A historical sketch of Johnson county, Indiana, Part 13

Author: Banta, D. D. (David Demaree), 1833-1896
Publication date: 1881
Publisher: Chicago, J.H. Beers & co.
Number of Pages: 186


USA > Indiana > Johnson County > A historical sketch of Johnson county, Indiana > Part 13


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sweetly, in angelic whispers, invite us to walk in their footsteps and practice their virtues. They are gone, but still they are with us and live in our memories as fresh and as green as the beautiful grass that mournfully drooping, in spring-time waves over them. They are gone, but still affection, though it linger, will follow on and cling to them, and for long years to come will often return with soft, silent footsteps to plant nature's sweet em- blems of virtue on their graves, the choicest and richest and rarest of flowers, which will spring with fresh vigor, and bloom in new beauty and glory, and shed richer fragrance, sweeter than incense, because they grow on the graves of the pioneer fathers and mothers, and because they were planted by children and kindred who loved them and nurtured with tears of richest affection.


In the northwest corner of Johnson and northeast corner of Mor- gan and over north in Marion County, was once a large farm and a town of Delaware Indians. The acres which had been in culti- vation, in the judgment of the first settlers, in 1820, although then overgrown by bushes, must have exceeded two hundred, the greater part of which was in Johnson County. It was delight- fully situated on a plateau twenty-five or thirty feet above the overflowage of the river, and was cut on the northeast and south- east by White River. When William Landers, Esq., settled on a tract of land adjoining the town in April, 1820, there still re- sided on that portion of the farm in White River Township and west of the river, Capt. Big Fire, Little Duck, and Johnny Quack, and on the east side of the river, in White River Township. on the old Morgan or Denny place, Capt. White, another Indian, where also a large field had been in cultivation at a previous date. And on the left bank of the river, three-fourths of a mile below Capt. White's, on the lands of John J. Worsham, was an- other Indian location and burial-ground, but no cultivation. This encampment was owned by Big Bear. On the Morgan County part of the old Indian field Capt. Tunis had his wigwam, and just adjoining, in Marion, Old Solomon his. The wigwams were situated on the right bank of the river at the southeast cor- ner of the farm. near the middle of Section 31. Here seems to have been once a stone wall, thirty or forty feet long and five or six feet high, built of portable undressed stones and laid parallel with the river and a hundred feet distant. The Indians said this wall was built for defensive purposes against the Kentuckians ; that there had been a bloody battle fought there once between them and the whites, beginning on the east bank of the river, where they were surprised, and that they were forced over the river, assaulted in the town and finally driven out. That there-


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after the farm had never been occupied. except by a few return- ing families. The size of the brush growing on and about the once cleared land at that date. 1820. showed that it had but re- centiv been abandoned. An old Kentuckian of great reliability, Stephen Watkins, on a visit to White River Township. twenty-five years ago. repeated precisely the same history of this town, and the battle and all the circumstances of the fight. He went so far as to point to the near battle-field : he said he had the par- ticulars from one of the actors and knew them to be true. Does history give any account of this battle ? In Dillon's History of Indiana. it is shown that the " Pigeon Roost Massacre " took place in the north part of Seott County, about eighty miles south of this Indian town, on the 3d day of September, 1812. The next evening. 150 mounted riflemen. under command of Col. John Mc- 1 Cov. followed the trail twenty miles. On the 6th. the militia of Clarke County (no number given) was re-enforced by 60 mounted volunteers from Jefferson County. and. on the evening of the 7th 350 volunteers from Kentucky were ready to unite with the Indiana militia of Clarke and Jefferson for the purpose of making an attack on the Delaware Indians, some of whom were suspected of having been engaged in the destruction of the Pigeon Roost set- tlement. "But. it is said. a spirit of rivalry which prevailed among some of the officers defeated the intention of those, who, at the time proposed to destroy the towns of the friendly Delawares who lived on the western branch of White River." Now hear what Maj. John Tipton says about these " friendly Indians" on White River: " In their way out. they (the escaping Indians) passed the Saline or Salt Creek. and I there took an old trail leading direct to the Delaware towns. and it is my opinion that while the Government is supporting one part of that tribe (the Delawares), the other part is murdering our citizens."


