free  from  slavery^ 
But  the  law  passed  in  1850  which  gave  the  slaveholders  or 
those  aiding  in  catching  their  runaway  slaves^  the  power  to 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA.  563 

organize  a  posse  at  any  point  in  the  United  States  to  aid 
them  in  this  work  and  made  it  the  duty  of  police  and  peace 
officers,  from  United  States  marshal  down,  to  at  any  and  all 
times  assist  them  in  running  down  their  slaves  and  imposing 
heavy  fines  and  penalties  on  any  one  who  would  refuse  to  do 
their  bidding.  This  was  so  repugnant  to  many  persons  that 
it  raised  a  great  commotiori  and  there  was  a  determined  effort 
made  by  those  opposed  to  slavery  to  defeat  the  enactment  of 
this  obnoxious  law. 

The  anti-slavery  league  of  the  East  had  many  of  the 
shrewdest  men  of  the  nation  in  its  organization.  They  had 
a  detective  and  spy  system  to  help  those  who  were  assisting 
the  runaway  slaves  to  reach  Canada. 

The  last  three  years  before  the  rebellion  of  the  Souths 
slaveowners  rarely  ever  captured  a  runaway.  These  young 
men  had  various  occupations  at  which  they  worked,  mostly 
book  and  other  sort  of  agencies;  some  were  school  teachers* 
They  always  had  the  same  political  opinion  as  the  majority 
had  where  they  were  assigned.  Those  who  were  regular 
spies  were  apparently  intensely  pro-slavery  and  made  up 
and  were  yokefellows  with  all  the  negro  hunters  in  the  terri- 
tory in  which  they  worked.  The  Southern  slavedrivers,  with 
their  whips  and  handcuffs  in  evidence  of  their  occupation, 
were  so  often  seen  passing  through  the  country  that  our 
people  became  familiar  with  their  bantering,  haughty  ac- 
tions and  the  loud  and  swaggering  manner  of  their  dress. 
Their  handbills  were  posted  at  every  crossroad,  with  the  pic- 
ture of  a  negro  with  a  budget  on  his  back,  giving  a  descrip- 
tion of  his  age,  height  and  special  marks,  and  orfenng  a  le- 
wani  for  his  capture. 

About  the  year  1851  an  old  negro  man  named  Stephen- 
son came  to  see  the  author's  father,  who  was  largely  inter- 
ested in  farming,  to  have  him  keep  his  boys,  one  fourteen, 
one  twelve  and  the  other  ten  years  old,  for  him  until  he  could 
make  arrangements  to  start  for  Liberia.  This  my  father 
agreed  to  do.  It  was  spring  time  and  the  boys  helped  with 
the  work.  Things  went  on  that  season  and  the  old  man  had 
no  chance  to  get  away  and  work  was  well  under  way  for  the 


564  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 

second  season.  Old  man  Stephenson  had  come  to  this  coun- 
try from  South  Carolina  with  Dr.  Samuel  McCulloug^h  about 
the  middle  of  the  forties.  He  was  a  free  man,  but  married  a 
slave  and  bought  her  freedom.  They  had  lived  in  the  same 
neighborhood  for  several  years,  until  his  wife  died.  One 
evening,  just  as  the  work  was  over  for  the  day,  the  colored 
bo5^s  were  doing  up  the  work  around  the  barn.  Two  men 
rode  up  to  the  front  of  the  house  and  called  to  the  author's 
father,  who  was  sitting  on  the  porch,  saying  that  they 
wanted  to  see  him.  They  told  him  they  had  a  description  of 
three  colored  boys  who  were  born  in  South  Carolina  who  were 
slaves,  and  had  called  to  see  him  about  it,  as  they  had  learned 
he  had  three  colored  boys  working  for  him. 

These  two  fellows,  no  doubt,  had  a  confederate  in  the 
neighborhood  who  had  given  them  a  perfect  description  of 
the  bo5"s.  My  father  talked  to  them  awhile,  not  having  the 
least  idea  who  they  were,  and  evidently  they  did  not  know 
him,  or  they  would  have  been  the  last  fellows  to  come  there 
on  such  a  mission.  He  excused  himself  td  go  into  the  house 
for  something.  They  waited  for  him  to  return,  which  he  did 
with  his  bear  gun,  **01d  Vicksburg,"  in  his  hands. 

They  commenced  to  plead  with  him  to  let  there  be  no 
diflBculty.  He  told  them  that  there  was  not  the  slightest 
danger  of  any  trouble.  He  wanted  them  to  see  what  sort  of 
a  machine  he  guarded  the  boys  with,  and  said  to  them,  **Do 
you  see  that  little  house?"  pointing  to  a  room  in  our  yard. 
'*The  three  boys  sleep  there,  and  if  they  are  disturbed,  I  will 
kill  fifteen  such  worthless  vagabonds  as  you  are  before  you 
get  them,  fugitive  law  or  any  other  law.  And  I  want  to  say, 
before  I  get  mad,  that  you  had  better  go,  for  you  may  get 
into  danger."  He  cocked  the  big  gun  and  said,  **I  feel  it 
coming  on — go  and  go  quick." 

They  took  him  at  his  word  and  they  went  in  a  hurry. 
He  waited  until  they  had  gone  about  Seventy-five  yards  away, 
when  he  turned  loose  at  them,  intending  to  shoot  just  above 
their  heads.  At  the  crack  of  that  monster  gun  they  lay 
down  on  their  horses'  necks  and  made  as  good  time  as  did  the 
best  mounted  F.  F.  V.  when  Sheridan's  cavalry  was  after  them. 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA.  56S 

The  boys  remained  with  us  for  nearly  three  years  before 
they  got  away  to  Liberia,  and  that  was  the  last  we  ever 
heard  of  the  men  hunting  for  them. 

The  next  year  my  father  made  the  race  for  the  Legisla* 
ture.  One  of  these  fellows  —  who  was  a  hotel-keeper  at 
Petersburg:,  Indiana  —  went  into  Gibson  County  to  work 
against  him.  He  told  the  people  that  father  was  a  blood- 
thirsty man  and  that  he  did  not  regard  the  life  of  a  mam 
more  than  he  would  the  life  of  a  bear.  It  was  evident  he  had 
struck  the  wrong  crowd.  They  demanded  that  he  tell  them 
of  one  instance  where  he  had  shown  such  a  disposition.  He 
told  them  that  two  friends  of  his  had  gone  to  father's  house 
to  see  about  some  runaway  negroes  and  that  he  threatened 
their  live^,  and  as  they  went  away  shot  at  them.  This  dis- 
gruntled fellow  was  laughed  out  of  the  township  for  his. 
meddling. 

THE   KIDNAPPING  OF   RBUBB   AT  PRINCETON,  INDIANA. 

In  1817  William  Barrett  moved  to  this  state  from  Ten- 
nesee  and  settled  in  what  is  now  southwestern  Columbia, 
township,  Gibson  county,  Indiana.  He  had  formerly  lived 
in  the  state  of  South  Carolina  and  moved  from  there  to  Ten- 
nesee  in  1804. 

Some  years  after  they  reached  Indiana,  a  negro  man 
named  Reube,  who  had  formerly  been  a  slave  of  Mr,  Jacob 
Sanders  (but  had  "been  freed  for  having  saved  his  master*^ 
life)  came  on  from  South  Carolina  with  a  relinquishment 
paper  for  Mrs.  Barrett  t6  sign  for  her  part  of  her  father's  es- 
estate.  Reube  remained  fof  nearly  a  year;  the  winter 
weather  was  too  cold  for  him  and  he  had  determined  to  go- 
back  before  another  winter  set  in.  John  W.  Barrett,  a  son 
of  William,  at  that  time  a  large,  gawky  boy  about  eighteen 
years  old  and  six  feet  eight  inches  tall,  went  with  Reube  on 
many  a  fishing  and  hunting  adventures.  When  it  came 
time  for  Reube  to  start  back  John  took  him  over  to  Princeton 
and  led-  the  horse  which  he  had  ridden  back  home.  Reube 
intended  to  go  from  there  to  Evansville  with  the  first  passing- 
team  that  went  that  way. 


566  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 

The  act  which  gave  Reube  his  freedom  was  a  heroic  one. 
There  was  a  maniac  in  that  section  of  South  Carolina  who  at 
times  became  very  desperate  and  was  kept  in  confinement  in 
such  a  place  as  the  authorities  had  for  that  purpose.  He  was 
ver}^  sly  and  cunning  and  stepping  up  back  of  Mr.  Sanders 
pinioned  his  hands  behind  him  and  threw  him  on  the  ground 
and  with  a  large  knife  attempted  to  cut  his  throat.  Reube, 
being  in  the  garden  nearby  saw  his  master's  peril  and  run- 
ning up  behind  the  maniac  struck  him  at  the  butt  of  his  ear 
with  a  hoe  and  felled  him  to  the  ground.  Mr.  Sanders  said 
* 'Reube,  from  this  day  on  yoa  are  a  free  man  and  I  will  at 
once  make  out  your  free  papers."  He  told  him  to  stay  on  the 
place  if  he  wanted  to  for  as  long  a  time  as  suited  him  and  he 
would  pay  him  for  all  the  work  he  did.  The  papers  were 
made  out  and  in  giving  him  his  freedom  a  full  history  of  the 
reason  was  given  and  they  were  recorded.  To  make  it  cer- 
tain that  no  one  would  disturb  Reube,  Mr.  Sanders  had  a  full 
history  of  the  case  engraved  on  a  gold  plate;  also  had  a 
gold  chain  attached  to  the  gold  plate  that  went  around 
his  neck  so  that  it  was  easy  at  any  time  if  the  patrols 
stopped  him  to  show  the  certificate  on  the  plate.  Mr.  Bar- 
ret's family  heard  nothing  of  Reube  for  two  or  three  years. 
Finally  Mr.  Sanders  wrote  to  his  niece  Mrs.  Barrett,  asking 
her  why  Reube  did  not  come  back. 

In  1832  Col.  James  W.  Cockrum  bought  the  steamboat 
Nile  and  intended  to  run  her  up  the  Yazoo  river  and  other 
small  rivers  to  bring  the  cotton  out  and  carry  it  to  New  Or- 
leans. John  W.  Barrett,  a  brother-in-law,  was  made  clerk  of 
the  boat  and  had  charge  of  the  freight.  At  one  landing  on 
the  Yazoo  river  there  was  a  large  quantity  of  cotton  to  be 
loaded  and  the  planters  were  still  delivering  from  the  farms. 
Young  Barrett  was  on  the  deck  tallying  as  the  mate  and 
deck  hands  were  putting  the  cargo  aboard  when  a  colored 
man  came  near  him  and  said:  **Mr.  Barrett,  don't  you  know 
me?  I  am  Reube  who  hunted  with  you  in  Indiana.  Don't 
let  on  you  know  me."  Barrett  did  know  him  and  was  greatly 
surprised  at  thus  meeting  him.  Finally  he  got  a  chance  and 
told  Reube  to  roll  a  bale  of  cotton  behind  the  cabin  stairs. 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA.  567 

Reube  told  him  that  his  master  was  on  the  bank  and  it  was 
not  safe  for  them  to  be  seen  talking  together.  The  planter 
whom  Reube  called  his  master  had  a  large  amount  of  cotton 
and  was  watching  the  count  of  the  bales  and  his  slaves  were 
helping  to  load  it  in  order  that  they  might  finish  before 
night.  During  the  loading  Barrett  had  several  chances  to 
say  a  word  to  Reube.  There  was  a  wood  yard  some  miles  be- 
low where  the  boat  would  stop  to  take  on  wood.  Reube  said 
he  would  be  down  there  when  the  boat  came  as  it  would  be 
some  hours  after  night  and  when  the  boat  rounded  to  Reube 
was  ready  to  load  wood  as  soon  as  it  was  measured.  Barrett 
watched  his  chance  and  took  Reube  down  in  the  hold  and  se- 
creted him  there  arid  looked  after  him.  They  got  to  New 
Orleans,  unloaded  the  cotton  and  took  on  a  lot  of  government 
freight  for  the  upper.  Arkansas  river  to  one  pf  the  military 
outposts.  Reube  was  still  in  hiding,  no  one  but  the  clerk  be* 
ing  aware  of  his  presence  on  board. 

While  they  were  unloading  the  government  freight  Bar- 
rett went  to  the  commander  of  the  fort  and  told  the  history 
of  Reube  and  all  about  his  being  kidnapped  and  being  sold 
into  slavery  to  a  Mississippi  planter  on  the  Yazoo  river.  As 
fortune  would  have  it  the  commander  was  a  New  England 
man  and  felt  indignant  at  the  outrageous  treatment  the  poor 
negro  had  received  and  assured  Barrett  that  he  would  keep 
him  in  his  employ  at  good  wages  until  he  had  an  opportunity 
to  .send  him  back  to  South  Carolina,  which  he  did.  About  a 
year  afterward  the  Barrett  family  received  a  letter  from  Mr. 
Sanders  telling  of  Reube's  arrival  home.  Mr.  John  W.  Bar- 
rett told  me  in  1854,  the  last  time  he  was  ever  in  Indiana, 
that  after  he  left  Reube  at  Princeton  he  had  no  opportunity 
to  get  away  to  Evansville  until  about  the  middle  of  the  next 
day.  He  was  making  inquiry  of  some  people  if  they  knew  of 
any  team  which  was  going  to  Evansville.  Reube  was  very 
fond  of  showing  his  gold  certificate  of  freedom;  finally  two 
men  told  him  they  were  going  to  Evansville  that  evening  but 
they  could  not  get  away  before  the  middle  of  the  afternoon 
and  made  an  agreement  that  he  could  go  with  them  by  cook- 
ing for  them  on  the  road  and  after  they  got  there.      Reube 


568  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 

readily  agreed  to  this  since  they  told  him  that  they  had  some 
thought  of  going  on  to  Tennesee. 

They  finally  started,  and  after  staying  a  day  or  so  at 
Evansville  (which  then  was  only  a  small  place),  they  started 
on  the  Tennessee  trip.  They  made  it  convenient  to  go  west 
in  Tennessee  and  on  to  Memphis.  They  told  Reube,  whom 
they  had  been  very  kind  to,  that  in  a  day  or  so  they  would  go 
to  North  Carolina,  and  in  doing  so  would  pass  near  his  home 
if  he  wanted  to  go  with  them,  but  the  next  place  they  went 
to  was  the  Yazoo  river.  There  they  took  Reube's  gold  plate 
and  papers  from  him  and  sold  him  to  the  planter  with  whom 
Barrett  found  him. 

(The  data  for  the  following  story  was  furnished  by  Gen- 
eral Neeley): 

Harvey  Montgomery  was  the  seventh  child  of  Judge 
Isaac  Montgomery.  Why  James  T.  Tartt,  in  his  Gibson 
County  History,  failed  to  give  his  name  when  giving  the  his- 
tory of  the  rest  of  the  family,  I  do  not  know.  I  want  to 
record  it  here  that  he  was  a  noble-hearted,  pure  man. 

I  was  a  young  boy  when  I  knew  him  best,  and  he  was  my 
ideal  of  an  upright.  Christian  gentleman.  Early  in  life  one 
of  his  legs  was  broken,  and  in  setting  it,  was  left  in  such  a 
shape  that  it  became  very  crooked  and  he  was  never  able  to 
do  heavy  work.  He  lived  with  his  father  at  his  home  two 
miles  southeast  of  Oakland  City,  Indiana,  until  he  married. 
He  then  settled  on  a  quarter  section  just  north  of  his  father, 
where  he  spent  his  life. 

The  Judge  owned  a  farm  near  Princeton  at  the  time  he 
lived  on  his  farm  in  eastern  Gibson  County  and  cultivated 
both  farms. 

At  one  time  Harvey  and  Joseph,  who  was  the  third  child 
of  Judge  Montgomery,  and  a  hand  working  for  them  named 
McDeeman,  had  two  loads  of  produce — venison,  hams,  hides 
and  bear  bacon — which  they  were  taking  to  Robert  Stockwell 
at  Princeton.  Joseph  at  that  time  lived  on  what  was  after- 
ward the  Richey  farm,  about  one-half  mile  west  of  his  father. 
He  was  a  very  large  man  and  was  known  far  and  near  as  one 
of  the  strongest  men,  physically,  who  ever  lived  in  that  section. 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA.  569 

As  they  were  getting  within  about  two  miles  of  Prince- 
ton and  after  climbing  a  hill,  they  stopped  to  let  their  or 
teams  rest  and  heard  a  loud  noise  as  of  men  in  a  wrangle. 
Joseph  Montgomery  and  McDeeman  left  Harvey  with  the 
teams,  and  taking  their  guns,  went  to  find  out  what  the  noise 
was  about.  When  they  got  to  the  parties  making  the  noise, 
they  found  two  negroes  haiidcuffed  together  and  a  white  maa 
was  beating  one  of  the  negroes  with  a  heavy  stick. 

Montgomery,  who  was  as. fearless  as  strong,  with  Mc- 
Deeman,rushed  up  to  the  place  where  the  trouble  was  and  asked 
the  man  with  a  club  what  in  '*hades"  he  meant  by  beating  the 
man  with  such  a  bludgeon.  There  were  two  white  men  and  one 
of  them  became  very  insulting,  telling  Montgomery  they 
were  beating  their  own  property  and  it  was  none  of  his  busi- 
ness. One  of  the  negroes  cried  out,  '*Oh,  that  is  Mr.  Mont- 
gomeryl  Don't  you  know  me?  I  am  Pete,  who  kept  your 
camp  at  the  bear's  den." 

Montgomery  did  know  him.  The  bully  had  the  club 
drawn  back  to  hit  Pete,  when  Montgomery  leaped  like  a 
panther  arid  hit  the  fellow  at  the  butt  of  the  ear  and  com- 
pletely knocked  him  out.  At  this  the  other  kidnapper  started 
to  draw  a  large  knife,  when  McDeeman,  who  was  a  full- 
fledged  Irishman,  raised  his  gun  and  said,  "On  your  worth- 
less life,  don't  move  your  hand.  If  you  so  much  as  bat  your 
eye,  I  will  shoot  it  out  of  your  head."  They  took  the  key 
away  from  them,  freed  the  negroes,  put  the  handcuffs  on  the 
kidnappers,  gave  the  two  negroes  the  clubs  and  marched  the 
two  men  up  to  the  wagons  and  on  into  Princeton.  Montgom- 
ery tried  to  have  the  kidnappers  put  in  jail  until  court  would 
set.  The  old  Justice  before  whom  they  brought  the  proceed- 
ings was  thoroughly  in  sympathy  with  slavery,  and  he  vir- 
tually there  made  the  same  decision  that  Chief  Justice  Tanny 
did  thirty  years  afterwards.     It  was  as  follows: 

"There  is  no  evidence  that  the  two  men  kidnaped  the 
negroes  except  the  statement  made  by  the  negroes.  The  evi- 
dence of  a  negro  has  no  force  in  court  which  could  affect  a 
white  man." 

They  were   set  at   liberty.     They  were  so  much  elated 


370  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 

over  being  freed  from  the  charge  that  they  proceeded  to  fill 
up  with  whisky  and  hunted  up  Montgomery  and  raised  a 
quarrel  with  hint,  but  he  gave  both  of  them  at  the  same  time 
such  a  thrashing  that  they  were  glad  to  get  away. 

Along  in  the  twenties  a  man  by  the  name  of  Sawyer, 
from  North  Carolina,  laid  a  lot  of  land  warrants  on  some  rich 
land  west  of  Petersburg,  in  Pike  County,  Indiana.  Soon  af- 
terward he  died-  A  year  or  two  later  the  family  moved  to  the 
land  and  brought  with  them  a  negro,  who  had  always  been  in 
the  family  with  them,  and  who  cleared  up  a  portion  of  the 
land  and  raised  corn  on  it.  This  negro  became  acquainted 
with  a  negro  woman  who  lived  with  the  family  of  Judge 
Montgomery  at  his  eastern  Gibson  County  home.  After  a 
itime  the  two  colored  people  were  married,  but  continued  to 
live  at  the  homes  of  the  white  people  they  were  with,  with 
Ihe  exception  of  a  weekly  visit  made  by  the  colored  man  to 
his  wife. 

One  day  this  man  went  to  a  mill  some  distance  away  for 
the  Sawyers  and  was  never  seen  afterward.  He  was  kid- 
naped and  sold  into  slavery  at  Natchez,  Mississippi.  Thomas 
Montgomery,  a  son  of  the  Judge,  went  down  the  river  to 
^ew  Orleans  some  years  after  this  and  he  was  told  by  some 
negroes  at  Natchez  that  the  negro  lived  for  only  about  three 
years,  but  during  that  time  he  was  ever  lamenting  the  loss  of 
ihis  wife,  who,  he  said,  lived  at  Judge  Montgomery's. 

About  1825  Mathias  Mount  settled  on  a  farm  near  Peters- 
iburg,  Indiana.  He  brought  a  little  colored  girl  with  him  to 
liis  new  home,  where  she  remained  about  three  years.  She 
was  sent  to  the  house  of  a  neighbor  on  an  errand  and  was 
never  seen  by  the  Mouat  family  afterward.  No  doubt  she 
was  kidnaped  by  some  of  the  human  vultures  who  were 
always  on  the  watch  for  such  a  chance.  About  Petersburg 
and  the  country  south  of  there  to  the  Ohio  river,  there  were 
many  of  these  slave-hunting  hounds  in  human  form  always 
watching  for  a  ''runaway  nigger,"  as  they  termed  them. 
The  long-haired  gentry  from  the  South,  with  their  whips  and 
shackles,  were  yoke-fellows  well  mated  with  these  Northern 
•confederates. 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA.  571 

In  1822  two  negro  men  came  to  what  is  now  the  city  of 
Princeton  hunting  for  work.  They  were  hired  by  General 
Wm.  Embree  to  work  on  a  farm  two  or  three  miles  west  of 
Princeton  that  he  owned.  They  were  good  hands  and  worked 
•on  the  same  farm  for  two  years,  living  in  a  small  log  cabin  on 
the  farm  and  doing  their  own  culinary  work.  One  of  the 
men  could  read  and  write  and  often  borrowed  books  from  peo- 
ple in  Princeton  to  read.  When  the  work  season  was  over 
they  put  in  most  of  their  time  before  corn  would  be  ready  to 
igather  in  hunting  for  game,  which  was  very  abundant. 

The  summer^s  work  for  the  second  year  was  over  and  the 
men  were  gone  hunting.  One  morning  late  in  the  summer 
some  one  found  tacked  on  the  oabin  door  a  short  note  saying 
they  had  gone  to  the  Ohio  river  to  cut  cord  wood  until  the 
•corn  would  do  to  gather  and  this  was  the  last  time  they  were 
•ever  seen  on  the  farm. 

Some  years  later  General  Embree  was  in  the  city  of  New 
Orleans  and  found  these  two  men  working  on  the  levee  roll- 
ing freight.  They  told  him  that  two  men  whom  they  had 
«een  several  times  in  Princeton  came  to  their  cabin  early  in 
the  evening  and  handcuffed  them  and  by  daylight  the  next 
morning  they  were  at  the  Ohio  river,  which  they  crossed  on 
a  raft  into  Kentucky,  going  down  to  Henderson.  After 
waiting  a  few  days  a  boat  came  and  they  were  carried  to  New 
Orleans  where  they  were  sold  into  slavery. 

Mr.  Embree  went  to  a  lawyer  and  told  his  story  and  had 
proceedings  brought  to  liberate  the  two  negroes.  The  inves- 
tigation developed  that  they  were  sold  into  slavery  to  James 
Lockwell  by  two  men  named  Absalom  Tower  and  Thomas 
Slaven  and  they  had  been  for  more  than  three  years  the  prop- 
»erty  of  LockwelL  As  no  complaint  had  been  made  during 
that  time  the  judge  refused  to  release  them. 

Dr.  J.  R.  Adams,  of  Petersburg,  tells  this  story  of  a  bar- 
ber who  came  to  Petersburg  and  opened  a  barber  shop.  One 
*of  the  human  vultures  who  were  ever  ready  to  kidnap  the 
poor  negroes,  sent  off  and  had  a  correct  description  of  the 
barber  made  and  sent  back  to  him.  He  and  another  confed- 
•erate  at  Washingtoa,  Indiana,  who  brought  a  stranger  with 


572  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 

him  who  claimed  to  own  the  barber  and  who  said  he  was  his 
nefi:ro,  producing  a  handbill  that  g^ave  a  perfect  description  of 
the  barber  in  which  a  reward  of  two  hundred  dollars  was  of- 
fered for  his  re-capture,  claiming  that  he  had  run  away  from 
Tennessee  some  three  years  before. 

These  villains  were  preparing  to  start  for  the  south  with 
the  poor  barber  when  Dr.  Adams  brought  proceedings  to  lib- 
erate him.  The  doctor  through  an  attorney  delayed  proceed- 
ings until  he  could  send  a  runner  to  Vincennes  and  get  Rob- 
ert LaPlant,  who  swore  that  the  negro  was  born  in  a  small 
house  in  bis  father's  yard  in  Vincennes,  that  the  mother  and 
father  were  in  the  employ  of  his  parents  at  that  time  and  con- 
tinued to  work  for  his  father  until  the  barber  was  nearly 
grown.  Dr.  Adams  swore  he  had  known  him  as  a  free  negro 
for  ten  years.  On  this  strong  evidence  the  young  barber  was 
liberated.  But  owing  to  the  prejudice  of  the  time  all  the  • 
white  villains  who  tried  to  do  this  great  wrong  were  allowed 
to. go  free. 

In  1822  a  negro  named  Steve  Hardin,  who  had  worked 
with  Major  Robb  about  his  mills  for  some  time  was  kidnaped 
by  a  Kentuckian  named  J.  Teal  who  was  visiting  south  of 
Vincennes,  and  carried  to  New  Orleans  and  sold  into  slavery* 
Two  years  afterwards  a  man  named  Pea  who  lived  west  of 
Petersburg,  Indiana,  went  down  the  river  and  at  New  Orleans 
met  Steve  Hardin,  with  whom  he  was  well  acquainted.  Pea 
went  with  the  negro  to  a  lawyer's  office  and  told  him  the  ne- 
gro's history  and  that  he  was  born  in  Indiana  Territory  after 
1787.  Suit  was  brought  and  the  negro  was  given  his  liberty, 
the  judge  holding  that  those  who  were  born  in  the  Northwest 
Territory  after  the  ordinance  of  1787  were  free. 

