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IVD JOHNSON CO.)
A
HISTORICAL SKETCH
JOHNSON COUNTY
INDIANA.
BY D. D. BANTA.
" This is the place, this is the time. Let me review the scene, And summon from the shadowy past The forms that once have been."
CHICAGO: J. H. BEERS & CO. 1881.
L
300389
A TILD F
R
1 2 - I
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1881, by D. D. BANTA, in the office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington, D. C.
INTRODUCTORY.
Every reader of this historical sketch, will, doubtless. think that it ought to have been better than it is. Well, I think so, too ; but, if any one imagines he can write a better, let him try it. Then he will begin to learn in what a chaos everything is that rests in memory, and how eluding important facts are.
I might have dwelt somewhat upon the more recent times, but, for obvious reasons, I preferred to occupy the space allotted me in rescuing. as far as possible, the beginning from oblivion. In this, I have gone beyond the limit set by the publishers, and yet have omitted much that ought to be preserved. I intend in the future, as in the past, to keep memoranda of events appertain- ing to the county's early history, as well as to its later, and, if this sketch will serve to revive recollections and bring their sub- stance to my memorandum book, I will not think my work done in vain.
To all the old men and women who have now and then, during the past few years, given me the benefit of their reminiscences, I make my acknowledgments, and to Judge Hardin, who has ren- dered such signal service, I am under peculiarly strong obli- gations.
The time of the arrival of many of the pioneer settlers of the county, often rests in uncertainty. The dates given, if wrong. may be corrected at some future time, if those charged with the knowledge will give it. And, more serious than that, was the inability to learn the names of all who came in during the first few years. That information can be given, and it is invited.
D. D. BANTA.
1
ulver frage Boyne PRINTERS 18 &120 MONROE SI (1) 6
CHICAGO CO
CONTENTS.
INTRODUCTION 3
CHIAPTER I-In the Beginning. 7
CHAPTER II-The Wilderness Invaded. 9
CHAPTER III-The new Purchase and its Grantors. 15 CHAPTER IV-The First Settlements. 19
CHAPTER V-Organization of the County 24
CHAPTER VI-County Government Organized. 29
CHAPTER VII-Progress of Settlement. 35
CHAPTER VIII-Through Johnson County fifty-five years ago. 42
CHAPTER IX-Contending forces ; Topographical and Physical Condition ;
Clearing the Land; Squirrels, Insect Life, Wild Animals, Snakes, Sickness, 49 CHAPTER X-Life in the Woods ; Toiling; The Chase ; Turbulence ; Re- ligious ; Educational ; Markets. 60
CHAPTER XI-Conduct of County Business 70
76
CHAPTER XII-Incidents.
CHAPTER XIII-The Early Bar of Johnson County 82
CHAPTER XIV-Official Register : Governors of Indiana, Lieutenant Governors, Secretaries, Auditors of State, Treasurers of State, Attorneys General, Representatives in Congress, Members of Indiana House of Representatives, Prosecuting Attorneys, Judges of the Circuit Court, Associate Judges of the Circuit Court, Probate Judges, Common Pleas Judges, District Attorneys, County Commissioners, Circuit Court Clerks, Appraisers Real Estate, County Treasurers, Sheriffs, County Auditors, County Assessors, Collectors of County Revenue, Recorders, County Surveyors 100
CHAPTER XV-Blue River Township. 108
CHAPTER XVI-Nineveh Township. 113
CHAPTER XVII-Franklin Township ; Franklin College. 116
. CHAPTER XVIII-White River Township. 122
CHAPTER XIX- Pleasant Township. 15I
CHAPTER XX-Hensley Township 155
CHAPTER XXI-Union Township .. 159
CHAPTER XXHI-Clark Township. 163
CHAPTER XXIII-Needham Township.
167
l'opulation of Johnson County by Townships 168
HISTORICAL SKETCH
OF
JOHNSON COUNTY,
BY D. D. BANTA.
CHAPTER I.
IN THE BEGINNING.
In all that vast region of country lying between the Ohio and the lakes, France, at one time, claimed a nominal ownership. This claim, set up in the latter half of the seventeenth century, was founded on the right of discovery, settlement and military occupation, and it was maintained until the defeat of the French by Gen. Wolfe, at Quebec, in 1759. In the treaty that followed, France forever relinquished her pretensions to this region, and it passed into the possession of the British crown.
