A historical sketch of Johnson county, Indiana, Part 4

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 4


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There was a steady and uninterrupted growth in Blue River from the beginning. In 1825, the population had reached at least 400, and, in 1826, 470, and, in 1827, 550, and, in 1828, 600, after which there seems to have been not any specially noticeable increase of growth before 1835.


At the August election for 1823, there were nineteen votes cast in Nineveh Township, but of these, eleven lived without the bor- ders of the Congressional Township which now constitutes Nine- veh. But there were men living in the township who did not vote, and, from the names of voters given. as well as from other sources, the population for that year may safely be computed at 128. The lands entered in 1822 run to 880 acres, and were in three locali- ties, one in the southeast corner of the township, one on the Nineveh, in the neighborhood of the after-site of Williamsburg, and one near the center of the township. The southeast corner entries made by Bartholomew, Applegate and others, were a con- tinuation of the entries made in Blue River, but the settlements established by Robert Worl, Joab Woodruff, John S. Miller, David Trout, Daniel and Henry Mussulman and others on the Nineveh, and the settlements made by Robert and David Forsyth, Daniel Pritchard, and others near the center of the township, grew from the beginning. By the close of 1826, a fraction less than a quarter of all the lands of the township had been taken up, and the principal entries had been made in a line running from north to south through the township, and in a crossing line running with a slight obliquity from the southwest to the southeast By the close of 1830, a little less than one-half the lands had passed from the United States, and, in 1847, the last forty-aere tract, situate in the southwest section of the township, was purchased from the Government by Elijah McEndree.


Here, as well as elsewhere, settlers moved in steadily until the township was fairly peopled. In 1825, the population was not less than 250, and, by the election of the following year, it had


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come up to about 350. In 1827, there were not less than 480, and at this rate the increase kept up to 1830, when there were fully 650 souls living within its borders.


No one has ever cast his eye over the map of the townships of Johnson County without being struck with the disproportion in size between Franklin and the other townships. It contains an area of seventy square miles as against forty-eight in White River, forty-two in Pleasant, thirty-six in Union, Nineveh and Hensly each, thirty-five in Clark, and twenty-four in Blue River. It would be in vain to lament the failure of the Commissioners appointed for the purpose to locate the county seat at the center of the county; but, if this had been done, it is evident that the territory now comprised within the boundaries of Franklin Town- ship would have been organized into two townships, and the map of the county have presented a less unequal appearance.


The first entries of land made in this township were, on the east side, by John Ogle and John C. Lane, on the 27th of July, 1821. Squire Hendricks, William Rutherford and others made entries the same year on the east and south sides, amounting in all to 880 acres, while David and William Burkhart located an eighty- acre tract in the west half of the township. The lands in the tier of Sections lying in Township 12, Range 5, and adjoining Shelby County, were nearly all taken up during the years 1821, 1822 and 1823, but, after that, the entries in that township (12) were only occasional until 1831. The pioneer settlers of Franklin Township were William Burkhart and Levi Moore, and next after them, in 1823, came George King, David W. McCaslin and Simon Covert into the center of the township, and, in the same year, John Mozingo, Squire Hendricks and a man by the name of Smith, and one by the name of Taylor, settled on the east side. The "Sugar Creek neighborhood " of this county was a part of the "Sugar Creek neighborhood " of Shelby, and the reason for the slow growth of the east side may be found in the fact that immigrants drawn to that neighborhood were as apt to settle in Shelby County as in Johnson.


Another neighborhood-the Hopewell-was founded on the west side, by Col. Simon Covert, who moved there in 1825. In the same year, Thomas Henderson came into Covert's vicinity inquir- ing for a tract of land whereon was a suitable site for the location of a church and a schoolhouse, and he entered the quarter-section at the " Big Spring." The Hopewell neighborhood thus founded had a marvelous growth. All who moved in were Kentuckians, and most of these were from Henry, Shelby and Mercer Coun- ties, and were descended from a Dutch colony that moved from


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near Hackensack, in New Jersey, during the latter half of the last century.


The new town of Franklin, near the center of the township, formed a third nucleus of settlement, but for several years the country to the south and west was more thickly peopled than to the east and north.