In  1807  John  Warrick,  Sr.,  brought  from  Kentucky  to 
Indiana  Territory  a  negress.  When  the  state  constitution 
was  adopted  Warrick  sold  this  woman  to  a  Kentucky  friend, 
who  kidnaped  her  near  Owensville,  Indiana,  and  took  her  to 
his  Kentuckv  home.  Parties  from  the  section  where  she  was 
kidnaped  instituted  proceedings  in  a  Kentucky  court  for  her 
freedom.  The  court  held  that  it  could  not  recognize  the 
theory  which  held  one  to  be  a  slave  and  free  at  the  same  time 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA.  573 

and  further  held  that  the  negress  was  free  by  being  taken  in- 
to Indiana  Territory  for  a  residence  after  the  ordinance  of 
1787. 

In  1784  John  Decker  brought  from  the  state  of  Virginia 
three  slaves  to  Indiana  Territory  and  located  just  south  of 
White  river  a  little  east  of  where  the  town  of  Hazelton  is 
now  situated.  These  slaves  were  held  by  Mr.  Decker  as  his 
property  at  that  point  in  northern  Gibson  county  and  other 
places  in  that  neighborhood  until  a  few  days  before  the  adop- 
tion of  the  state  constitution  in  1816,  when  they  were  kid- 
naped and  hurried  to  the  Mississippi  country  and  sold  into 
•slavery  where  they  were  found  by  friends  who  knew  them 
and  aided  them  in  securing  their  emancipation.  The  judge 
-before  whom  the  proceedings  for  their  emancipation  was 
brought  owned  100  negroes  but  he  decided  that  the  residence 
the  negroes  had  in  Indiana  Territory  made  them  free.  It 
may  be  proper  to  note  here  that  these  southern  decisions  (and 
there  were  many  such)  were  made  long  before  there  was  any 
excitement  between  the  southern  slavery  and  northern  anti- 
slavery  people. 

In  1813  John  Judson  came  to  Indiana  Territory  and 
brought  with  him  two  able  bodied  negro  men.  Judson  made 
a  temporary  settlement  near  where  the  town  of  Patoka  is 
now  located.  Judson's  father  had  died  two  years  befofe  in 
middle  Tennesee  and  as  part  of  his  last  will  it  was  stipulated 
that  his  son  John  who  was  his  only  heir  should  take  the  two 
negroes  to  the  territory  that  was  under  the  ordinance  of  1787 
and  to  leave  them  and  to  each  he  was  to  give  $100.00  and  a 
note  or  contract  which  called  for  $100  to  be  paid  annually  to 
•each  of  the  negroes  so  long  as  they  lived.  The  money  for 
these  payments  was  to  be  sent  to  the  land  office  at  Vincennes 
.every  year. 

Young  Judson  left  the  two  men  and  before  the  year  was 
out  they  were  missing  and  were  never  heard  of  afterward. 
They  were  undoubtedly  kidnaped  and  sold  into  slavery.  The 
deposit  was  made  at  the  land  office  for  several  years  and  was 
finally  returiied  to  Mr.  Judson. 


574  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 

DR.  JOHN  W.  POSEY   AND   REV.  ELDRIDGE    HOPKINS 

Along  in  the  earl}^  part  of  the  fifties  two  free  negro  men 
who  lived  in  northern  Kentuckjs  not  far  from  Rockport,  In- 
diana, had  been  working  on  the  Wabash  and  Erie  canal  be* 
tween  Washington  and  Terre  Haute  for  some  time  and 
had  determined  to  go  to  their  hotnes  and  had  got- 
ten  as  far  as  Washington  on  their  wa^'  there,  when  they 
fell  in  with  a  man  who  seemed  very  friendly  to  them  askings 
them  where  they  were  going.  When  they  told  him,  he  told 
them  that  he  and  a  friend  of  his  were  going  in  the  same  di- 
rection nearly  to  the  Ohio  river  in  a  wagon  and  that  if  they 
wanted  to  they  could  go  with  them  and  it  would  not  cost 
them  anything  for  the  ride;  that  they  would  have  provision 
with  them  for  the  trip  and  they  could  assist  in  preparing  it 
but  that  the}'  -would  not  be  ready  to  start  before  three  or  four 
in  the  afternoon. 

The  offer  was  a  very  favorable  one  to  the  two  negroes 
and  they  gladly  accepted  it  and  said  they  would  be  at  an 
agreed  point  at  the  south  side  of  Washington,  where  the  two 
men  with  the  wagon  found  them. 

They  took  the  Petersburg  road  and  it  was  late  in  the 
evening  when  they  crossed  the  White  river  at  the  ferry.  Mr. 
John  Stucky,  who  crossed  at  the  same  time,  knew  one  of  the 
while  men  and  at  once  suspected  what  he  was  up  to,  but 
could  not  draw  him  into  a  conversation  and  could  not  get  a 
chance  to  talk  to'  the  colored  men,  as  he  had  to  hold  his 
horse.  He  heard  them  tell  ihe  ferryman  that  they  would 
stay  all  night  in  a  wagon  yard  in  Petersburg.  After  they 
were  over,  the  wagon  traveled  pretty  fast.  Mr.  Stucky  did 
not  keep  up  with  it  and  reached  Petersburg  some  time  after 
it  had  put  up  at  the  wagon  3'ard.  Stucky  hunted  up  Dr. 
John  W.  Posey,  who  was  the  father  of  Hon.  Frank  B.  Posey, 
and  told  him  about  the  white  men  and  negroes  that  were 
stopping  at  the  wagon  3^ard.  The  doctor  at  once  understood 
the  situation  and  sent  a  sp}'  to  the  wagon  3'ard  to  see  what  he 
could  find  out.  The  spy  soon  reported  that  he  found  them 
eating  supper  and  that  a  noted  hotel-keeper  was  some  dis- 
tance away  engaged  in  conversation  with  one  of  the  men. 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA.  575 

He  talked  with  the  negroes,  who  said  their  homes  were  in 
Kentucky  and  that  these  men  were  letting  them  ride  in  the 
wagon  most  of  the  way.  They  had  no  evidence,  but  the  doc* 
tor  decided  to  have  a  watch  kept  and  have  the  wagon  fol- 
lowed to  see  what  developments  might  come.  About  two 
Jiours  before  day  the  guard  who  had  been  on  watch  came  hur- 
riedly to  the  doctor's  home  and  told  him  they  were  getting  ready 
to  start  and  had  their  team  hitched  to  a  three-seated  express 
wagon  and  that  the  hotel  man  was  with  them  and  two  other 
fellows  whom  he  did  not  know.  The  doctor  had  three  horses 
saddled  and  sent  for  a  neighbor  to  ride  one  of  them  and  one 
of  his  hired  hands  rode  another  and  the  doctor  the  third  one. 
All  three  were  armed.  They  sent  the  guard  back  to  watch 
and  report,  but  the  express  and  men  had  gone.  Mr.  Posey 
and  other  men  hurried  on  after  them  on  the  Winslow  road, 
but  did  not  overtake  them,  as  they  had  passed  through 
Winslow  a  little  after  sun-up  and  thirty  minutes  ahead  of  the 
pursuing  party.  They  followed  on  after  them,  meeting  a 
man  about  two  miles  south  of  Winslow  who  said  he  had  met 
the  express  about  one  mile  south  of  where  they  were  and  that 
they  had  two  runaway  negroes  tied  together.  As  there  were 
only  three  of  them  and  four  of  the  kidnappers,  and  it  was 
supposed  that  men  on  such  a  business  would  go  well  armed^ 
they  felt  as  if  they  did  not  have  an  equal  chance,  but  they 
knew  that  justice  was  on  their  side,  so  they  resolved  to  fol-^ 
low  on,  and  when  the  kidnappers  stopped,  they  would  find 
some  one  legally  qualified  to  try  the  case  and  liberate  the 
poor  negroes. 

About  this  time  they  met  Rev.  Eldridge  Hopkins  who 
told  them  that  he  passed  the  express  but  a  short  mile  south 
of  where  they  were  and  the  men  inquired  of  him  if  he  could 
tell  them  where  there  was  a  spring  as  they  wanted  to  eat  an 
early  dinner  and  feed  their  horses  as  they  were  getting  fa^ 
tigued.  Hopkins  thought  nothing  of  it  as  men  with  runaway 
negroes  were  a  common  occurrence  in  those  days.  Dr.  Posey 
told  Rev.  Hopkins,  with  whom  he  was  well  acquainted,  the 
situation  and  Hopkins,  who  was  in  favor  of  justice  and  was 
good  grit  all  the  way  through,  offered  to  pilot  them  around 


576  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 

the  men  if  they  stopped  to  feed  so  that  they  would  be  in  front 
of  them  and  could  go  to  a  Justice  on  the  road  a  few  miles 
ahead  and  have  papers  prepared  to  stop  them  and  release  the 
negroes. 

Coming  to  the  road  at  the  point  Hopkins  intended,  they 
found  that  the  express  had  not  passed,  but  they  learned  that 
the  squire  they  wanted  was  away  from  home  and  before  they 
could  find  a  legal  light  who  could  give  them  the  right  to  stop 
the  kidnappers  they  got  into  Warrick  county,  where  a  writ 
was  secured.  When  the  express  came  up  a  constable  halted 
them  and  marched  them  into  a  Justice's  court.  At  first  the 
kidnappers  were  disposed  to  threaten  but  by  this  time  quite  a 
number  of  men  had  gathered  around  in  front  of  them.  These 
fellows  were  completely  nonplussed  by  the  action  of  Dr, 
Posey.  The  two  negroes  were  brought  into  court  and  told 
their  story.  Dr.  Posey  retold  what  the  colored  men  told  his 
man  the  night  before  while  one  of  the  while  men  was  eating 
supper  with  them.  The  crowd  was  very  much  in  sympathy 
with  the  two  unfortunates. 

The  man  who  claimed  to  own  them  showed  a  band  bill 
giving  a  perfect  description  of  the  two  men  and  offering  a 
reward  of  two  hundred  dollars  for  their  recapture  dated  at  a 
point  in  Tennessee  some  weeks  before.  (This  hand  bill  was 
no  doubt  printed  at  Washington  the  day  before,  while  these 
negroes  were  waiting  for  their  new  found  friends.)  Things 
now  began  to  look  pretty  bad  for  the  poor  negroes.  Hopkins 
was  a  ready  talker  and  be  volunteered  to  defend  them  and 
made  a  telling  speech  in  which  he  had  the  sympathy  of  all 
not  interested.  The  old  justice  was  against  the  negroes  and 
he  decided  that  they  were  nearly  all  slaves  and  those  who 
claimed  their  homes  in  a  slave  state  were  all  slaves  and  whereas 
theirownerhadproducedanoticeof  them  that  had  a  perfect  de- 
scription and  dated  several  weeks  before  he  would  let  him 
(the  supposed  owner)  go  with  his  property. 

This  infuriated  Hopkins  and  he  told  Dr.  Posey  that  be 
would  see  that  the  men  did  not  get  over  the  Ohio  river  with 
the  negroes.  While  Mr.  Hopking  and  Dr.  Posey  were  hav- 
ing a  consultation,  Mr.  Hopkins  discovered  that  he  had  his 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA.  577 

foot  on  the  hub  of  a  wheel  of  the  express  the  kidnappers  bad 
come  in  and  saw  that  the  wheels  were  held  on,  with  linch 
pins  and  that  he  could  easilj'  get  one  of  them  out,  which  he 
•did  and  put  it  in  his  pocket.  It  was  decided  that  it  was  best 
for  the  doctor  and  his  two  men  to  return  home.  Hopkins 
said  that  in  that  crowd  he  could  find  all  the  men  he  wanted 
to  go  with  him  on  the  raid,  so  having  chosen  them,  they  se- 
cured arms  and  were  soon  on  the  go. 

Starting  off  in  an  easterly  direction,  they  soon  found  a 
road  which  brought  them  to  the  Boonville  road  and  found 
that  the  express  had  not  passed.  They  took  powder  and 
made  themselves  as  black  as  Nubians;  no  one  would  have  rec- 
ognized them.  Mr.  Hopkins  thought  that  the  express  might 
^et  some  distance  before  the  wheel  would  come  off. 

They  waited  for  a  time,  but  finally  started  up  the  road 
and  saw  the  express,  with  one  wheel  oflf,  about  one  mile  south 
of  where  the  old  squire  lived.  When  they  got  close  to  the 
express,  they  rushed  up  hurriedly  and  demanded  to  know 
what  they  had  the  negroes  tied  for.  The  negroes  fold  them 
that  they  were  kidnaped.  The  rescuing  party  leveled  their 
guns  at  the  three  white  men  and  made  them  hold  up  their 
hands.  One  of  them  had  gone  back  to  look  for  the  linch  pin. 
The  negroes  were  untied  and  the  white  men  searched  for 
guns.  They  found  three  old  pepper  box  revolvers  of  a  pat- 
tern of  that  date  and  several  knives.  They  also  found  a  fine 
rifle  in  the  bottom  of  the  express.  The  negroes  were  made 
to  tie  the  three  men  and  they  all  sat  down  out  of  sight  until 
the  fourth  man  came  back,  when  he  was  also  tied.  They 
then  organized  a  stump  court-martial  to  try  the  kidnappers. 

The  negroes  fiist  told  their  story  as  above  related.  The 
four  men  were  told  that  they,  one  at  a  time,  could  tell  their 
side  of  the  case.  The  would-be  owner  produced  the  handbills 
that  Dr.  Posey  told  Mr.  Hopkins  were  made  in  Washington. 
Mr.  Hopkins,  who  was  the  leading  spokesman,  told  them  that 
this  was  the  case  and  said  that  that  was  the  worst  feature 
in  it. 

The  court,  after  hearing  all  the  evidence,  decided  that  all 
four  of  them  should  die,  for  such  villainy  was  a  menace  to 


578  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 

good  order  and  the  peace  of  society,  but  told  them  that  anjr 
one  of  them  who  would  tell  the  whole  truth  should  live.  At 
this  one  of  the  men  commenced  to  weaken,  when  the  leader 
told  him  to  remember  the  oath  he  took  when  he  was  hired 
and  the  penalty  if  he  violated  that  obligation.  At  this  Hop- 
kins took  the  fellow  who  seemed  ready  to  tell  something  away 
from  the  rest  and  where  they  could  not  hear,  and  told  hint 
that  if  he  would  tell  the  whole  truth,  that  his  life  would  be 
spared.  On  this  assurance,  he  told  all  he  knew.  He  said 
that  the  pretended  owner  lived  at  Washington,  Indiana,  and 
that  it  was  intended  to  carry  the  negroes  to  the  Mississippi 
country  and  sell  them;  that  they  had  agreed  to  pay  him  and 
another  man  whom  they  hired  at  Petersburg  one  hundred 
dollars  each  to  go  with  them  and  watch  the  two  negroes  until 
they  were  sold,  and  that  the  team  belonged  to  the  leader  who 
pretended  to  own  the  negroes. 

Mr.  Hopkins  took  the  man  back  to  the  party  and  put  the 
negroes  guard  over  them.  He  then  reassembled  the  court- 
martial  and  they  held  another  consultation,  after  which  he 
told  the  white  prisoners  that  they  deserved  to  die  for  such 
villainy,  but  they  did  not  want  their  blood  on  their  hands 
and  had  decided  not  to  kill  them,  but  they  intended  to  give 
them  an  object  lesson  they  would  remember  all  the  rest  of 
their  lives. 

Hopkins  took  the  leader  and  the  two  negroes  out  in  the 
woods  some  distance  west  of  the  road,  cut  two  good-sized 
hickory  gads  and  told  the  negroes  to  give  him  twenty- -five 
hard  lashes  each,  which  they  did  with  a  will;  then  he  untied 
the  fellow,  who  was  evidently  well  whipped,  and  told  him  to 
go  in  a  northwest  direction  and  not  to  stop  or  look  back. 
Then  he  took  the  other  man  from  Washington  and  the  twa 
negroes  to  the  east  side  of  the  road,  cut  iwo  gads  and  gave 
him  fifty  lashes,  untied  him  and  told  him  to  go  to  the  north- 
east and  not  to  stop  or  look  back  under  penally  of  being  shot. 
The  two  men  who  had  been  hired  they  gave  ten  lashes  each 
and  then  turned  them  loose  toward  Evansville.  Mr.  Hopkins 
and  his  party  held  a  final  conference  and  then  had  the 
negroes  put  the  wheel  on,  having  given  them  the  linch  pin* 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA.  579 

They  decided  to  turn  the  team  over  to  the  two  negroes,  with 
the  pepper  box  revolvers  and  the  rifle  to  defend  themselves^ 
deciding  that  they  had  undergone  enough  torture  to  have  all 
the  spoils.  By  this  time  it  was  an  hour  after  dark.  The 
two  darkies  drove  away  and  these  rude,  but  just  judges  went 
to  their  homes. 

Some  ten  days  after  the  events  above  recorded,  Mr.  Hop- 
kins went  to  Petersburg  and  visited  Dr.  Posey.  They  sent  a 
man  to  Washington  to  find  out  what  he  could  about  the  two 
villains  who  attempted  the  kidnapping.  He  learned  that 
they  had  got  back  the  day  after  they  were  so  soundly 
thrashed  and  reported  they  had  fallen  in  with  a  band  of 
horsethieves,  who  bad  beaten  th«m  tearfully  and  taken  their 
team  and  everything  else  they  had. 

Some  time  after  this  Mr.  Hopkins  was  working  for  the 
company  that  built  the  first  steam  mill  in  Oakland  City,  get- 
ting out  rock  for  the  foundation.  In  tamping  a  charge  of 
powder  it  went  off  prematurely  and  came  very  near  putting 
his  eyes  out.  He  remained  for  three  weeks  at  my  father's 
home  perfectly  blind,  but  otherwise  in  the  best  of  health. 
During  that  time  he  related  this  story  to  my  father,  giving 
all  the  details  except  the  names  of  any  but  Dr.  Posey.  My 
father  and  Dr.  Posey  were  friends  and  he  asked  the  doctor 
about  it.  The  doctor  said  that  it  was  the  best  planned  expe- 
dition of  the  kind  that  he  had  ever  heard  of.  and  to  the  Rev. 
Eldridge  Hopkins  three-lounhs  of  the  credit  was  due  for  its 
succ  *ssful  ending. 

A    SLAVE    HUNT   TO    WATCH    THE    KIRKS   MILL    BRIDGE. 

Some  time  late  in  the  summer  of  1852  a  man  rode  hur- 
riedly into  Princeton,  Indiana,  covered  with  dust  and  his 
horse  in  such  a  lather  of  sweat  it  showed  evidence  of  hard 
riding.  Tied  to  the  back  of  his  saddle  were  a  large  whip 
and  several  cords  and  hanging  to  the  horn  were  several  pairs 
of  handcuffs  and  a  brace  of  heavy  revolvers  belted  around  his 
waist  outside  his  dusty  coat.  Altogether  he  was  a  fierce- 
looking  fellow. 

Dismounting,   he  tied   his  horse  to  the  court-yard  rack. 


580  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 

and  hurrying  to  the  south  door  of  the  old  court-house,  put  on 
the  bulletin  board  a  notice  of  three  runaway  negroes,  ofFering 
a  reward  of  five  hundred  dollars  for  their  capture.  After 
doing  this  he  inquired  for  the  best  tavern  and  had  his  horse 
taken  to  the  livery  stable.  He  made  inquiry  if  there  was 
anyone  who  would  be  willing  to  help  him  catch  the  run- 
aways. Some  time  after  he  got  to  the  tavern  two  gentlemen 
who  were  always  boasting  of  the  many  times  they  had  en- 
gaged in  such  work,  called  on  him,  offering  their  services  to 
help  him  catch  the  runaways.  The  slaveowner  inquired 
about  their  experience  in  such  business  and  they  informed 
him  that  they  had  been  in  many  such  hunts.  He  told  them 
they  would  do  and  if  he  got  the  negroes  he  would  divide  the 
reward,  which  was  offered  between  five  men;  that  all  he 
wanted  was  their  help  in  catching  the  rascals.  He  asked 
them  who  the  other  three  men  would  be.  There  were  several 
names  mentioned  to  him  of  those  who  would  be  good  help  in 
such  an  undertaking.  They  mutually  agreed  on  the  three 
men,  when  he  enjoined  them  to  secrecy.  Only  those  going  on 
the  raid  should  know  anything  about  what  they  intended  to 
do.  After  this  was  arranged,  it  was  agreed  the  first  two 
men  should  come  back  to  the  ta\'ern  not  later  than  four 
o'clock  to  let  him  know  if  the  ihree  men  selected  could  be  de- 
pended on  to  go.  By  that  lime  he  could  secure  some  needed 
rest  and  they  would  mature  a  plan  of  aciion  for  the  coming 
night. 

The  slaveowner  said  that  he  felt  certain  the  runaways 
would  pass  somewhere  near  Princeton  during  the  early  part 
of  the  night  and  aim  to  cross  the  Patoka  river  and  get  as  far 
on  toward  White  river  as  they  could  before  daylight.  He 
thought  it  best  to  guard  one  or  two  bridges  over  the  Patoka 
and  should  they  fail  in  capturing  them  he  would  organize  a 
posse  and  picket  White  river  at  every  point  where  it  was 
thought  likely  they  could  cross.  Pulling  a  small  map  from 
his  pocket  and  looking  over  it  for  a  short  time,  he  pointed  out 
a  route  which  he  thought  they  would  be  most  likely  to  fol- 
low. He  pointed  to  Wheeling  (Kirksville)  as  the  place  he 
thought  the/  would  try  to  cross  the   Patoka  river,  and  said 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA.  581 

that  he  would  go  to  that  point  with  the  five  men  selected  and 
watch  that  bridgfe. 

He  authorized  the  two  men  if  they  could  find  any  reliable 
persons  to  guard  the  Columbia  bridge,  for  them  to  do  so,  a^ 
it  might  be  possible  they  would  go  that  way.  Bidding  the 
two  men  good-bye,  he  asked  them  to  be  prompt  and  report  at 
the  time  named. 

That  the  reader  may  understand,  I  will  state  that  the 
slave-hunting  bullies  had  made  themselves  so  obnoxious  to- 
many  good  people  in  and  around  Princeton,  that  this  bogus, 
slave  hunt  was  inaugurated  to  teach  them  a  needed  lesson. 
The  pretended  slaveowner  was  none  other  than  an  anti- 
slavery  spy  and  he  had  five  confederates  who  were  well  ac- 
quainted  with  the  country  and  the  people.  The  ones  selected 
to  guard  the  Wheeling  bridge  were  the  most  offensive  ones  in 
that  business.  The  anti-slavery  confederates  had  eight 
heavy  bombs  made  at  Kratz  &  Heilman's  foundry  in  Evans- 
ville,  which  would  hold  about  three  pounds  of  powder,  each 
with  a  screw  attachment  so  that  a  time  fuse  could  be  put  into 
the  powder. 

As  soon  as  it  was  dark  the  five  men,  carrying  the  bombs, 
started  two  hours  ahead  of  the  brave  negro  catchers.  The 
first  two  bombs  were  placed  near  the  side  of  the  road  in  a 
deep  hollow  about  two  and  a  half  miles  northeast  of  Prince- 
ton, the  next  two  were  placed  about  three-fourths  of  a  mile 
from  the  Wheeling  bridge,  and  the  other  four,  two  on  each 
side  of  the  bridge  about  sixty  or  seventy  yards  away.  A  man 
was  left  at  each  station  to  fire  the  fuse  at  the  proper  time, 
and  the  extra  man  nearly  a  hundred  yards  from  the  bridge 
down  the  river  to  command  an  imaginary  battalion.  These 
bombs  were  the  real  thing  for  a  great  noise. 

At  four  o'clock  the  two  men  were  on  hand  and  had  the 
names  of  three  men  who  would  go  out  and  watch  the  Colum- 
bia bridge;  also  said  that  the  other  men  of  their  party  would 
be  ready  at  any  time  set  for  the  start.  The  slaveowner  said 
that  he  did  not  care  to  see  the  three  men  who  were  to  go  to- 
the  Columbia  bridge,  as  he  thought  they  had  but  little 
chance  of  success,  and  he  authorized  the  two  men  to  see  that 


582  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 

they  went,  and  for  them  and  the  other  three  of  their  party  to 
meet  him  on  the  north  side  of  the  seminary  at  one  hour  after 
nig^ht  and  they  would  go  to  the  Wheeling  bridge. 

The  party  all  assembled  on  time  and  then  took  the 
Wheeling  road  to  the  northeast  for  the  bridge.  There  had 
been  an  agreed  signal  between  the  pretended  slaveowner  and 
his  confederates  with  the  bombs,  so  he  could  locate  their 
places,  and  when  the  bridge-watching  party  got  to  the  deep 
hollow,  Indian  creek,  a  deep,  loud  voice  some  way  to  one  side 
said,  **Who  goes  there?"  The  men  stopped  and  listened  for 
some  time,  but  nothing  more  was  heard.  The  leader  turned 
to  his  posse  and  said,  '*Did  you  let  it  b^  known  that  we  were 
going  on  this  hunt?"  They  all  said  that  they  had  not.  He 
rode  around  and  called  several  times,  but  there  was  no  re- 
sponse. 

They  then  rode  ahead  and  after  passing  several  miles 
came  to  where  the  second  station  was  located,  when  from  out 
of  the  woods  to  one  side  of  the  road,  in  a  deep-souriding 
voice,  came  the  second  challenge,  *'Who  goes  there?"  The 
party  stopped  and  the  leader  said  in  a  loud  voice,  *'Who  are 
you,  that  you  demand  who  we  are?"  He  waited  for  some 
time,  but  there  was  no  more  sound  heard.  The  leader,  after 
locating  the  place  well,  turned  to  his  men  and  asked  if  they 
thought  it  could  be  possible  that  the  abolitionists  would  at- 
tempt to  defeat  their  plans.  They  all  said  they  did  not  think 
they  had  any  idea  of  their  movements.  The  leader  said  it 
was  strange  indeed  that  they  should  have  been  twice  stopped 
by  such  an  unearthly  sound. 

