Biographical and historical record of Jay and Blackford Counties, Indiana : containing portraits and biographies of some of the prominent men of the state : engravings of prominent citizens in Jay and Blackford Counties, with personal histories of many of the leading families and a concise history of Jay and Blackford Counties and their cities and villages., Part 10

Author:
Publication date: 1887
Publisher: Chicago : Lewis Publishing Company
Number of Pages: 922

USA > Indiana > Jay County > Biographical and historical record of Jay and Blackford Counties, Indiana : containing portraits and biographies of some of the prominent men of the state : engravings of prominent citizens in Jay and Blackford Counties, with personal histories of many of the leading families and a concise history of Jay and Blackford Counties and their cities and villages. > Part 10
USA > Indiana > Blackford County > Biographical and historical record of Jay and Blackford Counties, Indiana : containing portraits and biographies of some of the prominent men of the state : engravings of prominent citizens in Jay and Blackford Counties, with personal histories of many of the leading families and a concise history of Jay and Blackford Counties and their cities and villages. > Part 10

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Cleveland, who was distinguished as a writer and member of the Connecticut Legislature) was Grover Cleveland's grand- father. William Cleveland became a silver- smith in Norwich, Connecticut. He ac- quired by industry some property and sent his son, Richard Cleveland, the father of Grover Cleveland, to Yale College, where he graduated in 1824. During a year spent in teaching at Baltimore, Maryland, after graduation, he met and fell in love with a Miss Annie Neale, daughter of a wealthy Baltimore book publisher, of Irish birth. He was earning his own way in the world at the time and was unable to marry; but in three years he completed a course of preparation for the ministry, secured a church in Windham, Connecticut, and married Annie Neale. Subsequently he moved to Portsmouth, Virginia, where he preached for nearly two years, when he was summoned to Caldwell, New Jersey, where was born Grover Cleveland.

When he was three years old the family moved to Fayetteville, Onondaga County, New York. Here Grover Cleveland lived until he was fourteen years old, the rugged, healthful life of a country boy. His frank, generous manner made him a favorite among his companions, and their respect was won by the good qualities in the germ which his manhood developed. He at- tended the district school of the village and

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was for a short time at the academy. His father, however, believed that boys should be taught to labor at an early age, and be- fore he had completed the course of study at the academy he began to work in the village store at $50 for the first year, and the promise of $100 for the second year. His

work was well done and the promised in- crease of pay was granted the second year.

Meanwhile his father and family had moved to Clinton, the seat of Hamilton College, where his father acted as agent to the Presbyterian Board of Home Missions, preaching in the churches of the vicinity. Hither Grover came at his father's request shortly after the beginning of his second year at the Fayetteville store, and resumed his studies at the Clinton Academy. After three years spent in this town, the Rev. Richard Cleveland was called to the vil- lage church of Holland Patent. He had preached here only a month when he was suddenly stricken down and died without an hour's warning. The death of the father left the family in straitened circumstances, as Richard Cleveland had spent all his salary of $1,000 per year, which was not required for the necessary expenses of liv- ing, upon the education of his children, of whom there were nine, Grover being the fifth. Grover was hoping to enter Hamil- ton College, but the death of his father made it necessary for him to earn his own livelihood. For the first year (1853-'4) he acted as assistant teacher and bookkeeper in the Institution for the Blind in New York City, of which the late Augustus Schell was for many years the patron. In the winter of 1854 he returned to Holland Patent where the generous people of that place, Fayetteville and Clinton, had purchased a home for his mother, and in the following spring, borrowing $25, he set out for the West to earn his living.

Reaching Buffalo he paid a hasty visit to an uncle, Lewis F. Allen, a well-known

stock farmer, living at Black Rock, a few miles distant. He communicated his plans to Mr. Allen, who discouraged the idea of the West, and finally induced the enthusi- astic boy of seventeen to remain with him and help him prepare a catalogue of blooded short-horn cattle, knownas “ Allen's Amer- ican Herd Book," a publication familiar to all breeders of cattle. In August, 1855, he entered the law office of Rogers, Bowen & Rogers, at Buffalo, and after serving a few months without pay, was paid $4 a week-an amount barely sufficient to meet the necessary expenses of his board in the family of a fellow-student in Buffalo, with whom he took lodgings. Life at this time with Grover Cleveland was a stern battle with the world. He took his breakfast by candle-light with the drovers, and went at once to the office where the whole day was spent in work and study. Usually he re- turned again at night to resume reading which had been interrupted by the duties of the day. Gradually his employers came to recognize the ability, trustworthiness and capacity for hard work in their young employe, and by the time he was admitted to the bar (1859) he stood high in their con- fidence. A year later he was made confi- dential and managing clerk, and in the course of three years more his salary had been raised to $1,000. In 1863 he was ap- pointed assistant district attorney of Erie County by the district attorney, the Hon. C. C. Torrance.