A study of the tract-book reveals the fact that, up to 1831, the entries on the east side were very few, while to the west of the town they were very numerous, save for 1821, as we have re- marked above. Thus, in 1822, there were 640 acres purchased on the east side to 1,040 on the west. In 1825, there were 320 acres on the east side to 1,760 on the west. In 1827, there were 80 on the east to 2,120 on the west. In 1830, there were 80 on the east to 1,920 on the west ; but, in the following year, the pur- chases ran up to 1,520 on the east side to 1,760 on the west, and, in 1833, there were 2,280 acres bought on the east to 3,000 on the west side, while the next year the purchases on the east side ran up to 2,800 to 2,250 on the west side; and, the year after, there were 2,380 on the east side to 700 on the west, and now the land was all purchased on both sides, save a tract here and there, thought to be below grade.


From this review, of sales of land in the township, it is evident that the weight of population, after the first year or two, was on the west side, and that the east half of the township had no rapid growth until after 1830.


From the vote cast at an election held in Franklin in 1824, and from other sources, we may conclude that the population of the township at that time was not less than 150, but the vote the two following years would indicate but a slight increase, which accords with the fact. In 1827, however, there was a population of nearly or quite 500, and thence on to 1830, there was a steady increase, running the number of inhabitants up to at least 1,000 or more in that year.


Passing over into the northwest corner of the county, we find that the first settlements were made in White River Township, on the high and dry uplands skirting the White River bottoms, these ridges producing a heavy growth of wild cherry, hackberry, buckeye. blue ash, sugar tree, chinquipin, black walnut, butter- nut. poplar, honey locust and beech, the last of which, carrying the most beautiful spreading tops anywhere to be seen, must have presented a charming view to the first comers. At the date of the organization of the county, the population could not have ex- ceeded fifteen or twenty voters, if so many. Two years after, it had increased at least to 165 souls, and the next year it ran up


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HISTORICAL SKETCH OF JOHNSON COUNTY.


to 375, and steadily grew, until, in 1830, it must have reached a figure very little, if any, below 600. A study of the tract-book discloses the fact that the line of settlement began on the north side, well up toward the northeast corner of the township, and swept thence, with a curve to the west, down to the point where Crooked Creek crosses the county line. This line of settlement gradually pushed to the southeast, and, by 1836. the lands of the township had been absorbed by buyers.


Although Whetzel's trace and the great Indian trail crossed each other within the confines of Pleasant Township, yet it is a curious fact, that, of the first settlers of that township, no more than two are believed to have availed themselves of either of these roads when moving in. Daniel Loper, as we have seen, came to the crossing in the fall of 1820, and he must have come by the way of Whetzel's trace. Nathaniel Bell entered Loper's claim from under him on December 3, 1821, and he moved in by the way of the trace, while Loper went back to Whetzel's old camp on Camp Creek. From the time when Bell entered and moved in, up to 1823, no others came in. In that year, Isaac Smock. Cornelius Smock, John B. Smock and Peter Vanarsdall, entered a quarter-section each in the northern part of the township, and Isaac and John B. Smock moved in the same year. The growth of this township was very slow for several years. The number of entries, in 1824, was only five, and it was not until 1830 that there was any marked emigration to the place. In 1829. the territory east of the present east boundary line of White River Township was stricken off from the latter and organized into Pleasant Township, and, in 1830, at the first election held in that township, there were thirty-five votes cast ; but, as there were liv- ing at that time at least twenty voters within the present bound- aries of Clark Township, who could have voted at Greenwood. it is impossible to fix with any certainty upon the population at that time from the election returns ; but from other sources the popu- lation in that year may be estimated at 250. Up to that year, the highest number of persons making entry any one year was in 1825, when there were seven. The Smock settlement at and about Greenwood was the center of the Pleasant Township set- tlement for a number of years. Nathaniel Bell, who was located west of the center of the township, and near the west line. was in ill repute wherever known, and he repelled, rather than draw settlers to him. But in 1824, the Mauks Ferry road was cut out, and shortly after, probably the same year. the Madison State road, and it became the fashion to settle on the line of road, south of Smock's; and, while the Smock settlement gradually


C


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HISTORICAL SKETCH OF JOHNSON COUNTY.


lengthened its borders, the settlements planted on the road grew to the east and to the west, until the work of colonization was done. In 1830, as above indicated, there was a perceptible impetus given to emigration. The entries for that year aggre- gate 1,440 acres, and, for each of the following years we have as the acres entered-1,840, 2,140, 2,320, 3.040, 3,600-which brings us up to the close of 1835. The best lands had now been taken up, but in 1836 buyers were able to pick out. here and there, tracts containing in the aggregate 1,360 acres, and the next year 160 acres were entered, which closed out the public lands in that township.


