USA > Indiana > White County > A standard history of White County Indiana : an authentic narrative of the past, with an extended survey of modern developments in the progress of town and county, Vol. I > Part 6
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6
HISTORY OF WHITE COUNTY
Had the Mound Builders come into America by way of Behring Straits, as has been claimed, or in any other way, it is apparent that some of the remains of the race from whence they sprung would have been found in some of the old countries.
A STAGGERING CYCLE
"The countless years they must have lived upon this soil fairly staggers us. When their mounds were piled up and their fortifications erected Babylon was yet in the womb of time. They were hoary with the frost of centuries before Romulus and Remus traced the foundations of the Eternal City. Their builders had been moldering in the dust for half a thousand years when Alexander swam the Hellespont. The more one studies the works of this ancient people the more he is lost in wonder that a race so numerous and powerful could so completely have passed away that even the period of its existence is the merest con- jecture. It is as if they had existed before the flood and that the mighty storm which Noah and his family alone were able to safely outride, had swept them suddenly from the face of the earth in the midst of their power and glory. It is hard to believe that they were utterly annihilated by another race. If so, whence came that other race, in numbers and power great enough to work such mighty devastation? What a vast period of time separates us from the Mound Builders! What great strides the world has taken since they disappeared! From the stone age to the age of steel, what wonders have intervened! Truly, the Old World has passed away and all things have become new. There is a chasm of time, of history, between the two that man has not been able to bridge. The period of their existence is a blank leaf in the history of the world that has not been written over. They were a race without a written language of any kind.
"Modern civilization, with all its knowledge and wisdom, stands at the edge of the abyss of time which separates the present from the past, when this buried race lived and flourished, and can only speculate as to its origin, its life, its history and fate. We stand upon the mounds erected by them and wander around the fortifications; we gaze upon the implements of warfare left behind them, dropped perhaps by the warrior stricken by death and never touched by man again until picked up by the curious seeker after relics in these happy times of ours; we look at the skeletons as they are unearthed, speculate and theorize, and are forced to admit that of their time, manners, customs, origin and fate- the mystery is still impenetrable."
PERCHANCE, THE GREATEST WONDER OF THE WORLD
The picture is certainly confused when the scattered and discon- nected fragments of the mysterious race point to a people of slaves- at the same time, to a nation of warriors; to a semi-civilized race of unsettled hunters and fishermen, yet who have builded an empire which
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HISTORY OF WHITE COUNTY
the Toltecs remember by tradition ; to a seething, unformed conglomera- tion of tribes and families, spreading over the valleys and prairies of interior America, and yet completely obliterated either by ages of attri- tion, or racial displacement, of which not even tradition has left the faintest clew. The entire unsolved problem is perhaps the greatest wonder which the Creator has left to the solution of mankind, and is the weird background for the writing of any history which would picture the authentic development of the splendid country which was once held by the Mound Builders of Ancient America.
CHAPTER II
THE HISTORICAL BACKGROUND
CARTOGRAPHIC EVIDENCES-FIRST RECORD OF THE TIPPECANOE-VER- SAILLES THE COLONIAL SEAT OF GOVERNMENT-INDIANA AS A PART OF NEW FRANCE-GREAT CHAIN OF FRENCH FORTS-INDIANA TRADING POSTS-GOVERNED FROM VINCENNES-INDIANA UNDER BRITISH RULE -SEMI-CIVIL GOVERNMENT AT FORT CHARTRES-UNCERTAIN FRENCH TITLES TO LANDS-AS A PART OF CANADA-AN EXTENSION OF VIR- GINIA-IN THE COUNTY OF ILLINOIS-THE NORTHWEST BECOMES NATIONAL TERRITORY-POPULAR ASSEMBLY FOR THE NORTHWEST TERRITORY-INDIANA TERRITORY CREATED-FIRST TERRITORIAL LEG- ISLATURE-GOVERNOR HARRISON, FATHER OF INDIANA-INDIAN COM- PLAINTS NOT GROUNDLESS-TECUMSEH AND THE PROPHET IMPLACABLE -THE BATTLE OF TIPPECANOE-SKETCHES OF COL. ISAAC WHITE- INDIAN STRAGGLERS SETTLE IN WHITE COUNTY-CHANGES IN GOV- ERNORS AND CAPITALS-STATE CONSTITUTION ADOPTED AT CORYDON- INDIANAPOLIS FIXED AS PERMANENT CAPITAL. .
