USA > Indiana > Greene County > Biographical memoirs of Greene County, Ind. : with reminiscences of pioneer days, Volume I > Part 7
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At the going down of the canal the iron business had to stop. Mr. Downing went to Texas in 1857, got into the cattle business and politics, was elected to the legis- lature from Bosque county. When the war for the Union came on he was loyal. The "secesh" papers were killing their enemies until they had more men dead than were in the whole nation on both sides.
This fact he ventured to point out to them, so he had to leave the state. At two different times he was over fifty hours in the saddle, until at Fort Smith, Arkan- sas, he reached the United States army and safety. Com- ing to Bloomfield, he stayed all winter with Colonel E. H. C. Cavins, and when Bank's army entered Texas he went with it, and finally home. He was appointed United States marshal of Texas; held the office some years, and died in 1872. His oldest son, John, he set up in merchan- dising in the old brick block mentioned heretofore that was burned years ago. In a short time Jolin died. His other sons, Paul and Andrew, are living in Texas.
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THOMAS WARNICK
was the first clerk of Greene county, and he held the office for fourteen consecutive years. He was the son of James Warnick, Sr., who came from North Carolina and entered the land where Joseph Leavitt lives, taking in the Bloom- field cemetery, March 16, 1818. In 1821 the father was one of the first county commissioners; in that year the county was organized. His home was on the knoll just north of Mr. Leavitt's. On the land where the cemetery is a cabin was built in the thick woods for a residence, I should think, because it was like a residence cabin and not like a school house.
In 1832 the cabin had fallen to decay. Myself and another boy five years old were out to see it; looked in and saw that a person had been buried inside; no floor in it. Child-like, we ran with all our might. This was the beginning of the cemetery, others being buried near with the consent of the land owners on down to the forming of a public ground for the purpose. Such a rumor as that Mr. Warnick, Sr., had kept school in the cabin existed in the long ago. If he did, it was the first school prob- ably in this vicinity. I knew old Mr. Warnick very well. He was such a man as might have kept a school-intelli- gent, capable, trustworthy in office or in any other way.
April 27, 1821, Thomas Warnick was commissioned clerk of Greene county for seven years. June 4th fol-
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lowing he was qualified. For some years he lived with his father, where he was not very far from Burlington, then the county seat. The first two or three courts were held at Thomas Bradford's, a mile south of Bloomfield, at the place where Thomas Patterson lives.
In the Revolutionary war a certain boy served in the army until he was of age and the war over. His name was Gillam. On coming home in South Carolina he mar- ried, went out in the woods to cut logs to build a house, became so lonesome, being used to the bustle of camp nearly half of his life, he concluded to run away. Just then his beautiful young wife came to him with his din- ner. This reconciled him, the logs were cut, house built, and there he lived, raised a family and died. One son, Edward Gillam, was one of the very first settlers of Greene county. He lived and died where Dan M. Bynum lives, two miles east of Bloomfield. April 26, 1824, Thomas Warnick issued his own license to be married to Lydia, daughter of Mr. Gillam.
When the Warnicks came here there were still a few Indians wandering about, and frequent were the tragedies which occurred in the silent forest between them and the white men. Thirty years ago James Warnick, son of our subject, told me "if that old hill could talk (the hill where Joseph Leavitt lives) it could tell of some of the Indians being laid out." When a child I heard a story that Thomas Warnick met an Indian and they
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passed each other till fifty yards apart, when Warnick turned around and shot him.
While serving as county clerk the three years that the county seat was at Burlington Mr. Warnick made his home with his parents. When Bloomfield was laid out he built his house where the Sarget-McGannon resi- dence is-a hewed log, two-story, with an "L" for a kitchen. This was a very great house for Bloomfield then.
It had to have a brick chimney. One of the most active young men was then working his way through college at Bloomington. He could lay brick, walked to Bloomfield and got the job of building the chimney. In after years he never made a speech in our town while running for congress and governor (he was elected to both) without speaking of his brick chimney. He was Governor Joseph A. Wright, appointed by Lincoln min- ister to Prussia.
Towards the last of the fourteen years during which Mr. Warnick served as clerk he bought the farm where Thomas Patterson and Clift Dixon now live and moved to it.