When the war for independence came on, British agents, scat- tered here and there in the wilderness, were active in stirring up the Indians to make war on the frontiers. The Kentuckians were among the principal sufferers, and, as a measure of protec- tion, it was thought to be necessary to rid the country of the mischievous agents. Gen. George Rogers Clarke, accordingly, applied to Patrick Henry, then Governor of Virginia, for author- ity to raise an army with which to attack the British posts in the West. The authority being given, Gen. Clarke repaired to the Falls of the Ohio in the spring of 1778, when two hundred frontiersmen at once rallied to his standard. Floating down the Ohio in rude boats to a point a short distance below the mouth of the Wabash, the little army disembarked, and at once set out for the British posts on the Illinois River. Providence favored the enterprise. The English were expelled from the Illinois country, and the oath of allegiance to Virginia was willingly taken A
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HISTORICAL SKETCH OF JOHNSON COUNTY.
by the French inhabitants. News of the event reaching the post at Vincennes ahead of the invaders, the French residents of that place rose successfully against the British garrison, and British rule was at an end in the West.
The country now belonged to Virginia. Steps were taken by this commonwealth to organize a government suitable to the wants of the region, and Col. John Todd, of Kentucky, was commis- sioned as the Lieutenant Colonel and Commandant of the coun- try on the " Western side of the Ohio."
The dominion exercised by Virginia was of short duration. In 1784, this State ceded to the United States all her claim to the country " northwest of the Ohio," and from that time on the en- tire region has been under the jurisdiction of the United States.
Various changes in the Territorial government were, from time to time, made, and State after State was carved out and ad- mitted into the Union. until the whole has long since been ab- sorbed. On the 19th day of April, 1816, Indiana was admitted as one of these States.
During all of the time from 1769, when La Salle, a French explorer, with thirty companions, descended the Kankakee and was the first of Europeans certainly known to have set foot on the soil of our State. down to within a few years before the admission of the State into the Union, it is not surely known that any white man ever set foot within the borders of the territory now com- prised within the boundaries of Johnson County. The probabil- ity is, that white men were here during that time. An Indian trail, connecting the falls at Louisville with the Wabash villages, passed through this county. This Indian highway, leading to and from the "dark and bloody ground," was, doubtless, trav- eled by many a war party going to and returning from the Ken- tucky settlements. These returning parties not infrequently were accompanied by prisoners, and there is a strong probability that white captives have been led by dusky warriors through the primitive woods of this county, long before the white hunters were venturing beyond the northern hill ranges of the Ohio.
And then, again, it is known that the French Jesuits and traders, during the century of French ascendency in the West, navigated all the principal streams, established trading-posts and missionary stations wherever Indians could be found in numbers to justify ; and, as the White River country was prolific of all kinds of game and fur-bearing animals common to its latitude. a reasonable hypothesis, supported by tradition, warrants the con- jecture that Frenchmen were, long ago, voyageurs on White River, and thus came within the borders of our county.
.
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HISTORICAL SKETCH OF JOHNSON COUNTY.
CHAPTER II.
THE WILDERNESS INVADED.
Some time during the latter part of 1817, Jacob Whetzel, then living in Franklin County, in this State, bought a tract of land in " Harrison's Purchase," near the mouth of Eel River, in Greene County. The usually traveled route from the White Water country, where Whetzel lived, to the "Purchase," was by the way of the Ohio and the Wabash Rivers, or from the Falls at Louisville, overland to that place. Jacob Whetzel was a born and trained woodsman. He had been hunting wild beasts and fighting Indians all his life. He had served as a spy and scout with the armies of St. Clair and Harrison, and, now that a path- less woods lay between him and his purchase, he determined to cut through rather than go around.
The Delaware Indians were at that time in the undisturbed possession of the White River country, and Jacob Whetzel, early in the summer of 1818, applied to the Delaware Chief, Ander- son, at his village on White River, where Andersontown has since been located, and obtained his permission to cut a road through from near Brookville to the bluffs of White River. In the month of July, in company with his son Cyrus, a youth 18 years of age, and four good. stout axmen, Thomas Howe, Thomas Rush, Richard Rush and Walter Banks, he set out for the near- est point on White River, intending to work from thence back to the settlements. Taking one of the men. Thomas Rush, with him, he went in advance, blazing the proposed road, while young Cyrus, with the rest of the men, followed after, carrying their axes and nine days' provisions. These had not entered the wil- derness very far, when, one evening late, they met a party of Indians, whose actions, notwithstanding their warm protestations of friendship, excited suspicion. The two parties passed each other, but the white men, without arms, kept a more vigilant guard that night than was common even in that day. The night set in cloudy, and rain soon began falling, but the hours passed quietly on, until the camp-fire burned low, when the man on watch discovered Indians lurking in the vicinity. Quietly waking his sleeping companions, they as quietly abandoned their camp, and, notwithstanding the darkness of the night, followed the track of Jacob Whetzel and his associates, by "feeling of the notches and blazes cut in the trees." Whatever motive led the
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HISTORICAL SKETCH OF JOHNSON COUNTY.