As we approach the pages of history, another background is to be painted in which, although it is not concerned with speculation entirely, has little practical bearing on the founding and growth of White County. But it will enable the reader to get a perspective-which is always of advantage-and to obtain a clear idea of the relations of his home country to the various governments which claimed sovereignty over the terri- tory which is now the soil of the United States, Indiana and White County. Such information has therefore a certain domestic value, aside from being the means of conveying to the reader a definite idea of who were the original masters of the soil before the Indians relinquished it to the whites, and the historical processes by which the way was cleared for the establishment of the civil security of the present.
CARTOGRAPHIC EVIDENCES
At the very outset of the incursion of the first Frenchmen to the Indian country of what is now Indiana, there is uncertainty as to the date of their coming. At the best it can only be said that La Salle and his men were engaged in their explorations and discoveries down and up the Mississippi and Ohio rivers, and their tributaries, for about twenty years previous to the assassination of the great leader in 1687, and that the most positive evidence as to their actual journeyings in
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HISTORY OF WHITE COUNTY
Northwestern Indiana is found in the maps which were issued by the Government during that period. Joliet's large map of 1674 delineates La Salle's route along the main valley of the Ohio, but indicates no French settlements in what is now Indiana. An earlier and a smaller map shows the course of the Ohio as the result of La Salle's explorations which commenced in 1669. Still following the cartographical evidence, it is probable that none of La Salle's parties explored the branches of the Ohio in the present State of Indiana until during the later period of his career.
FIRST RECORD OF THE TIPPECANOE
Franquelin's map of 1684 and D'Anville's map of "La Salle's explorations from 1679 to 1683," are the first to give the courses of the Wabash, the Tippecanoe, the Eel, and lesser tributaries of the Ohio system. But all indication of French settlements is absent from even these later maps, although La Salle's explorations and the cartographic records of them issued by the French government constituted the basis of its territorial claims in North America. But for twenty-five years after La Salle's death, before the Miami Confederation of Indians, who had abandoned their homes at the instigation of La Salle and joined the western alliance against their Iroquois enemies, returned to Indiana soil under the protectorate of New France. Until the early part of the eighteenth century the Ohio country claimed by France was not safe from the incursions of the Five Nations, consequently no French settlements showed on the maps of that period-as there were none.
VERSAILLES, THE COLONIAL SEAT OF GOVERNMENT
From La Salle's time until the treaty of Paris placed New France formally in the hands of Great Britain, what is now Indiana was governed from Versailles, old France, which was the seat of the colonial office, orders from which were dispatched to the governor general in the New World.
INDIANA AS A PART OF NEW FRANCE
A panoramic view of the French control of Indiana is well presented by Dr. William S. Haymond, for twenty years one of the most scholarly and prominent citizens of Monticello and afterward an honored resident of Indianapolis and a national figure in Congress. As shown in his "History of Indiana," published six years before his death, it is unfolded in this wise: "In 1670, and for many years previous, the fertile region of country now included within the boundaries of the State of Indiana, was inhabited by the Miami Confederation of Indians. This league con- sisted of several Algonquin tribes, notably the Twightwees, Weas, Pianke- shaws and Shockeys, and was formed at an early period-probably in the early part of the seventeenth century-for the purpose of repelling
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HISTORY OF WHITE COUNTY
the invasions of the Iroquois, or Five Nations, at whose hands they had suffered many severe defeats. By the frequent and unsuccessful wars in which they were compelled to engage in self-defense their numbers had been greatly reduced until, at the date mentioned, they could not muster more than fifteen hundred or two thousand warriors. They dwelt in small villages on the banks of the various rivers in Indiana and extended their dominion as far east as the Scioto, north to the Great Lakes and west to the country of the Illinois. Their principal settle- ments were scattered along the headwaters of the Great Miami, the banks of the Maumee, the St. Joseph of Lake Michigan, the Wabash and its tributaries. Although once important among the nations of the Lake Region they had become greatly demoralized by repeated defeats in war, and when first visited by the French their villages presented a very untidy appearance. They were living in constant terror of the Five Nations, practicing only sufficient industry to prevent starvation and indulging all their vicious passions to a vulgar extreme.