In 1825, Richardson Hensly, a native of Virginia, but who had moved to Kentucky when quite a young man, and, after a time, from there to Jackson County, Ind., where he had resided a short time, came to Johnson County in search of a home. Hearing that the southwest corner township was a wilderness, he picked his way through the brush thitherward, and made a set- tlement on a quarter-section cornering with the center of what has since become Hensly Township.


Richardson Hensly moved to his place in March, and was accom- panied by William Davenport and William Mitchell, his sons-in- law. and their families. Within a short time after Hensly, Davenport and Mitchell had reached their destination, John Stephens, a Tennesseean, came in with his family. Two or three families followed Hensly the same spring, and quite a number came in during the fall and purchased lands. Of these, Richard Perry bought in the northeast corner of the township late in De- cember, and it is not unlikely that he moved to his purchase at once. Mitchell Ross, and Charles, his brother, bought in De- cember also, but on the extreme west border of the county, and they at once moved to their purchases. The following year, there was quite an accession to the township, but principally to the Hensly neighborhood. Not less than a dozen families settled on Indian Creek. A few went into the Ross neighborhood, and some into the northeast corner. The entries in 1825 footed up an aggregate of 1.360 acres ; the next year, 1,640, and, in 1827, 1,680; but, in 1828, the acreage fell to 320, and, in 1829, it was no more than 240. In 1830. it arose to 1,280, and, with the ex- ception of 1831, when it sank to 640, varied not far from 1,000 acres per year, up to 1836, when it suddenly shot up to nearly 5.000 acres. More than fifty families must have moved in about this time. In 1837, the entries fell to 1,320 acres, after which there were occasional purchases up to 1850, when the last eighty- acre tract was bought by Morgan Ford.


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HISTORICAL SKETCH OF JOHNSON COUNTY.


By the close of 1827, there must have been thirty voters in the township, which, by the rule recognized by legislators, would give a population of 150, though the actual population was settled at 200 or more, and it is at this time that the township was organ- ized and received its name, at the suggestion of the late Samuel Herriott, in honor of its pioneer settler. By 1830, as many as 300 in all must have been living in Hensly.


Bartholomew Carroll pushed out upon the banks of the south fork of Stott's Creek as early as 1823, and made the first perma- nent settlement in Union. But the Congressional township now comprising Union was literally "backwoods " in that day, and no others went in to keep Carroll company for three years.


In 1823, David Scott had made an entry in the township but no other entries were made until 1826, when Peter Vandiver, Garrett Terhune, Henry Banta, Josiah Simpson, John Garsh- wiler, Isaac C. Disbrow and Thomas Roberts bought. Four set- tlements were soon founded, one by Peter Vandiver, on the south side; one on the east side, extending to the northeast corner ; one in the center, and one in the north and northwest corner, on the North Fork of Stotts Creek. That settlement was made up principally of Virginians, who belonged, in fact, to a White River neighborhood, but the other settlements were filled mainly by Kentnekians. In 1827, there were 1,200 acres entered by thir- teen men, and, in 1828, 1,960 acres by twenty-two men. The next two years the entries fell more than half from that year, but, in 1831, they run up to over 3,000 acres, and, from that on, the entries are large each year, being 2,120 acres in 1832, then 2,040, then 1,640, then 2,800, and, in 1836, running up to 3,120, when the main body of the lands was taken up.


Clark Township was the backward township of the county. No settlements were made here of consequence before 1825 and 1826, and even then, up to about 1834, pioneers came in slowly. After that, there was a decided increase, until the township was fairly stocked with inhabitants.


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HISTORICAL SKETCH OF JOHNSON COUNTY.


CHAPTER VIII.


THROUGH JOHNSON COUNTY FIFTY-FIVE YEARS AGO. (WRITTEN BY JUDGE FRANKLIN HARDEN.)


