USA > Indiana > Grant County > Centennial history of Grant County, Indiana, 1812 to 1912 : compiled from records of the Grant county historical society, archives of the county, data of personal interviews, and other authentic sources of local information > Part 9
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"They made him justice of the peace. The people were always making him justice of the peace as long as he lived; but he never would allow any trouble to come to a trial. I know he sometimes spent half the night, after his day's toit, running about among the neigh- bors, settling up misunderstandings they wanted to settle by law.
"The first year we planted corn on the new, wild land, so full of stumps aud snags and trees, so rank with nettles and thistles and all the thousand nameless weeds. The squirrels seemed to come by thon- sands. They sat down in siege around that little field, as if determined to take up the last grain. My father had encouraged these little
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squirrels about the place. He liked to see them, to hear them chatter in the houghs above and rustle through the leaves. They broke the awful monotony and solitude and gave his sad and patient soul com- panionship ; but now it seemed as if they would be his ruin. He bor- rowed a gun, and, one sultry spring afternoon, he took the gun on his shoulder, and, taking me with him, to carry the game, we set out to go around the field and destroy the squirrels; but, as we went on around the field, he did not try to shoot them. Back of the field we sat down in the dense woods, and there he began to threaten them with the gun. 'Bunny ! Bunny ! don't you go in there! if you do, I will shoot yon dead !' And he would raise the gun, and, with great show of anger, frighten them away. And so the sun went down while my father was trying to get courage to break the hush and sweet tranquility of the seene by shooting one of his little companions of the wilderness.
"Mother met us at the door, and, handing her the gun, he said, timidly and half-regretfully: 'No, no, Margaret, I can't shoot them, and I won't try to do it any more.' Nor did he ever again take a gun in his hand. I know it is hard to understand how a man can live the best half of a century in the wilderness, among wild beasts and wilder men, and never have use for arms or ever get angry. But such was my father, and it is this sweet nature of bis that makes his memory so dear and speaks more for him than all that tongue or pen can ever say. And yet my father was the most entirely brave man I ever knew. I know of no other man in the history of the West who ever set ont, unarmed and almost alone, with his little family, to cross the plains. I remember some Indians came into camp one Sunday, while we were at prayers. They did not speak, but soon passed on. We were never disturbed the whole weary seven months' journey. But many men who were armed and constantly on the alert were killed.
"But I am anticipating and ought to tell here what became of the little bit of land so hardly won in the Indian Reserve, in Indiana. Hardly had it been well paid for and a good foothold established when a clock peddler, with his son, came along with a wagon-load of clocks. This sort of incipient Jim Fisk professed to fall ill, and, being so very eager to get rid of his eloeks and return to Boston, persuaded my sympathetic and simple-hearted father to give him a mortgage and take the load of clocks. And so it was the little home was lost and we set out for Oregon; but, being still poor, we had to stop a year or two in other places before venturing across the Missouri and work for teams and supplies.
"When we reached and settled in Oregon the goverment gave father and mother each one hundred and sixty aeres of land, as it did all settlers at that time."
The subsequent life of Joaquin Miller is well known, and when his death occurred in February, after the century limit of this history, all the world paid homage to him.
The life of Joaquin Miller is now a "closed incident" in Grant county and all the rest of the world. and perhaps his latest personal communication was addressed to G. B. Lockwood, then editor of The Marion Chronicle, and part of what he said is:
"But what I most of all things want to see is the ohl log home which my revered parents built away back in the forties. And I want to see the beautiful river; I want to go fishing in it again. I want to go out to the old Miami village, and see Jim Sasequas, Shinglemesia and his two bright boys. They made me a bow and arrows. The arrows had keen, bright points, which they made out of an old barrel hoop, with Pap's file. And they were perfect. As proof of this, there is scarce a single buffalo left!
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"I want to walk down the old dusty, corduroy state road. I want to go to Lafontaine bare-headed; I want to walk in the dust, with my pants rolled to my knees, just as of old. We can take some doughnuts in our pockets. Maybe we can steal a few apples From Bluebeard pirates harbored along the creek.