In the decade of the forties the upper story of the old residence in town was used as the Bloomfield high school.
Grammar schools and other select schools were kept there several years, at night as well as day. "The Comet"
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was published there by Alfred Edwards. This was a Whig paper, advocatitng the election of William H. Har- rison for President. I remember to have seen a press in the kitchen, so this might have been called a "printing house."
Under the militia law each county had a colonel. Mr. Warnick for some of these years was colonel of Greene county. The fashion then was that officers wore on parade, as part of the uniform, a Suarrow hat with a plume in the top. This was the most showy hat ever worn. It was flat from front to rear, stuck out wide at the corners and high up where the plume was attached ; in front a silver eagle. Wellington wore one at Water- loo, as did Napoleon. No one bore himself with more pride on parade than Mr. Warnick.
While living on his farm my father sent me, then seven years old, to ask him to come immediately for some business to town. I was on a very old horse and he was on foot, but bantered me for a race-said he could beat me to town, and started to run. All I could do was to whip up and follow. He laughed at me heartily. The neat-shaped foot and active form I well remember. Where is the man now who would like to run a footrace a mile against a horse ?
After fourteen years of service, October 1, 1835, his successor in office, Samuel R. Cavins, was qualified.
At the old sand hill cemetery at Clift Dixon's and
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the Gillam graveyard, two miles east of Bloomfield, the Warnicks and Gillams, most of them, rest.
PETER C. VAN SLYKE, SR.
Peter Cornelius Van Slyke, Sr., was not in the Revolution, but he was the first man who ever bought land intending to live on it in the vicinity of Bloomfield.
Four generations of the VanSlykes I have known who had the names of Peter and Cornelius interchanged, one before the other each generation, the last one, the oldest son of the Peter VanSlyke, many of you knew, died in minority.
Cornelius was a common name in Holland, where the VanSlykes came from. Cornelius Mey was the first manager of the little fur-trading post in 1623, where New York City now stands. The Vanderbilts, who are of the same Dutch stock, still keep the name Cornelius. In 1657 Cornelius Adrian VanSlyke received a grant of land on the Hudson River, near Catskill, from the gov- ernment of New Amsterdam, when Peter Stuyvesant was governor seven years before the English took it and named it New York.
A century later finds the family on the Mohawk River, in Schenectady county, New York, where our sub- ject was born April 5, 1766, on a fine farm of river bot- tom and sandy upland similar to the land entered herc,
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taking in Bloomfield and all the land to the river in sight from the cemetery mound.
This Mr. Wake Edwards, of Louisiana, now seventy- one years old, who was raised a neighbor in New York, told me while standing on the mound down towards the iron bridge known as the VanSlyke cemetery mound. At maturity he married Margaret Lighthall. Mrs. Joanna Eveleigh, who was seventy-seven years old in 1897, told me tliat her mother told her he was a soldier in the War of 1812. Mrs. Eveleigh is his grandchild and was the first white female child born in the vicinity of Bloomfield. His daughter, Mrs. Shaw, Mrs. Eveleigh's mother, said he was a very fine-looking man with his regimentals on. His height was six feet and four inches, weight at his best 250 pounds-just the same in height and weight as George Washington.
He dressed with the knee breeches, knee buckles, shoe buckles and stockings in the fashion of the time. The Mohawk Indians were numerous and he took many of their habits. His buckskin dress with fringe round the hunting shirt and down the breeches legs were made like theirs. The Mohawks were among the finest athletes in the world.
He came to Indiana in 1816 and bought land, some of which is now the L. H. Jones farm, to which he sent his son-in-law, John Vanvorst, in 1817. In 1818 he with . his son Cornelius Peter and family moved by wagon, bringing his own wife and unmarried children.
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His son Cornelius built a dug-out in the south side of the "burial mound," where there is yet a little depression which marks the spot. Mr. Vanvorst had built south of there at the big spring.
The old folks built south of Vanvorst's where they lived a few years, then built not far west of where Col. A. G. Cavins now lives. At this place he built a horse mill, which was a very important thing for the people. Here they lived until old age when they went to their son Cornelius, north of the cemetery mound, to spend their last days.