After a hard day's travel along the Whetzel trace, the writer, then a lad, just entered into his sixteenth year, accompanied by his mother, an elderly widow lady of sixty, called at the resi- dence of Lewis Morgan, in the northwest part of Shelby County, Ind. It was Saturday evening of the last week in October, 1825. Between his house on the "trace " and the northwest part of Johnson County, their place of destination, there was at that time but one house, if house it could be called, and that was the celebrated Nathaniel Bell's. Bell's location was at the great cross- ing of the Whetzel and Berry traces. This crossing of the two traces was renowned for a hundred miles away in every direction, and was a prominent point in all the travels of the pioneers in the New Purchase. Morgan's was the last house-the only chance for a lodging in a distance of twenty miles westward ; for Bell's was generally avoided. Morgan's was the place aimed at when leaving in the morning forty miles eastward. "By hard travel, you can reach Morgan's by night. He is a first-rate man, his house is your last chance," said our parting host when we left him in the morning. Then the pioneers knew one another for fifty or a hundred miles away, quite as well as cold-hearted neigh- bors know one another now only a mile apart. Wearied and jaded by horseback riding, we called at the last place, Lewis Morgan's, late in the evening, and politely requested a lodging for an old lady and a boy. The request was kindly granted, and we were welcomed into the pioneer residence of this good man as if we had been former intimate acquaintances. I shall never forget that night. I was only a boy from an old settlement across the Ohio, where manners and customs were fossilized, and admitted of little change. Here everything was new and startling. A thousand questions were propounded by me and obligingly and intelligently answered by Mr. Morgan. I wish I could recall the whole conversation. I would incorporate it verbatim as part of this first entrance into Johnson County, believing that it would contain much that would be interesting to the present population along Sugar Creek. Mr. Morgan had been to the Legislature ; he was a fine talker, a fair type of the pioneers who first gave shape to the policy of our State in its embryonic condition. He


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gave me a history of his exploits in the chase in pursuit of the wild game then everywhere abundant ; the public surveys of the wild lands around him by the Messrs. Hendricks ; the dense and tangled jungles of brushwood and fallen logs along the rich valley of Sugar Creck ; the difficulty of traveling in a direct line through them ; of men frequently lost for many days before they could find their way out. Said he: " One fine Sunday morning in July, I visited Sugar Creek. and, looking down the stream, I saw, a mile away, some moving object in the creek wading up stream. Its nearer approach showed it was a man with tattered garments and bare-headed. either Indian or white man. He never left the stream, but waded in the water. Occasionally he halted, and, as if in doubt about something, threw a piece of drift-wood into the stream and carefully watched its motions as if to ascertain whether he was ascending or descending." Mr. Morgan concluded that he was insane, and announced himself to this strange being. When he discovered Mr. Morgan, he no longer waded, but, leap- ing on the shore, ran toward him extending his arms to embrace him. In half-choked words, he cried, " God bless your soul ! I never was so glad to see a man in my life. For ten days I have been lost, and wading the water, and subsisting on berries." Was the man insane ? By no means. Instead, he was one of the finest woodsmen in the State. The eastern and western parts of the State were first occupied by white men, leaving an inter- mediate space occupied by the Indians, and which constituted, when finally sold by them, the " New Purchase," about which we are now writing. This lost man made frequent trips across this intermediate wild portion, as business required, without regard to trail or trace. On this trip, he must have struck the valley of Sugar Creek, near Needham's. He was thirsty. He came to a low, rich valley, covered with spicewood. In his judgment, it was a valley of some stream of water near at hand. Leaving his horse in an open space to graze, and throwing down his overcoat, he went on foot in search of it. He traveled on and on, the valley was unchanged, and there was no water. He turned back and sought in vain, but could not find his horse by retracing his steps. By calling him, however, the horse came to him, but he never found his overcoat. Remounting, he endeavored to resume his former line of direction through the impervious spicewood, prickly ash and over prostrate logs, but in vain ; he always re- turned into his former trail. Then he turned his horse loose to shift for himself, and, by watching his movements, he endeavored to move in a straight line, but in vain. Always he moved in a curve. For several days he floundered about through the dense


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brushwood and over fallen logs in this valley. In his wanderings, however, he at last reached Sugar Creek. He had a knowledge of this locality, of Whetzel's trace to the north of him, and of the settlers on it. Starting up stream, he found the creek very crooked. and, to shorten his route, he endeavored to cut across its bends, but, as before, ever found himself going the wrong way. and down stream. Determined no longer to be foiled. he stepped into the water and waded, and often tested, by throwing light pieces of driftwood, whether he was going up or down. By this test only, was he enabled to follow the stream in the desired direction. This story is strictly given as received, and Mr. Mor- gan's character for truth and veracity is an infallible guaranty of its truthfulness.


