USA > Indiana > Newton County > A standard history of Jasper and Newton counties, Indiana : an authentic narrative of the past, with an extended survey of modern developments in the progress of town and country, Volume I > Part 6
USA > Indiana > Jasper County > A standard history of Jasper and Newton counties, Indiana : an authentic narrative of the past, with an extended survey of modern developments in the progress of town and country, Volume I > Part 6
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Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40
On April 23, 1836, there was introduced in the Twenty-fourth Congress a memorial from the Indiana Legislature asking Con- gress to extinguish the title of the Pottawattamie and Miami Indians to all lands in said state. This memorial recites that said matter is one of the greatest interest and importance and asks that their title be extinguished and the Indians removed from the state. It was referred to the committee on Indian affairs and ordered to be printed. Two years later the Indians were transported beyond the Mississippi River.
The last tribal title to lands in Indiana was not extinguished until 1872, when Congress partitioned the ten-mile reserve originally granted in 1838 to the Metosinia band of Miamis (in Wabash County), comprising sixty-three of the descendants of the original chief.
MIGRATIONS OF THE POTTAWATTAMIES
Dr. J. Z. Powell, in his history of Cass County, published by the company which issues this work, gives an authentic and condensed account of the various steps by which the Pottawattamies and Miamis were transferred to their reservations in the far West; the bands from the regions of the Kankakee and Iroquois rivers were tributary streams to the main bodies which moved down the Valley of the Wabash toward Illinois and the Mississippi River.
"The first emigration of the Pottawattamies," says Doctor Powell, "took place in July, 1837, under the direction of Abel C. Pepper, United States commissioner, and George Profit conducted them to their western home. There were about one hundred taken in this band and Nas-wau-gee was their chief. Their village was located on the north bank of Lake Muck-sen-chuck-ee. where Culver Military Academy (Marshall county) now stands. The old chief, Nas-wau- gee, was a mild-mannered man and on the morning of their march
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to their western home, as he stood on the banks of the lake and took a last, long view of his old home to which he was never to return, he was visibly affected and tears were seen to flow from his eyes.
"The last and final removal of the Pottawattamies was made in the fall of 1838. They were unwilling to go, and Colonel Abel C. Pepper, then United States Indian agent stationed at Logansport, made a requisition on Governor David Wallace (father of General Lew Wallace) for a company of militia, and General John Tipton, of Logansport, was directed to enlist a company of one hundred men, which he speedily did. The recruits were mostly from Cass county. The names of the men composing this company of militia are not obtainable, but the writer's father, Jacob Powell, and Isaac Newton Clary, pioneers of Bethlehem and Harrison townships, were among the number.
"Sixty wagons were provided to haul the women, children and those unable to march. There were eight hundred and fifty-nine Indians enrolled under the leadership of Chief Menominee. Their principal village was situated on Twin Lake, about seven miles southwest of Plymouth, in Marshall county, where the entire tribe ' assembled and bid farewell to their old homes. The village con- sisted of one hundred and twenty wigwams and cabins; also a chapel in which many of them were converted to Christianity by Father Petit, a missionary in Indiana at that time. Many affecting scenes occurred as these red men of the forest for the last time viewed their cabin homes and the graves of their loved ones who slept in a graveyard near their little log chapel.
"On September 4, 1838, they began their sad and solemn march to the West. Their line of march was south on the Michigan road to Logansport, where they encamped just south of Honey creek on the east side of Michigan avenue, on the night of the 7th of Septem- ber, 1838; and that night two of the Indians died and were buried just north of Honey creek where the Vandalia Railroad crosses the stream and on the east side of Michigan avenue; and their bones lie there to this day.
"General Tipton conducted these Indians along the Wabash river through Lafayette and on to Danville, Illinois, where he turned them over to Judge William Polke, who took them to their reservation west of the Missouri river. Many of the whites had a great sym- pathy for this band of Indians and thought they were wrongfully treated in their forcible removal, although, by their chiefs, they had agreed to move West.