"Anyhow, I want to make a day of il-I want to be a boy again, back on the old place, once more before I die. Come along and bring a lot of boys and girls-and let us all be 'kids' once more,- not caring a bean whether school keeps or not. When we leave the old state road we strike through the continuous woods for Pap's place. And how dear were those huge trees to us all. But I am afraid they have cut them down. It is this fear that has kept me all these years from try- ing to see the sacred old home. But now I will, if you please, per- suaded by your kindly letter, look over the ground once more before I die.
"Is Unele Billy Fields there yet? He made the first and only pair of shoes I owned in Indiana. And little Thomas Sutton, -- did he ever grow up? 1 want to find him the same neat and modest little boy l used to love as tenderly as if he had been a girl. And then there was, -- but never mind now,-1 will ask about them when when we go over on Pipe ereek.
"Please write me if you will go with me. And also please see if we can get some photos of the Indians, the old village, and so on. Maybe some of the old Indians have photos of the old chief and his manly boys. I do hope they are strong and well and that } may see them when I come on in August.
"With love to you, I am, yours, "JOAQUIN MILLER."
V. THE RED MAN IN GRANT COUNTY
When visiting for a day or two in Marion recently, J. B. Dunn of Indianapolis, formerly librarian of state and an Indiana historian of note, remarked: "Nothing is more essential in preserving the his- tory of the county and state than keeping alive the traditions of the Indians-their language and their customs." but the Grant county historian finds their language an impossibility, and it has been so long since the Indians were a factor in community life that there are few who remember their customs.
While it has not been so many years since the Miami Indian roamed the forests of northern Indiana, and members of his tribe lived along the Mississinewa below Marion, the majority of the people who fre- quent the streets today have no recollection of the Miamis who used to be in town every Saturday. Along in the '70s and '80s there were both braves and squaws of primitive type who adhered to their forest customs, but the twentieth century has seen them attired in regula- tion garb and strangers pass them without thought of the "Red Man of the Forest." Dr. Francis Xavier Aveline was the last representa. tive well known American Indian, and it is said there was more French than Indian blood in him. Relatives of his still live in the commit- nity. He was in public life and people knew and respected him. While James D. Fort always sings his Indian song on Old Folks' day, and E. P. MeClure speaks a broken Indian tongue, there is little in- centive now for studying the language-none who speak it.
The following newspaper clipping is hardly intelligible to those who do not remember seeing Indians from the Miami reservation in
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town occasionally, and several years ago some one wrote: "The white man has knocked the glamour off the Indian. The Miami brave who strode the forest in other days now sits disconsolate and in meditation on his household goods upon the highway of relentless fate, outrast, unhomed and unwept. Time was when fertile lands were given to the Red Man. Time was when his lofty word was law unto his companions and lightning unto his children. There was a day when he lorded it over productive acres, which devoted squaws with crude and homely tools tilled as best they could while the warrior smoked or shunbered "A treaty in 1854 finally and forever settled peace upon recalei- trants, and fixed the status of the red skin in the world. The might and medicine of the Miamis went out together when the braves put to parchment the titles which gave them place in the line of the gov- ermuent's wards. The signing of the final treaty was a concession to civilization from those who originally held the soil. It marked the passage of the heroje, stolid bronze buck of the wildwood into the pale of actual trousers and suspenders-farewell to blankets and feathers. This treaty was signed in Pern, and the sixty odd Indian signatures affixed embraced names that an English speaking tongue would never master. This treaty provided that certain lands should remain in tribal relation until 1880, when the territory should be divided among the members of the tribes. At that time the Indians became citizens -- subject to taxation, hell the lands in severalty, and if they were ever cheated it was after tribal possession erased. There was honest deal- ing with tribes by the government."'