" It is much to be desired that those rascals of whatever tribe they may be harboring about these (Delaware) towns. should be routed, which could be done with 100 men in seven days." With this spirit and purpose openly declared by the whites. how long. do we imagine. they waited for an opportunity to execute it ? Will any one make me believe that 600 armed men at the "Pigeon Roost Massacre." after viewing the slaughtered and roasted human bodies and burning houses, quietly dispersed and went home ? Col. Joseph Bartholomew raided these towns on White River with 137 men on the 15th day of June. 1813. He found three towns, two of which had been burnt about a month before. (See Dillon. 524.) Who destroved them ? The reason


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that the battle at the Delaware towns, if a battle did occur, and the breaking them up on White River was never reported, is that the Government during the war with the other Indian tribes in 1811, 1812 and 1813 was supporting and protecting the Del- awares who had promised to engage in peaceful pursuits. Gen. Harrison had directed the Delawares to remove to the Shawanee's Reservation in Ohio, and most of them had done so soon after the battle of Mississinewa, December 17, 1812. Those who refusedl to go received but little mercy. But another proof of this battle is in the fact that on the twenty-acre field, in the southeast cor- ner of northwest quarter, Section 32, Township 14 north. Range 3 east, near Capt. White's old camp, large numbers of leaden bullets of every size, battered and bruised, have been found. I have had at least one hundred of them myself. and have picked up at least nine, recently, in a wash of the river and have been told of hundreds being found by others. I have passed a short distance from this field, on other ground more suitable for finding them, but never yet found any except on this locality. And about three years since, on John Sutton's farm, one mile and a fourth north of the battle-field and only one mile east of the Indian town, four frames of human bodies were washed out of a low, wet piece of bottom land. The skulls were carried off before I had an opportunity of examining them. No Indian ever buried his dead in a low, wet piece of land. They must have been buried there under pressing circumstances and by white men.


I shall now endeavor. so far as I have knowledge, either re- ceived from others or from personal observation, extending back to the year 1825, to give the history of the pioneers of White River Township.


In the month of April or May, 1820, one Morgan, whose sur- name is believed to have been Daniel. a bachelor, from Western Pennsylvania, and soon after the Indian departure of Capt. White for Arkansas, took possession of his camp and cultivated two or three acres of the old Indian field in corn, expecting his brother to come and take possession with him in the following fall. His corn grew finely and promised an abundant crop, but, as it often then happened, the squirrels began their ravages and ate up the whole before maturity. He then left for his home, but the Indian camp did not long remain vacant.


In the fall of 1820, after Morgan left Capt. White's camp. George Beeler, a son of Thomas and Hannah Beeler. with his wife and sister-in-law, then residents of Morgan County, but subse- quently of Johnson County, intending to make the camp his home. entered with his family and took possession. But it seems that


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Providence intended that he, like Morgan, should not long remain. He took sick and died, and was buried a mile and a half north of the camp, in the graveyard on the Wilson place, the oldest ceme- tery on White River. There can be no doubt that this is the first death of a white settler in all Johnson County .* On the 30th day of July, 1821, soon after the lands of White River Town- ship were subject to entry, one Joseph Morgan entered this same tract. He was no doubt the same person for whom his bachelor brother operated in raising the field of corn in the year before.


THE SELLS FAMILY.


Abraham Sells was a Virginian from Washington County. He left there on the 24th day of December, 1820, in a wagon, with a large family, and reached Washington County, Ind., about the middle of February. Leaving the female members of his fam- ily in that county, accompanied by his brother, John Sells, and four of John's sons, and three of his own, Isaac, William and Franklin, he set out for White River, and reached Jacob Whet- zel's about the 1st of March. Following the old Indian trace up the left bank of the river, on the 3d day of March, 1821, he entered White River Township, and took possession of the old Indian wigwam of Capt. White, situate forty rods north of Honey Creek, and near the middle of the northwest quarter of Section 32, Township 14 north, Range 3 east, now known as the Denny place. They brought along seventy-five head of hogs, eleven head of cattle, eight head of horses, together with sugar kettles, and a goodly assortment of tools and provisions for the summer, intending to bring their families in the fall. The stock were mostly turned to the woods to find their own fare. They now concluded to operate together, and having seven able- bodied men and a boy, soon brushed out in the old Indian field five or six acres, which they inclosed with a temporary fence to keep out their own stock, no other being near, and planted in it corn. West of the river was an old hackberry deadening, containing fifteen acres, requiring but little labor to bring it into cultivation. In the year 1820, and in some years subsequent, a small green worm stripped the hackberry trees of all their leaves, killing them in a few weeks. This deadening required no fencing, especially against hogs, and was also planted with corn. Sells and his company were driven out of the low valley once or twice by high water. When the corn on the east of the river was in a forward state toward matu- rity, the hogs broke through the hasty fence and destroyed all. When the labor of raising the crop was over, all, except two of