They  rode  on  in  silence  to  the  bridge,  crossed  over  it  and 
went  on  watch  on  the  north  side,  keeping  their  horses  close 
at  hand  so  they  could  mount,  if  they  needed  to,  in  a  moment, 
as  the  slaveowner  told  them  the  slaves  would  run  and  that 
there  were  two  desperate  characters  in  the  lot.  The  brave 
slaveowner  had  them  watch  closely.  He  would  walk  up  and 
down  both  banks  of  the  river,  pretending  to  be  watching 
everything.  Finally  he  came  running  up  the  bank  and  said, 
**Boys,  get  on  your  horses.  I  am  certain  there  is  something 
going  on.     I  heard  a  noise  as  of  men  slipping  through  the 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA.  583 

'brush."  At  this  time  one  of  his  confederates  called  out, 
^'Halt!  Dismount;  let  two  men  hold  the  horses;  get  into 
line.  Shoulder  arms!"  At  this  time  one  of  the  bombs  near 
the  horses  went  off.  The  leader  called,  **Get  over  the  bridge, 
boys;  the  abolitionists  will  blow  it  down."  At  this  another 
bomb  exploded  near  them.  This  put  the  horses  in  a  fearful 
panic  and  they  went  across  the  bridge  at  a  great  gait. 

Soon  the  two  bombs  on  the  south  side  exploded.  The 
men  were  on  the  go  and  it  was  a  half  mile  before  the  leader 
•could  stop  them.  Shaming  them  for  such  cowardice,  they 
stopped  and  listened,  and  hearing  nothing,  marched  on  to 
where  the  last  voice  was  heard  as  they  went  to  the  bridge, 
and  were  listening  there  when  the  two  bombs  at  this  point 
were  exploded  within  a  few  feet  of  them.  After  this  there 
was  no  more  halt,  and  the  man  who  fired  the  two  bombs  at 
Indian  creek  said  he  could  not  tell  that  they  went  any  faster, 
as  they  were  at  top  speed  when  they  got  to  him.  The  leader 
tried  to  keep  up  calling  to  them  to  stop.  They  did  not  heed 
him,  for  they  had  seen  and  heard  enough  for  one  night  and 
ran  all  the  way  back  to  Princeton. 

In  1865  a  captain  of  the  143d  Indiana  Regiment,  who  for 
years  after  the  war  lived  at  and  near  Francisco,  Indiana,  and 
later  moved  west,  while  seated  on  the  capital  steps  at  Nash- 
ville, Tennessee,  gave  me  the  data  for  the  above  story.  He 
said  he  was  never  so  thoroughly  frightened  in  his  whole  life 
as  when  the  big  bombs  commenced  to  go  of;  it  sounded  as 
though  the  infernal  regions  had  broken  loose.  Who  the  five 
men  were  who  had  charge  of  the  bombs  he  never  could  learn, 
out  always  believed  that  they  lived  in  the  Stormont  and 
Carithers  neighborhood  northeast  of  Princeton.  There  is  one 
fact  certain,  as  he  expressed  it,  it  broke  him  of  * 'sucking 
eggs,"  and  if  any  of  the  other  four  men  ever  attempted  to 
catch  a  runaway  negro  afterward,  he  never  heard  of  it. 

AN   ATTEMPT  TO   CATCH   RUNAWAY  NEGROES  WHICH   ENDED  IN 
A   DESPERATE   BATTLE  WITH   WILD   HOGS. 

In  1850  Joseph  Stubblefield  was  hunting  some  cattle 
which  had  strayed  away  from  John  Hathaway's  works  on  the 


584  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 

old  Wabash  and  Erie  canal  just  north  of  the  Patoka  river  op- 
posite the  town  of  Dongola.  -  Finding  that  the  oxen  had 
crossed  the  river,  he  followed  on  after  them  until  he  came  to 
what  was  then  known  as  the  Hazel  rough,  a  large  body  of  land 
which  had  but  little  timber  on  it,  but  was  completely  covered 
with  hazel  brush,  matted  together  with  grapevines,  running 
in  every  direction  all  over  the  top  of  the  low  bushes.  At  that 
time  there  were  many  wild  hogs  running  at  large  in  all  this 
section,  and  that  large  body  of  wild  tangled  brush  was  an  ideal 
home  for  them  and  offered  them  a  bountiful  supply  of  food 
from  September  to  winter  when  there  was  other  mast  they  could 
get  in  the  timber  around  the  edges  of  that  immense  thicket. 
In  tracking  the  cattle  it  was  found  they  had  gone  to  the  bot- 
toms of  Buck  creek,  which  was  a  short  distance  west  of  the 
rough,  where  he  found  them,  and  in  attempting  to  drive  them 
back  they  made  a  rush  to  get  away  by  going  into  the  edge  of 
the  rough.  Following  on  after  them  some  distance,  he  came 
to  a  camp  with  a  bed  of  leaves  that  looked  as  if  it  had  been 
recently  used,  as  bones  of  animals  and  a  piece  of  cornbread 
were  found  near  the  bed,  which  was  completely  covered  with 
grapevines  and  could  not  be  seen  unless  one  should  happen  on. 
to  it  as  Stubblefield  had  done.  He  did  not  understand  what 
this  meant,  as  he  had  seen  no  one.  But  when  he  got  back 
with  the  cattle  he  related  his  find  to  some  of  the  men  on  the 
works  and  learned  that  it  was  a  bed  made  by  runaway  negroes 
and  that  a  posse  had  been  there  that  morning  inquiring  for 
them  and  had  left  a  handbill  giving  a  description  and  offer- 
ing a  reward  for  their  capture. 

It  was  soon  noised  around  that  their  hiding  place  had 
been  found  by  Stubblefield  and  there  was  a  posse  organized  ta 
go  back  with  him  and  capture  the  negroes.  Mr.  Hathaway 
learned  what  was  up  and  sent  for  Joe  and  interrogated  him 
about  the  bed  and  where  it  was.  Mr.  Hathaway  was  a  just 
man,  and  believed  if  the  poor  runaways  could  elude  their  mas- 
ters and  gain  their  liberty,  that  it  was  right  that  they 
should  do  it,  and  told  Stubblefield,  who  at  that  time  was  not 
more  than  twenty  years  old,  that  he  thought  it  wrong  for 
him  t6  pilot  those  human  hounds  so  that  they  could  capture 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA.  58S 

these  poor  unfortunates.  Joe  at  once  took  the  same  view  of 
the  matter  and  it  was  arranged  between  them  that  he  would 
do  all  he  could  to  keep  the  men  from  finding  the  negroes  by 
taking  them  to  a  wrong  place  and  fool  them  all  that  he  could 
until  night  would  come,  and  the  negroes  would  then  be  on 
their  way  north.  It  was  arranged  that  they  would  start 
about  two  o'clock.  When  the  time  came  Stubblefield,  who 
was  equal  to  any  emergency,  pretended  that  he  had  sprained 
his  ankle  very  badly  and  that  he  would  have  to  bathe  it  for  a 
while  before  he  could  go.  In  this  way  he  put  in  as  much  as 
an  hour,  and  when  he  had  gone  some  distance  on  the  way,  he 
found  that  he  had  left  his  pocketbook,  with  all  his  money,  in 
his  boarding  shanty  and  must  go  back  and  get  it. 

By  this  time  it  was  four  o'clock  and  an  hour  later  whea 
they  got  to  the  rough,  at  the  farthest  point  from  where  he 
had  made  the  find.  There  was  at  least  two  hundred  acres  of 
this  land  which  was  very  brushy  and  as  much  as  one  hundred 
acres  that  was  a  dense  thicket.  The  part)^  had  brought  five 
dogs  with  them  and  the  leader  of  the  posse  was  named  Bev 
Willis,  who  owned  a  boat  that  was  in  the  river  at  Dongola,. 
where  he  supplied  the  thirsty  with  Patoka  water  and  whisky 
mixed.  He  was  the  owner  of  a  very  large  white  bull  dog, 
which  was  a  great  favorite  with  all  when  he  was  muzzled. 

Another  one  of  the  posse  was  Pat  McDermitt,  who  was 
one  of  Hathaway's  bosses.  He  borrowed  a  large  Newfound- 
land dog  from  his  boarding  boss,  and  there  were  three  com- 
mon dogs  along  that  were  of  no  special  value. 

All  told,  there  were  five  men  beside  Stubblefield  in  the 
party,  all  armed  with  some  sort  of  a  weapon.  When'  they  got 
to  the  rough,  Mr.  Stubblefield  said  that  in  there,  not  more 
than  thirty  feet  from  the  post  oak  tree,  was  where  the  bed 
was  made.  It  was  so  thick  that  it  was  impossible  to  ride  in 
anywhere. 

McDermitt,  who  was  a  dare-devil,  said  he  would  go  in. 
and  see  what  he  could  find.  Taking  his  big  dog  along,  he 
started  to  creep  in  under  the  tangle  but  had  not  gone  far  be- 
fore he  came  to  a  nest  of  young  pigs.  One  of  the  little  dogs 
following  him  caught  one  of  the  pigs  and  it  set  up  a  great 


586  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 

cry.  In  a  minute  the  old  mother  was  on  hand  charg^ing  the 
dog  that  was  barking  at  her  family.  The  white  bull  dogf 
went  to  the  aid  of  his  brother  and  soon  caught  the  sow  by  one 
of  her  ears  when  she  commenced  to  squeal  and  in  less  than  a 
minute  hogs  were  heard  coming  from  every  direction.  They 
charged  the  white  dog  who,  with  bull  dog  pluck,  held  his 
Jiold  of  the  sow's  ear.  Finally  a  large  male  hog  cut  the  dog 
open  with  one  of  his  tusks.  By  this  time  there  was  an  awful 
uproar;  dogs  barking,  hogs  rallying  and  men  yelling.  Mc- 
Dermitt's  big  dog  caught  one.  This  brought  the  battle  on 
him  and  in  a  moment  he  was  surrounded  with  savage  hogs. 
The  continued  battle  had  brought  the  hogs  and  dogs  near  to 
the  edge  of  the  thicket.  McDermitt,  intending  to  save  his 
dog,  ran  his  horse  up  to  where  he  was  and  tried  to  catch  him 
by  a  collar  which  was  around  his  neck  and  bring  him  out. 

A  large  hog  hamestrung  his  horse,  which  threw  McDer- 
mitt, and  before  he  could  get  away  he  was  tusked  to  the  bone 
in  several  places  in  both  legs.  The  other  men  fought  the 
hogs  back  with  their  guns  and  secured  their  wounded  com- 
panion. This  ended  the  negro  hunt.  One  man  was  cut  to 
pieces  and  ruined  for  life,  two  valuable  dogs  killed  and  a 
horse  so  injured  he  had  to  be  killed.  After  this  the  party 
concluded  they  had  not  lost  any  negroes  and  were  glad  to  get 
back  home. 

Isaac  Street,  who  had  laid  out  and  platted  the  town  of 
Dongola,  was  a  very  quiet,  old  Quaker  and  thoroughly  in 
sympathy  with  the  anti-slavery  party.  He  and  his  good 
wife.  Aunt  Rachel,  had  many  times  fed  and  secreted  the  poor 
negroes  as  they  were  making  their  way  to  the  North  and  lib- 
erty. They  had  knowledge  of  where  the  negroes  were  se- 
creted in  the  thicket,  and  while  Stubblefield  was  dilly- 
dallying time  away  before  he  went  to  pilot  the  posse  to  the 
field  of  carnage,  Mr.  Street  learned  of  the  proposed  raid,  and 
with  the  aid  of  Thomas  Hart,  who  was  in  sympathy  with  the 
negroes,  took  them  from  their  hiding  place  under  a  small 
load  of  straw  to  his  barn,  and  that  night  carried  them  to  the 
north  of  White  river  and  delivered  them  over  to  a  friend. 

Thirty  years  after  the  events  just  recorded,  in  conversa- 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA.  587 

tion  with  Mr.  Stubblefield  about  this  hog"  battle,  he  said  that 
his  life  had  been  sweet  to  him,  although  he  had  undergfone 
many  hardships  and  misfortunes,  but  in  all  his  Hfe  there  was 
never  any  one  thing  that  he  had  always  so  thoroughly  en- 
joyed as  he  did  seeing  those  roaring  negro  hunters  defeated 
and  routed. 

After  the  canal  was  finished  in  this  section,  Mr.  W.  H. 
Stewart,  the  father  of  Dr.  W.  H.  Stewart,  of  Oakland  City, 
bought  the  immense  thicket  above  described  and  made  a 
large  farm.  That  farm  is  now  owned  by  Frances  W.  Bulli- 
vant's  heirs  and  Thomas  Spore. 

JERRY  Sullivan's  raid  at  the  old  dongola  bridge. 

In  1851  Mr.  Andrew  Adkins  came  across  the  Patoka 
river  at  Dongola  to  see  my  father.  It  was  late  in  the  sum- 
mer and  the  farm  work  was  nearly  all  done,  as  we  were  just 
cutting  our  fence  corners.  My  father  was  not  at  home  and 
Mr.  Adkins  remained  until  after  dinner  to  see  him.  There 
were  three  hands  beside  myself  at  work  on  the  farm.  As  Mr. 
Adkins  was  coming  over  that  morning,  two  men  from  near 
Kirk's  Mills,  now  called  Bovine,  overtook  and  rode  to  the 
bridge  with  him.  They  showed  him  a  flaming  handbill  giv- 
ing a  description  of  seven  runaway  negroes  and  offering  a  re- 
ward of  one  thousand  dollars  for  their  capture.  They  in- 
formed Mr.  Adkins  that  they,  with  some  others,  intended  to 
watch  the  bridge  that  night,  and  invited  him  to  assist  them, 
offering  to  share  the  reward  with  him  if  they  got  the  negroes. 

Mr.  Adkins  was  very  anxious  for  fear  they  would  catch 
the  negroes,  and  while  we  were  resting  after  dinner  he  so  ex- 
pres:sed  himself  to  the  hands.  At  that  time  we  had  a  dis- 
charged soldier  of  the  regular  army,  named  Jerry  Sullivan, 
working  for  us.  In  the  talk  Sullivan  asked  why  it  would  not 
be  a  good  plan  to  rout  the  bridge-watchers.  This,  Mr.  Ad- 
kins thought,  woald  be  a  good  thing  to  do, but  the  fugitive  slave 
law  gave  the  men  the  lawful  right  to  catch  them,  and  the 
courts  in  this  country  were  so  organized  that  it  was  danger- 
ous business  to  try  to  hinder  anyone  from  recapturing  the 
slaves.     Those  capturing  them  for  the  reward  had  the  same 


588  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 

rights  under  the  ]aw  as  the  master  had.  Sullivan  was  a 
full-fledged  abolitionist  and  Kaid,  "Fugitive  slave  law  to  the 
winds!  Just  give  me  a  chance  and  I  will  clean  out  that 
bridge-watching  gang  in  good  shape."  Mr.  Adkins  had  the 
will,  but  he  did  not  dare  go  into  the  conspiracy,  as  the  two 
men  who  offered  to  divide  the  reward  with  him  were  neigh- 
bors of  his,  and  if  it  was  found  out  he  was  in  the  scrape,  they 
would  cause  him  to  pay  a  heavy  fine. 

Sullivan  was  very  anxious  to  get  after  them  and  con- 
sulted us  young  boys  about  going  with  him.  The  other  boys 
working  for  us  were  Wm.  B.  Dill  and  Thos.  Midcalf.  Finally 
it  was  agreed  that  we  would  all  pretend  to  go  Ashing  late 
that  evening  and  put  out  a  trot-line  and  stay  until  late  in  the 
night.  Mr.  Adkins  agreed  that  he  would  go  home  and  send 
his  younger  brother.  Pinkerton  Adkins,  and  Hiram  Knight,  a 
neighbor  boy,  late  in  the  evening  to  go  with  us.  Before  he 
would  agree  to  do  anything,  he  made  us  promise  not  to  kill 
anyone  and  that  we  must  not  injure  the  horses  of  the  men 
guarding  the  bridge.  After  we  made  these  promises  he  said 
he  would  see  Basil  Simpson,  who  lived  on  the  bluff  but  a 
little  way  west  of  the  bridge  and  who  was  thoroughly  in 
sympathy  with  the  anti-slavery  people,  and  ask  him  to 
watch  where  the  men  put  their  horses.  When  the  two  boys 
came  over  late  in  the  evening  they  were  to  remain  near  Mr. 
Simpson's  until  the  watchers  had  gotten  to  the  bridge  and 
had  hidden  their  horses;  then  the  boys  would  come  on  to  the 
agreed  rendezvous,  which  was  about  one  mile  south  of  the 
bridge.  After  these  arrangements  were  made,  Mr.  Adkins 
went  home,  thinking  we  would  not  do  anything  more  desper- 
ate than  turning  their  horses  loose  and  driving  them  away  so 
they  would  not  find  them  for  some  days. 

Finally  my  father  came  home  and  we  got  his  consent  to  go 
to  the  river  fishing.  Sullivan  got  a  number  of  old  newspapers 
and  rubbed  wet  powder  all  over  them,  leaving  it  in  lumps  so 
that  it  would  flash  when  it  was  burning  and  make  a  regular 
flambeau.  He  dried  the  paper  in  the  sun  and  then  took  a  lot 
of  fuse  which  he  had  been  using  in  blasting  stumps.  Taking- 
a  good  supply  of  flax  strings  which  we  made  for  the  purpose. 


PIONEKR  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA.  589 

he  made  six  large  broaches  out  of  the  newspapers. 

We  had  plent)'  of  horses  and  about  sundown  we  took  our 
trot-line  and  guns  and  started  for  the  river.  When  we  ar- 
rived at  the  meeting  place  we  had  to  wait  until  a  little  after 
dark,  when  the  two  bo}  s  came,  mounted  and  armed  for  the 
fun.  As  Sullivan  had  been  a  soldier  and  was  much  older 
than  any  of  the  rest,  it  was  unanimousl}'  agreed  that  he 
should  have  full  command  and  we  would  do  as  he  directed. 

Mr.  Simpson  and  the  two  Pike  County  boys  had  located 
the  horses  in  a  patch  of  small  saplings.  As  I  now  recollect  it, 
they  were  less  than  one  hundred  yards  southwest  of  the  Don- 
gola  coal  mine  shaft  and  there  were  seven  of  them.  The  two 
Kirk's  Mill  men  told  Mr.  Adkins  there  would  be  six  and  gave 
him  their  names.  One  of  them  was  a  doctor,  who  at  that 
time  lived  in  Lynnville,  in  Warrick  County.  One  was  a  hotel- 
keeper  who  lived  in  Petersburg  and  another  was  one  of  his 
boarders.  The  other  was  a  man  who  lived  about  half  way 
from  Dongola  to  Winslow  on  the  north  side  of  the  river.  It 
was  never  ascertained  who  the  seventh  man  was.  After  the 
party  had  assembled,  Sullivan  took  charge,  giving  each  a 
number  and  directed  us  how  to  form  a  line  and  put  us 
through  a  lot  of  manoeuvres  which  were  pure  nonsense  to  us 
then,  but  which  I  afterward  learned  were  good  military  tac- 
tics. 

After  waiting  until  about  two  hours  after  night,  our 
commander  got  us  in  position  two  and  two,  and  heading  the 
cavalcade,  gave  the  command  to  **Forward,  march!"  We 
marched  on  until  one  of  the  Pike  County  boys  told  our  com- 
mander that  we  were  near  the  place  the  horses  were  hitched. 
Halting  us,  the  commander  look  one  of  the  boys  and  located 
the  horses;  then  coming  back,  he  marched  us  up  to  a  point 
where  he  wanted  us  to  leave  our  horses.  We  dismounted, 
leaving  one  man  to  hold  the  five  horses.  One  man,  mounted, 
was  stationed  t>etween  the  horses  and  the  bridge  to  look  out 
for  the  enemy. 

Stripping  the  saddles  off  the  bridge  watchers'  horses  and 
piling  them  at  the  root  of  a  large  tree,  we  led  them  out  to 
the  road  and  within  about  two  hundred  yards  of  the  bridge. 


590  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 

when  Sullivan  unrolled  his  flambeau  material  and  wrapped 
one  of  the  broaches  inside  the  hair  of  each  horse's  tail.  He* 
securely  tied  them  there  leaving:  about  six  inches  of  fuse 
sticking:  out.  As  he  had  only  six  broaches  he  made  another 
for  the  extra  horse  by  cutting  a  strip  out  of  a  heavy  saddle 
blanket.  He  rolled  it  very  tig:htly,  putting:  about  two-thirds 
of  a  pound  of  powder  into  it  and  bound  the  strong:  material 
very  tightly  with  the  flax  strings.  The  fuse  in  this  case  was 
longer  than  the  others,  as  he  said  he  wanted  it  to  go  off  near 
the  bridge. 

He  lighted  all  the  fuse,  then  ordered  us  to  turn  the  horses 
loose  and  start  them  down  the  road  toward  the  bridge.  We 
soon  had  our  horses  started  after  them,  yelling  like  so  many 
Indians.  The  broaches  commenced  to  pop  and  fizz  at  a  great 
rate  and  the  horses  were  going  like  the  wind.  In  a  little 
while  the  big  bomb  went  off  and  I  doubt  if  anyone  ever  saw 
such  another  runaway  scrape  where  there  was  an  equal  num* 
ber  of  horses. 

They  went  across  the  bridge  at  top  speed.  When  we  got 
near  the  bridge  Sullivan  ordered  us  to  halt,  make  ready  and 
fire,  which  we  did.  Jumping  off  our  horses  we  loaded  our 
guns.  Our  commander  was  calling  aloud  giving  orders  to  an 
imaginary  battalion  to  rush  over  the  bridge  and  capture  the 
villains. 

About  this  time  Tom  Midcalf,  who  was  a  fearless  fellow, 
became  very  much  exciied,  jumped  on  his  horse  and  ran  over 
the  bridge  hallooing  like  a  Comanche  Indian.  We  kept  up 
a  fusilade  for  some  time  bui  ihere  was  no  one  there.  The 
charge  of  the  horses  with  the  snapping  and  flashing  of  fire 
tied  to  iheir  tails  was  enough  lo  have  scared  ihe  devil,  let 
alone  a  few  cowardly  scamps  who  were  waiting  lo  capture  a 
lot  of  poor  runaway  negroes  irying  lo  get  away  from  the 
bonds  of  slavery. 

All  ihe  evidence  of  there  having  been  anybody  there  was. 
the  horses  and  we  found  a  bed  made  down  above  the  bridge 
where  one  relief  of  negro  hunters  were  no  doubt  lying  when 
the  horses  came  charging  onto  them.  We  found  two  pair  of 
boots  under  the  bed  put  there  for  the  purpose  of  raising  their 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA.  591 

heads.  We  stiso  found  a  bushel  bashet  in  which  they  had 
their  provisions. 

Sullivan  rolled  up  a  lot  of  rock  in  their  bed  and  threw  it 
into  the  river.  He  cut  their  boots  into  strips  and  threw  them 
into  the  river.  Then  he  sent  three  of  the  boys  back  and  got 
the  seven  saddles,  cut  them  all  to  pieces  and  threw  them  into 
the  river.  I  don't  know  how  far  the  horses  ran,  but  probably 
several  miles. 

It  was  believed  that  the  men  guarding  the  bridge  were 
on  the  go  before  the  horses  crossed  it  and  that  they  made 
good  time  until  they  got  clear  away  from  the  noise  made  by 
our  crowd,  and  the  running  of  the  horses  sounded  like  a  host 
of  men  after  them.  Sullivan  got  us  into- line  and  escorted  the 
Pike  county  boys  near  to  their  homes  and  then  we  went  home 
arriving  after  midnight.  Jerry  Sullivan  remained  at  my 
father's  home  several  weeks  after  these  events.  When  he 
went  away  he  said  he  was  going  to  re-enlist  iii  the  arm}'.  I 
have  often  wondered  what  became  of  him.  If  he  was  in  the 
war  of  the  rebellion  I  am  satisfied  that  he  made  his  mark. 

The  oldest  of  our  crowd  except  Sullivan  was  less  than 
sixteen  years  old.  Just  a  lot  of  green  country  boys,  and  as  I 
recall  the  scrape,  with  such  a  leader  we  would  have  run  head- 
long into  an)'thing,  regardless  of  danger.  I  afterward 
learned  that  the  thing  needed  was  for  soldiers  to  have  a  lead- 
er who  had  the  grit  and  the  will  and  they  would  follow  him 
into  the  jaws  of  death. 

With  the  four  young  men  named  I  have  had  many  adven* 
tures  and  hours  of  pleasure.  They  were  all  brave  true-heart- 
ed men,  long  since  gone  to  their  eternal  rest. 

Years  afterward  Mr.  Adkins  told  me  that  some  time  af- 
ter the  middle  of  the  night  of  the  raid,  there  was  a  knock  at 
his  door.  On  opening  it  one  of  the  Kirk's  Mills  men  was 
there  and  said  that  early  in  the  night  he  had  a  chill  and  was 
compelled  to  go  home,  that  he  was  very  thirsty  and  asked  for 
a  drink  of  water.  Mr.  Adkins  said  he  was  satisfied  that  the 
reason  the  man  stopped  was  to  find  out  if  he  was  at  home. 

After  the  war  was  over  and  the  negroes  free,  my  father 
told  me  that  the  day  Mr.  Adkins  was  at   his  house   waiting 


592  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 

for  his  return,  he  was  in  consultation  with  Ira  Caswell,  of 
Warrick  Count)-,  and  Dr.  Posey,  of  Petersburg,  as  to  how 
best  get  the  se^-en  negroes  to  the  north  of  White  river  with- 
out having  them  recaptured. 

The  negroes  at  that  time  were  safely  hidden  in  the  thick 
brush  and  tall  grass  in  what  was  then  known  as  the  big 
■pond,  about  two  miles  east  of  Oakland  City.  The  pond  at 
that  time  of  the  year  was  nearly  dry  and  had  a  heavy  growth 
of  pond  grass  all  over  it.  The  runaways  were  kept  there 
during  that  day  and  at  night  were  taken  over  the  Patoka 
river  at  Martin's  ford,  about  one  mile  east  of  Massey's  bridge, 
and  were  then  piloted  along  Sugar  creek  for  some  distance 
until  they  came  to  where  a  wagon  was  in  waiting  for  them 
in  which  they  were  carried  to  Dr.  Posey's  coal  bank  and  hid- 
den. They  remained  there  the  next  day  and  at  night  were 
ferried  across  White  river  in  Skiffs  and  were  turned  over  to 
another  friend  who  rushed  thera  on  to  Canada  and  freedom. 
When  they  had  passed  White  river  they  were  regarded  as 
nine-tenths  free. 

KIDNAPPING  THE  GOTHAKD  BOYS. 