GREAT CHAIN OF FRENCH FORTS
"Almost immediately following the discovery and exploration of the Mississippi by La Salle in 1682, and a few years later by James Marquette, the government of France began to encourage the policy of connecting its possessions in North America by a chain of fortifications and trading posts and missionary stations, extending from New Orleans on the southwest to Quebec on the northeast. This undertaking was inaugurated by Lamotte Cadillac, who established Fort Pontchartrain on the Detroit River in 1701.
FRENCH-INDIAN AMALGAMATION
"At this period the zealous Jesuit missionaries, the adventurous French fur traders, with their coarse blue and red cloths, fine scarlet, guns, powder, balls, knives, ribbons, beads, vermilion, tobacco and rum; the careless rangers, or coureurs des bois, whose chief vocation was con- ducting the canoes of the traders among the lakes and rivers, made their appearance among the Indians of Indiana. The pious Jesuits held up the cross of Christ and unfolded the mysteries of the Catholic religion in broken Indian to those astonished savages, while the speculating trader offered them fire water and other articles of merchandise in exchange for their peltries, and the rangers, shaking loose every tie of blood and kindred, identified themselves with the savages and sank into utter barbarism."
The Jesuit missionaries were always cordially received by the Miami tribes. These Indians would listen patiently to the strange theory of the Savior and salvation, manifest a willing belief in all they heard, and then, as if to entertain their visitors in return, would tell them the story of their own simple faith in the Manitous, and stalk off with a groan of dissatisfaction because the missionaries would not accept their theory
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HISTORY OF WHITE COUNTY
with equal courtesy. Missionary stations were established at an early day in all of the principal villages and the work of instructing and con- verting the savages was begun in earnest. The order of religious exer- cises established at the missions among the Miamis was nearly the same as that among the other Indians. Early in the morning the missionaries would assemble the Indians at the church, or the hut used for that pur- pose, and after prayers the savages were taught concerning the Catholic religion. These exercises were always followed by singing, at the con- clusion of which the congregation was dismissed, the Christians only remaining to take part at mass. This service was generally followed by prayers. During the forenoon the priests were generally engaged in visiting the sick and consoling those who were laboring under any affliction. After noon another service was held in the church, at which all the Indians were permitted to appear in their finery and where each, without regard to rank or age, answered the questions put by the mis- sionary. This exercise was concluded by singing hymns, the words of which had been set to airs familiar to the savage ear. In the evening all assembled again at the church for instruction, to hear prayers and to sing their favorite hymns. The Miamis were always highly pleased with the latter exercise.
Aside from the character of the religious services which constituted a chief attraction in the Miami villages of Indiana while the early French missionaries were among them, the traveler's attention would first be engaged with the peculiarities of the fur trade, which during the first quarter of the seventeenth century was monopolized by the French. This traffic was not, however, confined to those whose wealth enabled them to engage vessels, canoes and carriers, for there were hun- dreds scattered through the various Indian villages of Indiana at almost any time during the first half of the eighteenth century, who carried their packs of merchandise and furs by means of leather straps sus- pended from their shoulders, or with the straps resting against their foreheads.
Rum and brandy were freely introduced by the traders, and always found a ready sale among the Miami Indians. A Frenchman, writing of the evils which resulted from the introduction of spirituous liquors among these savages, remarked: "The distribution of it is made in the usual way; that is to say, a certain number of persons have delivered to each of them a quantity sufficient to get drunk with, so that the whole have been drunk over eight days. They begin to drink in the villages as soon as the sun is down, and every night the fields echo with the most hideous howling."
INDIANA TRADING POSTS
In those early days the Miami villages of the Maumee, those of the Weas about Ouiatenon, on the Wabash, and those of the Piankeshaws around Vincennes, were the central points of the fur trade in Indiana. Trading posts were established at these places and at Fort Wayne in
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HISTORY OF WHITE COUNTY
1719, although for twenty years previous the French traders and mis- sionaries had frequently visited them. A permanent church or mission was established at the Piankeshaw village near Vincennes, in 1749, by Father Meurin, and the following year a small fort was erected there by order of the French government. It was in that year that a small fort was erected near the mouth of the Wabash River. These posts soon drew a large number of French traders around them and in 1756 they had become quite important settlements, with a mixed population of French and Indian.