red men to prowl around their camp-fire that night, nothing more was seen of them on that journey.
Meeting with no other hindrances save such as were incident to the trackless wilderness, Cyrus Whetzel and his comrades journeyed on, crossing Flat Rock about seven miles below the present site of Rushville ; Blue River, four miles above Shelby- ville, and Sugar Creek a little north of Boggstown. On reaching a water-course, a few miles east of White River, a nest of honey- bees was discovered in the hollow limb of a walnut tree, which yielded a large supply of honey ; but, being too bitter to be eaten, because made from a bitter honey-bearing bloom, it was reluctantly thrown away. Nevertheless, from this circumstance originated the name of " Honey Creek," the first creek within the borders of this county to receive a name at the hands of white men.
White River was struck at a place Jacob Whetzel and his party called the Bluffs, and we may well imagine that the scene which met the gaze of these pioneers was such as they little ex- pected to behold. Jacob Whetzel had set out to reach, by a short cut, a prospective home at the mouth of the Eel; but, standing on the bluff, in those July days, he looked out over a wide, deep and rapidly-flowing river, through whose clear depths the eye could penetrate to the white pebbles that lay on the bottom far below, whose waters swarmed with fish, and whose level bot- toms and rolling uplands were covered with great forests that grew from a soil of wonderful richness, and there, on the banks of the Waw-pe-kom-i-ka of the Miami red men, he resolved should be his future home.
Jacob Whetzel went on down the river alone, while young Cyrus and the axmen turned back and began the work of cutting out what was long known as "Whetzel's Trace." Their progress was slow. A path had to be cut of a width sufficient to admit the passage of a team. After passing the rolling land extending a few miles back from the river, the country through which they went was level, and, at that season of the year, was almost an endless swamp. Their first day's work took them to an old bea- ver dam near the present east boundary line of Pleasant Town- ship. It was built across the outlet of a swamp, and made a pond of water a half-mile long and several yards in width at the narrowest places ; but at that time it had apparently been long deserted. Presently they reached the Hurricane, and there they established their camp, and, as this stream afforded the only run- ning water between Sugar Creek and Honey Creek, it was sur- mised that here would be a noted camping-ground in the future, and the stream they named Camp Creek ; and subsequent events
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HISTORICAL SKETCH OF JOHNSON COUNTY.
proved the surmise to have been well founded. Slowly hewing their way through the woods, the axmen came at length to a deep swamp, some two miles west of the present east boundary line of the county, which was known in the early day as the Great Gulf. This was a mile in width and two miles in length. Two streams,. Flat Creek and the Leatherwood, entered the gulf at its northern end, and their combined waters made Little Sugar Creek. Sugar Creek was already named when the Whetzels came. It was noted for the large forests of sugar-trees that grew at intervals on its banks, and to this circumstance, is it supposed, that its name is due. The entire distance to Sugar Creek, after passing the skirt of rolling lands lying back from the river, is said to have been at the time a continuous swamp. The axmen were often " mid-sides in water " while cutting their way, and at night they cut brush and made heaps on which to sleep.
Arriving at the Brandywine late one evening, the party en- camped, when Jacob Whetzel rejoined them. After their scanty meal had been eaten, Jacob produced a bottle of peach brandy which he had obtained in Owen County, and over this the party pledged the memory of the wives and sweethearts at home. To the inspiration due to that bottle are the people of Shelby County indebted for the name of one of their prettiest streams-Brandy- wine. The name was given on that night.
The provisions giving out, the party was soon after compelled to push on to the settlement, and leave the work unfinished ; but in a short time Whetzel returned and completed it.
This work proved to be of great importance in the settlement of Marion, Johnson, Morgan and Shelby Counties. It was known as Whetzel's trace, and hundreds of the early settlers of Central Indiana traveled along it in search of their wilderness homes.