* Two deaths occurred the same fall in Blue River Township .- D. D. B.


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the company, who were left to care for it, returned, intending to bring their families and settle permanently in their location. But John Sells, Abraham's brother, and Isaac, Abraham's son, took sick and died. Abraham, with his two remaining sons and three nephews, John, William and Abraham, returned late in the fall. John Sells crossed the river and settled in Morgan County. Will- iam bought a tract along the west line of the county and west of the river, and remained there several years, and then sold out and left the State. Abraham subsequently went back to Wash- ington County, Ind., and took a wife and became a permanent citizen of White River Township, where he reared a family of two sons-Samuel and Jesse, worthy representatives of a worthy sire-and several daughters of equal respectability, all of whom are still among us. He died July 16, 1867, aged sixty-two years. Abraham Sells, Sr., having a large family, built a house near his original camp, and resided there two years, suffering continually from fever and ague. He then moved eastward two miles, and located on a healthy place, and there remained till he died, on the 5th of March, 1846, aged sixty-three years. William Sells, son of Abraham, settled in the southeast quarter of Section 34, Township 14 north, and also reared a family. He died there November 22, 1864, aged sixty-nine years. His wife died sub- sequently, but a part of the heirs still hold and yet occupy the old homestead.


THE LOWE FAMILY.


Between the 3d and 10th of March, 1821, Thomas Lowe and Eleanor Lowe, his wife, with four sons and as many daughters, several of the latter being married, entered White River Township, and located on the southeast quarter of Section 8, Township 13 north, Range 3 east. They were well supplied with cash, and entered some of the most beautiful lands in the township. Every member of the original family is dead and gone. Thomas Lowe, Jr., was one of the two Justices of the Peace first elected in the township. His brother Abraham afterward held the same office. The widow of Abraham and one son still occupy a part of the old homestead. The Lowes were an intelligent and respectable people, and natives of North Carolina.


DAVID SCOTT,


who lived near Bloomington, Ind., came into White River Town- ship about the middle of March, 1821. He bought a team, con- sisting of two horses, and a wagon and provisions for the summer. His purpose was to clear a field, plant and raise corn, and bring his family in the fall. He built a camp just below the mouth of


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Pleasant Run, near Abraham Sells, on a tract of low, overflowed land. He cleared a field and planted his corn. Some time late in the summer, his horses escaped, and this so discouraged him that he sold out to Sells and abandoned the country.


JOHN DOTY


came from Hamilton County, Ohio, near North Bend, along the Whetzel trace, and built a camp on the southeast quarter of the northeast quarter of Section 16, Township 13 north, Range 3 east, in White River Township, on the 8th day of May, 1821. Next morning, he and his sons, Peter and Samuel, began to clear land and make rails, preparatory to raising some corn. Four acres were soon cleared and planted, but their expectations were blasted, for as soon as the ears began to appear, the raccoons entered like a herd of hogs, and never ceased their depredations until the last nubbin was gone. A full history of this family would make a volume. They made several trips to Conners- ville for breadstuffs. They were for weeks without anything . to eat except hastily dried venison. Peter and Samuel deserve to have a monument to perpetuate the recollection of their labors. The number of rails made by them, the number of acres of land cleared up, the miles of new roads cut out, the number of cabins built, would startle the belief of the present population. On one occasion, they took their axes and a few dollars in money and walked forty miles to Strawtown, above on White River. Daniel Etter, hereafter mentioned, with his big Virginia ax and his steel- yards, went with them. They all remained, doing any kind of labor, till a good supply of corn was laid in. They then made two large dug-outs from a poplar tree, filled them with corn, and descended White River, and landed at the mouth of Honey Creek, to the great joy and relief of their families. John Doty had four sons, George, Peter, Samuel and William, and still more daughters. He died January 29, 1856, aged seventy-eight years and ten months. They are all gone except Samuel and William. Peter was appointed the first Assessor for the township. They were all honest, industrious people, and had little to start with, except strong armns and unconquerable wills to execute their purposes, and to overcome every opposing obstacle.