When citizenship was bestowed $200,000 was distributed per capita None only Indians signing the treaty papers now in possession of Walter Newman, whose mother was of the Bundy tribe. Were to re- evive the money. "It is not necessary to dwell upon the manner in which the beautiful farms of the Reserve have passed from the hands of the aborigines gradually, aere by aere, nor to tell of the lonmilia tion of the chieftains and the ousting of princesses royal by heartless foreclosure. The constable goes on his errand without fear of dart or ambush. The change has put the Indian not only ont of the warrior business, but it has put him on the fax duplicate, and that is his worst woe, " and what was history in nearby territory was local history "Even Chief Gabriel Godfroy finds it far From easy to part from his lands under the sheriff's direction," and all who saw this famous Indian at Battle Ground farm at the time of the Indian memorial meeting, August 29, 1909, will appreciate the situation. "He disputed the liability to pay taxes, though he had agreed in the treaty to be- rome a citizen. Now the accumulation of delinquencies swamps him. and it is said that citizens of his neighborhood will raise funds with which to save his domain for his fast declining years," and in 1907 Rolinda passed his home, although at the time the chieftain was try- ing to retrieve some of his fortune as an attraction in a wild west combination.
Grant county has red men as noble as lineage as Godfroy who conld not withstand civilization, and their farms were soon dissi- pated. Modern farm machinery is now seen in many fields where the nimble squaw used the pointed stick and primeval hoe in coaxing the maize from the generous mold, and there were many Grant county Indians who had government revenue through land treaties until all were finally paid, and it used to be the street-corner talk in Marion that the Indians did not need to work-their living was assured. They had their annuities and no taxes, Meshingomesia never paying a dollar to the county. Mayhap the whites did take their lands and drive them out of the country on the reservations. The Indian was
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IHISTORY OF GRANT COUNTY
not an agriculturist, and the white man's work was new and strange to him. The love of work was not born in the warrior, and white he did not take to the white man's virtues, it was different about his vires, and whisky was the Indian problem.
Columbus found the Indians friendly, and they regarded the sails on his vessels as the white wings of birds hovering over the waters. They brought him gifts and later they learned treachery of the white man-a sad comment on Christian civilization. Some writer said all good Indians were dead Indians, and another remarked : "Perhaps all we can do with the settlers who coped with Indians is to remember their difficulties, and learn all we can about them." The timber country suited the Indians, and "not a stick amiss" was the way they left it. The greatest dread in the world was the dread of the un known, and the ambush methods of the primitive American was the terror of the settlers. It is said, however, that the settlers were like children as compared with the white men of today- that they were ignorant, and witch stories found place in their lives. Before the white man came there was never a sign of life but the wood creatures, and why should not the Indian resent the onward march of civili zation ? When Santa Claus made the tour of the Grant county schools in December. 1912, he told all the children that "there were no bomes. no schools, no churches-no white families one hundred years ago- only Indians," leading up to the Battle of the Mississinewa story, and striving to aronse a spirit of loyalty to those who had been for a full century " amhonored, unsung, " sleeping on Grant county soil, and the children's eyes sparkled as they listened. It was a weirdly strange story to them-they had never seen an Indian.
While fairy stories about the Indians may have no place in history, and "Heap bad Injun" is a joenlar expression, they were the problem of the pioneers. There are always pioneers, but Horace Greeley would have to revise his injunction, since there is now little more opportunity in the vanishing west than in Indiana Those who settled America could not go back while three thousand miles of ocean rolled between, and those who came among the Indians had to stay-had " burned the bridges, " and thus Grant county citizens have a glorious heritage. While the Pocahontas story cannot be localized, the " White Rose of the Miamis" is an equally beautiful legend, and one who has stood at the grave of Frances Slocum has little difficulty in adapting the story. While it' belongs to Miami county, the grave is in Wabash, ouly a short distance from the county line, and its significance certainly overshadows Grant county. While following the Mississinewa to the point where it joins the Wabash in 1907. the historian spent a night at Monument Springs, the home of Mrs. John Witte of the Bundy family and a granddaugh- ter of the White Rose, and she was proud of her ancestry.