The next morning was Sunday, and. having bidden good bye to our kind friend. under his direction we were sent around the north end of the "Great Gulf," as it was usually called, thus leaving Whetzel's trace at Morgan's, and going up Sugar Creek, first on one side and then crossing at Huff's Mill and traveling up the west bank till our northing amounted to two or three miles, thefice westward, near where Madison Morgan long after resided, and crossing Flat Creek and Leatherwood, at the north end of the Gulf, and thence along its western bank to a point directly west of Lewis Morgan's, to the Whetzel trace, at a point called at the time Loper's Cabin, but long before known and named Camp Creek by the Whetzels. When Whetzel marked out his trace in the summer of 1818. the weather being exceed- ingly dry, the waters of the great gulf had disappeared, and he ran straight across it from Morgan's to Camp Creek. Here he found drinkable water. the first after crossing Sugar Creek. At this place. Jacob Whetzel established his camp and operated both ways in opening his trace to the emigrant and traveler, carrying water to drink through the day, and at night returning to Camp Creek, until the waters of Honey Creek became accessible. IIe. therefore, named the little brook that quenched his thirst and ran by his camp, Cump Creek, since most shamefully and ungrate- fully changed into Hurricane. because of a few windfalls found along its banks. Here is the primitive point within the borders of Johnson County, where the first ax was lifted up against the forest with reference to the ingress of civilization into the rich valley of White River. Jacob Whetzel and Cyrus, his son, were the pioneers of the "New Purchase," and, while yet the Indians held dominion over it, by permission of their chiefs they cut out the first highway in the summer of 1818, and drove the first team over it in 1819. He opened the way to the emigrant, and secured


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HISTORICAL SKETCH OF JOHNSON COUNTY.


an early occupation of the country. In justice to their memory, the streamlet should still be called Camp Creek, for the name would provoke inquiry into its origin ; or, better still, as a post- humous tribute to their merits and worth, the name should be Whetzel's Creek .* But let us return to Sugar Creek ; it must not be passed so unceremoniously. It was very low in its waters, but they were the purest, the sweetest, the most limpid imagina- ble, and elicited an involuntary exclamation : " Oh how beau- tiful, how appropriate, the name Sugar Creek !" Who gave it the name, and for what reasons, I know not; but to me its quali- ties justified the name it bore. Every pebble at the bottom shone as if its colors were intensified as they gleamed like brilliants through its limpid waters. Huff's Mill, shortly to be, was at the crossing on the east side of Sugar Creek ; that is, the basement story was up; but, at the urgent demand for bread, the proprietor was putting down the grinding machinery as the next step in its progress. When I returned on this same route about the middle of November afterward, the grinding was in full play on Sunday. with a temporary covering only. The great gulf is as yet an unsolved problem. It is a depression of two or three miles west of Sugar Creek, being three or four miles in length, and having the same direction and about the same capacity with the present valley of Sugar Creek. Whether that stream once occupied that basin, but was forced, by driftwood and the agency of the beavers. to cut another channel, might yet be determined by a careful examination. Two small creeks entered at the north end, but soon lost their channels, and then mingled their waters and cov- ered the basin generally throughout the year. It sustained a growth of heavy timber of such kinds as would grow in it. It was, during long years after I first saw it, the home of bears, wolves, catamounts, panthers and other wild animals. A volume could be written of the exploits of two brothers named Hosier, who settled near its north border, and who, by traps, guns and dogs, made sad havoc of wolf cubs, catamounts and other game. A more dismal place I never saw, and, as we rode around it for six miles or more-an old woman and a boy-I trembled with fear. Added to the gloom of this dismal place, away to the northwest was an Indian encampment, making the most of their privilege to hunt here .; They seemed to be making a drive of the




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