JUDGE DANIEL BOAZ.


In the fall of 1821, in a partnership conveyance, there came from Kentucky Daniel Boaz and James Ritchey with their fami- lies. Judge Boaz was a native of Virginia ; but at some period of life, had emigrated to Kentucky, and thence to White River


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Township. He had been unfortunate, having had first and last three wives. He purchased and located on a pretty elevation just a mile from the western line of the county, on the northeast quarter of Section 19, and the west half of the northwest quarter of Sec- tion 20, Township 13 north, Range 3 east, now owned by Jacob Tresslar. Here he lost his second wife, whose grave is to be seen in the midst of a cultivated farm, on the first tract of land described. He was a man of general knowledge, and possessed of more than an ordinary share of intellectual vigor. He was elected at the first election held in the county, on the 8th day of March, 1823, one of the Associate Judges, which office he continued to hold for fourteen years. He was a fine specimen of the old Virginia gentleman, and of unbending dignity. He was affable, polite and kind, and was highly useful in imparting knowledge to his neigh- bors of legal matters, and, in their distress, when sick, and no doctor could be procured, in advising and contributing medicine for their relief. His third wife was a daughter of Benjamin Mills. For long years, his health was poor, yet he lived to extreme old age, and died about ten years since. He had a large family of children ; but many of them are dead, and the rest, except one son, are scattered in distant States.


CAPT. JAMES RICHEY


was a Kentucky gentleman of unusual suavity of manners, well informed, a fluent talker, and capable of imparting to his neigh- bors on almost any subject useful and correct information. He, as well as his companion, Judge Boaz, was often called on for advice in legal matters. He was elected, at the first election, a County Commissioner. He located on the northwest quarter of Section 19, Township 13 north, Range 3 east, where he remained to the day of his death, on May 14, 1858, aged seventy-five years and two months. He had a small family of children, one only of whom now remains in the county.


Thus, the history of the pioneers of 1821 has been fully given.


ARCHIBALD GLENN.


Sometime in October, 1822. Archibald Glenn and family, from Nicholas County, in the State of Kentucky, arrived, and became permanent residents of the township. He located on the north line of the county, on the northeast quarter of Section 28, Town 14 north, of Range 3 east, where he continued to reside till the day of his death. It cannot be fairly charged as a disparage- ment to others, when I say that he was pre-eminently the father


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to the north half of the township. He was in all respects fully qualified to lead in every industry. No man ever wielded a seven-pound ax more effectively or continuously during the time the farms were being made. I can see him yet, with his Ken- tucky ax, pole and bit equally heavy, severing large branches from the trunk of a fallen tree at a single stroke, with unequaled skill and terrific blows, and, with a broad-ax large enough to tax the powers of a giant, not in delicate, faint, timid touches, but standing erect, and swinging the ax in a radius the full length of his arm, and with unerring precision and overhand blows, and advancing at quick steps from end to end, scattering and strewing the flying chips far away in every direction. He was the leader at house-raisings and log-rollings, and, by his skill and sound judgment in these laborious duties, accomplished great results with incredible celerity. In short, he was skillful in every work to be done in a new country. He was the finest marksman with a rifle in the State, and could shoot "off-hand " twenty squirrels through the head without a miss. But above all this is the fact that he was an honest man. No dishonest or immoral act received any support from him. He was chosen one of the Justices of the Peace at the first election in 1823, and was ad- mired for his unflinching honesty in office. He was chosen one of the Board of Township Trustees in 1852. He was ever ready to render assistance and comfort and consolation to the sick and the dying. He died a Christian, full of blessed hope of a happy immortality beyond the grave. His death was regretted by all. He left three sons and two daughters to heir the home- stead. Austin Glenn, the youngest, died not many years after his father. Archibald Glenn, Esq., resided near the line, on the Marion County side. Andrew W. Glenn resides in White River Township. They are good farmers, have a good supply of this world's goods, and tread in the footsteps of their worthy father.