"A few of the Pottawattamies moved to northern Michigan and
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some remnants of this once powerful tribe lived there to recent times. Among their number was Simon Pokagon, who died January 27, 1899. Just prior to his death he wrote an article for an eastern maga- zine in which he said: 'As to the future of our race, it seems to me almost certain to lose its identity by amalgamation with the domi- nant race.' When Pokagon was asked if he thought that the white man and the Indian were originally one blood, he said: 'I do not know, but from the present outlook they will be.'
"There were bands of Pottawattamie and Miami Indians in Cass and adjoining counties that moved to the West at different times; sometimes they went voluntarily; at other times, they were escorted. The last of the Miamis were conducted to their reserva- tion west of the Mississippi by Alex. Coquillard in 1847, and again in 1851."
By the fall of 1838 there were few Pottawattamies left in their old encampments anywhere along the Tippecanoe. Another eye- witness to their greatest march toward the setting sun, that of Sep- tember in the year named, and toward which the Pottawattamies of the northwestern corner of the state contributed a considerable contingent, thus describes the enforced migration: "The regular migration of the Pottawattamies took place under Colonel Abel C. Pepper and General Tipton in the summer of 1838. Hearing that this strange emigration, which consisted of about one thousand of all ages and sexes, would pass within eight or ten miles of Lafayette, a few of us procured horses and rode over to see the retiring band as they reluctantly wended their way toward the setting sun. It was a mournful spectacle to witness these children of the forest slowly retiring from the homes of their childhood. As they cast sad glances backward toward the loved scenes that were fading in the distance, tears fell from the cheeks of the downcast warriors, 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 foot, some on horseback and others in wagons-sad as a funeral procession. I saw several of the aged warriors casting glances toward the sky, as if they were im- ploring aid from the spirits of their departed heroes who were look- ing 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 his old encampments on the Tippecanoe, declaring Vol. I-3
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he would rather die than be banished from his country. 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 west of the Mississippi."
POTTAWATTAMIE VILLAGES IN JASPER COUNTY
Although the tribes which made their homes in Jasper County exhibited no indication of having imbibed the religion of the Catho- lic priests, they were not less friendly to the early whites that found their way thither on trading and hunting expeditions, and even when the whites came to take possession of the land after the Logansport treaty.
The Iroquois River has sustained its reputation as one of the best stocked rivers in the state, from the earliest knowledge of the whites to the present time. Long before any settlements were made rumors of its profusion of fine edible fish came to the frontiers through the Pottawattamies, to whom it was a favorite place of resort each fall and spring. Bass, bream, pike, salmon, mullet, suck- ers and other varieties were found in abundance.
The Rapids of the Rockwise, as the Iroquois was early called, was a favorite resort of the Pottawattamie Indians in Jasper County, and every spring and fall during their stay in the state found large numbers of them gathered there to fish and hunt. The river swarmed with the largest fish, the prairie supplied innumerable deer and grouse, and the Kankakee afforded some of the best trapping grounds in Indiana. Two or three tribes of the nation made their homes in Jasper County, whose principal villages were located near the line of sections 17 and 20, Newton Township, and just east of the Phegley farm. Their principal chiefs were Job, whose following numbered about 300 men; Jim, with a tribe of about IIO, and Wa- pakoneta, with a smaller band. Their corn fields were scattered all over the county. What was known as the Indian garden, on the Kankakee River in Wheatfield Township, was one of the largest of their corn fields. Others were located a few miles west of the county seat on the site of the Benjamin farm ; on the Mallatt place, further west, and on the site of Rensselaer. The corn is described as quite different from that now in cultivation. It was of a blue and white color, somewhat similar to our sweet corn in texture, and never acquired that flinty hardness which is characteristic of the grain now in general cultivation.
The sites chosen for corn fields were such as could be the easiest
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tilled with the rude implements at command, and where the rank prairie grass could be best held in control. The squaws performed the labor with the sanghoe, chopping off the sod and piling it up at one side. On the spot thus cleared the corn was planted and left to grow as it might. On the following year the spot on which the sod had been piled was found bare of grass, and there another hill was planted ; thus, in the second year, double the number of hills were planted. The ground thus brought under cultivation was worked each successive year, the corn being planted each time in the same spot, and the earth successively hoed up to the same spot formed little mounds to mark the site of each hill of corn. The stalk grew about 412 to 5 feet high, from which the corn was stripped in the fall and hung up by the husks in the rude sheds provided for the purpose.