Since his first vote had been cast in 1858 he had been a staunch Democrat, and until he was chosen Governor he always made it his duty, rain or shine, to stand at the polls and give out ballots to Democratic voters. During the first year of his term as assistant district attorney, the Democrats desired especially to carry the Board of Su- pervisors. The old Second Ward in which he lived was Republican ordinarily by 250 majority, but at the urgent request of the

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party Grover Cleveland consented to be the Democratic candidate for Supervisor, and came within thirteen votes of an elec- tion. The three years spent in the district attorney's office were devoted to assiduous labor and the extension of his professional attainments. He then formed a law part- nership with the late Isaac V. Vanderpoel, ex-State Treasurer, under the firm name of Vanderpoel & Cleveland. Here the bulk of the work devolved on Cleveland's shoul- ders, and he soon won a good standing at the bar of Erie County. In 1869 Mr. Cleveland formed a partnership with ex- Senator A. P. Laning and ex-Assistant United States District Attorney Oscar Fol- som, under the firm name of Laning, Cleve- land & Folsom. During these years he began to earn a moderate professional in- come; but the larger portion of it was sent to his mother and sisters at Holland Patent to whose support he had contributed ever since 1860. He served as sheriff of Erie County, 1870-'4, and then resumed the practice of law, associating himself with the Hon. Lyman K. Bass and Wilson S. Bissell.

The firm was strong and popular, and soon commanded a large and lucrative practice. Ill health forced the retirement of Mr. Bass in 1879, and the firm became Cleveland & Bissell. In 1881 Mr. George J. Sicard was added to the firm.

In the autumn election of 1881 he was elected mayor of Buffalo by a majority of over 3,500-the largest majority ever given a candidate for mayor-and the Democratic city ticket was successful, although the Republicans carried Buffalo by over 1, 000 majority for their State ticket. Grover Cleveland's administration as mayor fully justified the confidence reposed in him by the people of Buffalo, evidenced by the great vote he received.

The Democratic State Convention met at Syracuse, September 22, 1882, and nonii- nated Grover Cleveland for Governor on the third ballot and Cleveland was elected by 192,000 majority. In the fall of 1884 he was elected President of the United States by about 1,000 popular majority, in New York State, and he was accordingly inaugurated the 4th of March following.

HISTORY OF INDIANA.

SMART SE.

IKEES DEES

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HISTORY OF INDIANA.

History of Indiana.

FORMER OCCUPANTS.

PREHISTORIC RACES. CIENTISTS have as- | to confirm the theory that the Mound Build- cribed to the Mound Builders varied origins, and though their diver- gence of opinion may for a time seem incompati- ble with a thorough in- vestigation of the subject, and tend to a confusion of ideas, no doubt whatever can exist as to the comparative accuracy of conclusions arrived at by some of them. That this continent is co-existent with the world of the ancients cannot be ques- tioned; the results of all scien- tific investigations, down to the present time, combine to establish the fact of the co-exist- ence of the two continents. Historians and learned men differ as to the origin of the first inhabitants of the New World; the general conclusions arrived at are, that the ancients came from the east by way of Behiring's Strait, subsequent to the confusion of tongues and dispersion of the inhabitants at the time of the construction of the Tower of Babel, 1757 A. M. The ancient mounds and eartlı- works scattered over the entire continent tend 10

ers were people who had been engaged in raising elevations prior to their advent upon this continent. They possessed religious orders corresponding, in external show, at least, with the Essenes or Theraputæ of the pre-Christian and Christian epochis, and to the reformed Theraputæ, or monks, of the present.

Every memento of their coming and their stay which has descended to us is an evidence of their civilized condition.

The free copper found within the tumuli, the open veins of the Superior and Iron Mountain copper mines, with all the imple- ments of ancient mining, such as ladders, levers, chisels and hammer-heads, discovered by the explorers of the Northwest and the Mississippi, are conclusive proofs that these prehistoric people were highly civilized, and that many flourishing colonies were spread throughout the Mississippi Valley.