These  boys  were  born  at  the  Diamond  Islands  in  Posey 
county  in  about  1820.  About  the  year  1824  Gothard  moved 
with  his  family  to  a  little  log  cabin  a  half  mile  southwest  of 
what  is  now  known  as  Calvert's  Chapel,  Vanderburg  county. 
About  the  year  1825  three  men  whose  names  are  not  known 
except  the  leader,  named  Lynn,  stole  the  boys  and  took  thera 
back  to  Diamond  Island,  where  they  were  secreted  and  after- 
ward taken  away  to  Missouri,  which  created  quite  a  commo- 
tion in  the  neighborhood.  A  party  was  organized  to  search 
for  the  boys,  but  they  were  not  successful.  The  party  was 
headed  by  "Uncle  Paddy  Calvert."  With  him  were  Bob 
Calvert,  Joseph  Carter  and  John  Armstrong  and  two  or  three 
others.  While  they  were  searching  for  the  boys  at  Diamond 
Island,  the  company  had  quite  a  skirmish  with  the  kidnappers 
-with  clubs,  knives  and  guns.  In  the  midst  of  the  battle, 
-which  was  a. desperate  one  from  start  to  finish,  Paddy  Cal- 
vert came  near  losing  his  life.     The  kidnappers  got  between 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA.  593 

him  and  the  rest  of  his  party  and  hemmed  him  behind  a  set 
of  hewed  logs  for  a  house.  In  attempting  to  escape  he  ran 
his  horse  over  the  logs  lengthwise.  The  horse  caught  his 
foot  between  the  logs  and  fell.  At  that  the  kidnappers 
rushed  onto  him  with  drawn  knives  and  his  friends  rushed  to 
his  relief.  His  horse  got  its  foot  loose  or  Calvert  would  have 
been  killed.  The  rescuing  party  found  there  were  too  many 
kidnappers  for  them  to  contend  with,  so  they  fell  back  and 
returned  to  their  homes.  It  afterward  developed  that  the 
boys  were  hidden  in  a  well  nearby  at  the  time  this  battle  took 
place.  They  were  then  taken  into  Missouri  and  sold  into 
slavery.  A  few  months  after  that  '^Grandfather  Armstrong," 
as  he  was  known,  and  John  Armstrong  sold  out  their  posses- 
sions and  moved  to  what  was  then  called  the  Red  River  coun- 
try,  located  in  southwestern  Arkansas.  * 'Uncle  Paddy  Cal- 
vert" and  his  son  Robert  went  with  a  four-horse  team  to  help 
them  move.  On  their  way  home  tl^ey  stopped  over  night  in 
the  neighborhood  where  the  little  boys  were  sold,  and  in 
talking  with  the  gentleman  with  whom  they  stayed  all  night, 
they  learned  that  two  little  mulatto  boj-s  were  brought  there 
and  sold  to  his  neighbors.  The  next  morning  Mr.  Calvert 
and  his  son  went  to  see  the  gentleman  who  had  bought  the 
boys  and  asked  him  to  call  the  boys  up,  one  at  a  time,  and  if 
they  did  not  know  him  or  his  son,  or  both  of  them,  they 
would  not  claim  ihem  as  stolen  boys.  Ike  was  called  up,  but 
failed  to  recognize  either  man.  Then  Jack  was  called,  and 
he  did  not  know  Mr.  Calvert,  but  knew  his  son  at  once,  and 
said,  ''That's  Marsa  Bob  Calvert."  Then  the  boys  both 
seemed  to  recollect  the  two  men  and  recalled  their  names. 
The  man  who  had  bought  them  readily  gave  them  up  to  Mr. 
Calvert,  as  they  were  stolen  property.  He  took  them  home, 
raised  them  to  manhood,  sent  them  to  school  and  gave  them 
an  education  the  same  as  he  did  his  own  children.  An  agree- 
ment was  made  between  Calvert  and  the  Missouri  man  that 
the  boys  were  never  to  go  into  bondage  again.  When  they 
were  twenty-one  years  old  he  gave  each  of  them  a  good  horse, 
saddle  and  bridle,  and  one  hundred  dollars  apiece  and  started 
them  out  into  the  world. 


594  PIONEKR  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 

REV.    HIRAM   HUNTER    RELEASING   KIDNAPED  NEGROES. 

In  the  fall  and  winter  of  1863  I  had  the  misfortune  to  be 
an  inmate  of  Libby  Prison  hospital  with  a  wound  made  by  a 
Minne  ball  through  my  hip.  There  were  at  that  time  about 
one  thousand  Federal  oflScers,  from  the  rank  of  brigadier- 
general  down  to  second-lieutenant,  in  that  prison.  Among  that 
number  as  a  patient  in  the  hospital  was  Col.  W.  McMackin^ 
of  the  Twenty-first  Illinois,  the  regiment  which  General 
Grant  went  into  the  service  with.  The  Colonel,  as  well  a& 
myself,had  been  captured  at  the  battle  of  Chickamauga,Geor* 
gia.  As  I  now  recall  it,  he  was  a  Cumberland  minister  and  a. 
Christian  gentleman  at  all  times,  doing  all  he  could  to  con- 
sole the  poor  unfortunates  who  were  in  that  hospital,  many 
of  them  very  severely  wounded,  and  a  number  died  while  he 
was  there.  I  am  glad  to  be  thus  privileged  to  bear  testimony 
that  the  Colonel  was  ever  ready  at  any  time,  night  or  day,  to 
aid  those  wounded  and  sick  in  their  temporal  wants  and  to 
give  them  the  words  of  consolation  which  are  in  the  precious 
promise  of  our  Savior.  He  looked  to  have  never  been 
strong,  and  the  exposure  from  that  terrible  campaign,  from 
Murfreesborough,  Tenn.,  to  Chickamauga,  Ga.,  in  the  rain 
nearly  every  day,  had  been  so  severe  that  he  appeared  to  be 
suffering  from  that  dreadful  disease,  consumption.  During 
the  long  and  weary  months  that  he  worked  so  faithfully  for 
the  hapless  and  helpless  ones  in  that  house  of  death,  he  never 
complained  of  his  own  suffering.  He  was  ever  doing  good 
and  organized  a  Bible  class  for  the  convalescents.  In  this 
way  I  became  very  well  acquainted  with  him.  He  learned 
where  I  lived  and  the  town  of  Princeton  was  near  my  home^ 
and  in  talking  together  he  related  lo  me  this  strange  story 
which  took  place  some  twenty-five  years  before: 

He  said  he  had  gone  to  Princeton,  Indiana,  to  meet 
Hiram  Hunter,  and  had  had  been  there  for  quite  a  time  doing 
some  school  work  in  the  old  brick  seminary  which  stood  on 
the  hill,  under  Hunter  or  some  other  persons  whom  Hunter 
had  assigned  to  give  him  lessons  in  theology.  During  the 
time  he  was  there  he  went  out  with  the  ministers  to  the  dif-- 
ferent  churches  in  the  country  surrounding    Princeton    and 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA.  595 

heard  the  old  ministers  preach.  At  one  time  he  attended  a 
camp-meeting  some  miles  southwest  of  Princeton.  There 
were  many  preachers  and  thousands  of  persons  in  attendance. 
While  attending:  one  of  these  meetings  eight  or  ten  miles 
southwest  of  Princeton  there  was  a  lengthy  service  at  night 
and  during  the  time  the  meeting  was  going  on  there  was 
some  rain  and  quite  a  flurry  of  wind.  After  the  meeting  was 
over.  Rev.  Hiram  Hunter,  who  was  in  attendance,  was  invited 
by  a  gentleman  who  lived  near  to  go  home  with  him  to  spend 
the  night.  The  Colonel,  through  Hunter,  was  also  invited. 
They  were  all  on  horseback  and  Mr.  Knowlton  (no  doubt 
Knowles)  had  his  wife  on  the  same  horse  back  oi  him.  They 
had  gone  some  distance  from  the  church  when  they  found  the 
road  completely  blocked  by  the  top  of  a  tree  which  had  fallen 
into  it.  They  all  dismounted  and  crept  around  through  the 
thick  brush  as  best  they  could  to  get  around  the  tree  top.  On 
coming  to  the  road  on  the  other  side,  they  found  a  covered 
wagon  which  was  stopped  b}'  the  blockade.  On  coming  up 
to  it.  a  man  was  seen  standing  in  the  road.  Mr.  Hunter  was 
in  front  and  asked  the  man  how  he  came  there  with  a  covered 
wagon  at  such  a  time  of  night.  The  man  answered  him  by 
saying  it  was  none  of  his  business.  Mr.  Hunter  was  a  deter- 
mined man  and  it  did  not  take  much  of  this  sort  of  thing  to 
raise  his  anger.  He  said,  **I  spoke  to  you  as  a  gentleman 
and  your  answer  shows  that  you  are  an  ill-bred  cur.  I  am 
now  satisfied  that  there  is  something  wrong  about  you,  and 
before  we  go  any  further  we  will  investigate."  At  this  point 
another  man  appeared,  who  had  been  cutting  a  road  around 
the  other  side  of  the  tree,  and  demanded  to  know  what  the 
trouble  was.  Mr.  Hunter  told  him  there  was  no  trouble,  but 
they  thought  there  was  something  wrong  and  intended  to 
know  what  it  was.  At  this,  the  man  with  the  ax  said  that 
the  first  man  who  attempted  to  lay  hands  on  the  wagon 
would  lose  his  life.  As  quick  as  thought  one  of  the  two 
stalwart  sons  of  Mr.  Knowlton,  who  were  with  the  camp- 
meeting  part)\  caught  the  ax  and  wrenched  it  out  of  the 
threatening  fellow's  hand.  The  other  man  attempted  to  aid 
his  partner,  when  the  senior  Mr.  Knowlton  laid  him  on  his 


596  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 

back  in  thje  road.  The  two  boys  tied  the  man  the)^  had  and 
their  father  and  Mr.  Hunter  drew  the  arms  of  the  man  who 
was  knocked  down  behind  his  back  and  McMackin  tied  them 
hard  and  fast  with  his  handkerchief.  The  night  was  cloudy, 
but  there  was  a  moon  and  it  was  not  very  dark,  but  the  tim- 
ber was  so  very  thick  on  each  side  of  the  narrow  road  that 
the}'  could  not  see  to  an}'  advantag^e.  Matches  at  that  time 
were  not  in  general  use.  Mr.  Knowlton  told  one  of  his  sons 
to  take  his  mother  home  and  bring  back  some  material  to 
make  a  torch.  The  young  man  was  soon  back  with  the  steel, 
flint  and  punk  and  in  a  little  time  they  had  a  flaming  torch. 
In  the  wagon  they  found  a  negro  man  and  woman  with  their 
hands  tied  and  they  tied  to  a  cross-piece  under  the  bottom  of 
the  wagon  and  a  rope  was  tied  in  each  of  their  mouths.  They 
were  soon  liberated,  but  it  was  some  time  before  they  could 
stand  or  talk.  They  said  they  lived  in  Illinois,  some  miles 
west  of  Vincennes,  Indiana,  and  they  had  been  tied  ever  since 
the  latter  part  of  the  night  before  and  had  been  gagged  most 
of  the  time.  They  further  said  they  crossed  the  Wabash  at 
Mt.  Carmel  on  the  ferry;  that  they  were  free  negroes,  and 
that  these  two  men  had  come  to  their  cabin  the  night  before, 
after  they  had  gone  to  bed,  pretending  to  be  lost,  and  asked 
the  privilege  of  feeding  their  team  near  their  house,  saving 
they  would  sleep  in  their  wagons,  but  if  the  negro  woman 
would  get  them  a  good  supper  they  would  give  her  a  silver 
dollar,  and  she  did  so.  Sometime  after  midnight  they 
knocked  at  the  door,  saying  they  were  cold  in  the  wagon  and 
asking  permission  to  lie  on  the  floor.  The  door  was  opened 
and  they  caught  and  tied  and  put  them  in  the  wagon,  nearly 
twenty-four  hours  before  they  were  liberated. 

The  wagon  was  turned;  the  two  kidnappers  were  made  to 
walk  behind  it,  guarded  by  Messrs.  Hunter  and  Knowlton. 
One  of  the  boys  drove  the  team  and  they  were  soon  home. 
After  getting  into  the  house  they  had  an  informal  examina- 
tion. The  two  negroes  told  the  same  story  that  they  did  at 
the  wagon.  The  man  knocked  down  was  the  first  interro- 
gated. He  was  very  insolent  and  said  he  would  make  it  dear 
business  to  them  for  stopping  him  and  meddling  with  his 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA.  597 

property;  that  the  two  negroes  were  his  and  he  had  a  descrip- 
tion of  them,  which  he  showed.  He  said  they  had  run  away 
from  southern  Kentucky  about  two  years  before.  The  other 
kidnapper  would  not  say  anything.  The  stories  of  the 
negroes  were  believed,  and  it  was  decided  to  hold  the  men 
until  morning  and  take  all  of  them  to  Princeton,  where  legal 
proceedings  would  be  brought. 

The  first  cabin  of  this  family  was  standing  in  the  yard. 
A  pallet  was  made  down  on  the  floor  and  the  kidnappers  were 
put  on  it.  There  were  no  windows  and  but  one  door  whick 
was  fastened  with  a  rope  tied  on  the  outside.  The  two  boys 
volunteered  to  occupy  a  room  not  more  than  ten  feet  away 
and  guard  the  door.  Somehow  these  outlaws  untied  each 
other  and  got  out  at  the  top  of  a  wide,  low  chimney  and  made 
a  break  for  the  stable  to  get  the  horses,  but  the  boys  with 
their  guns  foiled  them  in  this,  and  they  made  a  rush  for  the 
woods  which  was  nearby  and  escaped.  That  was  the  last 
these  people  ever  heard  of  them.  The  next  morning  it  was 
decided  that  Mr.  Knowlton  and  a  neighbor  would  take  the 
negroes  back  to  their  home.  The  two  men  were  well  mounted 
and  armed  with  long  rifles,  as  everybody  was  in  those  days. 
They  soon  got  started,  the  negroes  driving  the  wagon. 
When  they  arrived  in  the  neighborhood  where  the  negroes 
lived  they  learned  that  the  team  and  wagon  had  been  stolen 
about  three  miles  north  of  their  cabin  and  that  the  negro  fam- 
ily had  lived  in  that  neighborhood  for  more  than  twenty  years.. 

One  morning  in  the  spring  of  1864  the  rebel  surgeon  in 
charge  of  the  Libby  Prison  hospital  came  to  me  and  said  that 
I  was  so  much  trouble  to  them,  they  had  decided  to  send  me 
to  my  own  people  on  parole,  and  for  me  to  be  ready  in  twa 
hours,  as  an  ambulance  would  be  there  to  take  me  to  a  boat 
which  would  go  on  to  City  Point.  I  was  greatly  elated  over 
the  prospect  of  liberty.  Colonel  McMackin  congratulated  me 
on  my  good  fortune  and  said:  **I  don't  know  that  I  will  live 
to  see  home  again,  but  when  I  die  I  will  go  to  a  country 
where  rebel  torture  will  not  come,  and  then  some  day  I  hope 
to  meet  all  my  comrades  who  were  with  me  in  durance  vile  in 
this  wretched  prison." 


CHAPTER  XXIX. 


UNDERGROUND   RAILROAD. 


Fugitive  Slave  Law — Anti-Slavery  League — Routes  of 
Fugitive  Slaves — Interesting  Letters — Rev.  T.  B. 

McCORMICK.  

THE  underground  RAILROAD. 

In  this  chapter  I  have  been  gfoverned  by  data  secured 
from  the  superintendent  of  the  men  working-  on  the  southern 
borders  of  Indiana  near  the  Ohio  river  for  the  Anti-Slavery 
League.     This  matter  has  never  been  printed  before. 

Slaves  being  regarded  as  personal  property,  *'things," 
not  human  beings,  as  the  old  Roman  law  was  pleased  to  put 
it,  the  rights  of  the  master  to  reclaim  his  property  were  ac- 
cepted as  a  reasonable  consequence. 

The  fugitive  slave  law  of  1793,  following  shortly  after 
the  agreement  of  1787,  when  the  compact  to  forever  exclude 
slavery  from  the  Northwest  territory  was  passed  by  the  votes 
of  the  slave-holding  states,  thus  making  it  the  law  that  all 
the  states  that  would  be  formed  out  of  that  immense  territory 
should  forever  be  free. 

The  act  of  1793  provided  for  the  reclamation  of  fugitives 
from  justice  as  well  as  from  service.  It  was  accepted  by  all 
as  a  just  law,  permitting  the  owners  of  slaves  to  reclaim 
their  property.  The  fugitive  slave  law  that  was  passed  in 
1850,  the  provisions  of  which  were  drafted  by  Senator  Mason, 
of  Virginia,  who  was  among  the  foremost  of  the  Southern 
**fire-eaters"  in  his  hatred  of  the  North  (and  he  injected 
everything  into  that  measure  which  he  felt  would  be  galling 
to  the  abolitionists),  gave  the  slaveholders  or  those  hunting 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA.  599 

tlieir  runaway  slaves  the  power  to  organize  a  posse  at  any 
point  in  the  United  States  to  aid  them  in  running  down  their 
negroes. 

There  was  a  great  impetus  given  to  fugitive  slave- 
liunting  in  all  tire  free  states  bordering  on  slave  states  and 
far  into  New  England.  The  favored  provisions  that  the 
South  had  received  by  that  law  were  taken  advantage  of  by 
many  men  who  never  owned  a  slave  or  had  been  in  a  slave 
«tate. 

Kidnapping  the  negroes  was  accomplished  by  running 
them  away  from  their  acquaintances  to  a  friendly  commis- 
sioner, probably  a  partner  in  the  business,  and  there  the  kid- 
napper secured  his  right  to  the  negro  by  a  judicial  decision  of 
the  villainous  commissioner  who  received  from  the  United 
.States  ten  dollars  for  every  decision  he  made  against  the 
negro  and  but  five  if  he  made  it  for  the  negro;  thus  offering 
the  commissioner  a  bribe  of  five  dollars  for  a  favorable  decis- 
ion in  the  interest  of  the  kidnapper.  The  negro  was  thus 
doomed  and  taken  South  and  sold  into  slavery.  The  harsh 
and  humiliating  provisions  of  that  law  seemed  to  have  im- 
bued the  Southern  men  with  an  extra  touch  of  their  imagin- 
ary superiority.  This  Was  carried  so  far  that  when  the  war 
•came  on,  their  recruiting  oflScers,  when  raising  troops  for  the 
Confederate  army,  boastingly  said:  '*One  Southern  soldier 
on  the  battlefield  will  be  equal  to  five  Yankees."  *'Those 
whom  the  gods  wish  to  destroy  they  first  make  mad,"  was 
literally  carried  out  with  the  Southern  **fire-eater."  This 
madness  rang  the  doom  of  slavery. 

Many  of  the  j^rovisions  of  the  act  of  1850  were  without 
a  doubt  unconstitutional. 

The  Constitution  of  the  United  States  expressly  provides 
that  **in  suits  at  x)ominon  law  where  the  value  in  controversy 
shall  exceed  twenty  dollars,  the  right  to  a  trial  by  jury  shall 
be  preserved."  The  fugitive  slave  law  of  1850  provided  for 
the  delivery  of  fugitives  from  slavery  without  allowing  them 
the  trial  by  jury.  Section  Six  of  that  law  says  that  *'in  no 
trial  or  hearing  under  this  act  shall  the  testimony  of  such  al- 
leged fugitives  be  admitted  in  evidence."    The  first  negro 


600  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 

arrested  and  tried  before  a  United  States  commissioner  in 
Indiana  was  a  free  negro  man.  The  commissioner  decided 
against  him,  but  when  taken  to  the  slaveowner  for  whom  he 
was  arrested,  the  man  was  honest  enough  to  declare  he  had 
never  seen  the  negro  before.  The  law  was,  further,  very  se- 
vere,  as  it  imposed  a  fine  of  one  thousand  doilars  and  im- 
prisonment on  anyone  harboring  or  in  any  way  aiding  fugi- 
tives in  escaping.  Unfortunately  for  justice,  the  United 
States  courts  of  that  period  were  organized  so  favorably  ta 
the  interests  of  the  owners  of  slaves,  that  a  very  small  inci- 
dent would  be  construed  as  aiding  and  harboring. 

In  southern  Indiana  in  an  early  day,  four-fifths  of  the 
people  were  in  sympathy  with  slavery.  The  greater  portion 
of  them  had  moved  to  Indiana  from  slave  states  and  had  been 
raised  to  regard  the  rights  of  the  slaveowner  to  his  slave  as^ 
sacred  as  his  rights  to  his  horses,  cattle  or  any  other  prop- 
erty. It  was  but  natural  that  the  law-abiding  people  would 
have  just  such  a  regard  for  the  law  that  they  had  been  taught 
to  obey.  Slavery  had  existed  in  all  the  settled  sections  in  the 
Northwest  territory  for  "many  years  before  Indiana  Territory 
was  organized,  and  at  the  time  of  the  passage  of  the  fugitive 
slave  law  in  1850  there  was  but  little  open  opposition  to 
slavery.  After  that  obnoxious  law  came  in  force,  so  many 
brutal  acts  were  committed  by  the  kidnappers,  that  a  great 
change  came  over  the  people.  They  realized  that  the  law 
was  passed  so  that  the  negroes  could  be  kidnapped  and  sold 
into  slavery  who  were  free  born,  and  this  be  done  under  the 
guise  of  obeying  the  forms  of  law. 

Many  expedients  were  entered  into  to  defeat  the  owners  or 
their  agents  from  recapturing  their  slaves,  by  feeding  the 
fugitives,  placing  them  in  hiding  during  the  day,  piloting 
them  farther  north  in  the  night  and  turning  them  over  ta 
friends  who  would  carry  them  farther  on  their  journey  to- 
ward liberty.  These  anti-slavery  men  would  gather  a  com- 
pany of  men  and  put  the  slave-watchers  at  different  bridges^ 
to  flight,  and  in  many  cases  severely  chastise  them.  This 
was  kept  up  until  men  from  many  sections  of  the  free  states, 
got  together  and  determined    to   organize   an   Anti-Slavery^ 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA.  601 

Leagfue.  This  was  a  secret  organization,  the  object  of  which 
was  to  aid  the  fugitive  slaves  to  gain  their  freedom,  and  to 
render  this  aid  in  a  way  that  would  be  more  effective  thau 
the  haphazard  way  that  was  being  done  by  the  unorganized 
few  who  were  helping  the  runaways. 

This  organization  was  in  direct  opposition  to  the  laws  of 
the  United  States,  and  its  members  fully  understood  the  se* 
vere  penalties  which  would  be  meted  out  to  them  if  they  were 
caught  in  the  act  of  violating  the  law.  Notwithstanding 
this  danger,  there  were  hundreds  of  men  who  were  willing  to 
engage  in  any  enterprise  which  would  defeat  the  swaggering 
negro  hunter.  The  organization  was  made  and  there  was  all 
the  money  back  of  it  that  was  needed  and  it  was  very  effect- 
ive  in  helping  large  numbers  of  negroes  to  esape  from  slavery. 

It  was  not  long  after  the  employes  of  that  organization 
were  placed  on  duty  at  the  different  points  assigned  them  un- 
til  so  many  slaves  escaped  and  the  route  they  went  could  not 
be  ascertained,  that  the  slaveowners  said  there  must  be  an 
underground  railroad  under  the  Ohio  river  and  on  to  Canada. 

The  Anti-Slavery  League  of  the  East  had  many  of  the 
shrewdest  men  of  the  nation  in  its  organization.  They  had 
a  detective  and  spy  system  that  was  far  superior  to  anything 
the  slaveholders  or  the  United  States  had.  There  were  as^ 
many  as  one  hundred  educated  and  intelligent  young  and 
middle-aged  men  on  duty  from  some  ways  above  Pittsburg, 
Pennsylvania,  along  down  the  Ohio  on  both  sides  of  it  to  the 
Mississippi  river.  These  men  had  different  occupations. 
Some  were  book  agents  and  other  sorts  of  agents;  some  were 
singing  teachers,  school  teachers,  writing  teachers,  and 
others  map-makers,  carrying  surveying  and  drawing  outfits 
for  that  purpose;  others  were  clock  tinkers;  some  were  real 
Yankee  peddlers;  some  were  naturalists  and  geologists,  carry- 
ing their  hammers  and  nets  for  that  purpose.  They  belonged 
to  any  and  all  sorts  of  occupations  and  professions  that  gave 
them  the  best  opportunity  to  become  acquainted  and  mix 
with  the  people  and  gain  a  knowledge  of  the  traveled  ways  of 
the  country.  They  never  engaged  in  political  argument, 
making  it  a  point  always  to  acquiesce  with  the  sentiment  of 


^602  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 

the  majority  of  the  people  they  were  associating:  with.  There 
were  ten  j'oungf  men  who  were  carried  on  the  rolls  of  the 
Anti-Slavery  League  who  took  upon  themselves  the  role  of  a 
«py.  These  spies  were  loud  in  their  pro-slavery  talk  and 
were  in  full  fellowship  with  those  who  were  in  fayor  of 
slavery.  In  this  way  they  learned  the  movements  of  those 
who  aided  the  slave  masters  in  hunting:  their  runaways,  and 
were  enabled  often  to  put  them  on  the  wrong  track,  thus 
helping  those  who  were  piloting  the  runaways  to  place  them 
beyond  the  chance  of  recapture.  There  was  also  a  superin- 
tendent for  each  of  the  four  states,  Illinois,  Indiana,  Ohio 
and  Pennsylvania,  who  had  the  management  of  the  men 
working  in  the  state  that  he  was  assigned  to.  The  man  who 
superintended  Indiana  was  named  J.  T.  Hanover,  but  was 
known  to  us  by  the  name  of  John  Hansen.  While  he  was  do- 
ing this  work  he  was  for  two  or  three  days  every  two  weeks 
at  my  father's  house,  where  he  boarded  off  and  on  for  five 
years.  He  was  a  naturalist,  and  one  time  was  near  what  is 
known  as  Snakey  Point,  now  on  the  Evansville  and  Indian- 
apolis Railroad,  two  and  a  half  miles  northeast  of  Oakland 
City.  Seeing  a  snake  of  peculiar  species,  he  caught  it  with  a 
pair  of  circle  nippers  he  had  for  that  purpose,  but  when  put- 
ting it  into  a  cage  was  bitten  through  the  thick  part  of  the 
right  hand  and  remained  at  my  father's  house  for  two  and  a 
half  months  under  the  care  of  Dr.  Samuel  McCullough.  He 
came  very  near  dying  from  the  effects  of  that  poison.  Dur- 
ing the  time  he  was  there  much  of  his  mail  accumulated  at 
Princeton.  The  writer  was  sent  there  several  times  for  it 
and  answered  many  letters  for  him;  in  fact,  the  last  month 
and  a  half  I  did  all  his  correspondence.  My  father  and 
Hansen  consulted  about  me  doing  this  work  for  him,  when  he 
said  he  was  willing  to  risk  it,  as  we  would  be  as  deep  in  the 
mud  as  he  was  in  the  mire.  During  the  time  he  was  lying 
there  sick,  young  men  came  to  see  him  from  Princeton,  Boon- 
ville,  Petersburg  and  many  other  places.  These  men  were  all 
in  the  employ  of  the  Anti-Slavery  League.  The  author  is 
yet  in  possession  of  a  diary  kept  by  Hansen  during  that 
period,  also  a  key  which  was  used  by  Hansen  in  making  his 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA.  603 

report.     Without  this  key  nothing  in  the  work  could  be  un- 
raveled. 

