USA > Indiana > Shelby County > Chadwick's History of Shelby County, Indiana, Vol. 1 > Part 2
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There are many other documents connected with the early settlement by Vincennes, among which is a receipt for the one hundred pistols granted him as his wife's marriage dowry. In 1736 this officer was ordered to Charlevoix by D'Artagette, viceroy of the king at New Orleans and commandant of Il- linois. Here M. St. Vincennes received his mortal wound. This event is chronicled as follows : "We have just received very bad news from Louisiana
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and our war with the Chickasaws. The French have been defeated. Among the slain is M. de Vincennes, who ceased not until his last breath to exhort his men to behave bravely and worthy of their faith and fatherland."
This closed the career of a gallant officer, leaving a name which holds as a remembrancer the present beautiful city of Vincennes to its present orthog- raphy in 1749.
Post Vincennes was settled as early as 1710 or 1711. In a letter from Father Marest to Father Germon, dated at Kaskaskia, November 9. 1712. occurs this passage : "Les Francois itoient itabli unfort sur le fleuve Quabache" etc., the entire English translation of this passage being : "The French have es- tablished a fort upon the river Wabash, and want a missionary; and Father Mermet has been sent to them. That father believes he should labor for the con- version of the Mascoutens, who have built a village on the banks of the same river. They are a nation of Indians who understand the language of the Illinois."
Mermet was therefore the first preacher of Christianity in this portion of the world, and his mission was to convert the Mascoutens, a branch of the Miamis. "The way I look." said he, "was to confound. in the presence of the whole tribe, one of these charlatans ( medicine men), whose Manitou, or Great Spirit, which he worshiped was a buffalo, which was under the earth and ani- mated all buffaloes, which heals the sick and has all power, I then asked him whether other beasts. the bear for instance, and which one of his nation wor- shiped, was not equally inhabited by a manitou, which was under the earth. 'Without doubt.' said the grand medicine man.' If this is so, said I, men ought to have a maniton who inhabits them. 'Nothing more certain,' said he. Ought not that to convince you,' continued I, 'that you are not very reasonable? For if man upon the earth is the master of all the animals, if he kills them, if he eats them, does it not follow that the manitou which inhabits him must have the mastery over all other manitous? Why, then, do you not invoke him in- stead of the manitou of the bear and the buffalo, when you are sick?' This reasoning disconcerted the charlatan. But this was all the effect it produced."
The result of convincing these heathen by logic, as is generally the case the world over, was only temporary logical victory, and no change whatever was produced in the profession and practices of the Indians.
But the first Christian (Catholic) missionary at this place whose name we find recorded in the church annals was Meurin, in 1849.
The church building used by these missionaries of the Cross at Vincennes is thus described by an old inhabitant: "Fronting on Water street and run- ning back on church street, it was a plain building with a very rough exterior, of upright posts. chinked and daubed, with a rough coat of cement on the outside; about twenty feet wide and sixty long ; one story high, with a small belfry and an equally small bell. It was dedicated to St. Francis Xavier. The spot has long since been occupied by a splendid Catholic cathedral."
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Almost contemporaneous with the progress of the church at Vincennes was a missionary work near the mouth of the Wea river, among the Ouiate- nons, but the settlement was broken up at an early day.
NATIONAL POLICIES.
Soon after the discovery of the mouth of the Mississippi by La Salle, in 1682, the government of France began to encourage the policy of establishing a line of trading posts and missionary stations extending through western Canada to Louisiana, and this policy was maintained, with partial success, for about seventy-five years. The traders insisted on importing whisky, which cancelled nearly every civilization influence that could be brought to bear upon the Indian, and the vast distances between the posts prevented that strengthi which can be enjoyed only by close and convenient inter-communication. Another characteristic of Indian nature was to listen attentively to all the mis- sionary said, pretending to believe all he preached, and then offer in turn his theory of the world, of religion, etc., and because he was not listened to with the same degree of attention and pretense of belief, would go off disgusted. This was his idea of the golden rule.
The river St. Joseph of Lake Michigan was called "the river Miamis" in 1679. in which year La Salle built a small fort on its banks, near the lake shore. The chief station of the mission for the instruction of the Miamis was established on the borders of that river. The first French post within the territory of the Miamis was at the mouth of the river Miamis, on an eminence naturally fortified on two sides by the river, and on one side by a deep ditch made by a water fall. It was triangular in form. The missionary, Father . Hennepin, gave a good description of it and he was one of the number who assisted in its construction. It was built in 1679. He says: "We felled the trees that were on the top of the hill : and having cleared the same from bushes for about two musket shots, we began to build a redoubt of eighty feet long and forty feet wide, with great square pieces of timber laid one upon another, and prepared a great number of stakes of about twenty-five feet long to drive into the ground, to make our fort more inaccessible on the river side. We employed the whole of the month of November about the work, which was very hard, though we had no other food, except bear's flesh our savages killed. These beasts were very common in that place because of the great quantity of grapes they find there ; but their flesh being too fat and luscious, our men began to weary of it and desired to leave and go hunting to kill some wild goats. M. La Salle denied them that liberty, which caused some murmurs among them, and it was not unwillingly that they continued their work. This, together with the approach of winter, and the apprehension that M. La Salle had that his vessel ( the Griffin) was lost, made him very melancholy, though he con-
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cealed it as much as possible. We made a cabin wherein we performed divine service every Sunday, and Father Gabriel and I, who preached alternately, took care to take such texts as were suitable to our present circumstances and fit and inspire us with courage, concord and brotherly love. The fort was at last perfected and called Fort Miamis."