JOHN MURPHY.


Along with Archibald Glenn came John Murphy, a nephew of Glenn by marriage. He located near his uncle, but all his hopes and those of his family were cut down in his sudden death two years after his arrival.


NATHAN AND BENJAMIN CULVER.


The Culvers were from East Tennessee, and came to this town- ship in October, 1822. They located their homes on the beautiful, rolling, sandy lands in the northern part of the township, on the


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northwest quarter of Section 34. They were industrious and economical, and soon added greatly to their limited goods, by their fine crops of corn and wheat. The family of Benjamin was small, and, after ten or fifteen years, he left the county. Nathan remained on his location, and, at the death of his wife, was rich in lands, but her death and the marriage of his daughters broke up his family. They were scattered in all directions. He followed several sons and a daughter to Iowa, and there died many years since. They were a short-lived people, and the name is now only borne in the State by a single son, Mr. Elihu Culver, of Spencer, a gentleman of wealth and distinction ; however, two grandchil- dren of the old gentleman still live in the township.


NATHANIEL ST. JOHN.


In October, 1822, Nathaniel St. John and family, from West- ern Ohio, settled on a part of Sections 26 and 27, in Township 14 north, of Range 3 east, on the south bank of Pleasant Run. He was a queer man, and was called a Yankee by his neighbors, and was believed to possess a large share of cunning, like other Yankees, yet he always stood fair among them as an honest man, until. in an unexpected moment in 1838, he turned out a trader in fat hogs, which he drove to Lawrenceburg to find a market. Finding no market, he packed them and shipped them to Missis- sippi, to find a market there, but in vain. He failed, and all his property was sacrificed to pay his debts. In an attempt to save himself from complete ruin, he remained in Mississippi for two years, and there died. He was naturally a machinist, and built a small mill on the creek in the year 1830, which, although it served its day, yet was not instrumental in increasing his wealth.


MR. BAKER, DANIEL ETTER, MICHAEL BROWN AND MR. NEESE came in a group together from the State of Virginia, and settled in the south part of the township, in the fall of 1822. Daniel Etter took a lease first, and lived several years on the school sec- tion. Like many another, he was in low circumstances when he came. On one occasion soon after his arrival, when Peter Doty and Samuel, his brother, set out for Strawtown, in Hamilton County to procure corn, he also needing bread-corn, determined to go with them, take his ax along, with its big Virginia pole much heavier than the bit, and seek by his labor to procure need- ful supplies. He had no money and nothing portable to purchase with except a pair of steelyards having a draft of 300 pounds. With his ax and steelyards, he followed the Dotys, and overtook


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them four miles on the road. He had fine luek, for he sold his steelyards at a big price, and by his labors gathered up thirty bushels of corn, which he brought down White River in a dug-out. This event with the balances was the balaneing point in his life. He was a blacksmith. He worked when he could get anything to do. Every coin was laid away. His wife seconded every move- ment. By the time his lease expired, he had the money to buy eighty acres of land south of Waverly. He lived to an old age and died in affluent circumstances. Why should any man despair ?


MICHAEL BROWN.


Brown and Etter were brothers-in-law. He finally located on on Bluff Creek. in Section 29, Township 13 north, of Range 3 east, on a very pleasant piece of land, and improved it well. Thirty years ago, he sold this farm and emigrated to Illinois, to better his circumstances. He was an honest and industrious man.


MR. BAKER


was an old man when he came to the township. He had three sons-Peter, Michael and Joseph. He purchased and located on the west half of the northwest quarter of Section 21, Township 13 north, of Range 3 east, which he afterward sold to Abraham Bishop. He died many years ago, and was said to be one hun- dred and ten years old. They were from the State of Virginia. Peter emigrated to Iowa; Joseph was murdered in cold blood, in 1831 or 1832, by one Barger, who then fled and was never heard of afterward; Michael resides in Union Township, with his family.




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