Cured fish was an important part of the Indians' winter supplies. On what was afterward the Rhodes farm, about three-quarters of a mile southeast of Rensselaer, they had their pits for that purpose. These were rectangular, about 2 by 4 feet, sunk about three feet into the ground. They were filled with wood, which was ignited, and when it was reduced to a body of live coals short sticks were placed upon them, on which the fish were laid as drawn from the water. When sufficiently cooked the fish were taken from the fire, the skin removed and the flesh stripped from the bones. The shredded fish was then placed on pieces of sheet iron and again placed over the coals, the meat being turned, from time to time, and rubbed between the palms of the hands until the whole was reduced to rather fine powder. When the fire was exhausted, the fish powder was removed, packed closely in deer skin sewed up to receive it, and laid aside for the winter. A few handfuls of this powdered fish with pounded corn made a very acceptable dish.
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No EVIDENCES OF PERMANENT PREHISTORIC SETTLEMENTS
The region of the Kankakee was wisely avoided by the Indians in their choice of sites for their villages, as they appeared to have had considerable regard for sanitary requirements. The same ap- plies to the location of habitations by their prehistoric forefathers. Even along the stretches of the Iroquois River there are few traces of more than temporary occupancy by the aborigines. A mound on the east side of that stream about four miles northeast of the county seat was the only relic of the Mound Builders to be found in Jasper County. It was nearly 10 feet high and about 40 feet in diameter,
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and contained ashes, bones and shells. Spear and arrow heads of an unusual form and specimens of chert, seen naturally only in Tennessee, have been discovered at that locality. Vestiges of old corn fields and trails have also been found, but not in such num- ber as to confute the conclusion that the region was never in the path of racial settlement, travel or migration.
CHAPTER III
PREPARATIONS FOR WHITE IMMIGRATION
THE AMERICAN SURVEY SYSTEM-SURVEY OF INDIANA PUBLIC LANDS-WHEN STATEHOOD CAME-CREATION OF THE COUNTIES -CONDITIONS UNFAVORABLE TO SETTLEMENT-WILLIAM DONA- HUE, FIRST SETTLER-THE YEOMAN AND THE NOWELS FAMILY -CHARLES G. WRIGHT-THOMAS RANDLE AND GEORGE CULP- THE BLUE GRASS SETTLEMENT-THE BENJAMINS-SETTLERS OF 1832-45.
Fifty years before the Indian titles to the lands in Jasper and Newton counties had been extinguished and the first white settlers commenced to arrive, the General Government had adopted its system of surveys, so that the potential land owner should be able to have his property plainly staked out in metes and bounds and recorded in the public archives, as his sole possession.
THE AMERICAN SURVEY SYSTEM
For several years before the passage of the Ordinance of 1787 creating the territory northwest of the Ohio River, Congress was discussing the best methods of dividing the lands of the national domain. On May 18, 1784, an act was finally introduced to divide them into townships, each ten miles square; in April of the follow- ing year another measure was brought before Congress proposing that each township should be seven miles square, and on the 20th of the following month that act was amended, making the congressional township six miles square, as at present.
After the appointment of surveyors and geographers, the south line of the State of Pennsylvania extended west was fixed as the base line. The north and south meridian was also established. The sur- veyors were ordered to note "the variations of the magnetic needle at the time the lines were run," and when seven ranges, or forty-two miles had been surveyed, one-seventh of the same was to be set apart "for the use of the late Continental army." Then the section num-
37
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bered 16 in each congressional district was set apart for the use of the public schools, the proceeds derived from the sale of the lands therein forming the basis ever thereafter of the American common school fund.
Of course the title to all the lands within the counties of the state is derived from the United States Government, but at various times the Federal Government has granted to the State of Indiana over 3,500,000 acres, of which some 1,250,000 acres comprised the swamp lands. The swamp lands and those conveyed by the United States direct to the purchaser and known as Government land, in- cluded nearly all the area of Jasper and Newton counties. The former were the source of the greatest public scandals which have ever overtaken the counties.