Within the last few years great advances have been made toward the discovery of an- tiquities, whether pertaining to remains of organic or inorganic nature. Together with inany small but telling relics of the early inhabitants of the country, the fossils of pre-

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historic animals have been unearthed from end to end of this continent, many of which are remains of enormous animals long since extinct. Many writers who have devoted their lives to the investigation of the origin of the ancient inhabitants of this continent, and from whence they came, have fixed a period of a second immigration a few centu- ries prior to the Christian era, and, unlike the first expeditions, to liave traversed Nortli- eastern Asia to its Arctic confines, then east to Beliring's Strait, thus reaching the New World by the same route as the first immi- grants, and, after many years' residence in the North, pushed southward and commingled with and soon acquired the characteristics of the descendants of the first colonists.

The Esquimaux of North America, the Samoieds of Asia and the Laplanders of Eu- rope are supposed to be of the same family ; and this supposition is strengthened by the affinity which exists in their languages. The researches of Humboldt have traced the Mex- icans to the vicinity of Behring's Strait; whence it is conjectured that they, as well as the Peruvians and other tribes, came origi- nally from Asia.

Since this theory is accepted by most anti- quarians, there is every reason to believe that from the discovery of what may be termed an overland route to what was then consid- ered an eastern extension of that country, that the immigration increased annually until the new continent became densely populated. The ruins of ancient cities discovered in Mex- ico and South America prove that this conti- nent was densely populated by a civilized peo- ple prior to the Indian or the Caucasian races.

The valley of the Mississippi, and indeed the country from the trap rocks of the Great Lakes southeast to the Gulf and southwest to Mexico, abound in monumental evidences of a race of people much further advanced

in civilization than the Montezunas of the sixteenth century.

The remains of walls and fortifications found in Ohio and Indiana, the earth-works of Vincennes and throughout the valley of tlie Wabash, the mounds scattered over the several Southern States, also in Illinois, Min- nesota and Wisconsin, are evidences of the advancement of the people of that day toward a comparative knowledge of man and cosmol- ogy. At the mouth of Fourteen-mile Creek, in Clark County, Indiana, there stands one of these old monuments, known as the "Stone Fort." It is an unmistakable heir-loom of a great and ancient people, and must have formed one of their most important posts.

In Posey County, on the Wabash, ten miles from its junction with the Ohio River, is another remarkable evidence of the great numbers once inhabiting that country. This is known as the " Bone Bank," on account of the human bones continually washed out from the river bank. This process of unearthing the ancient remains has been going on since the remembrance of the earliest white settler, and various relics of artistic wares are found in that portion of Indiana. Another great circular earth-work is found near New Wash- ington, and a stone fort near the village of Deputy.

Vigo, Jasper, Sullivan, Switzerland and Ohio counties can boast of a liberal endow- ment of works of antiquity, and the entire State of Indiana abounds with numerous rel- ics of the handiwork of the extinct race. Many of the ancient and curiously devised implements and wares are to be seen in the State Museum at Indianapolis.

The origin of the red men, or American Indians, is a subject which interests all read- ers. It is a favorite with the ethnologist, even as it is one of deep concern to the ordi. nary reader.

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The difference of opinion concerning our aboriginals, among authors who have made a profound study of races, is both curious and interesting.

Blumenbach treats them as a distinct vari- ety of the human family. Dr. Latham ranks them among the Mongolidæ. Morton, Nott and Glidden claim for the red men a distinct origin.

Dr. Robert Brown, onr latest authority, gives them as of Asiatic origin, which is cer- tainly well sustained by all evidence which has thus far been discovered bearing upon the question.

Differences arising among communities produced dissensions, which tended to form factions and tribes, which culminated in wars and gradual descent from a state of civiliza- tion to that of barbarism.

The art of hunting not only supplied the Indian with food, but, like that of war, was a means of gratifying his love of distinction. The male children, as soon as they acquired sufficient age and strength, were furnished with a bow and arrow, and taught to shoot birds and other small game.

Their general councils were composed of the chiefs and old men. When in council they usually sat in concentric circles aronnd the speaker, and each individual, notwitlı- standing the fiery passions that rankled within, preserved an exterior as immovable as if cast in bronze. Laws governing their councils were as strictly enforced and observed as are those of similar bodies among modern civil- ized and enlightened races.

The dwellings of the Indians were of the simplest and rudest character.