In 1765 the Miami nation was composed of four tribes, whose total num- ber of warriors was estimated at only one thousand fifty men. Of these about two hundred fifty were Twightwees, or Miamis proper, three hundred Weas. or Ouiatenons, three hundred Piankeshaws, and two hundred Shockeys: and at this time the principal villages of the Twightwees were situated about the head of the Maumee river at and near the place where Fort Wayne now stands. The largest of the Wea villages were near the banks of the Wabash river, in the vicinity of the Post Ouiatenon, and the Shockeys and Piankeshaws dwelt on the banks of the Vermilion and on the borders of the Wabash between Vincennes and Oniatenon. Branches of the Pottawatomie, Shawnee. Delaware and Kickapoo tribes were permitted at different times to enter within the boundaries of the Miamis and reside for a while.
The wars in which France and England engaged, from 1688 to 1697. retarded the growth of the colonies of both these great countries in North America, and the efforts made by France to connect Canada and the Gulf of Mexico by a chain of trading posts and colonies naturally excited the jealousy of England and gradually laid the foundation for a struggle at arms. It is probable that before the close of 1719. temporary trading posts were erected at the sites of Fort Wayne, Ouiatenon and Vincennes. These points were probably often visited by French fur traders prior to 1700. In the mean- time the English people began establishing military posts west of the Alle- ghany mountains, and thus matters were culminated in a general war, which being waged by the French and Indians combined on the one side, was termed "the French and Indian war." This war terminated by a treaty in Paris. by which France ceded to Great Britain all of North America east of the Mississippi river, except New Orleans and the island on which it is situated : and indeed, France had the preceding autumn, by a secret convention, ceded to Spain all the country west of that river.
BRITISH POLICY.
In 1765 the total number of French families within the limits of the Northwestern Territory did not probably exceed six hundred. These were at the settlements at Detroit along the Wabash river and in the neighborhood of Fort Chartres on the Mississippi. Of these French families about eighty lived at Post Vincennes, fourteen at Fort Ouitenon. on the Wabash, and nine or ten at the confluence of the St. Mary and St. Joseph rivers.
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The colonial policy of the British government opposed any measure that might strengthen interior settlements, lest they become self-supporting and thus independent of the mother country. Hence the early and rapid settlement of the Northwestern Territory was still further retarded by the short-sighted selfishness of England. The fatal policy consisted largely of holding the land of the government and not allowing it to be sub-divided and sold to actual settlers. But in spite of all hier efforts, she constantly made just such efforts as provoked the American people to rebel, and that successfully, which they did within fifteen years after the perfect close of the French and Indian war.
AMERICAN POLICY.
Thomas Jefferson, the shrewd statesman and wise Governor of Virginia, saw the first and actual occupation of western lands was the only way to keep them out of the hands of the foreigners and Indians. Hence, directly after the conquest at Vincennes by Clark, he engaged a scientific corps to proceed under an escort, to the Mississippi river and ascertain by celestial observations the point on that river intersected by latitude 36 degrees and 30 minutes, the southern limit of the state, and to measure its distance to the Ohio. To Gen- eral Clark was entrusted the conduct of military affairs in that quarter of the country. He was instructed to select a strong position near that point and establish there a fort and garrison ; thence to extend his conquests northward to the lakes. erecting forts at different points, which might serve as monuments of actual possession, besides affording protection to that portion of the country. Fort "Jefferson" was erected and garrisoned on the Mississippi above the southern limit a few miles.
The result of these operations was the addition to the chartered limits of Virginia, of that immense region known as the "Northwest Territory." The simple fact that such and such forts were established by the Americans in this vast region convinced British Commissioners that we had entitled our- selves to the land. But where are those "Monuments" of our power now?
INDIAN OCCUPANCY.