More specifically, the congressional ordinance of May 20, 1785. stated that: "The first line running north and south as aforesaid, shall begin on the river Ohio, at a point which shall be found to be due north from the western terminus of a line which has been run as the southern boundary of the state of Pennsylvania; and the first line running east and west shall begin at the same point, and shall extend through the whole territory; provided that nothing herein shall be construed as fixing the western boundary of the state of Pennsylvania. The geographer shall designate the townships, or fractional townships, by numbers, progressively. from south to north-always beginning each range with No. 1 ; and the ranges shall be distinguished by their progressive numbers to the westward, the first range extending from the Ohio to Lake Erie being marked No. I. The geographer shall personally attend to the running of the first east and west line and shall take the latitude of the extremes of the first north and south line and of the mouths of the principal rivers.
"The lines shall be measured with a chain: shall be plainly marked by chaps on the trees and exactly described on a plat ; whereon shall be noted by the surveyor at their proper distances, all mines, salt springs, salt licks and mill seats that shall come to his knoweldge. and all water courses, mountains and other remarkable and per- manent things over or near which such lines shall pass, and also the quality of the lands.
"The plats of the townships, respectively, shall be marked by subdivisions into lots one mile square, or six hundred and forty acres. in the same direction as the external lines, and numbered from one to thirty-six-always beginning the succeeding range of the lot with the number next to that with which the preceding one concluded.
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And where, from the causes before mentioned, only a fractional part of a township shall be surveyed, the lots protracted thereon shall bear the same number as if the township had been entire. And the surveyors in running the external lines of the township shall, at the intervals of every mile, mark corners for the lots which are adjacent, always designating the same in a different manner from those of the township."
SURVEY OF INDIANA PUBLIC LANDS
The "first principal meridian" is a line running due north from the mouth of the Miami, and is, in fact, the east line of the State of Indiana. The "second principal meridian" is a line running due north from the mouth of Little Blue River, eighty-nine miles west of the former. The only base line running through this state crosses it from east to west in latitude 38° 30', leaving the Ohio twenty-five miles above Louisville, and striking the Wabash four miles above the mouth of the White River. From this base line the Congres- sional townships of six miles square are numbered north and south, and from the second principal meridian all the ranges of townships are numbered east and west except the counties of Switzerland, Dearborn, and parts of Franklin, Union, Wayne and Randolph. This part of the state was surveyed in townships from a base line of fifteen miles north of the former, and in ranges west of the first principal meridian. The "Clark Grant" in Clark County and the old French lands in Knox County are also exceptions to the regularity of the general survey of the state. Townships are subdivided into thirty-six equal parts, or thirty-six square miles, containing 640 acres each, called sections. These sections are subdivided into halves, of 320 acres, and quarters, of 160 acres each, which last are again subdivided into halves, of eighty acres, and quarters, of forty acres each. "Fractions" are parts of sections intersected by streams, or confirmed claims or reservations, and are of various sizes. The sections of a township are designated by numbers, beginning with the northeast corner and following in regular order to the west side, the second tier of sections beginning on the west side of the town- ship and proceeding east. That portion of the state in the southeast corner, which was included in the Ohio survey, was disposed of at the Cincinnati land office. The rest of the public lands in Indiana were principally disposed of at offices established at Jeffersonville, Vincennes, Crawfordsville, Indianapolis, Fort Wayne and Winamac.
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CONDITIONS UNFAVORABLE TO SETTLEMENT
Until the treaty of 1832, Jasper County was not open to white settlers, nor was there any considerable migration toward that locality. The incoming tide had risen principally from the East and South and flooded the southern parts of Ohio, Indiana and Illinois through the Valley of the Ohio and its tributaries. These sections afforded abundant opportunities for the selection of choice farms, even beyond the demand, and they lay within the radius of the natural source of supplies and the most complete lines of communi- cation of that period. Northwestern Indiana, below the Kankakee, was some distance from either. The character of the country also operated to discourage immigration, it being generally described as alternate swamps, sterile sand ridges and flat, wet prairies. Its name as a game center, however, induced the more adventuresome to seek out the region in quest of sport and profit, and the realization of both and the gleaning of the truth, through the striking of a happy medium, eventually brought the first permanent settlers.