Hansen  was  working:  and  traveling  over  the  first  three  or 
four  tiers  of  counties  all  along  the  southern  borders  of  Indi- 
ana and  pretended  to  be  representing  an  eastern  real-estate 
firm  from  which  he  received  large  packages  of  mail  at  many 
of  the  county  seats  and  large  towns  all  along  southern  Indi- 
ana. The  young  men  assigned  to  do  this  hazardous  work 
under  him  were  men  who  could  be  depended  upon  to  do  it  in 
a  way  that  no  suspicion  of  their  real  mission  would  be  had. 
They  were  under  a  most  perfect  discipline  similar  to  that  the 
secret  service  men  were  under  during  the  war  times  in  the 
Sixties.  There  was  a  code  used  that  each  man  was  thorough- 
ly acquainted  with,  and  had  their  numbers  and  all  that  was 
said  or  done  about  him  was  by  that  number,  which  numbers 
were  referred  to  as  numbers  of  land,  towns,  ranges  and  sec- 
tions and  by  acres  when  the  numbers  were  above  thirty-six. 
The  routes  these  men  were  on  were  called  by  the  names  of 
timber,  such  as  linden,  oak,  maple,  hickory,  walnut,  dog- 
wood, sassafras,  beach,  and  all  the  sorts  of  timber  that  were 
native  of  the  country  in  which  they  worked. 

There  were  many  places  that  runaway  negroes  crossed 
the  Ohio  river  from  Kentucky  into  Indiana.  I  shall  not  at- 
tempt to  give  a  description  of  any  of  the  routes  on  the  other 
three  border  states,  for  the  only  one  who  knew  anything 
about  this  work  I  became  acquainted  with  was  the  superin- 
tendent of  the  Indiana  division.  I  shall  name  the  most  used 
routes  commencing  above  the  mouth  of  the  Wabash  river  on 
the  Ohio  and  on  up  to  the  neighborhood  of  Cincinnati.  The 
most  diflBicult  problem  that  the  slave  had  to  solve  was  how  to 
cross  the  Ohio  river  and  to  make  that  proposition  easy  it  was 
agreed  that  there  should  be  several  places  located  along  that 
river  where  the  negro  could  be  crossed  in  boats  belonging  to 
the  anti-slavery  league. 

At  Diamond  Island,  near  West  Franklin,  Posey  County, 
many  runaway  slaves  were  helped  over  the  river  and  were 
taken  over  two  routes-  One  route  was  to  cross  the  Wabash 
river  at   Webb's   Ferry   near   the   southern   line   of   Gibson 


604  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 

County,  Indiana,  and  then  on  up  along:  the  Wabash  or  near  it 
in  Illinois  to  a  friendly  rendezvous  where  they  met  friends 
who  carried  them  on  farther  north,  recrossing:  the  Wabash 
above  Terre  Haute  and  up  to  a  point  near  Lake  Michigan, 
either  in  Lake,  Porter,  or  LaPorte  Counties.  Here  there  was 
a  place  in  each  county  where  they  were  secreted  and  smug- 
gled on  board  a  lumber  bark  that  the  anti-slavery  people 
owned  that  was  manned  by  an  anti-slavery  crew.  This  boat 
was  very  unpretentious  to  look  at  but  was  built  for  strength 
and  speed.  Anyone  not  acquainted  would  think  the  boat 
would  not  dare  venture  five  miles  from  shore.  The  boat 
cruised  along  the  shore  landing  at  different  points  in  the 
three  counties,  loading  and  unloading  such  freight  as  was  of* 
fered  them,  but  carrying  no  passengers.  The  negroes  were 
kept  secreted  in  the  holds  until  a  number  were  gathered  to- 
gether and  then  taken  along  the  Michigan  shore  on  up  into 
Canada. 

The  other  route  from  Diamond  Island  was  to  a  point  in 
Vanderburg  County  then  known  as  the  Calvert  neighborhood, 
thence  north  to  the  various  rendezvous  until  at  one  of  the 
gathering  places  near  Lake  Michigan.  Near  the  city  of  Ev- 
ansville  was  another  place  where  the  runawa3's  crossed.  This 
was  a  very  popular  route  as  there  were  many  free  negroes  in 
the  city  among  whom  the  refugees  could  be  easily  hidden. 

This  work  was  done  at  night  by  fishermen  who  supplied 
fish  to  the  market.  These  two  men  with  the, fish  boat  were 
in  the  employ  of  the  anti-slavery  league.  No  doubt  there  are 
old  people  of  the  city  of  Evansville  who  can  yet  remember  two 
young  men  who  sold  fish  in  their  market  during  the  early 
fifties  who  were  men  of  fine  literary  attainments.  The  re-^ 
fugees  who  crossed  by  this  route  were  placed  in  the  hands  of 
one  of  the  anti-slavery  league's  pilots  or  guides  and  were  tak- 
en by  them  along  different  routes  to  places  where  the  negroes 
had  friends  who  carried  them  farther  north,  turning  them  ov- 
er to  other  friends  until  they  arrived  at  one  of  the  points  near 
Lake  Michigan. 

The  third  route  which  was  controlled  by  these  people  was- 
a  short  distance  above  the  mouth  of  the  Little  Pigeon.  There 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA.  60S 

was  a  crossing  here  by  skiffs  and  the  refugees  were  carried 
to  a  point  and  turned  over  to  friends  between  Booneville  and 
Lynnville,  in  Warrick  County,  and  thence  north  to  Peters- 
burg, Indiana,  where  they  were  secreted  in  Dr.  John  W. 
Posey's  coal  bank.  From  there  they  were  sent  north  to 
friends  in  Davies  and  Green  Counties,  and  from  then  on  to 
other  friends,  finally  up  to  Lake  Michigan.  When  there 
were  only  one  or  two  of  these  fugitives  they  would  be  kept  in 
Dr.  Posey's  coal  bank  until  more  could  come,  when  they 
would  be  piloted  farther  north. 

The  fourth  place  for  crossing  the  Ohio  river  was  at  a 
point  midway  between  Owensboro,  Kentucky,  and  Rockport, 
Indiana.  There  used  to  be  a  little  fisherman's  hut  on  the 
south  bank  of  the  Ohio  river  at  this  point,  and  two  men  put 
in  much  of  their  time  fishing  who  lived  in  that  shack.  They 
sold  their  catch  to  steam  boats,  flat  boats  ani  coal  flats  pass- 
ing down  the  river,  and  made  good  money  in  the  trade  this 
way.  The  real  business  of  the  men  was  to  carry  refugees 
that  were  brought  to  their  shack  at  night,  across  the  Ohio 
river.  Then  one  of  them  piloted  the  negroes  to  a  point  where 
they  were  put  in  charge  of  friends  who  carried  them  to  other 
points,  and  finally  on  to  freedom. 

The  next  regular  crossing  place  was  near  the  mouth  of 
Indian  creek,  in  Harrison  County.  There  the  refugees  were 
ferried  across,  then  conveyed  to  friends  near  Cory  don,  who 
carried  them  farther  north  across  Washington,  corner  of 
Jackson,  into  Jennings ;  then  through  Decatur,  Rush  and 
Fayette  Counties  into  Wayne,  where  they  had  an  innumera- 
ble host  of  friends  among  the  Quakers.  They  were  then 
piloted  through  western  Ohio  and  on  to  Lake  Erie  and  to  a 
rendezvous  where  the  anti-slavery  people  owned  another  lum- 
ber smack  that  they  were  put  on  board  of,  and  when  a  suffi- 
cient number  had  been  gotten  together  they  were  carried  to  a 
point  in  Canada.  There  were  probably  more  negroes  crossed 
over  the  Ohio  river  at  two  or  three  places  in  front  of  Louis- 
ville than  any  place  else  from  the  mouth  of  the  Wabash  to 
Cincinnati.  The  reason  for  this  was  that  the  three  good- 
sized  cities  at  the  Falls  furnished  a  good  hiding  place  for  the 


606  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 

runaways  among:  the  colored  people.  Those  erossing  at  these 
places  were  all  conveyed  to  Wayne  County,  Indiana,  and 
thence  on  to  the  Lake. 

Probably  in  Wayne  County,  Indiana,  the  fugitives  had 
more  friends  among  the  large  community  of  Quakers  who 
lived  in  that  district  than  anywhere  else,  and  it  was  a  com- 
mon saying  by  those  losing  slaves  that  if  they  got  to  Wajme 
County  the  prospect  of  finding  them  was  very  remote.  It  is 
said  that  the  old  house  built  by  Levi  CoflBin  and  now  owned 
by  Maj.  M.  M.  Lacey,  Fountain  City,  Indiana,  has  furnished 
shelter  for  ten  thousand  runaway  negroes. 

From  the  early  fifties  until  the  war  came  on  there  were 
many  persons  who  were  in  sympathy  with  the  fugitive  ne- 
groes, who  were  regarded  as  strong  pro-slavery  in  principle, 
and  this  was  the  main  reason  why  so  many  negroes  eluded 
those  who  tried  to  capture  them. 

The  soldiers  from  many  parts  of  Indiana  were  very  much 
divided  in  their  opinions  on  the  slavery  question  the  first  two 
years  of  the  war.  When  it  was  first  talked  about  raising 
negro  soldiers  many  loud  and  deep  curses  were  heard  against 
the  Administration  for  such  actions.  Many  officers  resigned 
and  left  the  army  at  about  that  lime  who  were  influenced  in 
taking  that  step  by  the  emancipation  proclamation  and  the 
arming  of  the  negro  soldiers. 

From  the  middle  of  1863  until  the  close,  the  serious  and 
business  part  of  the  war  came  on.  The  hardest  campaigns 
and  severest  battles  were  engaged  in.  This  in  a  great  meas- 
ure cured  all  the  grumbling.  The  soldiers  by  this  lime  were 
willing  and  ready  for  any  and  all  kinds  of  help,  and  from  any 
source,  to  put  the  rebellion  down.  Ninety-nine  per  cent,  of 
them  returned  home  cured  of  the  prejudice  ihey  formerly  had 
against  the  negro  and  abolitionists.  There  are  quite  a  few 
at  this  late  date,  when  the  destruciion  of  slavery  is  regarded 
as  the  greatest  achievement  of  the  nineteenth  century,  who 
question  the  actions  of  those  who  aided  slaves  to  gain  their 
liberty.     Fortunately  for  our  state,  they  are  few. 

The  most  hazardous  work  done  by  the  employes  of  the 
anti-slavery  league  was  on   the   south  side  of  the  Ohio  river 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA.  605 

was  a  crossing  here  by  skiffs  and  the  refug^ees  were  carried 
to  a  point  and  turned  over  to  friends  between  Booneville  and 
Lynnville,  in  Warrick  County,  and  thence  north  to  Peters- 
burg, Indiana,  where  they  were  secreted  in  Dr.  John  W. 
Posey's  coal  bank.  From  there  they  were  sent  north  to 
friends  in  Davies  and  Green  Counties,  and  from  then  on  to 
other  friends,  finally  up  to  Lake  Michigan.  When  there 
were  only  one  or  two  of  these  fugitives  they  would  be  kept  in 
Dr.  Posey's  coal  bank  until  more  could  come,  when  they 
would  be  piloted  farther  north. 

The  fourth  place  for  crossing  the  Ohio  river  was  at  a 
point  midway  between  Owensboro,  Kentucky,  and  Rockport, 
Indiana.  There  used  to  be  a  little  fisherman's  hut  on  the 
south  bank  of  the  Ohio  river  at  this  point,  and  two  men  put 
in  much  of  their  time  fishing  who  lived  in  that  shack.  They 
sold  their  catch  to  steam  boats,  flat  bQits  ani  coal  flats  pass- 
ing down  the  river,  and  made  good  money  in  the  trade  this 
way.  The  real  business  of  the  men  was  to  carry  refugees 
that  were  brought  to  their  shack  at  night,  across  the  Ohio 
river.  Then  one  of  them  piloted  the  negroes  to  a  point  where 
they  were  put  in  charge  of  friends  who  carried  them  to  other 
points,  and  finally  on  to  freedom. 

The  next  regular  crossing  place  was  near  the  mouth  of 
Indian  creek,  in  Harrison  County.  There  the  refugees  were 
ferried  across,  then  conveyed  to  friends  near  Cory  don,  who 
carried  them  farther  north  across  Washington,  corner  of 
Jackson,  into  Jennings ;  then  through  Decatur,  Rush  and 
Fayette  Counties  into  Wayne,  where  they  had  an  innumera- 
ble host  of  friends  among  the  Quakers.  They  were  then 
piloted  through  western  Ohio  and  on  to  Lake  Erie  and  to  a 
rendezvous  where  the  anti-slavery  people  owned  another  lum- 
ber smack  that  they  were  put  on  board  of,  and  when  a  sufli- 
cient  number  had  been  gotten  together  they  were  carried  to  a 
point  in  Canada.  There  were  probably  more  negroes  crossed 
over  the  Ohio  river  at  two  or  three  places  in  front  of  Louis- 
ville than  any  place  else  from  the  mouth  of  the  Wabash  to 
Cincinnati.  The  reason  for  this  was  that  the  three  good- 
sized  cities  at  the  Falls  furnished  a  good  hiding  place  for  the 


^08  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 

have  two  or  three  ready  to  take  the  chance  of  gaining  their 
freedom.  The)^  perhaps  lived  several  miles  away  from  the 
neighborhood  this  negro  lived  in.  The  time  and  place  would 
be  agreed  on;  the  peddler  would  have  an  accomplice  on  hand 
at  the  meeting  place,  whom  the  runaway  would  be  placed  in 
•charge  of,  and  then  hurried  to  one  of  the  crossing  places  on 
the  Ohio;  then  as  far  from  the  river  as  possible  before  the 
people  were  up  and  about.  The  negroes  would  be  hidden  in 
a  dense  thicket  or  in  a  barn  of  some  friend  and  fed  there  until 
night  came,  when  they  were  then  piloted  farther  north. 

The  next  morning  when  it  was  found  that  the  negroes 
were  not  on  hand,  there  would  be  a  great  commotion,  and 
everybody,  the  negroes  included,  would  be  scurrying  over  the 
country  to  find  them,  the  peddler  as  busy  as  any  of  them 
hunting  for  a  clue.  In  this  way  nearly  a  day  would  be  spent. 
Then  the  master  or  someone  he  hired  would  start  out  to  find 
them.  They  very  seldom  found  any  clue,  and  if  they  did,  the 
negroe  would  be  half  way  across  the  state  before  the  slave- 
hunter  got  started  after  him.  The  negro  in  the  employ  of 
the  peddler  would  the  next  time  do  his  work  in  another  direc- 
tion and  secure  two  or  three  more  and  have  them  meet  the 
pilot  and  thus  on  to  liberty.  After  things  had  quieted  down, 
probably  the  negro  who  had  brought  about  the  liberation  of 
ten  or  fifteen  of  his  people  would,  with  his  wife  and  children, 
take  the  same  underground  trip  in  the  same  way  and  gain 
his  freedom. 

Some  of  these  agents  understood  geology  and  mineralogy 
and  carried  many  kinds  of  instruments  for  testing  the  miner- 
als in  the  earth,  claiming  to  have  a  mineral  rod  which  would 
tell  of  the  presence  of  gold,  silver,  copper  or  lead. 

One  of  these  men  went  to  a  neighborhood  in  Kentucky 
not  far  from  Green  river  and  was  hunting  over  the  country, 
so  he  claimed,  for  a  place  where  the  Indians  in  an  early  day 
procured  large  quantities  of  lead,  claiming  that  his  grand- 
father had  been  a  prisoner  among  the  Indians  for  a  long  time 
and  during  that  period  went  several  times  to  a  lead  mine  with 
the  Indians  and  had  noted  down  a  description  of  the  territory, 
describing  some  peculiar  rock  formations  and  noted  that  the 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA,  609 

lead  mine  was  only  a  few  hundred  feet  from  the  rocks 
described. 

This  mineralogist  went  to  a  g^entleman  living  in  the 
neighborhood  and  applied  for  board  for  the  time  he  would  be 
working  in  that  section,  telling  the  gentleman  his  business, 
explaining  to  him  his  grandfather's  statement  about  the  lead 
mine  and  showing  him  a  very  old-looking  paper  on  which  the 
peculiar  rock  formation  was  minutely  described.  The  host 
said  that  he  knew  where  the  place  was,  and  the  next  morning 
they  started  out  together  for  the  point,  not  more  than  two 
miles  awa)\  First  going  to  the  owner  of  the  land,  they 
asked  his  permission  to  examine  the  .rock  formations  that  the 
old  chart  so  minutely  described,  which  permission  was  readily 
given.  The  owner  went  along  with  the  two  men.  After  get- 
ting to  the  point  they  decided  that  without  a  doubt  the  de- 
scription was  of  that  place.  The  mineralogist  asked  permis- 
sion to  hunt  for  the  lode  and  made  an  agreement  that,  if  he 
found  the  lead  mine,  the  owner  would  give  him  one-fourth  in- 
terest in  it.  He  soon  went  to  work,  the  owner  furnishing 
several  negroes  to  dig  for  him.  They  dug  up  a  large  terri- 
tory, and  finally  decided  they  would  not  work  any  longer  at 
it  for  the  present.  The  mineralogist  said  he  would  go  back 
home  and  look  overall  the  papers  that  were  his  grandfather's 
and  see  if  he  could  not  find  other  evidence  more  particularly 
locating  the  lode.  Within  two  or  three  months  after  this  as 
many  as  forty  negroes  left  that  neighborhood.  They  went 
two  and  three  at  a  time  and  the  surrounding  neighborhood 
lost  man)'  negroes  who  were  no  doubt  on  the  same  under- 
ground railroad.  The  owners  never  could  find  the  least  clue 
where  they  went. 

The  last  of  November,  1861,  the  writer,  with  his  regi- 
ment, was  marching  on  the  east  side  of  Green  river,  en  route 
for  Calhoun,  Kentucky,  where  General  T.  L.  Crittenden  was 
located  with  a  division  of  the  Federal  Army,  watching  the 
movements  of  General  Sidney  A.  Johnson,  who  was  then  at 
Bowling  Green,  Kentucky,  in  command  of  the  Confederate 
Army  at  that  place.  Late  one  evening,  after  passing  a  large 
farm  and  coming  up  to  a  fine  country  residence,  a  man,  prob- 


610  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 

ably  fifty  years  old,  was  standing*  in  his  yard  using*  the  most 
violent  denunciation  against  the  soldiers  and  all  Yankees  in 
general.  The  colonel  commanding  the  regiment  left  the  adju- 
tant opposite  the  house,  with  orders,  as  soon  as  the  rear  guard 
came  up,  to  arrest  the  vicious  man  and  bring  him  along  with 
them  to  the  place  where  the  regiment  intended  camping. 
This  was  done,  and  that  night  the  colonel  went  to  the  guard's- 
quarters  to  find  out  what  was  the  cause  of  the  Kentuckian's 
violent  language.  He  told  the  colonel  that  he  hated  the 
name  of  '*Yankee,"*and  that  he  would  rather  be  dead  than  see 
their  hated  soldiers  on  his  plantation  ;  that  five  or  six  years 
before  that  time  a  Yankee  mineralogist  had  received  his  per- 
mission  to  prospect  for  lead  on  his  farm  ;  that  the  villain  had 
papers  describing  a  section  of  country  in  that  neighborhood^ 
and  particularly  described  just  such  a  rock  formation  as  was 
on  his  land.  After  working  two  months  he  decided  he  could 
not  find  the  lead  and  went  away,  and  in  less  than  eight  weeks 
there  were  forty-three  negroes  who  ran  away  from  that  sec- 
tion of  the  state.  Eight  of  them  were  his  property,  being  all 
he  had  except  two  old  crippled  ones,  and  he  had  never  found 
any  clue  as  to  where  they  went. 

EvANSViLLE,  Ind.,  May  10,  1867. 

Col.  W.  M.  Cockrum, 

Oakland  City,  Indiana. 

Dear  soldier  friend: 

The  questions  you  asked  about  are  yet  fresh  in 
my  memory.  The  two  young  fishermen  I  became 
acquainted  with  through  Judge  A.  L.  Robinson, 
who  had  been  paid  a  retaining  fee  to  act  if  need  be 
for  some  men  who  were  working  for  the  anti-slav- 
ery people  along  the  Ohio  river.  There  were  three 
negroes  who  had  been  ferried  across  the  Ohio  river 
who  were  owned  at  Henderson,  Kentucky,  and  par- 
ties at  that  place  were  raising  trouble  with  the 
young  fishermen,  claiming  thai  they  had  run  the 
negroes  off.  Things  looked  blue  for  the  men  as  a 
man  living  near  the  river  was  willing  to  swear  out 
a  warrant  against  these  men  for  violating  the  fugi- 
tive slave  law  then  in  force,  claiming  that  he  had 
seen    these   men  have  the  negroes   in   their   boat. 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA.  611. 

• 

The  Henderson  people  did  not  want  the  men  ar- 
rested but  thougfht  they  would  scare  them  into  tell- 
ing where  the  neg^roes  were  hidden. 

It  turned  out  that  the  night  the  negroes  ran 
away,  two  men  who  wanted  a  skiff  stole  a  large  one 
a  little  way  above  Henderson  and  running  it  up 
near  Evansville  loaded  it  with  rock  and  sank  it,  in- 
tending to  raise  it  and  paint  it  over  after  the  par- 
ties would  get  through  hunting  for  it.  Some  men 
in  bathing  found  the  skiff,  raised  it  and  it  was  re- 
stored to  its  owner.  This  threw  the  suspicion  from 
the  two  young  men.  They  were  very  intelligent 
and  interesting  gentlemen.  I  often  saw  them  about 
Major  Robinson's  oflBice.      I  think  this  was  in  1854, 

The  old  fellow  in  Kentucky  whom  I  had  ar- 
rested for  cursing  every  man  in  Crittenden's  divi- 
sion, defying  them  one  and  all  to  fight  him,  I  think 
was  the  most  complete  daredevil  I  ever  saw. 

Yours  very  truly, 

J.  G.  JONBS. 


Freedmen's  Bureau,  Washington, 

March  9.  1865. 
Mr.  Cockrum  at  Nashville,  Tenn. 

My  dear  Mr.  Cockrum:  I  certainly  do  recol- 
lect you  and  was  so  glad  to  receive  your  letter. 
You  have  not  forgotten  the  real-estate  firm.  Your 
letter  was  forwarded  to  me  and  as  you  will  see  my 
name  is  changed  since  you  knew  me.  I  recall  the  • 
incidents  at  your  father's  home  with  pleasure.  I 
was  so  fearfully  sick  from  the  poison  of  the  pesky 
snake  that  I  ihoughi  I  would  not  get  over  it.  Your 
father  and  mother  were  so  very  kind  to  me.  When 
you  write  home  I  want  you  to  remember  me  to 
them  and  say  how  I  do  ihank  them  for  their  kind- 
ness and  to  Dr.  McCullough.  how  patiently  he 
worked  with  my  hand.  I  shall  always  love  him. 
If  he  is  living  remember  me  to  him. 

I  read  your  army  experience  with  interest  and 
I  am  so  glad  you  survived  the  terrible  wound  and 
the  vile  prison. 


Author's  Notr. — 'Vhen  the  warco  iie  on  Col  Jones  was  attorney  gen- 
eral for  the  state  of  Indiana  He  resigned  that  position  and  was  made 
Colonel  of  the  42d  Indiana  Volunteers. 


•12  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 

Most  of  the  youngf  men  who  were  with  me  in 
Indiana  are  in  the  army.  This  rotten  confederacy 
is  on  its  last  legs.  Soon  the  old  flag:  of  the  Union 
will  wave  over  all  of  our  America,  the  slaves  free 
and  our  country  will  soon  gather  strength  and  then 
make  rapid  bounds  to  its  destined  greatness.  I 
have  none  of  my  papers  or  note  books  with  me  but 
I  am  willing  that  you  should  have  one  of  the 
diaries  or  more  if  you  will  have  copies  made  and  re- 
turn them  to  me.  I  can't  say  for  certain  how  many 
fugitive  slaves  passed  through  the  hands  of  the 
men  on  duty  in  my  district  on  the  Ohio  river,  but 
for  the  seven  years  more  than  an  average  of  four 
thousand  each  year.  The  work  you  did  for  me  was 
all  right  and  I  assure  you  that  I  had  the  utmost 
confidence  in  your  father.  He  was  a  great  help  to 
me  as  he  was  personally  acquainted  with  all  the 
country  that  I  had  charge  of.  It  was  risky  busi- 
ness. I  remember  some  men  who  were  of  help  to 
me  and  alwa3'^s  seemed  to  do  what  they  did  so 
cheerfully.  I  recall  the  two  Mr.  Ritchies  who 
lived  near  your  father;  Dr.  Lewis,  of  Princeton; 
Mr.  Caswell  and  George  Hill,  of  Lynnville.  (Mrs. 
Caswell  could  bake  such  good  salt-rising  bread.) 
Dr.  Posey  was  a  true  man.  There  will  be  no  more 
need  of  filling  his  coal  bank  with  runaway  negroes. 
If  I  succeed  well.  I  intend  to  come  once  more  and 
go  over  the  routes  of  my  old  work.  I  should  like 
.so  much  to  see  all  the  people  thai  I  used  to  know  in 
that  country.  If  you  should  go  to  Philadelphia,  go 
to  the  old  Post — I  may  be  there  soon. 