The following March (1819), Jacob Whetzel, with his son Cyrus, returned to the Bluffs. Selecting a camping-ground about five hundred yards below the place where the Waverly Mills were afterward built, he prepared to build a shelter; but, ere this could be done, a violent snow-storm came on and lasted until the snow was fifteen inches in depth. A small clearing was, nevertheless, made that spring, a peach orchard and some corn planted, and, in the following fall, the family moved in and took up their per- manent residence.
About the time Whetzel's trace was being cut, pioneers had struck the White River toward its mouth, and settlements were gradually working up stream. Late in 1818, Ephraim Goss built a cabin where Gosport now is, and, during the following
12
HISTORICAL SKETCH OF JOHNSON COUNTY.
year, Robert Stotts settled at the mouth of a fine mill stream, since known as Stotts' Creek. The same year, the Awfields, Doneghys, Laughlins, Dewas, Enslys, Agens and Stipps settled below Whetzel's, and Christopher Ladd. a North Carolinian, came by the way of the " trace," with his family and goods mounted upon a sled, and settled on the Bluffs, about one hundred yards west of where the county line has since been run. The Indians had at that time ceded their possessions, and there was some travel by " land-lookers " and others over the " trace." Christo- pher Ladd invited the patronage of the travelers, and kept whisky for sale to them and to the Indians.
During the summer of the same year Ladd came, a murder was committed in his neighborhood, which created a profound excite- ment among the few settlers on the river below. It seems that one William Agen and Ladd were out hunting in the bottom above the Bluffs, when they discovered in the distance a large number of buzzards hovering near the earth-a certain sign of the presence of carrion. Agen at once insisted on searching for the cause, but Ladd said that he had wounded a deer in that vicin- ity a few days before, and that he had no doubt it had since died, and was now being devoured by these birds. This explana- tion was, at the moment, satisfactory to Agen, but, as they ad- vanced, and the birds appeared more numerous, he again insisted on making an effort to find the cause. Ladd was still reluctant, when his companion started in the right direction, while Ladd followed behind. The cause was soon found in the body of a dead man who had evidently been murdered, for his skull had been eloven with two blows of a sharp instrument, apparently a " pipe-tomahawk," and the front of his vest, with its buttons, had been cut out and carried away. Ladd expressed the utmost sur- prise, but counseled silence, on the ground, that, while no good could possibly result from the fact being known, because of the nearness of the body to his cabin, he might be suspected and suffer harm in consequence. Moreover, he thought that the Indians could explain the mystery, and, if nothing was said about it, he felt sure, that. when they came to his cabin to buy whisky, he could so manage the matter as to get a full explanation.
Ladd's request seemed not unreasonable, and Agen determined to keep the matter a secret. Perhaps he never once suspected that Ladd had anything to do with the man's death, and may have entered heartily into his plans. with a view to ferreting out the guilty party. Be this as it may, the " dead secret " became a living fire in his breast, and tortured him beyond endurance. To know that a man was lying dead in the woods near by, and
13
HISTORICAL SKETCH OF JOHNSON COUNTY.
yet lock the knowledge within his own bosom, was more than he could do.
" This killed his pleasure all the day, This thought destroyed his nightly rest; Go where he would, 'twas in his way, To him a loathsome, hated pest.'
Tossing wakefully upon his bed one night, he thought to ease his mind by whispering the awful secret into the ear of his wife. He did so ; but a traveler who slept in the same cabin that night, happening to be awake, heard enough of the story to warrant him, the next morning, in admonishing Agen to make a clean breast of the whole matter. Agen did so The river settlement was in commotion. Men, women and children came to see the remains of the dead. A deep grave was dug, and his bones were laid away. Then Ladd was accused of the murder, and, not- withstanding his emphatic denial, his gun was taken from him, and he was a prisoner in the hands of a self-constituted commit- tee. For some reason, his captors went with him to the cabin of Jacob Whetzel. Some were for hanging him on the spot; others " for tying him up and lynching him ;" but Jacob Whetzel coun- seled moderation. He argued the improbability of Ladd's guilt. Were he the murderer, he would have either buried the body or thrown it into the river. The argument prevailed. A vote was taken, and Ladd was set at liberty. But his wrath was up. He went at once to Brookville and employed lawyers to commence an action for false imprisonment. The action was brought, and, when the case came on for trial, it created quite a stir. Gen. James Noble and William W. Wick appeared for the defendants. Ladd recovered $94 damages, but was " ruined in paying his law- yers' fees." The costs amounted to $1,500, and the defendants were " all broken up on execution."