WILLIAM DONAHUE, FIRST SETTLER
The first in that class within the limits of Jasper County was William Donahue. Drawn by the good trapping and the trade pros- pects with the Indians, he located in what is now Gillam Township, as early as 1832. There he remained a number of years, improved a good farm and died, his descendants gradually leaving the local- ity. He was a justice of the peace before Jasper County was organized.
THE YEOMAN AND NOWELS FAMILIES
In the fall of 1834 Joseph Yeoman and John and David Nowels settled at the Falls of the Iroquois. Mr. Yeoman was a son-in-law of John Nowels, who had moved from Ohio to Fountain County, Indiana. While residing there Mr. Yeoman proposed to move into the new country opened by the recent Indian treaties. With John Nowels, the son David, and his own wife, Sarah, Mr. Yeoman therefore located in Illinois, on the Iroquois River, near the Indiana line at a place known as Bunkum. While living there the families learned of the Falls of the Iroquois, the locality so noted for its fine fishing and hunting, and in 1834 the men started for their new Indiana home. Attaching a yoke of oxen to the forward wheels of
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a wagon and fixing a cart to carry what they would need while gone, the party followed the course of the river to the falls. There, much pleased with the prospect, Yeoman left the Nowels family, father and son, and returned to Bunkum to arrange matters for the removal of the household to the new site. This done, David Nowels returned to Bunkum with the oxen, and both families were settled at the Falls of the Iroquois by the fall of 1835. There were no neighbors to assist at the "raising" of their cabin, which was accomplished by the three men, Mrs. Yeoman and the oxen.
1
It was here, on the old Yeoman homestead, that Daniel H. Yeo- man was born to Joseph Yeoman and his wife, Sarah, in the year 1841. Captain Yeoman, now a Civil war veteran and with James T. Randle the oldest continuous settler of the county, is the infant of seventy-five years ago and the owner of the homestead established in 1834 at the Falls of the Iroquois.
CHARLES G. WRIGHT
The first addition to the settlement at the falls was in the per- son of Charles G. Wright, who became a resident of Indiana Terri- tory in 1807 and, after several changes of location, found himself living in White County. Soon after the founding of the Yeoman- Nowels settlement, he came to the locality as an Indian trader and built a hewn-log cabin on the subsequent site of the Baptist Church.
THOMAS RANDLE AND GEORGE CULP
Late in the year 1834 Thomas Randle and George Culp, recently from Virginia, started for the New Purchase, which had just been surveyed, and on their way thither met Mr. Morris returning from his work of laying out the ceded territory. He suggested a fine location, directing them to ascend the Monon River to a certain point, thence to strike over the prairie until they reached a grove of trees which "appeared to hang down." They had no trouble in fol- lowing these directions and, proceeding northward, made a selection of land at the forks of the Pinkamink and Iroquois rivers, but not until they had examined the famed falls. In the following May they returned with their families and formed the settlement of the Forks. In 1835 it was reinforced by the arrival of Royal Hazelton, John G. Parkinson and Henry Barkley, Jr., with the heads of other families.
Thomas Randle died in December, 1870, and his son, James T. Randle, who has lived at Rensselaer since 1883, is the oldest living
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resident of the county and is the direct descendant of one of the first two settlers of Barkley Township. He has been prominent in livestock matters, being one of the pioneers in the raising of blooded stock.
THE BLUE GRASS SETTLEMENT
The settlement near the site of the old Indian village in Newton Township, afterward known as Blue Grass, was also an early center. William Mallatt and his family were among the first to reach that locality. He came to the Falls of the Iroquois about 1835 and made a claim on the southwest side of the river, near Yeoman's house, but that improvement being floated by W. M. Kenton he moved to Blue Grass, where he resided until his death in 1859.
THE BENJAMINS
Mrs. Jared Benjamin, two sons and a daughter, settled about the time that the Mallatts located, having purchased a claim of her brother. Gilbert Yeoman, who had previously bought of John Nowels. Erastus Smith and Alta Yeoman also settled in the neighborhood.
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