The dwellings of the chiefs were some- times more spacious, and constructed with greater care, but of the same materials, which were generally the barks of trees.

Though principally depending on hunting

for food, they also cultivated small patches of corn, the labor being performed by the women, their condition being little better than slaves.

EXPLORATIONS BY THE WHITES.

The State of Indiana is bounded on the east by the meridian line which forms also the western boundary of Ohio, extending due north from the mouth of the Great Miami River; on the south by the Ohio River, from the inouth of the Great Miami to the mouth of the Wabash; on the west by a line drawn along the middle of the Wabash River from its mouth to a point where a due north line from the town of Vincennes would last touch the shore of said river, and thence directly north to Lake Michigan; and on the north by said lake and an east and west line ten miles north of the extreme sonth end of the lake, and extending to its intersection with the aforesaid meridian, the west boundary of Ohio. These boundaries include an area of 33,809 square miles, lying between 37° 47' and 41° 50' north latitude, and between 7° 45' and 11º 1' west longitude from Wach- ington.

After the discovery of America by Colum- bus, in 1492, more than 150 years passed before any portion of the territory now com- prised within the above limits was explored by Europeans. Colonies were established by rival European powers in Florida, Virginia and Nova Scotia, but not until 1670-'72 did the first white travelers venture as far into the Northwest as Indiana or Lake Michigan.

These explorers were Frenchmen by the names of Clande Allouez and Claude Dablon, who probably visited that portion of the State north of the Kankakee River. In the fol- lowing year M. Joliet, an agent of the French Colonial Government, accompanied by James Marquette, a Catholic missionary, made an exploring trip as far westward as the Missis

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sippi, the banks of which they reached June 17, 1673.

In 1682 La Salle explored the West, but it is not known that he entered the region now embraced within the State of Indiana. He took formal possession of all the Missis- sippi region in the name of Louis, King of France, and called the country Louisiana, which included what is now the State of Indiana. At the same time Spain claimed all the country in the region of the Gulf of Mexico, thus the two countries became com- petitors for the extension of domain, and soon caused the several Indian tribes (who were actually in possession of the country) to take sides, and a continual state of warfare was the result. The Great Miami Confed- eracy of Indians, the Miamis proper (an- ciently the Twightwees), being the eastern and most powerful tribe, their country ex- tended from the Scioto River west to the Illinois River. These Indians were frequently visited by fur traders and missionaries from both Catholic and Protestant creeds. The Five Nations, so called, were tribes farther east, and not connected with Indiana history.

The first settlement made by the white inan in the territory of the present State of Indiana was on the bank of the river then known as the Ouabache, the name given it by the French explorers, now the river Wabash. Francis Morgan de Vinsenne, who served in a military regiment (French) in Canada as early as 1720, and on the lakes in 1725, first made his advent at Vincennes, possibly as early as 1732. Records show him there January 5, 1735. He was killed in a war with the Chickasaw Indians in 1736. The town which he founded bore his name, Vinsenne, until 1749, when it was changed to Vincennes.

Post Vincennes was certainly occupied prior to the date given by Vinsenne, as a

letter from Father Marest, dated at Kas- kaskia, November 9, 1712, reads as follows: " The French have established a fort upon the river Wabash, and want a missionary, and Father Mermet has been sent to them." Mer- met was therefore the first preacher of Chris- tianity stationed in this part of the world. Vincennes has ever been a stronghold of Catholicisin. Contemporaneous with the church at Vincennes was a missionary work among the Ouiatenons, near the mouth of the Wea River, which was of but short duration.

NATIONAL POLICIES.

The wars in which France and England were engaged, from 1680 to 1697, retarded the growth of the colonies of those nations in North America. The English, jealous of the French, resorted to all available means to extend their domain westward, the French equally active in pressing their claims east- ward and south. Both sides succeeded in securing savage allies, and for many years the pioneer settlers were harrassed and cruelly murdered by the Indians who were serving the purposes of one or the other contending nations.

France continued her effort to connect Canada with the Gulf of Mexico by a chain of trading-posts and colonies, which increased the jealousy of England and laid the founda- tion for the French and Indian war.

This war was terminated in 1763 by a treaty at Paris, by which France ceded to Great Britain all of North America east of the Mississippi except New Orleans and the island on which it is situated.