Yours  as  ever, 

J.  T.  Hanover. 

Grandview,  Ind.,  March  3,  1868. 

Col.  W.  M.  Cockrum, 

Oakland  City,  Indiana. 

My  dear  old  army  Comrade: 

Your  very  welcome  letter  came  and  found  me 
away  from  home.  I  have  just  returned  and  hasten 
to  answer.-  I  very  well  recollect  the  many  conver- 
sations we  had  during  our  intimate  relations  in  the 
army  about  the  '^Underground  Railroad'' and  about 
the  young  men  who  were  along  the  southern  bor- 
der of  Indiana,  helping  the  slaves  to  gain  their  lib- 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA.  613 

erty.  The  young  men  who  owned  the  fishing: 
smack  some  ways  below  Rockport  were  on  intimate 
terms  with  my  oldest  son.  At  that  time  we  were 
engfagfed  in  flatboating*  and  were  tied  up  receiving 
corn  on  both  the  Kentucky  and  Indiana  shore  very 
near  where  the  two  men  were  stationed.      I   had 

« 

many  conversations  with  the  two  young  men. 
While  they  never  directly  told  me  their  business 
other  than  as  fishermen,  yet  I  do  remember  as  I  re- 
lated to  you  in  the  army,  that  they  had  much  to  do 
up  and  down  the  river  and  in  crossing  it  at  night 
during  the  time  my  boat  lay  near  them. 

I  was  introduced  to  Mr.  Hansen  by  Ira  Caswell 
of  Warrick  County,  who  was  going  over  the 
country  with  him  at  that  time,  as  they  said,  look- 
ing at  land  that  Mr.  Hansen  said  he  wanted  to  pur- 
chase for  a  large  real  estate  syndicate  for  which  he 
was  agent.  He  asked  me  if  I  was  well  acquainted 
with  the  country  east  of  Rockport.  Neither  of 
these  gentlemen  made  any  further  business  known 
to  me  but  while  Mr.  Caswell  was  on  our  boat,  Han- 
sen crossed  the  river  to  the  Kentucky  side  with  one 
of  the  young  fisherman,  claiming  that  he  wanted 
to  purchase  some  sort  of  drawing  outfit  the  young 
man  claimed  to  have.  They  were  gone  for  about 
an  hour  and  when  they  returned  Mr.  Hansen  had  a 
leather  box  containing  a  bright,  new  field  compass, 
also  some  fine  drawing  tools  which  he  showed 
to  me. 

I  wish  you  great  success  in  your  undertaking. 

Sincerely  your  friend, 

A.   MiLBR. 


EvANSviLLE,  Indiana,  June  12,  1867. 
Col.  Cockrum, 

Oakland  City,  Ind. 
My  dear  Sir: 

Colonel  Jones  was  in  yesterday  with  your  let- 
ter of  inquiry,  also  a  letter  from  J.  T.  Hanover 
written  to  you  from  Washington  City,  and  ex- 
plained the  reason  why  you  wanted  a  letter  from 
me.  i    '^ 

In  18S2  a  gentleman  named  John  Hansen  came 
to  my  oflSce  with  a  letter  of  introduction  from  east- 
em  friends  of  mine  enclosing  a  New  York  draft 


^14  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 

for  $250.00  for  a  retainer  fee  for  me  to  look  after 
the  interests  of  men  who  were  working  for  the 
anti-slavery  people  at  this  place  and  along*  the 
Ohio  river  should  they  need  my  legal  services. 

I,  of  course,  knew  that  the  fugitive  slave  law 
was  being  violated  and  I  did  not  have  the  least 
compunctions  of  conscience  on  that  score.  For, 
without  a  doubt,  that  infamous  law  was  unconsti- 
tutional and  if  it  could  have  been  tested  by  a  fair 
tribunal  would  so  have  been  declared. 

Mr.  Hansen  was  in  my  ofSce  many  times  dur- 
ing the  several  years  that  he  was  in  this  section  of 
the  country.  During  all  that  time  I  only  had  one 
case  and  that  was  in  the  interests  of  two  young 
fishermen  who  were  fishing  in  the  Ohio  river  for 
several  years,  below  this  city  and  that  case  did  not 
come  to  a  test. 

I  am  of  the  opinion  that  these  two  young  men 
ferried  across  the  Ohio  river  many  hundreds  of 
negro  slaves  who  found  a  home  and  liberty  in 
Canada. 

You  have  my  consent  to  use  this  letter.  I  only 
wish  I  could  have  been  the  means  of  helping  the 
X)oor  unfortunates  more. 

Yours  truly, 

A.  L.  Robinson. 


REV.  T.  B.  m'cORMICK. 

Rev.  T.  B.  McCormick,  a  most  ardent  anti-slavery  work- 
er, was  bom  and  raised  in  the  state  of  Kentucky  and  was  one 
of  a  large  family.  His  father  never  owned  slaves.  Jiist  pre- 
vious to  his  conversion,  while  quite  a  young  man,  he  was  em- 
ployed as  a  slave  driver  on  a  big  plantation,  but  soon  threw 
up  his  position.  After  several  years  of  study  he  entered  the 
Cumberland  Presbyterian  ministry,  and  about  1844  he  came 
to  Princeton  and  became  the  pastor  in  charge  of  that  denomi- 
nation. 

Having  married  in  Henderson,  Ky.  (his  first  wife),  he 
occasionally  went  to  Kentucky  and  preached.  At  that  time 
he  was  known  to  be  bitterly  opposed  to  the  institution  of 
slavery,  and  in  his  fearless,  outspoken  way  he  made  no  secret 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA.  615 

of  his  hatred  of  slavery  and  his  sympathy  for  the  slave.  In' 
1851  he  severed  his  connection  with  the  C.  P.  church  upon 
the  sole  ground  of  the  pro-slavery  attitude  of  that  church, 
and  from  that  time  he  seemed  to  become  a  marked  man.  After 
one  of  his  trips  an  indictment  was  filed  against  him  in  Union 
County,  Kentucky,  charging*  him  with  stealing  slaves  and 
aiding  them  by  way  of  the  "underground  railroad"  to  Canada. 
Although  not  guilty  of  this  charge,  false  testimony  against 
liim  sprang  up  on  every  side.  Spurred  on  by  enemies  on  this 
«ide  of  the  Ohio  river,  the  charges  against  him  in  Kentucky 
magnified  and  grew  in  intensity  until  the  reward  offered  for 
his  capture,  dead  or  alive,  aggregated  $2,000.00. 

Knowing  the  condition  of  things,  he  did  not  venture  into 
Kentucky,  but  in  the  spring  of  1851  Governor  Powell,  of 
Kentucky,  was  appealed  to  to  make  requisition  on  Grovernor 
Wright,  of  Indiana,  for  his  delivery  to  the  Kentucky  authori- 
ties, and  Governor  Wright,  recognizing  the  **heinousness"  of 
liis  ofifense,  granted  the  requisition.  McCormick,  however, 
had  a  friend  in  Indianapolis  who  had  promised  to  keep  him 
posted  on  the  action  of  the  governor,  and  this  he  did,  and 
Mr.  McCormick,  recognizing  discretion  as  the  better  part  of 
valor,  went  across  the  Wabash  into  Illinois. 

As  soon  as  the  requisition  was  granted  by  Grov,  Wright  a 
i«rarrant  for  the  arrest  of  Rev.  McCormick  was  placed  in  the 
hands  of  Deputy  United  States  Marshall  Smith  Gavitt,  of 
JEvansville,  and  Mr.  Gavitt  left  no  stone  unturned  to  effect 
his  capture.  At  that  time  Rev.  McCormick  was  living  on  a 
recently-purchased  farm  two  miles  southeast  of  Princeton 
(the  farm  now  owned  by  Louis  Laib),  and  the  house  consist- 
•ed  of  one  log  room  and  a  lean-to  shed  which  was  used  as  a 
kitchen.  The  house  was  surrounded  on  three  sides  by  a  dense 
forest  and  was  lonely  in  the  extreme.  His  family  at  that 
time  consisted  of  his  young  wife  (a  second  marriage),  her 
unmarried  sister,  a  young  woman,  a  son  ten  years  old,  a 
daughter  five  years  old  and  an  infant  in  arms,  the  present 
•editor  of  the  Princeton  Tribune.  The  writer  goes  into  detail 
dimply  to  show  the  isolated  and  helpless  condition  of  McCor- 
mick's  family.      Marshall  Gavitt  was  kept  posted  by  some  of 


616  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 

Rev.  McCormick's  pro-slavery  friends  (?)  and  the  word  beings 
sent  him  that  his  much-wanted  man  had  been  seen  at  home 
he  jumped  at  the  chance  of  securirigf  the  $2,000.00  reward. 

The  little  family  had  gone  to  bed  in  the  log  house,  the 
wife  wondering  where  the  fugitive  husband  was  in  his  exile 
but  finally  sleep  fell  upon  the  little  household.  About  mid- 
night the  quick  ear  of  his  wife  caught  the  sounds  of  hoof- 
beats  in  the  woods,  and,  awakening  her  sister,  together  they 
listened  in  dread  suspense.  Soon  the  fact  became  evident 
that  the  house  was  surrounded  by  men.  First  came  a  rap  at 
the  door,  but  feeling  that  their  only  chance  lay  in  perfect 
quiet  and  producing  the  impression  that  the  house  was  de- 
serted the  two  women  held  their  breath  and  waited.  A 
knock  bringing  no  response  the  door  was  kicked  against  and 
an  attempt  made  to  force  it  open  but,  it  being  heavily  barred 
inside  this  failed.  The  other  door  was  tried  with  the  same 
result.  The  mob  seemed  to  take  it  for  granted  that  no  one 
was  at  home  and  threw  discretion  to  the  winds  and  talked 
openly  of  their  disappointment,  all  the  time  cursing — **The 

black  abolitionist."   When  the  two  women  found  the 

men  were  well  away  from  the  house  they  went  into  the  lean-to 
and  Miss  McClure,  Mrs.  McCormick's  sister,  climbing  to  her 
sister's  shoulders  pushed  aside  the  loose  clapboards  of  the 
roof  and  putting  her  head  through  could  see  a  large  body  of 
horsemen  in  the  distance. 

Now  the  astonishing  part  of  this  whole  performance  was 
that  under  the  leadership  of  Marshal  Gavitt  there  were  forty 
men  in  this  posse  to  hunt  down  and  capture  one  poor  preach- 
er whose  only  crini^  was  his  outspoken  denunciation  of 
American  slavery.  The  number  in  the  posse  was  learned 
through  a  family  living  about  a  mile  away  who  saw  them 
pass  the  house  and  counted  them.  There  were  forty  and 
€very  man  of  them  MASKED. 

At  that  time  Mr.  McCormick  was  in  hiding  about  three- 
fourths  of  a  mile  north  of  New  Liberty  Christian  church  be- 
tween Haubstadt  and  Cynthiana,  Indiana.  Gavitt  learned 
that  he  was  in  that  neighborhood  and  came  out  ther«  after 
him.     Meeting  a  man  in  whose  house  McCormick  was  lodg- 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA.  617 

ing  on  the  garret  floor  at  that  very  moment,  Gavitt  halted 
him  and  asked — '*Do  you  know  where  I  can  find  the  noted 
Rev.  T.  B.  McCormick?"  ''Yes  Sir"  said  the  gentlenfan  '*! 
can  tell  you  exactly  where  to  find  him — he  is  up  in  my  garret 
loft."  This  frank  confession  staggered  the  noted  detective. 
He  hesitated  a  few  moments  and  asked — **How  is  he  fixed  for 
arms?"  The  gentleman  just  as  franWy:  tepiicd — **A11  the 
arms  he  can  possibly  handle  and  he  would  be  glad  to  have  a. 
little  practice  in  using  them  if  you  see  fit  to  give  an  oppor- 
tunity." Gavitt  remarked — **I  am  not  anxious  to  furnish  him. 
a  target"  and  then  slowly  rode  away. 

After  this  Rev.  McCormick  made  his  way  to  Canada 
where  he  remained  a  few  months  when  he  quietly  returned  to- 
his  family  traveling  after  he  got  into  this  state  only  after 
night.  He  made  arrangements  to  move  his  family  to  Ohio- 
after  which  he  entered  the  lecture  field,  his  subject  being  the 
illegality  and  unconstitutionality  of  American  slavery  to- 
which  he  devoted  his  entire  time  until  1863  when  the  ques- 
tion of  slavery  was  settled,  and  he  returned  to  his  home  near 
Princeton.  Mr.  McCormick  never  had  any  direct  connection 
with  the  * 'underground  railroad"  but  he  was  intimately  ac- 
quainted with  many  of  the  ''depots"  from  his  home  to 
Canada. 

An  interesting  incident  which  it  would  not  be  out  of 
place  to  mention  here  occurred  in  1855  while  he  was  on  a  lec- 
turing tour  in  the  extreme  southwest  corner  of  Ohio.  He 
had  gotten  on  the  train  on  the  old  O.  &  M.  railroad  to  go  to 
Cincinnati  and  taking  an  unoccupied  seat  beside  a  passenger 
he  looked  into  his  face  and  was  surprised  to  see  that  he  had 
sat  down  by  Marshall  Smith  Gavitt.  They  at  once  recog- 
nized each  other  and  shook  hands  cordially  and  drifted  into 
conversation.  As  is  known  the  O.  &  M.  railroad  (now  the  B. 
&  O.  S.  W.)  runs  right  along  the  Ohio  river  bank  for  some 
distance.  With  a  laugh  Marshall  Gavitt  turned  to  Rev. 
McCormick  and  said: 

"Mack,  I'll  give  you  $1,000  if  you  will  go  across  that 
river  with. me." 

Enjoying  the  joke  Rev.  McCormick  with  a  laugh  replied 


r. 


618  PIONEER  HISTORY  OP  INDIANA. 

— "Couldn't  possibly  do  it  Smith.  I  havn't  lost  anything  in 
Kentucky  or  Indiana  either  that  I  think  needs  looking:  for 
just  now." 

In  the  Civil  War  Smith  Gavitt  (as  Lieut.  Col.)  was  with 
the  first  Indiana  Cavalry  and  was  killed  leading:  a  charge  at 
Fredericktown.  Missouri. 

Wood  Robinson  Senior  was  the  man  in  whose  house  was 
McCormick's  hiding  place.  McCormick  would  spend  a  day  or 
so  in  the  garret  of  a  two-story  house  tn  which  Robinson 
lived,  then  a  day  or  so  in  the  garret  of  a  house  in  which  Wil- 
liam Curry  lived.  These  two  houses  were  about  one  hun- 
dred and  fifty  yards  apart  on  the  grounds  afterward  known 
as  McNary  Boren's  store.  Wood  Robinson  died  at  Admore, 
Indian  Territory  several  years  ago.  William  Curry  is  now 
living  at  Beason,  Illinois  and  is  more  than  eighty  years  old 
and  yet  he  looks  almost  as  young  as  he  did  forty  years  ago. 
Rev.  McCormick  died  at  Princeton,  Ind.,  1892,  aged  nearly  80 
years. 

McCormick  lived  to  hear  many  of  his  former  enemies 
say:  "You  were  right  but  you  were  twenty  years  ahead  of 
the  time  and  we  did  not  have  enough  sense  to  see  it." 

He  united  with  the  congregational  church  when  he  went 
north  and  was  a  minister  of  that  denomination  until  his 
death.  In  1856  he  presided  at  the  national  convention  of  the 
Radical  Abolition  party  held  in  New  York  and  he  was  also 
candidate  for  Governor  of  Ohio  on  the  same  ticket  the  same 
year. 


CHAPTER    XXX. 


INDIAN  RELIGION. 


In  1843  my  father  was  in  the  lower  Mississippi  with  a 
hodit  load  of  pork  and  hired  a  Choctaw  Indian  with  an  unpro- 
nouncable  name  but  who  went  by  the  common  name  of  John 
•Choctaw.  This  Indian  was  well  educated  for  that  day;  he 
understood  the  Eng^lish  lang^uag^e  well  and  could  speak  it. 
When  the  boat  load  was  sold  out  this  Indian  came  with  my 
father  to  his  Indiana  home  and  remained  there  for  three 
years.  From  him  were  gathered  the  facts  on  Indian  Religfion 
which  are  contained  in  this  article. 

The  Indians  believe  in  religion  bat  have  no  knowledge  of 
their  spiritual  teachings;  in  fact  they  are  ignorant  of  the 
K^ause  which  forms  their  belief  in  heavenly  things.  It  is  cer- 
tain that  they  all  acknowledge  the  Supreme,  omnipotent  Be- 
ing, the  Great  Father,  the  Giver  of  all  things,  who  created 
and  governs  the  universe.  They  believe  that  when  the  hunt- 
ing grounds  were  made  and  supplied  with  buffalo,  bear  and 
all  game,  that  He  then  made  the  first  red  man  and  red 
woman  who  were  giants  in  stature  and  they  lived  for  a  very 
long  time.  The  Great  Supreme  Being  often  held  counsels 
and  smoked  with  them  and  often  gave  them  laws  to  follow 
and  taught  them  how  to  kill  their  food  and  raise  corn  and  to- 
bacco. They  believe  also  that  these  big  Indians  after  a 
while  were  living  so  easily  that  they  did  not  obey  the  Great 
Supreme  Power  and  for  this  disobedience  He  withdrew  His 
favor  from  them  and  turned  them  over  to  the  bad  spirits, 
i^ho  had  since  been  the  cause  of  their  misfortunes.  They  be- 
lieve Him  to  be  too  exalted  a  power  to  be  directly  the  cause 


620  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA, 

of  evil  and  notwithstanding^  their  many  shortcoming's,  He 
continues  to  send  down  them  all  the  good  thing's  that  they 
have  in  consequense  of  this  parental  regard  for  them.  They 
are  truly  sincere  in  their  devotion  and  pray  to  Him  for  such 
thing's  as  they  need  and  return  thanks  for  the  g^ood  they  re- 
ceive. On  the  other  hand,  when  they  are  afflicted  pr  sufifer- 
ing  any  great  calamity  they  pray  to  the  evil  spirit  with 
great  earnestness,  believing  that  the  evil  spirit  is  directly  re- 
verse to  the  good  Spirit  and  they  pray  to  him  hoping  to 
make  him  more  favorable  to  them  that  he  may  lessen  their 
affliction. 

All  Indians  believe  that  the  Great  Spirit  can  at  pleasure 
be  present  yet  invisible,  that  He  is  endowed  with  a  nature 
more  excellent  than  theirs  and  will  live  for  all  time.  They 
believe  in  a  future  existence  but  they  associate  that  state 
with  natural  things.  They  have  no  idea  of  the  souPs  intel- 
lectual enjoyment  after  death  but  expect  to  be  in  their  person 
in  a  great  country  where  the  hunting  grounds  have  abund- 
ance of  game  and  they  will  never  have  bad  luck  in  the  chase» 
They  think  it  is  one  continual  spring  day — no  clouds,  no 
snow,  no  rain,  but  all  sunshine. 

They  believe  those  who  were  killed  in  battle,  those  who 
were  the  most  expert  hunters  in  this  land  will,  in  that  beaut- 
iful country,  have  the  best  wigwams,  the  best  wives  and  the 
most  game  for  their  hunting  grounds  and  that  the  Indians 
who  were  bad  here  will  be  left  out  on  the  outside  where  the 
snow  comes  all  the  time  and  where  there  is  no  game  but  that 
which  is  poor  and  that  Indians  who  were  cowardly  and  mean 
to  old  people  will  go  where  the  snakes  are  all  around. 

The  Indians  have  no  day  of  worship,  such  as  our  Sun- 
day, but  they  have  times  for  their  devotions.  In  such  times 
as  they  declare  war  they  go  to  the  Great  Spirit  and  implore 
Him  to  give  them  victory  over  their  enemies.  When  peace  is 
made  they  have  great  rejoicings,  particularly  if  they  have 
been  successful. 

They  have  other  times  for  rejoicing  and  giving  thanks — 
when  their  harvest  time  comes  and  when  the  new  moon  is. 
first  seen.    No  day  passes  with  the  older  Indiaus  that  they 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA.  621 

do  not  have  a  moment  for  their  devotions  and  when  they  are 
to  break  camp  and  go  to  another,  they  repair  in  a  body  to 
the  springs  that  has  furnished  them  water  and  g^ive  thanks  to 
the  Great  Power  for  all  His  blessingfs. 

At  times  when  occasion  demands  it,  such  as  declaring^ 
war,  they  are  very  loud  in  their  devotions.  After  it  is  over 
one  of  the  older  men  who  has  a  g^ood  record,  addresses  the 
band,  nrging  them  to  be  brave  and  to  slip  up  on  their  ene- 
mies and  enjoins  them  to  so  conduct  themselves  as  to  be  worthy 
of  success.  They  always  address  the  evil  spirit  with  as 
much  earnestness  as  they  do  the  Gk>od  Spirit,  for  they  believe 
that  the  two  have  equal  power  over  them,  one  to  bless,  the 
other  to  do  evil;  but  the  evil  spirit  can  do  them  no  harm 
whDe  they  are  doing  thethingfs  that  please  the  Good  Spirit; 
hence  the  older  and  staid  Indians  are  never  known  to  im- 
plore the  evil  spirit  to  do  them  any  favor.  They  are 
continually  in  a  devotional  mood  and  call  upon  the  Great 
Spirit  many  times  each  day.  There  is  one  thing  that  is  cer- 
tainly much  to  the  credit  of  the  Indian  race — that  hypocrisy 
is  never  known  to  exist  among  them  in  sacred  things  and  in 
many  tribes  the  devotion  in  sacred  things  is  the  standard  by 
which  their  character  is  measured.  The  title  of  "Prophet" 
is  given  to  some  who  are  considered  good  men  and  are  able 
to  teach,  but  they  fill  their  sacred  oflSce  much  as  our.  minis- 
ters do,  teaching  their  tribe  to  be  good  and  not  drink  ''fire- 
water." 

Thomas  Morton,  author  of  ''The  New  Canaan,"  in  1637 
says  of  the  Indian  conjurors — "Some  correspondency  they 
have  with  the  devil  of  all  doubt."  Woods,  to  the  same  efifect 
remarks  that — *'By  God's  permission,^  through  the  devil's 
help,  their  charms  are  force  to  produce  wonderment." 

Smith  declares  of  the  Indians — "Their  chief  God  they 
worship  is  the  Devil."  Cotton  Mather  intimates  that  it  was 
the  devil  who  seduced  the  first  inhabitants  of  America  into  it. 


CHAPTER   XXXI. 


THE  MOUND  BUILDERS. 


Age  op  Mounds — Workmanship  of  Builders — The  Tra- 
dition OF  THE  PiAsSA  —  Remains  —  Difference  Be- 
tween Mound  Bdildebs  and  Indians. 


MOUND    builders 

Anyone  attempting  to  write  about  the  builders  of  the- 
mounds  which  were  constructed  by  a  pre-historic  race,  is 
handicapped  from  the  start.  Everything  that  may  be  said 
about  these  early  people,  outside  of  a  very  few  unraveling 
footprints  left  by  tbem,  is  pure  imaginary  speculations.  It 
is  probable  that  the  efforts  being  made  to  lind  the  history  of 
the  people  who  once  densely  populated  a  great  portion  of 
this  country  and  who  may  have  ante-dated  the  deluge  and 
confusion  of  tongues  at  the  tower  of  Babel  may  be  rewarded 
with  success.  The  great  mounds  scattered  over  this  country 
may  have  a  history  in  hieroglyphics  on  many  tablets  that 
may  tell  the  story  of  these  wonderful  people  and  a  history  of 
the  monstrous  animals,  birds  and  reptiles  which  once  roamed 
over  this  country  and  whose  bones  are  yet  found  and  are  held 
in  our  museums  as  relics  of  an  extinct  species. 

It  is  contended  by  some  that  these  mounds  are  not  so  old 
as  historians  want  to  make  them.  If  they  were,  the  action 
of  time  would  have  obliterated  them.  There  is  one  law  of 
nature  that  those  so  contending  have  not  understood.  An 
excavation  made  in  the  earth  or  a  mound  made  on  it  is  never 
obliterated  without  the  aid  of  human  agencies,  unless  the  ex-^ 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA.  623 

cavation  is  made  in  the  river  bottoms  and  overflows.  The 
question  has  been  asked  by  all  classes  ever  since  this  country 
has  been  peopled  by  the  white  race,  by  scholars,  by  teachers, 
by  explorers  and  by  those  who  read  and  travel — **Who  were 
the  Mound  Builders?"  **What  race  of  people  did  they  come 
from  and  what  were  the  thousands  of  mounds  built  for?"  To 
this  question  there  can  be  but  one  answer — *'Don't  know," 
The  most  accepted  theory  is  that  they  came  from  Asia  into- 
North  America  througfh  the  Behring  Strait.  This  is  a  diflS- 
cult  route  but  it  was  possible.  They  may,  for  ages  have  oc» 
cupied  the  Yukon  country  in  Alaska  and  by  degrees  came 
farther  south  down  through  the  Dominion  of  Canada  and 
into  the  warmer  climate  of  the  United  States.  All  over  this 
country  their  marks  are  indelibly  made.  They  went  far 
into  the  south  land.  The  many  mounds  and  towers  around 
Vera  Cruz  and  other  places  in  Mexico  are  attributed  to  the 
same  people.  Probably  the  leaning  towers  of  Central  Amer- 
ica were  their  work.  In  most  all  the  mounds  which  have 
been  examined,  small  and  great,  human  bones  have  beea 
found  with  relics  of  those  buried,  placed  by  their  side.  In 
many  cases  burial  vases  have  been  found  (now  in  our  state 
museum  and  other  places)  in  which  the  trinkets  and  orna- 
ments were  placed  by  the  body  of  the  owner.  Many  of  these 
bones  are  of  a  larger  race  of  people  than  any  that  have  been 
known  since  the  dawn  of  history.  After  the  battle  of  Stone 
river  the  Union  forces  built  a  very  strong  fort  and  named  it  in 
honor  of  General  Rosecrans.  It  was  located  on  a  low  mound 
which  was  not  more  than  six  or  eight  feet  high  in  the  centre 
and  covered  something  near  a  half  acre  of  ground.  To  those 
who  had  not  before  had  knowledge  of  such  mounds  there  was 
nothing  unusual  about  the  shape  of  the  ground,  but  General 
Whipple,  of  General  Thomas'  stafiF  was  a  learned  man  and 
had  before  that  opened  some  of  the  mounds  in  other  parts  of 
the  country.  He  told  the  men  at  work  what  it  was  and  in 
excavating  to  make  the  walls  of  the  fort,  he  asked  them  to* 
look  out  for  human  bones  and  relics.  When  the  ground  for 
the  fort  had  been  excavated  the  depth  wanted,  a  bomb-proof 
vault  was  made  about  ten  feet  deep  and  fourteen  or  fifteen 


^24  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 

feet  square.  In  digging-  this,  a  skeleton  was  found.  The 
bones  were  of  a  very  large  man,  probably  more  than  eight 
feet  tall.  When  the  thigh  bqne  was  put  by  the  side  of  the 
tallest  man's  thigh,  he  sitting  down,  the  bone  went  as  far 
back  as  the  back  of  his  hip  and  then  reached  beyond  the  bent 
knee  fi've  or  six  inches. 