The first piece of money ever coined by this govern- ment, a twelve and a half cent piece, was one of his cher- ised relics.
This with another silver coin of interesting history, which history, with that of many others of his relics I have forgotten, were kept to be placed on his eyelids to hold them shut after death. This was done. A very small child, I was held up by my father, who had made his coffin, and saw them on his eyelids there.
Many rare coins of silver and gold of many nations were in his collection. The first one thousand dollar bill issued by the old National Bank in Philadelphia he had also. This had been at one time kept so long under the house that it mostly rotted. Afoot he carried it back to Schenectady, New York, to the man he got it of, and got his affidavit of the fact, then still afoot went to the .
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bank in Philadelphia and showed the remains of the bill with his testimony. The bank gave him a new bill in its place, after which the long tramp back home was made.
Owning about seven hundred acres of land including part of what is now Bloomfield, when Burlington was abandoned as a county seat he bought fifty acres more from Samuel Gwathney, of Jeffersonville, and gave the original town plat to the county on condition that the county seat was to be placed on it. This deed was made in 1824.
His past life has been so full of incident that in his last days he told my father he thought he would write it out for his friends, but this was not done.
On September 25, 1834, at the home of his son, Cornelius P., he passed to eternity ; was buried on the mound by his wife, who was laid there only a few days before, where to this day no stone marks the spot where the "dust" of the man who left many thousands of dollars in money and hundreds of acres of land is rest- ing in the long sleep of death. Since then a stone was set there, furnished by the war department, in recogni- tion of his services as a soldier. My father was one of the men appointed by the executors to count the money. I went with him to the house of death and saw it. The silver and gold, or may be only the silver, made their fingers black like they had been handling lead-when it was hauled to John Inman's up in town, who lived on
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the corner lately burnt out, where the postoffice was.
All this money, land and all was "entailed" by will to the third "Peter," then a minor, for the name's sake, Inman trustee and guardian. On coming of age "Peter" sued Inman for the whole amount; swept it all from him; left him in old age with no where to lay his head. Unfaithfulness in duty-not giving it over at the proper time was the cause of the entire misfortune.
THE INDIAN OCCUPANCY.
BY COL. E. H. C. CAVINS.
Prior to the year 1767, the land embraced in Greene county, with a large portion of the state of Indiana, be- longed to a tribe of Indians called the Piankeshaws. This people was one of the Algonquin tribes, and was one of the Miami confederacy. The Miami confederacy was formed early in the seventeenth century by the vari- ous tribes of Indians occupying Ohio, Indiana, a part of Illinois and a part of Michigan. The object of the con- federacy was for the purpose of repelling invasions of Iroquois or Five Nations, a very powerful combination of warlike Indians, who, being pressed toward the setting sun by the advance of civilization, in turn pressed west- ward the weaker tribes of Indians. Originally, so far as history or tradition gives any account, the whole of
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Indiana was owned and occupied by the Twigtwees or Miamis, the Weas, and Piankeshaws. At a later date there were other tribes, called permitted tribes, viz. : Delawares, or Leno Lenape, as they were originally called, Pottawatomies, Shawnees, Kickapoos, with a few Wyandots and Senacas. The Wyandots and Senacas seem to have had so little claim upon the land that they were never required to sign any treaty. The Pottawato- mies seemed to have acquired their interest by conquest, or rather, by pushing the Miamis back from the north- west, toward the interior of the state, but they never claimed any interest in Greene county.
THE DELAWARES.
The Delawares made a treaty with the Piankeshaws in 1767, by which they came into possession of a large part of central Indiana, including the White river coun- try as far south as the lower fork of White river, but to make the title perfect it was considered necessary to make a separate treaty with the Miamis. The Delaware In- dians called White river the Ope-co-me-cah.
The Miamis claimed the northern part of the terri- tory embraced in the treaty, and the Piankeshaws the southern part. Greene county was in the part claimed by the Piankeshaws at that time. In the treaty between the Piankeshaws and Delawares, it was only a permis-
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sive possession that was given to the Delawares. These tribes, together with the Weas, were and continued to be, on friendly terms with each other, and all of them occupied the territory embraced in Greene county, from the date of the treaty among themselves until they were finally removed from the state. From some cause unknown to the writer, the Piankeshaws never ceded to the United States any land north of a line beginning at the mouth of Turtle creek in Sullivan county and running in a di- rect line to Orleans, now in Orange county. But we trust that the present owners of the land north of this line will not become alarmed at the discovery of this breach or broken link in the chain of their title.