At this date the English became competitors for the trade with the Indians in Indiana and the surrounding country, and at the close of the old French war, in 1763, when Canada and its dependencies fell into the hands of the British, this monopoly passed over to the victors. Notwithstanding this change in the government of the country, the French who had settled around the principal trading posts in Indiana, with a few exceptions, swore allegiance to the British government and were permitted to occupy their lands in peace and enjoy the slight improvements they had wrought.
GOVERNED FROM VINCENNES
The Post, or the Old Post-later known as Vincennes-was estab- lished in 1727 and until after the Revolutionary war was the only white settlement in Indiana, although French military forts were established both at the head of the Maumee and at Ouiatenon-the latter on the Wabash, about eighteen miles below the mouth of the Tippecanoe. The post at Ouiatenon is claimed to be the first of its kind in Indiana and dated from 1720. From its settlement until it was finally transferred to Great Britain, Vincennes was under the jurisdiction of New Orleans, although its trade was largely with Canada. It was in command of a governor, Francois Margane, Sieur de Vincennes holding that office from the founding of the post until his death in 1736. During that period, therefore, Indiana was under the direct jurisdiction of Governor Vincennes, and indirectly of New Orleans and Versailles.
INDIANA UNDER BRITISH RULE
Vincennes was slain in battle with the Indians at the mouth of the Ohio, in 1736, and Louis St. Ange commanded Old Vincennes until 1764, or a short time before it was finally surrendered to the British. In May of that year, about six months previous to the proclamation of General Gage, the British commander-in-chief in North America, announcing the cession of the country of the Illinois to His Britannic Majesty, St. Ange appointed his successor to the command of the Old Post and started for Fort Chartres to relieve the commandant at that post, who was on his way to New Orleans. For nearly thirty years he had led and governed the people of Old Vincennes.
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HISTORY OF WHITE COUNTY
SEMI-CIVIL GOVERNMENT AT FORT CHARTRES
On the 10th of October, 1765, St. Ange made a formal delivery of Fort Chartres to Captain Sterling, representing the British govern- ment. That military center of the Illinois country became the first semi- civil seat of government established northwest of the Ohio and includ- ing the present territory constituting the State of Indiana. Captain Sterling in turn received his orders from General Gage, whose head- quarters were at New York, the British seat of colonial government in North America.
Fort Chartres was a very unhealthful place and Captain Sterling, its first British commandant, lived only three months after taking posses- sion. In September, 1768, Lieutenant Colonel Reed, in command, set up a sort of civil government for the Illinois country. Its main feature consisted of the seven judges, who constituted the first court west of the Alleghanies and retained authority until 1774, when the British Parliament restored civil law in full force.
UNCERTAIN FRENCH TITLES TO LANDS
The steps leading to the formal assumption of the civil administra- tion of the territory embracing Indiana by the Canadian authorities, with Quebec as the seat of the dominion government, are thus epito- mized : "The arbitrary act of General Gage, in 1772, in ordering all the whites to immediately vacate the Indian country, aroused the set- tlers and they at once vigorously protested. They declared they held the title to their lands from officers of the French government, who had a right to convey such titles, and that when the French govern- ment transferred the territory to the English their rights were duly protected by the treaty of cession. Gage was autocratic and determined, and on the receipt of this remonstrance he ordered that all written titles to the possession of the lands should be forwarded to him at New York for examination. The inhabitants were a careless set and mainly igno- rant, and had failed to, properly care for the written evidence of the grants made to them, and many of them had been left in the hands of the notary who had drawn them. They never dreamed of any ques- tion ever being raised as to their right to the lands they were occupying and had been occupying for nearly half a century. So it was that this last order of Gage fell like a thunderbolt upon the poor inhabitants. Some deeds were found, but many more could not be found. An appeal was made to St. Ange at St. Louis. He responded by reciting that he had held command of the post (Vincennes) from 1736 to 1764, and that during that time, by order of the governors, he had conceded many parcels of lands to various inhabitants by written concessions, and had verbally permitted others to settle and cultivate lands, of which they had been in possession for many years. Other officers certified that many deeds had been carried away, others removed to the record office of the Illinois (at Fort Chartres) and still others had been lost or destroyed by rats. But the British government had already heard the
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HISTORY OF WHITE COUNTY
mutterings of discontent in the eastern colonies and did not want to add to the embarrassments at other points, and in 1774 the whole terri- tory northwest of the Ohio was put under the dominion of Canada."