Mrs. Witte had the Frances Slocum history published by the Slocum family in Pennsylvania, where the child had been kidnapped during the Mohawk war, and as their visitor read aloud to them until late in the night, these half-breed Indians declared they had never so well understood the story. There had been ten thousand people gathered at Monument Springs when one June day in 1900, the Slocum monument was unveiled at the grave of the "White Rose of the Miamis," who had refused to return with her two brothers and a sister who visited her years after she had been stolen, and she would not leave her Indian family and environment even for a visit at Wilkesbarre where she had been taken captive. It was the only time the writer over accepted entertainment from Indians, and the memorable thing about it is Mrs. Witte's regret that her guest wrecked the bed in the guest chamber, landing on the floor before morning, and on account of "falling through Vol 1-4
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the hed," the whole thing is an ineffaceable incident. The Wittes were a Christian family attending church in Reserve across the line in Miami conty.
A number of local citizens have advised. "Yon had better get E. P. MeClaire's account of the Indians." and while Mr. MeClure knew many of them through dealing with them as a clerk in his father's store, and could carry on conversation with them, it was like a story of the past to him. He said, "Phil Matter used to buy horses of 'em, ask him," and although only one generation ago there were Indians on Marion streets, those who knew them no longer linger to relate the stories. Sometimes a dozen Indians spent the night at the Samuel MeClure homestead -- the MeClure corner-and now there is little about it they would recognize. The Indians slept on the floor before the fire, the only accommodation they wanted, but whenever Meshingomesia and his squaw, Tackiqnah, came to visit they were always given the guest cham- ber of the family. Mr. MeClure protests that "Shinglemacy only had one wife, " although many understand that he had two squaws. The historian of Pleasant deals with Meshingomesia, but Mr. MeClure is qnoted further: "Old Shing believed in a hereafter-why he helped build the Baptist church at the village."
Perhaps when Battle Ground farm and some adjoining land becomes a government reservation, the log house still standing on the Siuber farm that had been the home of the last chieftain of the Jhamis will be rebuilt upon it. Mr. MeChire said that both Shapendocia and Sass- afras-it would mean so much more to the reader to hear him speak those names in Indian dialeet-had two squaws, and then he told of Skiah, a stoical Indian who would come in and stay all day, sitting by the fire in Cheenmwah's store - Cheemowah was Mr. MeClure's father's trading post name-and not until the sun was going down would he tell what he wanted, and as darkness came on he always went back to the Indian country. Mr. MeClaire grew up to know the Indians, and "many's the time I would go in to mother and get cookies and pie for them. Why, lim Sassafras gave me my first pony, " and it is a matter of history that the Cook-Melhore farm on Pipe creek in Franklin had been owned by Sassafras in the days of Indian supremacy.
The Indian was always a negative quantity-lacked the necessary education to make him a positive force, and the squaws were even more diffident. They would not show themselves when strangers approached. although they always bartered in the stores when they came to town. There must have been Indians all over Grant county -- men now living remember when there were more Indians than whites, but the present generation only thinks of them as living below Marion. Some of them married white women, and Mr. MeChire said : "There was always a good meal at Old Shing's." While some of the Indians were dirty, some of them had clean cabins, linens and window hangings. Some of the squaws would get drunk the same as the braves, but when an Indian gave a visitor sugar or an egg, he thought well of him-was welcome. While vengeance was sweet to them, they were like eurs, --- whip them and they would come back again. It was an inmate principle of the Indian to deck himself ont in feathers, and the "Call to the Wild" was strong in him.