THE CESSION TREATIES.
There were three treaties with the Indians, em- bracing the land in Greene county. The first two were made on the 30th day of September, 1809, at Fort Wayne with the Delawares and Miamis, and the last was made on the 26th day of October, 1809, at Vin- cennes, with the Weas.
Gen. William H. Harrison, who was afterward President of the United States, was the commissioner who made these treaties, and it seems that he regarded it is necessary to make it with these three tribes, but not necessary to make a treaty with the Piankeshaws.
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MISSIONARY WORK AMONG THE INDIANS.
After the settlement at Vincennes by the whites, the Piankeshaws seem to have drifted toward that point, and near that place were their principal villages and headquar- ters. They readily took upon themselves the vices of their white neighbors, but did not seem to be impressed with their virtues. They would patiently listen to the Catholic priests who tried to impress upon them their mode of worship, and would quietly answer them by as earnest an effort to get the Catholic priests to adopt the Indian worship of the Great Spirit. One redeeming trait in their character was developed at the beginning of the Revolutionary war, and that was that they were the first of the western tribes of Indians to take sides with the patriot cause against the English, and were soon fol- lowed by the other tribes of the Miami confederacy.
AN EARLIER RACE.
Prior to 1810 no white man resided within the borders of Greene county. Only straggling or strolling bands of Indians invaded the territory. They seemed for many years preceding that time to have had no per- manent home here, but passed through on war and hunt- ing expeditions. On many of the hills, and many of the valleys and on many of the plains, they have left speci- 9
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mens of their crude and clumsy axes made of stone, and their nicely-formed arrow heads of flint. These meinen- toes of another age and of former inhabitants are found to this day. There seems to be no place in the county specially noted for their rallies or congregation in large numbers. No field has been made a scene of carnage; no habitation has been made desolate by their fierce, un- relenting tomahawk, or at least history or tradition have given us no information of such events. In section 8, township 6 north, range 5 west, there are clearly-defined indications of lines of fortifications, embracing about one quarter of a mile. When they were made, or for what purpose, is lost in the vista of time. Possibly in the ages past, before the discovery of America, unrelenting war swept over that part of Greene county, and possibly a regular siege was enacted at that place at that time. In the northeast corner of Richland township, near what is called Sleatlı's mill, there is a large rock, which was used by the Indians as a lookout. The rude steps cut by them for the purpose of enabling sentinels to ascend to that point of the lookout are still visible to any person whose curiosity leads him to the place. At Fair Play there has been found several specimens of pottery of an ancient and rather crude type. Across the river from. Fair Play, after the great flood of 1875, there were found a great many pieces of pottery, some of which had impressed ornaments on them. These pieces bore evi-
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dence in themselves that they were of another age, and they were washed out of the ground, over which large timber had been growing a few years before. On the ridge coming up to the lower Richland bridge, there was an Indian village, but deserted before any white man set foot upon Greene county soil. At Worthington quite a number of Indian relics have been found in excavating. -axes, arrow heads, charms, earthenware and many other curiosities, and among them two copper toma- hawks.
THE FIRST WHITE VISITORS.