It  is  generally  thought  now  that  in  the  early  ages  of 
this  country  it  was  roamed  over  by  animals,  fowls  and  rep- 
tiles which  were  hug-e  in  size,  many  times  larger  than  the 
animals  and  fowls  of  this  period.  It  is  claimed  by  some  that 
the  mound  builders  were  here  as  soon  as  the  country  was 
suitable  to  be  occupied  by  man;  that  it  was  peopled  with  in- 
digenous inhabitants  who  began  life  the  same  way  as  did  the 
trees,  plants,  animals,  birds  and  other  living  things.  If 
this  theory  is  true  then  the  large  men  were  not  out  of  pro- 
portion to  their  surroundings.  The  geologist  tells  us  at  that 
time,  that  ferns  grew  to  be  immense  trees  and  all  vegetation 
was  hundreds  of  times  more  luxuriant  than  now — hence  our 
^reat  coal  fields.  The  naturalist  tells  us  that  animals  and 
birds  were  all  huge  monsters  and  that  snakes  and  lizards 
were  represented  in  size  by  large  and  long  logs.  Another 
fact  cited  by  those  that  claim  that  man  was  here  before  the 
world  was  old,  is  that  at  many  places  in  this  country  the 
print  of  the  human  foot  of  a  very  large  size  was  made  in  the 
rocks;  in  some  cases  several  inches  deep,  which  were  made 
while  the  rocks  were  in  a  plastic  state. 

To  believe  that  this  continent  was  finished  and  filled 
with  animals,  birds  and  other  living  things  which  roamed 
over  its  immense  forests  and  swam  in  its  many  rivers,  lakes  and 
oceans  and  yet  ihere  was  no  human  being  with  powers  of 
thought  other  than  intuition,  is  not  reasonable.  The  con- 
clusion to  come  to  is  that  man  was  here  as  soon  as  the 
country  was  suitable  to  be  occupied  by  living  things,  not 
with  the  intelligence  and  reasoning  powers  of  the  educated 
people  of  after  ages.  Most  probably  these  primitive  men 
ivere  savage  in  the  beginning  and  the  only  history  left  by 
them  is  such  as  savage  people  have  always  left — the  flint 
arrow  heads,  the  stone  axes  and  such  crude  implements  as 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA.  625 

ii^ould  enable  them  to  secure  their  food  from  the  animals, 
birds  and  fish  which  was  necessary  for  their  sustenance. 
They  have  left  no  history  that  can  be  unraveled.  If  they 
had  there  would  be  no  further  mystery  about  the  mound 
builders,  or  about  the  huge  monsters  that  were  in  this 
<;ountry  at  that  time. 

A  tradition  of  mig^ration  is  owned  by  all  the  nations 
which  have  filled  the  earth  and  they  all  go  back  to  some 
•other  people  they  have  learned  about.  The  Egfyptians  have 
a  record  long^er  than  any  others.  They  have  monuments 
which  are  four  thousand  years  old  and  show  an  advanced 
•civilization  at  the  time  they  were  built;  yet  Wilkinson  in  his 
*'Ancient  E^ptians,"  says  that  "The  orig^in  of  these  Efirypt- 
ians  is  enveloped  in  the  same  obscurity  as  most  of  the  other 
races.  They  were,  no  doubt  of  Asiatic  stock  and  when  they 
«came,  they  found  on  the  Nile  an  aborigfinal  race  of  people  to 
be  dispossessed  before  they  could  occupy  the  country,'*  and 
many  writers  about  that  country  say  that  beneath  the  found- 
ation of  the  ruins  on  the  Nile  are  yet. found  the  rude  stone 
implements  of  a  people  who  lived  there  before  the  Egryptians 
4id. 

The  mound  builders  were  skilled  in  making  pottery  or 
vessels  for  culinary  purposes  and  they  were  quite  artistic. 
There  have  been  taken  out  of  many  mounds  in  all  sections  of 
this  country  many  very  fine  specimens  of  sculpture  work, 
showing:  the  rounded  imagoes  of  human  beings.  This  work  is 
pronounced  by  men,  who  are  experts  in  this  line,  to  have  a 
real,  artistic  value.  They  also  made  pictures  in  many  places 
in  caves  and  on  rocks,  of  animals  and  birds.  They  had  a 
reason  for  this  laborious  work  which  is  not  now  understood. 
Probably  they  tried  to  leave  a  record  of  some  of  the  most  im- 
portant events  of  their  history.  Some  of  these  carvings  were 
«een  by  Joliet  and  Marquette,  the  first  French  explorers  who 
were  on  the  uppet  Mississippi  river.  There  is  not  much 
doubt  left  but  they  were  made  many  ages  before  Columbus 
discovered  America,  by  the  early  people  who  lived  in  the  Mis- 
sissippi valley  for  the  purpose  of  trying  to  tell  the  history  of 
Iheir  country. 


626  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 

The  most  prominent  of  these  carving's  was  that  of  th6- 
Piassa  which  in  Indian  signifies:  *'Tbe  Bird  which  Devours- 
People"  which  was  cut  high  up  on  the  smooth  surface  of  a. 
very  high  bluflf  rock  near  where  the  city  of  Alton,  Illinois^ 
now  stands.  It  was  the  representation  of  ah  enormous  bird 
with  its  wings  outspread.  The  animal  or  bird  was  called 
Piassa,  named  for  the  stream  of  that  name  that  empties  into> 
the  Mississippi  at  that  point.  This  carved  picture  has  been 
seen  by  thousands  of  people  who  were  on  the  Mississippi. 

Joliet  and  Marquette,  in  the  missionary  stations  on  the 
upper  lakes  had  heard  frequently  from  the  Indians  of  the 
Great  River  or  Father  of  Waters  (which  was  discovered  by 
DeSoto  more  than  130  years  before  but  was  still  unknown  icy 
white  man  as  far  north  as  the  Missouri  and  Illinois  Rivers)* 
and  in  1673  these  two  explorers  with  a  small  party  started 
out  from  Green  Bay  to  find  the  Great  River.  The  Indians  of 
the  Lakes  endeavored  to  deter  them  from  going.  "The 
country,  they  said,  was  filled  with  savage  and  frightful 
creatures  and  in  the  Great  River  iat  a  certain  point  there  was* 
a  monster  whose  roar  could  be  heard  a  great  distance  and  it 
sv^allowed  every  person  who  came  near  it.  The/  found  the 
Mississippi  and  drifted  down  it.  Below  the  mouth  of  the 
Illinois,  they  beheld  a  sight  which  reminded  them  that  the 
Devil  was  still  paramount  in  the  wilderness.  On  the  flat  face 
of  a  high  rock  was  painted  in  red,  black  and  green  a  pair  of 
monsters  each  as  large  as  a  calf,  with  horns  like  a  roe-buck, 
red  eyes  and  a  beard  like  a  tiger  and  a  frightful  expression 
of  countenance.  The  face  was  something  like  that  of  a  man, 
the  body  was  covered  with  scales,  and  the  tail  was  so  long 
that  it  passed  around  the  body  between  the  legs  and  over  the 
head,  ending  like  a  fish.  John  Russells  first  brought  it  inta 
general  notice.  He  wrote  for  a  magazine  **The  tradition, 
of  the  Piassa"  which  he  claimed  was  obtained  from  the 
Illinois  Indian  tribes.     A  part  of  the  article  is  here  produced^ 

*'Many  thousand  moons  befqre  the  arrival  of  the  'Pale 
Face,'  when  the  great  magalonyx  and  the  mastodon  were  still 
living  in  the  land  of  green  prairies  there  existed  a  bird  of 
such  dimensions  that  it  could  carry  off  in  its  claws  a  full 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA.  627 

grown  deer.  Having^  obtained  a  taste  of  human  flesh  it  would 
after-.vard  eat  nothing  else.  It  was  cunning:  as  it  was  powerful, 
would  .dart  Jiuddenly  on  one  of  the  Indians  and  carry  him  o^ 
to  one  of  the  caves  in  the  bluff  and  devour  him.  Hundreds  of 
warriors  tried  for  many  years  to  destroy  this  monster  but 
could  not.  Finally  a  detail  of  fifty  men  was  made  to  not 
cease  their  efforts  until  the  great  bird  was  killed.  They  tried 
many  plans  to  get  rid  of  it,  but  it  was  more  cunning  than, 
they.  They  agreed  to  select  by  lot,  one  of  the  number,  who 
would  place,  himself  in  a  position  that  the  bird  would  see  that 
he  was  alone  and  would  attack  him.  This  lot  fell  on  Anato- 
go,  the  great  chief  of  the  Illinois  Indians  whose  fame  extend- 
ed to  the  Great  I^akes.  He  separated  himself  from  the  rest 
of  his  tribe  and  fasted  in  solitude  for  a  whole  moon  and 
prayed  to  his  great  father  to  protect  his  children  from,  the 
Piassa.  On  the  last  night  of  the  fasi  the  Great  Spirit  ap- 
peared to  Anatogo  in  a  dream;  told  him  to  select  twenty  of 
his  best  men,  armed  with  bows  and  poisoned  arrows  and  con- 
ceal them  in  a  certain  spot.  Near  that  place  another  warrior 
was  to  stand  In  open  view  as  a  victim  for  the  Piassa,  which 
they  must  shoot  the  instant  he  pounced  upon  his  prey.  When 
the  chief  awoke  the  next  morning  he  thanked  the  Great  Spir- 
it. Returning  to  his  tribe  he  told  them  his  great  vision. 
The  warriors  were  quickly  selected  and  placed  as  directed, 
the  Chief  offering  himself  as  the  victim.  He  soon  saw  the 
Piassa  perched  high  up  on  the  cliff,  watching  its  prey.  The 
Chief  began  to  sing  his  death  song  and  a  moment  afterward 
the  Piassa  rose  in  the  air  and  as  swiftly  as  a  thunder 
bolt  darted  down  upon  its  victim.  As  soon  as  the  horrid 
monster  was  near  the  Chief,  twenty  arrows  were  sent  from 
their  feathered  quivers  into  its  body.  The  monster  uttered 
an  awful  scream  and  fell  dead  at  the  feet  of  the  Chief,  who 
was  not  harmed.  There  was  great  rejoicing  in  all  the  tribes 
and  it  was  solemnly  agreed  that  in  memory  of  the  great  event 
in  the  nation's  history,  which  had  suffered  so  long  from  this 
monster,  the  image  of  the  Piassa  should  be  engraved  on  the 
bluff."  Russell  further  says  that  at  one  time  he  was  induced 
to  visit  the  bluff  below  the  mouth  of  the  Illinois  river.      His 


6:8  PIONEER  HISTORY  OP  INDIANA. 

curiosity  was  principally  directed  to  the  examination  of  a  cave 
which  tradition  said  was  the  one  into  which  the  g^reat  bird 
carried  its  human  victims.  Preceded  by  an  intelligfent 
guide  who  carried  a  spade  he  set  out  on  his  excursion.  The 
cave  was  very  hard  to  get  into  as  it  was  in  the  solid  face  of 
the  bluff,  more  than  fifty  feet  above  the  bed  of  the  river.  It 
was  a  perilous  undertaking,  but  after  many  attempts  he  suc- 
ceeded in  placing  a  long  pole  from  a  crevice  in  the  rock  to  its 
mouth  and  thus  entered  the  cave.  The  roof  of  the  cave  was 
vaulted  and  the  top  about  twenty  feet  high.  As  far  as  he 
could  judge  the  bottom  was  about  twenty  by  thirty  feet.  The 
floor  of  the  cavern,  throughout  its  whole  extent,  was  one 
mass  of  human  bones.  Skulls  and  other  bones  were  mingled 
in  the  utmost  confusion.  To  what  depth  they  extended  he 
was  unable  to  decide,  but  they  dug  to  the  depth  of  three  or 
four  feet  in  every  part  of  the  cave  and  found  only  bones.  The 
remains  of  thousands  of  human  beings  must  have  been  depos- 
ited there;  how  or  by  whom  or  for  what  purpose  it  was  im- 
possible to  conjecture." 

It  has  often  been  asked:  **What  became  of  the  mound 
builders?  Why  did  they  leave  the  fertile  valleys  of  the  Mis- 
sissippi?" To  these  questions  there  can  by  no  certain  ans- 
wer given.  These  people  were  here  for  untold  ages  and  from 
them  probably  came  the  savage  Indians  who  were  here  when 
this  country  was  first  seen  by  the  white  race.  The  mound 
builders  who  came  a  long  time  ago  from  Asia,  very  much  im- 
proved the  Indians  who  were,  no  doubt,  in  touch  with  all  sec- 
tions of  this  country.  After  a  long  period  of  time,  while  the 
foreigners  were  cultivating  and  improving  the  country,  in- 
dustriously laboring  to  raise  cereals  and  vegetables,  prepar- 
ing their  homes  and  building  the  countless  thousands  of 
mounds,  there  may  have  come  to  them  an  epidemic  ot  sick- 
ness or  a  great  plague  such  as  has  destroyed  many  millions 
of  people  in  China  and  India  at  times,  and  destroyed  them  or 
so  weakened  them  that  they  may  have  fallen  an  easy  prey  to 
the  savage  horde  who  have  ever  been  jealous  of  any  improve- 
ments which  would  take  away  the  forest  or  drive  the  game 
away;    and   were  destroyed  by  them  or  driven  out  of  this 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA.  629 

country.     It  is  not  reasonable  to  suppose  they  would  have, 
voluntarily  left  their  homes  and  this  fertile  country  and  the 
thousands  of  mounds  that  they  had  spent  ages  in  preparing 
for  sepulchers  for  their  dead. 

In  many  of  the  State  museums  there  are  large  numbers 
of  vessels,  vases .  and  trinkets  which  have  been  taken  from 
these  mounds  in  various  places.  All  of  them,  no  doubt,  were 
made  for  the  purpose  of  being  placed  in  sepulchers  with  the 
remains  of  those  buried  there.  In  these  vases,  trinkets  of 
various  sorts  were  found,  some  of  them  no  doubt,  were  used 
for  tools,  made  .of  rock,  bones  and  copper.  Others  were  or* 
naments,  such  as  bands  of  copper  for  the  wrist  and  for  the 
head,  to  hold  the  hair  in  place;  also  small  bands  for  the 
fingers.  Round  balls  of  white  stone,  about  the  size  of  bil* 
Hard  balls  were  found  which  were  used  in  games,  also  large 
copper  ba]ls  that  in  size  and  appearance  were  much  the  same 
as  sling  balls  used  by  the  ancient  Grecians  in  war.  In  mak- 
ing the  vases  they  used  a  cement  which  was  equal  to  the 
best  Portland  and  it  is  supposed  they  ground  the  shells 
found  in  rivers  and.  lakes  with  some  other  ingredient  which 
made  a  beautiful  white  color  with  tints  of  various  hues. 
Some  of  these  vases  were  made  of  many  colors;  the  main 
body  black  and  the  neck  white  and  others  with  rings  of 
white  and  black,  all  no  doubt  ;nade  by  some  coloring  material 
put  in  the  cement.  The  mound  builders  used  the  bones  of 
the  deer,  elk  and  antelope  to  make  these  ornaments.  Why 
they  did  not  use  the  horn  and  strong  bone  of  the  buffak)  for 
that  purpose  and  to  make  their  tools  is  unexplained. 

East  of  Kansas  there  have  been  no  buffalo  bones  found 
in  the  many  ancient  itiounds  which  have  been  examined.  It 
is  contended  by  some  ethnologists  and  other  scientists  that 
there  were  no  buffaloes  in  the  Mississippi  valley  at 
the  time  of  the  mound  builders,  and  at  the  time  of  the 
discovery  of  America,  by  Columbus,  the  range  of  these 
animals  to  the  east  was  not  so  extensive  as  it  was  at  a  later 
period.  From  reading  the  reports  of  Matt|uette  and  others 
from  1680  up  to  1700  it  is  found  they  contend  the  buffalo  had 
not  long  been  far  east  of  the  prairies  of  Illinois  and  their  farther 


6^^0  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 

eastern  inhabitation  about  the  foot  hills  of  the  Alleghany 
mountains  was  long  after  this  date.  It  is  doubted  if  the  wild 
buff alo  were  ever  on  the  Atlantic  coast.  The  buffalo  or  bunch 
grass  which  grows  so  well  in  the  northwest  and  cures  upon 
the  ground  a  perfect  hay  which  will  keep  the  stock  in  good 
condition  the  season  through, may  be  the  solution  of  this  mat- 
ter, as  it  was  the  chief  food  of  the  buffalo.  This  grass  does 
not  grow  to  any  extent  east  of  Kansas.  In  the  Dakotas  the 
mound  builders  made  roads  from  one  mound  to  another, 
paved  with  the  leg  bones  of  the  buffalo.  McAdams,  in  a  very 
concise  work  on  this  subject  says:  **These  paths  were  made 
of  the  leg  bones  of  the  bufifalo  which  were  very  heavy  and 
strong.  The  bones  were  laid  side  by  side  touching  each 
other  and  imbedded  in  the  ground  so  that  only  their  top  sur- 
faces were  exposed  and  on  the  gentle  slopes  of  the  prairies 
for  miles  away,  we  could  plainly  discern  the  slim,  white  line 
from  one  mound  to  another.  These  bones  had  been  placed 
neatly  and  with  some  precision  and  were  fully  imbedded  in 
the  hard  earth  which  was  a  sort  of  a  cement  of  gravel  soil. 
One  of  these  paths  was  nearly  a  mile  in  length  and  as  we 
walked  over  it  there  was  a  metallic  ring  to  our  foot  steps  and 
not  a  single  bone  was  misplaced." 

The  mounds  were  scattered  all  over  the  United  States, 
from  the  northwest  to  the  southeast  and  from  the  southwest 
to  the  northeast.  Most  of  them  are  built  in  bottom  lands  or 
in  the  edge  of  the  bottoms  adjoining  the  hills  and  on  all 
sides  are  about  as  steep  as  the  earth  would  lie  except  one, 
where  the  laborers  carried  up  the  material. 

Some  of  the  mounds  are  of  immense  size.  The  one  in 
Madison  county,  Illinois,  at  Kahoka,  near  St.  Louis,  is  one 
hundred  feet  high  and  covers  sixteen  acres  of  ground.  The 
old  stone  fort  in  Clark  county,  which  is  situated  near  Charles- 
ton and  just  ab6ve  the  mouth  of  Fourteen  Mile  creek,  which 
forms  the  western  wall  and  the  Ohio  river  which  makes  the 
eastern  wall  is  two  hundred  and  eighty  feet  above  the  river 
bed. 

The  great  majority  of  the  emblematic  mounds  are  in  the 
state  of  Wiscoiisin  and  in  the  northwest.     There  are  some  in 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA.  631 

~the  central  and  southern  states.  One  of  the  most  unusual  is 
in  Adams  County,  Ohio,  and  known  as  the  Serpent  mound, 
being  in  the  form  of  a  serpent  swallowing  or  devouring  some 
•object.  This  mound  is  one  thousand  feet  long  and  must  have 
been,  as  well  as  the  old  stone  fort,  built  for  a  place  of  defense 
-or  security  from  some  enemy.  Around  the  great  Kahoka 
mound  there  are  hundreds  of  smaller  ones  and  all  over  the 
American  bottoms  many  mounds  exist  or  have  be.en  leveled 
•down. 

The  site  of  the  city  of  St.  Louis  when  Laclede  located  it 
was  dotted  all  over  with  mounds.  They  are  in  evidence  in 
all  sections  of  Indiana.  Some  of  them  cover  several  acres. 
There  is  one  very  large  one  about  two  miles  west  of  Peters- 
burg, Indiana.  At  a  point  on  the  Wabash  river,  some  miles 
above  its  mouth  in  Posey  County,  Indiana,  the  mound  known 
as  Bone  Bank  or  Bone  Bluff  which  at  one  time  was  an  im- 
mense burial  ground  covering  many  acres  of  territory  prob- 
ably was  an  island.  As  yet  there  is  evidence  that  the  river 
or  one  body  of  it  ran  on  both  sides  of  this  mound  as  what  is 
left  of  the  bank  slopes  gradually  back  to  a  slough.  The 
river  has  for  ages  been  gradually  undermining  the  mound 
and  the  larger  portion  of  it  has  fallen  into  the  water  and  the 
bones  and  vases  which  were  in  abundance  have  been  carried 
away  with  the  current.  Since  the  recollection  of  men  living 
near  this  great  cemetery,  the  river  has  cut  away  several 
hundred  feet  of  the  bank.  Many  very  fine  vases  have  been 
found  at  this  place.  In  making  these  burial  vases  work  of  a 
real  artistic  nature  has  been  shown.  On  some  shown  the 
.author  by  Colonel  Owen  at  Indianapolis  some  years  ago, 
when  he  was  state  geologist,  the  features  of  human  being 
were  carved  or  engraved  and  the  work  was  so  well  done  that 
the  faces  showed  an  animated  human  expression. 

While  gazing  on  these  artificial  hills  and  structures,  in 
fancy  one  can  see  the  long  lines  of  basket  laden  aborigines, 
who  in  the  far  past,  bygone  ages,  slowly  heaped  up  these 
thrones  of  earth  for  some  prince  of  their  race  and  the  mind 
wonders  what  bloody  scenes  of  carnage  to  savage  supersti- 
ition  of  old,  may  not  have  enacted  there,  countless  centuries 


<^  ^      l.*-^ 


^32  PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 

before  Columbus  plowed  the  wild  waves  of  an  unknown. 
ocean  in  search  of  an  unknown  country. 

There  are  two  points  about  which  there  can  be  but  little 
controversy: 

First. — The  mound  builders  were  a  very  different  race  to 
what  the  white  people  found  here.  Instead  of  dependin^^ 
upon  the  chase  they  were  farmers  and  made  their  living:  by 
industriously  workin^^  the  soil  which  yielded  them  rich  har- 
vest for  their  labor.  They  not  only  cultivated  the  soil  of  the 
£^reat  Mississippi  valley  but  they  were  in  vast  numbers  in  the 
far  west  and  in  the  arid  soil  of  that  dry  re^^ion  brou^^ht  the 
waters  of  the  different  rivers  to  their  aid  in  irri^^atin^^  their 
crops,  by  thousands  of  miles  of  lar^^e  and  small  ditches  made 
and  used  by  them  for  that  purpose. 

Second. — The  ^^reat  mounds  were  built  as  sepulchers  for 
their  dead.  Not,  as  has  been  claimed  by  some,  for  idolatrous^ 
worship.  They  intended  to  put  their  loved  ones  away  so  that 
nothing:  could  ever  disturb  them  and  not  like  the  Indian  who^ 
swin^^s  his  dead  to  the  limbs  of  trees  or  puts  them  upon  scaf- 
folds to  be  blown  away  as  he  had  no  abidin^^  home,  but  like 
the  wild  Arab  when  chooses,  folds  his  tent  and  steals  away.. 

THE   END. 


INDEX. 


Abbot.  GoTttmor-— 
SaperUiteiidfpt  at  YlocennM  ...  28 
goes    to    Detroit 28. 

Adami,   John — 

CommlBQlQzier  of  Treatj  of  Pi^la  67 

Anderson.    Bailey     220 

Army    Roster,     Battle    of     Tipoe- 
canoe    27d-308 

Anderson,   Robert  — 

Pioneer  and  Indian  Fiffbter  ...  229 

Anderson,    Sam    ,i 280 

Anderson,   Watt    .' 231 

Alley,  Doddridge— 

treed  for  a  panther  by  own  dog8.423< 

Attor,  John  Jaeob  476 

Alexander.    Jessey    487 

Ajiiatic   Cholera    034 

Adams,    Dr.    J.    R. 671 

Afl^ifif^  Andrew— 
Jerry  SalTiTan  and  others  in  raid 
on    bridge   watches    at    Dongola 
bridge    .....687 

Bowman,   Captain   Joseph — 

company  commander. 27 

captures  Cahokia      61 

commanded  rear   guard    80 

plans  to  blow  up  forts    46 

confers   with  Hamilton    60 

Bayley,  Lieut- — 

leads  attack  on  Ft.  SackviUe...  48 
service  at  Ft  SaekTilltf  67 

Bosseron,   MaJ.   Francis — 

dug  up  burled  ammunition 44 

with  Helm  at  capture  of  boats  62 
letter  to  Winthrop  Sargent...  01 
address  to  Winthrop  Sargent. . .  02 

BraKhear,  Lieut.  Rieliard — 
commands .  garrison     Post     Yin- 
cennes    67 

Bnckongehelas— 
great  chief  of  the  Delawares. .  06 

Butler,  Qen.  Richard- 
makes  trea^  with  Indians  ....  06 

Byrd,  Capt.  Wm. — 
Secretary    of    Northwestern    ter- 
ritory  108 

Baker,  Got.  Conrad — 

letter  to  author 147 

Beaujean,  Captaha 161 

Barnard,  James — 
in  boat  fight  at  Diamond  Island.100 

Bee  Hunting    ....83r 

Bonty,  Jacob- 
Built  water  mlU 824 

Boone,    Daniel — 
l>resents    gun    to    Chief.   Treat- 
way   874 

Bartholomew,  CoL — 
'"expedition   agatast '  ladlans   . . '. \ 874 
wounded  at  Tlpp6cano4  .' 268 

Berry,' Uent^-   "^ 


killed  in  battle 26» 

Boyd,  Col.  John  P. — 
brings  4th  Inf.  to  Ft.  Knox.... 263 
commands .  brigade    264 

Blackford.   Isaac — 
elected  Speaker  of  House  of  Rep- 
resentatiyes    308 

Boundary  and  Area  of  State 306 

Bank  of  Vincennes,  with  Biranches 
Falls 40» 

Boone,  Ratliffe — 
becomes    governor    404 

Burr,  Aaron — 
his  consDlracy  471 

Bears,  a  desperate  battle  with... 474 

Bailey,  Sergeant  477 

Battle,    by    bears,      panthers    and 
deer    480 

Brave  women   62ti 

Board  of  Internal  Improvement*— 
first  meeting   636 

Boys  and  Bear  Cubs 65^. 