While there were a few capable business men and farmers among Grant connty Indians, the fact that their land has all passed from thetn is its own comment about them. Only a few country homesteads are ever pointed out as having been developed by Indians. When Santa Claus was at the Indian Village school in 1912 there were only two chil- dren enrolled who had Indian blood in them. The Indians had no fences and their ponies always ran in the woods. While they had poultry,
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their hens were not domesticated-were not of the 200-egg variety, and only laid out a eluteh of eggs in a season. They roosted in trees all win- ter long, and when the Indians were in town they bought eggs of Checum- wah. borrowed the family washboiler and carried home hard boiled eggs in their blankets. The Indian never took chances on carrying fresh eggs astride a pony, and baskets were unknown to them. When a squaw was ready to mount her pony and strike the trail, she always drew up her blanket and tightened the belt to hold the papoose on her back, the Indian woman never carrying her babe in her arms. When asked if he would like to have his early day experiences over again, Mr. Me(Ture sounded the warning to the young -- he would get a better education. Ile would like to live his life over except the sorrows incident to civili- zation, and he would secure a " first class education. "
Cheenmwah always helped the Indians out of their difficulties, and Mr. MeClure remembered well the many trips his father had made to Washington as their advocate. When the Indians would "get drunk and raise the devil." Father and Shing would tie them with ropes till the fire water would get out of their systems. While Meshingomesia was peaceable, and Peconga-son named for Thunder would have suc reeded him as chieftain, had not their rights been given up by treaty, Ataw-Ataw-Lightning, was more inclined to the accumulation of prop. erty. Mrs. James Lugar, who was the last Indian woman in Pleasant, once showed the historian the clock and Bible owned and used by Mesh- ingomesia, saying she had been brought up in his household, and when there were no others to claim them she had cared for them. Her home is along the river immediately below Battle Ground farm, and the curious may see them there. Meshingomesia had ten brothers, but he seems to have been a natural leader among them. While it is known that he died December 16, 1879, the date of his birth is a matter of conjecture, and while tradition has it that the last chieftain of the Miamis participated in the Battle of the Mississinewa in 1812, Mr. Ale- Clure thinks he heard it from his father that Meshingomesia was among the sqnaws who Hled to the Wildeat for protection, although "he was well posted on the details and could tell an interesting story about it."
While there are no Indians in Grant vomity in the twentieth century -no wild Indians, one whose childhood recollection harks back to the sixties and seventies remembers being afraid to go to bed at night after hearing some of the fireside stories-no daily papers to better occupy the time of the "seare head story tellers." Some of those fellows lately re- turned from the war would have enjoyed sensational newspapers had they been a possibility then, and they made up for the lack of them by telling hair raising Indian stories, and Riley's " Goblins" poem is mild in com- parison to them. There were terrified children on Deer Creek then --- Deer Creek in Liberty is where the writer used to be afraid at night. a belated boy in search of the cows was always afraid to eross a strip of woods after night fall-there were owls, foxes-Indians, and the stories of the wolves encountered by the pioneers-why would not a timid child be afraid after dark? If the Families had had newspapers then they would have employed their time better than by repeating those svare head stores in the presence of timid children.
There were two reserves in the writer's childhood, Indian and Negro reservations, and Liberty township children were used to the negroes and from them beard many stories of the Indians, and that explains an innate fear of the red skins, although one was never seen along Deer creek in that period. The negroes were afraid of the Indians. and they were given to ghost stories at all times. Liberty township Quaker chil- dren had more nearly the experiences of the children of slave holder families in the South, as so many colored women were employed in the
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homes before the exodus of the colored people to Marion late in the seven- ties, and everybody remembers 'Liza Stuart, and her fund of stories, and years afterward, when "A Tale of the Mississinewa" was shown her, she exclaimed : "What! Whitson and Jay writes a Norvel!" and she may have been the instigation, as her "long ago" stories will never be effaced from memory. Eliminate the newspaper today and see if the bed time stories of the past do not spring into life again. As a child the writer was never afraid of the negro, bui was always afraid of the Indian. Think of the guilty mothers today who frighten their children by telling them negroes or Indians will get them.
At a recent reunion of the Thomas family held in Matter park, a partly written story of Indian life in Grant county by Enoch G. Thomas, an older brother of Eli Thomas who died before completing his remi- miseences, affords an excellent point of view from which to remember the typical aborigines of Grant county. Mr. Thomas says :
To those of the younger generation the primitive condition of the Indians as we found them when he landed on the Mississinewa river where Marion now stands, in the year 1829, were very different from the Indian of today At that time his costume consisted mainly of a handkerchief bound about the head and frequently a scarlet red feather or two stuck into the folds of the little piece of cloth. A blanket was thrown about the body, bnekskin leggings covered his legs and feet in the smomer and in the winter the moccasins, known wherever the word Indian is spoken, and worn by these original of Americans
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