In the year 1813 a party of white men visited the territory now known as Greene county. They resided at Vincennes, then known as the Old Post. They came on a hunting expedition, more for novelty, curiosity and en- joyment than for any other reason. They started out from Vincennes in a pirogue, or boat, went down the Wabash river to the mouth of White river, and up White river to the fork, and thence up the west fork to a point above the mouth of Richland creek, and landed on the east side of the river south of Bloomfield. They spent several days in that locality hunting. At the time of this excursion a part of the old Indian burying ground near their landing was comparatively new. The Indian burying ground was on the farm since known as the War- nick farm. In an early day it was no common thing for
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the boys of Bloomfield to dig up skeletons of these dead Indians. Perhaps they were induced to dig into these graves from an idea that very generally prevailed in those days that the property of Indians was buried with them. While it was common to turn up skulls and other human bones, no valuable discovery was ever made except that a gunbarrel was found in one of the graves. Nearly all traces of this ancient burying ground have disappeared through lapse of time. The stalwart frame of many an Indian savage, whose war cry and tomahawk sent terror to the hearts of many an innocent victim, has doubtless returned to dust, and now forms a part of the soil of Greene county. Many of the earliest settlers did not get over the deep and abiding hatred they sustained toward the Indians, and especially those whose relatives had been cruelly and wantonly murdered by them. After a treaty of peace had been made between the whites and Indians, occasionally an Indian would be found dead from a gun- shot wound, several were killed in Greene county, one of whom was at a place a short distance below the mouth of Richland creek, on the east side of the river, in a ravine running up from the river, on what is known as the Lester farm. It was near the old Indian village, and was a wicked and unprovoked murder. It was in the year of 1810, while the government survey of land was being made.
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AN UNPROVOKED MURDER.
An Indian had shot a deer in the ravine and was dressing it when a hunter by the name of Smothers, who was employed by the surveying party to furnish them with meat, was in the immediate vicinity, and when he heard the crack of the Indian's rifle, he at once un- derstood the situation. Stealthily the white hunter stole upon his unsuspecting victim, and at the crack of his rifle the Indian fell, and in a few minutes expired. His body was concealed in the ravine and covered with stones, and doubtless his decomposed bones are there now, unless washed into the river.
At that time the government surveying party were encamped near the southwest corner of section 2, in town- ship 6 north, range 5 west. When they learned of the murder they were fearful that the Indians would find their murdered companion, and they abandoned that camp, and never blazed the line dividing sections 2 and II, so as to throw the Indians off their trail, should they appear in that locality, and seek to avenge themselves. At that time there was an Indian trail passing up White river from Owl Prairie, and the trail crossed Richland creek, near the place where the lower bridge is built.
OTHER DEATHS.
Another Indian was killed in that locality in 1818. He was getting honey from a tree and while in the tree
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was shot by a white man. This was on a narrow neck of land known now as the cutoff, a short distance below the mouth of Richland creek.
In the latter part of the year 1819 a transient white man by the name of Osborn came to the settlement on Plummer creek, and while hunting shot a Shawnee In- dian, who was also hunting. The Indian at the time he was shot was sitting on a log, not expecting any danger. This occurred at a place about one mile southwest of Mineral City. After the man shot the Indian, he went to Eli Faucett's cabin. There was snow on the ground at the time, and it was believed he went to Mr. Faucett's cabin in order to make the Indians, if they should find that one of their number had been killed, believe it had been done by Mr. Faucett. The only settlers in that im- mediate locality at the time were Col. Levi Fellows, Nor- man W. Pearce, Eli Faucett and their families, and two or three hired hands. These settlers, when they found out about the murder, compelled the murderer to bury the . dead Indian, and concealed his gun and then required him to leave the settlement, and that was the last they ever heard of him. There were no courts at that time nearer than Washington, in Daviess county.
About the same year and probably the summer fol- lowing, an Indian was shot by a white'man at the mouth of Doan's creek, only on the opposite side of the river. A band of Indians were on their way to a Western
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reservation, and encamped for the night on the west side of the river. One of them went to the river for a drink or a pail of water and was shot from the east side and fell into the river.
INDIAN CONSPIRACIES.
Notwithstanding the treaties that were made with the Indians for the purchase of the territory embraced in Greene county and other portions of the state, yet great dissatisfaction existed among them about these treaties, and especially among the tribes or parts of tribes that were not represented in the treaties. Prominent among the disaffected and dissatisfied Indians were the cele- brated Tecumseh and his brother, the Prophet. Tecum- seh was a Shawnee, and his tribe did not originally own any part of Indiana, and was only permitted to occupy a part of the territory. In fact, no considerable part of that tribe ever occupied Indiana, except while on the war- path. He was a cunning and brave warrior, and an elo- quent orator, and was very popular with the various tribes in the northwestern territory. He visited the various tribes and made speeches to them. In his speeches he proclaimed tliat the treaties for the lands northwest of the Ohio river were not made with fairness, and all of them should be considered void. That no single tribe was invested with the power or authority to sell lands
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