From the day when the murder was made public, Ladd was generally believed to be guilty of the deed. He was talked about, his cabin was made odious, and travelers were glad to shun it. He remained in the country for several years, however, and did what he could to remove the public distrust. To this end he resorted to various expedients, one of which was to feign pecuni- ary embarrassment, and then borrow money ; for, notwithstand- ing the distrust, he seems to have kept his credit good. But in more than one instance, it has been claimed, the identical money borrowed was known to have been returned. Eventually, he moved further West, and was then lost sight of.
The Whetzels, father and son, believed in his innocence, and, from all the facts now known, it would seem not without good
14
HISTORICAL SKETCH OF JOHNSON COUNTY.
grounds for their belief. The spring after the murder, Hiram Lewis, a worthless vagabond Indian, who had been absent from about the time when the murder was committed, returned to the neighborhood riding a valuable and well-caparisoned horse, wear- ing a good overcoat and carrying a red morocco pocket-book, con- taining some bills issued by the Vincennes Steam Mill Company. When asked how he came by all these, be explained that he had traded his blanket for them! Shortly after the murder, a pa- poose in its mother's arms was observed with a string of bullet buttons, such as might have been on that part of the murdered man's vest which had been cut away. The Whetzels believed that the worthless Indian was the murderer.
15
HISTORICAL SKETCH OF JOHNSON COUNTY.
CHAPTER III.
THE NEW PURCHASE AND ITS GRANTORS.
Early in 1814, a large stream of emigration began flowing into the Indiana Territory. This had not entirely subsided during the war, but, after the Indian confederacy had been broken by the defeat and death of Tecumseh, and peace had been made, the eastern and southern people came rapidly in, filling up the old settlements and making new. The Whitewater and the lower of the White River valleys, and, in fact, all the tributaries of the Ohio within the bounds of the territory, were fast affording sites for the log cabins and clearings of the pioneers.
In 1816, Indiana was admitted as a State of the Union. At that time the population was 63,897, and, during the next few years, the increase was unprecedented for a new territory of that day. In 1820, the census gave a population of 147,178, an increase of more than 100 per cent in four years. At the time of the organization of the State, the northern Indian boundary line extended as far south as the northern boundary of Jackson County. A line drawn from that point so as to intersect the east boundary line near the corners of Randolph and Jay Counties, and thence west to the Wabash, a short distance above Terre Haute, and thence southeast to the place of beginning, inclosed the lands owned and occupied by the Delaware Indians. This country was watered by the White River and its numerous tribu- taries, and, as settlements were established in the counties border- ing the Delaware Territory on the south, men "eagerly desired " that the Delaware title be purchased and their rich lands thrown open to emigration. Two attempts had been made on the part of the Federal Government to purchase their lands, but, owing to the blunders of the Commissioners appointed for the purpose, both had failed. In 1818, President Monroe appointed Jonathan Jen- nings, then Governor of the State, Gen. Cass and Mr. Benjamin Parke as Commissioners. Repairing to the St. Mary's in Ohio, the Delaware chiefs were met in council, and, on the 3d of Octo- ber, a treaty was concluded, and the Delaware lands ceded to the United States, and for many years thereafter these lands were known as the "New Purchase." By the terms of the treaty the United States were obligated to pay the vendors a perpetual annuity of $4,000, provide them a suitable residence west of the Mississippi, and forever protect them in the enjoyment of the
16
HISTORICAL SKETCH OF JOHNSON COUNTY.
same. The right of possession was, however, reserved by the Indians for a few years after the treaty.
A melancholy interest attaches to the fate of a once powerful, though now nearly extinct, people. If a hero, overpowered and falling before a superior force, claims our sympathy, surely we may " drop a tear at the fate of nations, whose defeat followed the exile, if it did not indeed shadow forth the decline and ulti- mate extinction, of a race." While we contemplate with feelings of honest pride our well-improved and expanding farms, our fruitful orchards, our growing towns, alive with the din of busi- ness, and our comfortable country habitations, let us not forget the brave people who once had an undoubted right to our soil, who once took fish from our streams, game from our woods and pitched their bark tents on our hilly slopes. but who fled at the approach of the white man and sought for repose far beyond the confines of civilization.
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