AS A PART OF CANADA
When the Illinois country, or the territory northwest of the Ohio, was transferred from France to Great Britain about a decade before, the entire population did not exceed 600 families, or perhaps 4,000 people, and when it came under the government of Canada it was con- siderably less, as many of the inhabitants had gone to St. Louis, New Orleans, and other points in Louisiana.
The British took possession of Vincennes in May, 1777, but it was captured by the Americans in August of the following year, who relin- quished it for three months to the English, when it was recaptured by Gen. George Rogers Clark and became forever a possession of the United States.
AN EXTENSION OF VIRGINIA
During the Revolutionary war no British or American settlements were made within the limits of Indiana, although while General Clark was in authority at Vincennes a number of Americans were added to the post settlement, and the Indians ceded to the commandant himself 150,000 acres of land around the falls of the Ohio River, which grant was afterward confirmed by Virginia and the National Congress. As an energetic Kentuckian, an able, brave man, of military genius, and backed by the Old Dominion and the statesmanship of Patrick Henry, then governor, General Clark was admirably fitted to be the conqueror of the Northwest, whether fighting against the British or the Indians.
IN THE COUNTY OF ILLINOIS
In 1778, when the news of Clark's capture of Vincennes and Kas- kaskia reached Virginia, its assembly passed a law organizing all the territory northwest of the Ohio into the County of Illinois and placing Col. John Todd in control as county lieutenant. As Kaskaskia was the seat of government, Indiana again came under a new administration centering ultimately at Richmond, Virginia. Todd arrived at his cap- ital in May, 1779, and at once commenced his administration as county lieutenant, leaving Clark free to pursue his military enterprises; but he himself was killed at the battle of Blue Licks in 1782. Although by statute the organization of the County of Illinois had expired in 1781, its civil officers continued to exercise power and grant land concessions until the passage of the ordinance of 1787.
THE NORTHWEST BECOMES NATIONAL TERRITORY
We now approach the period of stable American government, when the United States as a nation extended its jurisdiction to the County
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HISTORY OF WHITE COUNTY
of Illinois and the territory northwest of the Ohio River. That immense domain was claimed by Virigina by right of conquest, but in January, 1783, the General Assembly of the Old Dominion, in the interests of the United States, ceded to the National Congress all its rights, title and claims to that great land. The Virginia deed of cession was accepted by Congress in the spring of 1784, and in July, 1788, Gen. Arthur St. Clair, who had been elected by Congress governor of the Northwest Ter- ritory under the famous ordinance of the previous year, arrived at Marietta, Ohio, to take over the civil administration of the national domain now included within the states of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michi- gan and Wisconsin. At that time, therefore, the future Hoosier State was governed indirectly from Philadelphia and directly from Marietta, the territorial capital.
POPULAR ASSEMBLY FOR THE NORTHWEST TERRITORY
Until Indiana was organized as a territory in 1800 there were few settlements within the limits of the present state. In 1798, under the provisions of the ordinance creating the Northwest Territory, and pro- viding that when its population should number 5,000 free inhabitants, a popular assembly was elected to represent the Northwest, and in Jan- uary, 1799, convened at Cincinnati, whither the seat of government had been moved from Marietta. Ten members of the upper house, of coun- cil, were then appointed by President Adams, upon recommendation of the elected assembly, and when the two bodies met at the new terri- torial capital in September, 1799, a near approach to popular govern- ment had been effected in the territory northwest of the Ohio River.
INDIANA TERRITORY CREATED
The Legislature selected as the territorial delegate to Congress, Wil- liam Henry Harrison, who was filling the position of secretary of the Northwest Territory. The new government was hardly under way before the tremendous domain over which it had jurisdiction under- went its first carving, under authority of the Ordinance of 1787. By act of Congress, approved May 7, 1800, it was declared that "from and after the fourth of July next, all that part of the territory of the United States northwest of the Ohio river which lies to the westward of a line beginning at the Ohio opposite the mouth of the Kentucky river and running thence to Fort Recovery, and thence north until it shall intersect the territorial line between the United States and Canada. shall, for the purpose of temporary government, constitute a separate territory to be called the Indiana Territory." The seat of government was fixed at Vincennes and William Henry Harrison was appointed governor. He reached Vincennes in January, 1801, the gubernatorial duties having been performed since the preceding July by John Gibson. secretary of the territory.
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