The British policy, after getting entire control of the Indiana territory, was still nnfavorable to its growth in population. In 1765 the total number of French families within the limits of the Northwestern Terri-

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tory did not exceed 600. These were in settlements about Detroit, along the river Wabash, and the neighborhood of Fort Char- tres on the Mississippi.

Of these families, eighty-five resided at Post Vincennes, fourteen at Fort Ouiatenon, on the Wabash, and ten at the confluence of the St. Mary and St. Joseph rivers.

The colonial policy of the British Govern- ment opposed any measures which might strengthen settlements in the interior of this country, lest they become self-supporting and independent of the mother country.

Thomas Jefferson, the shrewd statesman and then Governor of Virginia, saw from the first that actual occupation of western lands was the only way to keep them out of the hands of foreigners and Indians.

He accordingly engaged a scientific corps, and sent them to the Mississippi to ascertain the point on that river intersected by latitude 36° 30', the southern limit of the State, and to measure its distance to the Ohio. He entrusted the military operations in that quarter to General Clark, with instructions to select a strong position near the point named, and erect a fort, and garrison the same, for protecting the settlers, and to extend his conquests northward to the lakes. Conform- ing to instructions, General Clark erected " Fort Jefferson," on the Mississippi, a few miles above the southern limit.

The result of these operations was the addition to Virginia of the vast Northwestern Territory. The simple fact that a chain of forts was established by the Americans in this vast region, convinced the British Com- missioners that we had entitled ourselves to the land.

During this time other minor events were transpiring outside the territory in question, which subsequently promoted the early set- tling of portions of Indiana.

On February 11, 1781, a wagoner named Irvin Hinton was sent from Lonisville, Ken- tucky, to Harrodsburg for a load of provi- sions.

Two young men, Richard Rue and George Holman, aged respectively nineteen and six- teen years, accompanied Hinton as guards. When eight miles from Louisville they were surprised and captured by the renegade white man, Simon Girty, and twelve Indian war- riors. They were marched hurriedly for three days through deep snow, when they reached the Indian village of Wa-proc-ca- nat-ta. Hinton was burned at the stake. Rue and Holman were adopted in the tribe, and remained three years, when Rue made his escape, and Holman, about the same time, was ransomed by relatives in Kentucky. The two men were the first white men to settle in Wayne County, Indiana, where they lived to a good old age, and died at their homes two miles south of Richmond.

EXPEDITIONS OF COLONEL GEORGE ROGERS CLARK.

In the spring of 1776 Colonel George Rogers Clark, a native of Virginia, who resided in Kentucky at the above date, con- ceived a plan of opening up and more rapidly settling the great Northwest. That portion of the West called Kentucky was occupied by Henderson & Co., who pretended to own the land, and held it at a high price. Colonel Clark wished to test the validity of their claim, and adjust the government of the country so as to encourage immigration. IIe accordingly called a meeting of the citizens at Harrodstown, to assemble June 6, 1776, and consider the claims of the company, and consult with reference to the interest of the country.

The meeting was held on the day ap- pointed, and delegates elected to conter with

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the State of Virginia as to the propriety of attaching the new country as a county to that State.

Many causes prevented a consummation of this object until 1778. Virginia was favorable to the enterprise, but would not take action as a State; but Governor Henry and a few other Virginia gentlemen assisted Colonel Clark all they could. Accordingly Clark organized his expedition. He took in stores at Pittsburg and Wheeling, and pro- ceeded down the Ohio to the " falls," where he constructed some light fortifications.

At this time Post Vincennes comprised about 400 militia, and it was a daring under- taking for Colonel Clark, with his small force, to go up against it and Kaskaskia, as he had planned. Some of his men, becoming alarmed at the situation, deserted him.

He conducted himself so as to gain the sympathy of the French, and through them the Indians to some extent, as both these people were very bitter against the British, who had possession of the lake region.

From the nature of the situation Clark concluded to take Kaskaskia first, which he did, and succeeded by kindness in winning them to his standard. It was difficult, how- ever, for him to induce the French to accept the Continental paper in payment for provi- sions. Colonel Vigo, a Frenchman who had a trading establishment there, came to the rescue, and prevailed upon the people to ac- cept the paper. Colonel Vigo sold coffee at $1 a pound, and other necessaries of life at an equally reasonable price.

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Author: Publication date: 1887 Publisher: Chicago : Lewis Publishing Company Number of Pages: 922

Author:
Publication date: 1887
Publisher: Chicago : Lewis Publishing Company
Number of Pages: 922