Beard.   John    623 

Barrett  John  W 666^ 

Cadillac,  La  Mott— 
authorized    bv    Count    Ponehar- 
train  to  erect  frontier  forts  ...  1^ 

Clark,  Gen.  Geo.  Rogers — 

born   Nov.    10,    1752    24 

officer  in  Dunmore's  war   24 

first  visit  to  Kentucky   26. 

commands      expedition      against 

Kaskaskia   and   Vincennes    2T 

captures   Kaskaskia 86i 

captures  Vincennes   87-62 

plans  to  capture  Detroit 60 

drew  plans  of  Louisville 60 

commanded     expedition     against 

Detroit    61 

let  out  of  service 62* 

marched  troops  to   Vincennes. . .  62' 

at  Vincenneii   64 

makes  treaties  with   Indians.  .66-66 
achievements   secured    Northwest 

Territory  to  United  States 67 

died  at  home  of  his  sister  . . . .  6S 

Campbell,  CoL — 
sent  letters  to  Clark  28 

Chaplain,  Lleut.^— 

with   Brashear   at   Vincennes. . .  6T 

Colbert  Scotsman^ — 
commanded    Indians    60 

Craig,  John,  Jr. — 

commissioner   to   purchafs     sup- 
plies    - .  64 

Cioghan,  Mrs..  Wm.— 
General  Clark's  sister 6flr 

Cutler,  Rev.  Manasseh — 

igMit  of  'Kassachnsetts  Co 74 

drafts  ordinance  for  government 
of.  Northneest  Territory  an4:  S4i 


«34 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 


cures  its  passage  by  Congress ...  75 

Commissioners   woo   executed   deed 
for    Virginia   to    the    Northwest 

Territory    72 

Samuel  Hardy,  Arthur  Lee, 
.Tam<»R   Monroe,   Thos.   JeflFerson. 

•committee  Reporting  an  Ordinance 

for   Northwest   Territory    73 

Thos.  Jefferson,  Chas  of  Ohio, 
Howie  of  Rhode  Island. 

Cockrum,   Wm.   R. — 

purchased  a  steamboat   178 

•Committee  to  Address  President  of 

United  States    292 

Samuel  Scott,  Alexander  Deven, 
Luke  Decker,  Bphrlam  Jordon, 
Daniel  McClure,  Capt.  Walter 
Wilson. 

•Clark,  Major  Masten  O 2^0 

Committee  to  Select  State  Capitol. 404 

Congress  authorizes  a  grant  of  land 
to  the  Wabash  and  Brie  Canal. 425 

'Cbapter  on  Natural  History  of  Ani 
malt  and  Birds  that  were  in  In- 
diana   427-457 

•Caldwell,    John     , 477 

Chappell,  Capt   J.   E 488 

Crow,    James    556 

'Cobum,  General  John    n21 

Cockrum,  Col.  J.  W 566 

•Crittenden,  Oenl.  T.  L 60!» 

•Choctaw.  John   619 

DeVIncennes,  Francis  Morgan — 
for   whom     post   Vincennes   was 

named    21 

killed   1736   by   Indians    21 

DeLafont,  Dr. — 

accompanied  Father  Gibault   ...  82 

DuQuesne,  Governor   22 

Dejean.  Philip — 

British  magistrate  of  Detroit...  68 

Dalton.  Captain — 

artillerv  officer 64 

•Denny,   Captain — 

present  when  treaty  is  made  ...  66 

Decker,  Luke — 

member   of    legislative   council . .  2?t4 
signs  reguest  to  president   252 

1[>iamond    inland    Boat    Fight    with 

Indians— The  killed 100 

Geo.  Talbert,  Thos.  West,  Mrs. 
Thos.  West,  David  Hope,  Mrs. 
David  Hope. 

Davidson,  Jasper  N. — 

gives  valuable  data H)2 

©avis,    Joel    202 

Davis,  Major  Joseph  H 267 

killed  at  Tippecanoe 268 

Dubois,   Capt.   Tousssnt — 

commands   Harrison   scout3    ....  2.%0 

'Delegates  who  formed  the  6rst  con- 
stitution   800-801 

Davis,  George— 

escaped   from    I»dl:ins  -i^t 

Davis.   Nancy — 

raising  geese 601 

Decker,    .Tohn    573 

Edellne,   liOuls — 

signs  address  to  Winthrop  Sar- 
gent     01 

"Bmbree,    Captain    D.    F 128 

Ernest.   FAX,  Scout    220 

'Bvans,   Col.   Robt.   M. — 

commands  Rangers 870 

mentioned 871 

IBarly   Days  around     Sprlnklebutg, 


now  Newburg   502 

Embree,  Gen.  wm. —  571 

Education    Committee    458 

John  Badallet,  David  Hart,  Wm. 
Martin,  John  Welch,  Thomas  C. 
Bereal,  Daniel  J.  Casswell,  John 
Todd. 

Foote,  Ziba — 
drowned  in  Footers  pond   128 

Fauchit,    Mr 152 

Franklin,  Benjamin — 

commissioner  of  treaty  of  Paris  67 

Fuqua,  John — 

scout  of  Harrison's    176-224 

Flax    Industries    827 

Falls,  Robt. — 
built  horse  mill 824 

Flatboating    508 

Gibault,  Father  M. — 
village  priest  80 

favored    tne    Americans    «.  31 

•mmissary  of  Clark's   82 

George,  Captain — 

commands   at   Kaskaskia    67 

Gamelln.  Antoine — 

special  envoy  to  Indians   80 

submits   his   report    87 

address  to  Winthrop  Sargent  ...  92 

Gladwin,  Major — 
experience    with    Pontiac    88 

Gamelln,   Pierre    91-92 

Gamelln,   Paul    92 

Griscom,  Mary — 

killed   by   Indians    108 

Gibson,  Gen.  John — 

Secretary  of  Ind.   territory   ....  130 

letters  to  Capt.  Hargrove 208 

acting    governor     247 

sketch   of  his  life   877 

Griffith,  John — 

territorial  judge 130 

Genet,  M 152 

Girty.  Simon,  captures  Richard  Rue 
and  Geo.  Holeman   157 

Greenup.   Col. — 

father  of  Mrs.   Larkin   202 

Gullick,  Mrs.  Nancy — 

describes  pioneer  cooking   321 

Grllfey,  Jonas  and  Casaway — 

believed   in   witchcraft 889 

Gnmey.  Jamies  and  Son — 

killed  by  panther  near  Ve1pln.486<7 

Girl,   killed   by   panthers    508 

Grlgsby,  flght  witb  bear    606 

Gavitt,  Smith   617 

Hamilton,  Lieut.  Governor  Henry — 

recaptures    Vincennes    85 

ordered   by    Clark   to    surrender 

garrison    47 

letters  to  Clark   48 

conference  with   Clark    40 

articles  of  capitulation  61 

Henry.  Gov.  Patrick — 

approves  Clark's  plan  of  cam- 
paign   27 

informed  of  Clark's  success 86 

Helm,  Captain  Leonard — 

company  commander 27 

commands  post    Vincennes 88 

wins     friendship     of     Tobacco's 

■on    84 

surrenders   fort   to   Hamilton ...  86 
prisoner   during    Clark's   attaek.  44 

present   at    conference    49 

captures  British  boats    62 

Superintendent  of  Indlaa  aSkIn  67 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 


635 


chastises    Delaware    Indians    ...   58 
Ilarrod,  Capt.  Wm. — 

Captain    in    Clarlc's   Command...   27 

fienry,   Moses — 

prisoner  In  fort  Sackvllle   43 

appointed   Indian   agent    57 

Henry.   Mrs. — 

conveys  news  to  Captain  Helm.   43 

Hav,  Major — 

British    Supt.    Indian    affairs...   49 
rebuked   by   Clark    50 

Sarrlson,  Gov.  Benjamin — 

governor    of   Virginia    62 

signer  of  Declaration  of  Inde- 
pendence— ^father  of  Gen*i  Har- 
rison     240 

fielder.  Col.  John — 

commander  at  post  VIncennes   . .   64 

fiarmor.  General — 

stops  courts  from  granting  lands  70 
consults  with   Gen.    St   Clair...  98 
leaves     Fort     Washington     with 
army    94 

Hamtramck,    MaJ.    J.    P. — 

commands   at    VIncennes    80 

sends  Gamelin's     report  to     S%. 

Clair    87 

citizens     address     complimentary 

letter    91 

authorized   to   enlist   malitla....   93 

marches  up  Wabash   river   9n 

commands  Ft.  Wayne  aa  colonel.  101 

Harrison.  Oen.  Wm.  Henry — 

elected    to    Conif ress    103 

Indiana    territory    formed    104 

appointed   governor    133 

Issues  proclamation    144 

letters  to  Captain  Hargrove 203 

place  of  birth    240 

Hardin,   Joel — 

captured  by  Indians  at  Honey 
Springs,    Pike    Co 174 

Houchlns.   Jesse    ......    17R 

Harrison,  Otho 180 

Hargrove,   Jacob  W. — 

gave  author  valuable  data   203 

marking    wolves 490 

Hargrove.  Col.   Wm. — 

receives  orders  and  tnatructlont 
from  General  Harrison 202-220 

Hogue,    Sergeant    220 

Hathaway.  John — 

built  flouring  mill  at  Wins- 
low    824-584 

Hutson.  Family — 

killed  bv  Indians   880 

Hopkins,  General — 

army  mutinies 862 

Harrison,   Christopher — 

elected  Lieut,  governor 392 

Hendricks,  Wm. — 

elected  to   Congress    392 

elected  governor 404 

message  to  leelslatnre  recom- 
mending  internal   Improvements .  425 

Home  Defender   406 

Hoojiler    408 

Hunting   wolves    499- 

Hunting    deer    504 

Harbin.  Steve ...572 

Hunter,  Rev.  Hiram— 
,  releasing  kidnaped  negross 504 

Hanover,  J.  T .602 

Hanover.  .T.  T.,  letter   612 

Tunis,    ^fr. — ; 

receives  letter  from  Jefferson ...   67 


Indenture   Papers    142-145 

Joseph  Barton.  Thomas  Turner, 
Geo.  Endicott,  Joe  Boyce,  Ja^s. 
Boswell,  Noah  Freeman,  Mary 
Ann,  Jason  Brown,  James  Hart- 
weli,  ('has.  Hope,  Thomas  Tru- 
nfan,  Joseph  Forth,  Thos.  Agnew. 

Indianapolis-— 

selected    as    location    of   capitol.405 

Indians    killed    near    Knoxvllle    In 
Dubois  Co 498-9 

Internal    Improvements — 
work  done,  with  cost 538 

Indian    barbarity    555 

.lefferson,    Hon.    Thomas — 

writes  Mr.   Innls  of  Kentucky . .  67 
executes  deed  of  conveyance  from 
Virginia   to   Northwest    territory  72 

Jay,  John — 

commissioner  of  treaty  of  Paris  67 

Johnson,   James 02 

Johnson,  David — 

great  and  noted  hunter   167 

meets  Joel  Hardin    174 

experience    with    tanned   shoes.. 882 

has  battle  with  bear   490 

transformed    hog    460 

Jennings,    Gov.    Jonathan — 

delegate  to  congress 284 

secures  memorial  for  legisla- 
ture   . . : 389 

elected    governor .^92 

me«siee  to  legislature   898 

sounds  first  note  for  Internal  Im- 
provements     398 

legislature    in    extra    session .404 

Governor  and  Thos.  Oglesby   . . .  470 

.To'>e«.    .T'^'^^es    477 

Judson,   John    573 

Jones,  Col.  J.  G 611 

Jo»^n«jon.   Oen.    Sidney  A 609 

Kennedy,  Patrick — 

Quartermaster 57 

Knox,  Gen.  Henry — 

serretarv  of  war v . . . .   95 

Kimball,  Jesse    216 

builds  water  mill   323 

K*^o-'i«'»     Kd'vard    324 

Kirk,  Mason — 

built  flouring  mill  on  Patoka 
river    324 

T^Mnnnlng  neeroes    562 

Kidnaping  of  Rube 562 

Knowlton,  Mr 695 

LaSalle,  Robt.  D. — 
explorations      on     Wabasb     snd 

otner   rivers   and   lakes    It 

French  claims  based  on  bis  dis- 
coveries     22 

LflMntt.   rnnf^^n — 

British    partisan   officer    48 

permltten    to    re-enter   fort    46 

Lagrass.   Col.-— 

dug  nn  burled   ammunition    ....   44 
y^H^  TTo'm  at  cnnture  of  boats..   52 
commander  at   Post  VIncennes.  .   70 
claims    authority    to    dispose    of 
public  lands   90 

Ijookerv.  Col. — 

killed  by  Indians  at  mouth  of 
IXKrkrey  creek.   Ohio  river 61 

Laa,  Oen.  Arthor— 
makes  treaty  with  Indians 65 

Ti'»f'»vefte.    General     151 

Lurajus.    Col.    .Tobn     151 

LaTure.   Jean — 


»36 


PIONEER  HiiTORY  OF  INDIANA. 


captured  by  Indians 171 

ueatnen,    wm 177 

^master,    Conrad 17(S 

javerne.   Interpreter    181 

jarkln  Family — 
Larkin    killed    and    family    cap- 
tured near   Otwell,  Pike  Co 201 

XK>m  and  Whip  saw 829 

Jncoln,  Abraham — 

burial  of  his  mother   831 

j>gan,  Indian  Chief — 

historical    sketch    879 

jIUt,   Wm.   H. — 

elected  auditor  of  state   897 

iane,  Daniel  C. — 

elected  treasurer  or  state   897 

Amb,  Staunton    488 

<ane,  Oeneral  Joseph   511 

iand  Sharks    625 

iSnd   speculators    527 

iscey,  Major  M.   M 606 

father.  Rev.  Cotton   22 

lontgomery.  Captain  John — 

commands  company 27 

carries    dispatches    33 

trustee  of   town   of   ClarksriUe.  72 
lyres,  Wm. — 
government    express    to    Clark.   52 

lembers    of    Couucll     103 

Henry  Vanderburg,  Robt  Oliver, 
James     Fin  ley,     Jacob     Barnett, 
David  Vance, 
(embers  of  Legislative  Council  and 

Representatives    Dissolved    234 

Solomon  Man  waring,  Thos.  Down, 
Harvey  Heath,  Wm.  Prince,  Luke 
Decker,  Richard  Rue,  Bpbriam 
Overman,  James  BeopB*  John 
Work,  Moses  Homett,  Gen.  W. 
Johnson,  John  Johns<m,  John 
Hadden. 

layball.    Jonas 173 

Illey,    Henry    181-324 

[artln,   Jackson 185 

[ontgomery,  Isaac — 

mentioned    217 

builds  horse  mill    328 

makes  speech    522 

[illing    Industries    323 

[Hey,  Henry — 

built  horse  mill  near  Peters- 
burg   324 

Farrlman  Family — 

killed    by    Indians    846 

[urtree.  Miss — 

sold  to  Canadian  officer  by  In- 
dians  871 

[onteomery.   "Purty"  old  Tom — 

noted  Indian  fighter    229 

riller,  Lieut.  Col.  James — 
captures     battery     at     Landy*s 

Lane V/..267 

[cMaban.   Lieut. — 

killed  In  battle    268 

[ilk   Sickness' 401 

tiller,  John 476 

[cFadin,  Andrew — 

horse  gored  by  deer 482 

[alott,   Elijah— 

plajs  a  prank  487 

[aloft,  Hiram    4r^ 

[alott.   Resin ..4i 

rcDonald,   John   and  James    ....4i 

[lehlgan    Nulffieation 618 

[ezlcan  War- 
Indiana  offlesn 661 


Montgomery,  Harvey  and  Josephs- 
liberating   Pete    56S 

Mounts,    Mathias    570 

McDermitt,  Pat — 

In  battle  with  wild  hogs 584 

McGregory,    Andrew     604 

McMakin.    Col.    W. 594 

Mason,  Senator 699 

Met  oilou}?h.  Dr.  Samuel   6fo 

Miler,  Capt  A 618 

MccoiiuicK,   Kev.  T.  B «15 

McClure,    Miss    616 

Neeley,   Gen.   Jolin  ■  I. — 

.'-et.ai'es       valuable     data      from 

Gretenway    128 

visits    Doyle's  grave   at  bluffs..  128 

Noble,  James — 
elected  first  U.  S.  Senator 897 

New,   Robt  C. — 
elected  secretary  of  state   89T 

Noble,  Noah,  Governor — 
suggests     that    no    internal    Im- 
provements should  be  commenced 
except    such    as   were    of   public 
utility   584 

Noble  act  of   returning  Tippecanoe 
Soldiers    471 

Opposers  of  Suspension  of  6th  Ar- 
ticle of  Ordinance  of  1787    136 

John  Beggs.  David  Floyd,  Charles 
Beggs,  Abram  Little,  Robt. 
Robertson,  John  Owens,  James 
Beggs. 

Owen,   Robert — 

purchases  New  Harmony  from 
Frederick   Rapp    886^ 

Owen,  Col.  Wm.— 
killed   in   battle    270 

Old  Man,  dressed  in  skins 484 

Oliphant^  Col.   Wm.  A. 554 

Pontlac,  Indian  Chief — 

loyal  to  French    22 

assassinated  opposite  St   Louis.  2& 

Parsons,   Samuel — 

makes  treaty  with.  Indians   ....   65 

Putnam,  Gen.  Rufus — 

organises  Massachusetts  Co 74 

Prisoners,     rescued     by     Geenway 

Sarty   108-118 
ames  Griscom,  Rachel  Grlscom. 

Mrs.  Geo.  Talbert  and  little  son, 

James  Hope,  Jane  Hope. 
Pride,   Woolsey— - 

settled    at   White    Oak    Springs, 

1800    ......169 

mentioned   181 

Page,  Ben«  scout   22^ 

Posey,  Gov.  Thomas  — 

appointed  governor  1818   877 

.  message  to  legislature    888 

defeated  In  race  for  governor  . .  .891 
Parke,  Benjamin — 

appointed    member    of    Supreme 

Court    282 

Pioneer    Schools    458-468 

Petersburg,  early  days 484 . 

Panther     kills   men   of     surveying 

party    488 

Pottawattamie  Indians  moved  west 

of  Mississippi  river 540 

Prophet,    George    H 541 

Proiilgal*s  Return 566 

Pee4t  Solomon    56^, 

Posey,  Dr.  John  and  Rev.  Bldridge 

Hopkins 574, 

Paddy  Calvert,  Bob  CalTWt,  Joseph 


I 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 


637 


Carter,  John  Armstrong,  have 
battle  to  rescue  the  (lothard  boys 
from    kidnapers    692 

!Dr.   John   Posey   and   Ira  Caswell. 692 

Aockhblaye,   Governor — 

commanded   at   Kaskaskia    28 

Boffers,   Captain  John — 

commanded  armed  galley   88 

has  charge  of  British  prisoners.   53 

Itandolph,    Hon.   John — 

a  tribute  to  Gen.  Clark   64 

opposes  slavery  in  Northwest  ter- 
ritory  186 

Itobb.  Major  David — 

makef  field  notes  of  the  graves 

of  Dyie  and  Foote    128 

visits  Gov.  Harrison    209 

builds  water  mill   324 

Hope   walk    824 

Russell,     col 876 

Randolph.  Thomas — 

killed  in  battle  of  Tippecanoe.  .284 

Bapp,  Frederick — 

founder  of  Harmony  society   . . .  886 

Representatives    elected    to    Senate 
and    House    892-393 

Ray,   James  R.^- 

elected    governor     426 

recommended  internal  improve- 
ments     426 

Robinson,   Hon.   A.    L. 614 

(Robinson,   Wood,   Br 618 

8t.  Auge— 

a  commandant  at  Vlncennea  ...  21 

Sh"  ^   on.   Captain   W. — 

British    prisoner    48 

Shelby,   Capt. — 
at    wea    Indian   towns    67 

41t   Clair,  Gen.   Arthur — 

jrr,-p;  -Q|.  Qf  Nopthwest  territory  76 
visits  western  part  of  territory.   80 

at    Kaskaskla    88 

transfers   authority   to  Wlnthrop 

fc^<'         T        %  -••  •••••  ...........         WO 

commands  8,000  troops    96 

nin-'^hes  to  Miami  town   96 

army   defeated    98 

resigns    commission     99 

Sargent.   Wlnthrop — 

sent   to   Vincennes  by  St.   Clair.   88 
presided    over      courts    at      Vin- 
cennes     89 

governor  and  commander-in-chief  90 
rerelves  nddress  from  citlsens  . .  91 
,.o«-.,f— c    yr,  answer    98 

'Scott,  General — 

secretary   of   war   sends   letter . .   ^^ 

Expedition   against   Indians    97 

letcufar       troops       under 
Wayne    100 

•8t.  Clair,  Arthur,  Jr. — 

•  ~  ^     o"   '^'^nsrress    10?j 

-Smith,   Col.    John    151 

'Sebastian,  Frederick — 

killed  by  Indians 16'> 

Sm.M    .    \  ijt.   c Jeneral    204 

Sprinkle.    Major    John    22ti 

mentioned 481 

Sevcr'>«.    .To»^n — 

first    permanent    settler    in    Gib- 
go*^     POnnty      IftR 

mentioned ' 217 

Setteedo'^n.    Indian    chief    226 

'Shoemaklng    821 

•Stnckv.  Jacob — 

built  grist  mill  near  Petersburg. 824 


Standish,  Miles- 
court   martials   soldiers    337 

Simerall,  Col. — 

on  an  Indian  campaign 366 

Spencer,   Capt    Spelr — 

received  orders  from  commander- 
in-chief    268 

killed  at  Tippecanoe   268 

Stone  Eater,   Indian  chief,   a*  lead- 
er of  Tippecanoe   Indians    269 

Smith.  O.  HT— - 

writes  letter   411 

Shooting   matches    ,.  .498 

State  Bank  and  Branches 620 

State's   financial   ruin    :  636 

State   prison    648 

State  Blind  Asvlum   64^ 

State  Asylum  for  Deaf  and  Dumb. 544 

State   Hospital   for   Insane    646 

State    Library    646 

State    Educational     Institutions. .  .647 

Sawyer   570 

Slave  bunt  at  Kirks  mill  bridge... 579 

Stubblefleld,    Joseph     684 

The  Grand  Door,  Tobacco's  Son^ 

a  Piankasliaw  chief 88 

Captain  Helm  wins  his  friend- 
ship    84 

declares       friendship      for      Big 

Knife    41 

offers  Clark  100  warriors   44 

shares  prison  with   Capt.   Helm.   46 

warns   Delaware   Indians    49 

Todd,  General  John — 

county  lieutenant.  Northwest  ter- 
ritory  69 

issues    proclamation    70 

organizes   courts    89 

Trustees  of  Clarksvllle   72 

Wm.  Fleming.  John  Edwards, 
John  Campbell.  Daniel  Walker, 
Abraham  Chaplin,  John  Bailey, 
Robt.  Todd,  Wm.  Clark. 

Territorial   Court    77 

c;>^-.ipi    TTo'den    Parsons,    James 
Mitchell    Vamum,     John   Cleave 
Simms. 
Trappers    and    Hunters    at    Coffee 
Island,      Wabash    river      rescue 

Srisoners  from    Indians    ....105-129 
sraes    Green  way,    Thos.    Doyle, 
Stephen  Murtree,  Pierre  Devan. 

Truxton,    Commodore — 

cnntures    French    vessels    162 

Tllton.    Paul    181 

TIptoi.    John — 

receipts  to  Capt.  Hargrove  for 
ammunition     202 

'Tflrlor.    Z>ck«irv    362 

Tipton,   MoJ.   John- 
curt  reply  to  Gen.  Evans 870 

renorts   to   Gov.    Gibson    372 

Treaty  Commission    377 

Gen.  Harrison,  Gen.  Cass,  Gen. 
Adair. 

Thomas,  Jesse  B.  — 

elected    to    ro»>fi:re«s     232 

Tecumseh.    Indian    chief    240 

historical  sketch    811 

The    Propbet — 

Tecumseh's   brother    240 

comnisnded  Indians  at  battle  of 
Tlopecanoe    264 

Taylor,   MaJ.   Waller    260 

nVrtprl   «"^t   r.   S.    Senator    897 

Trial  and  Rzecntlott  of  white  men 


PIONEER  HISTORY  OF  INDIANA. 


mnrderlag    Indlaiu    ...412-4ZS 


ngton.   Oen.   Reorie    22 

manded  post  or  Kaikukia..  33 
I  iDd  capture*  Indian*  ....  01 
lucta    prlsoucn    to    KeDtaek;  DS 


[■bea    Indiana 


orlon*   buttle   wfl 
royed      Indtan 
:k,  Capt— 


bears   menase   to  Tecumieh    ...2*7 
Wella,   Major  General— 

rommanda    Kentuckr  -  troona . . .  863 
White.  Loon,   Indian   Thief— 

IB  battle  or  Tippecanoe   249 

Wlnnamac.    Indian    Chief- 
Is  battle  of  Tippecanoe   269 

Wounded  deer  KotlDK  oxen    ...... Oil 

Wild   boc*    *0» 

Waives  scalped  bj  Peter  FurKuaon 

■     and   David   Bllderback    500 

Walker.   General    ...C29 

Wallace,   TtaTld,   pjvwnor    839 

Wllaan.    Rev.    Lewis    .^ST 

Warrick,   Jobn,    Br. S72 

Willis,   Bev OM 

Zenor.    Jacobs 
bai  flEbt  with  panther  HT 


ERRATA, 
■jte  m—lrA  line  reailr     "Commended  by  Capt.  Potter.     Secretary  of 
iweat  Territory,  Winthrop  SBrgent,"  etc. 
Sige  183— 4th  line  from  the  bottom,  add  to  litie  the  worda  "aide  the." 


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