The portion of territory now inchided within the limits of Indiana was at the time of its first exploration by Europeans inhabited by the Miami Confederation of Indians. That portion of the state in which Shelby county now lies was occupied by the powerful tribe of Twightwees. The state de- rived its name from the word Indian, the "a" being added to give it the fem- inine signification. It was first applied to this territory in 1768 to a grant of land near the Ohio, which a company of traders in that year obtained from
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the natives. The first white men who ever trod the soil of this state were the French missionaries, Claude Dablon and Claude Allouez, who in 1670-72, more than two hundred and thirty years ago, passed along the west side of Lake Michigan, and entered the state somewhere north of the Kankakee river. The first white man to enter the fair domain of Shelby county, was William Connor, an Indian trader, whose business post was at the present site of Con- nersville. As early as 1816 he was in the habit of coming up the streams in small boats. in order to barter and exchange with the Delaware Indians, who then held possession of all the lands watered by the White river and its tributaries. Indiana was formally admitted into the Union October 3. 1818, at a treaty entered into at St. Marys, Ohio. the same being found within this work.
LAST EXODU'S OF THE INDIANS.
In July. 1837, Col. Abel C. Pepper convened the Pottawatomie Nation of Indians at Lake Ke-waw-nay for the purpose of removing them west of the Mississippi river. That autumn a small party of possibly ninety Potta- watomies was conducted west of the Mississippi by George Proffit, Esq. Among the number were Ke-waw-nay. Nebash. Nas-waw-kay, Pash-po-ho and many other leading men of the nation. The regular emigration of these poor Indians, about one thousand in number, took place under Col. Pepper and General Tipton in the summer of 1838.
It was a sad and mournful spectacle to witness these children of the forest slowly retiring from the home of their childhood, that contained not only the graves of their ancestors, but also many endearing scenes to which their memories would ever recur as sunny spots along their pathway through the wilderness. They felt that they were bidding farewell to the hills, valleys and streams of their infancy; the more exciting hunting grounds of their advanced youth, as well as the stern and bloody battle-grounds, where they liad contended in riper manhood for what they honestly believed to be their rights. All these they were leaving behind them, to be desecrated by the plowshare of the white man. As they cast mournful glances back toward these loved scenes that were rapidly fading in the distance .. tears fell from their swarthy cheeks, the old trembled, matrons wept, the pink-faced maiden turned pale, and half-suppressed sighs escaped from the motley groups as they passed along, some on foot, some on horseback, and others in wagons, sad as a funeral procession. Several of the aged warriors were seen to cast glances toward the sky, as if they were imploring aid from the spirits of their departed heroes, who were looking down upon them from the clouds, or from the Great Spirit. who would immediately, as least ultimately. redress the wrongs of the red man, whose broken bow had fallen from his hand, and whose sad heart was then bleeding within him. Ever and anon one of the party would start out
CHADWICK'S HISTORY OF SHELBY CO., IND.
into the brush and break back to their old encampments on the Eel river and on the Tippecanoe, declaring that they would rather die than be banished from their country. Thus scores of discontented emigrants returned from different points on their journey, and it was several years before they could be induced to join their countrymen west of the Mississippi.
Several years after the removal of the Indians, known as the Potta- watomies, the Miami nation was removed to their western home, by coercive means, under an escort of the United States troops. They were a proud and once powerful nation, but at the time of their removal were far inferior, in point of numbers, to the Pottawatomies, whom they had permitted to settle and hunt upon their lands, and fish in their lakes and rivers after they had been driven southward by powerful and war-like tribes who inhabited the shores of the northern lakes.
INDIAN TITLES.
In 1831 a joint resolution of the Legislature of Indiana, requesting an appropriation by Congress for the extinguishment of the Indian title to lands within the state, was forwarded to that body, which granted the request. The Secretary of War, by authority, appointed a committee of three citizens to carry into effect the provisions of the recent law. The Miamis were sur- rounded on all sides by American settlers, and were situated almost in the heart of the state on the line of the canal then being constructed. The chiefs were called to a council for the purpose of making a treaty ; they promptly came, but refused peremptorily to go westward or sell the remainder of their lands. The Pottawatomies sold about six million acres in Indiana. Illinois and Michigan, including all of their claim in this state.
In 1838 a treaty was concluded with the Miami Indians through the good offices of Col. A. C. Pepper, the Indian agent. by which a considerable of the most desirable portion of their reserves was ceded to the United States.
LAND SALES.
Land speculators were not loved by the carly pioneers of Indiana. for they had been apprized of their tricks and underhanded means of securing control of the best lands in new countries. As an illustration of the way the Yankee land man was treated in this state. we quote from Cox's "Recollections of the Wabash Valley."
"At Crawfordsville. December 24. 1824, many parties were present from the eastern and southern portions of the state. as well as from Ohio, Ken- tucky. Tennessee and even Pennsylvania, to attend a land sale. There was but little bidding against one another. The settlers, or 'squatters.' as they were called by land speculators, had arranged matters among themselves to
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their general satisfaction. If, upon comparing numbers, it appeared that two were after the same piece of land, one would ask the other what he would take not to bid against him: if neither would consent to be bought off. they would retire and cast lots, and the lucky man would enter the tract at Con- grosional price, one dollar and twenty-five cents per acre, and the other would take a second choice on the list. If the speculator made a bid, or showed a disposition to take an actual settler's claim from him, lie soon saw the white of a score of eyes glaring at him, and he would 'crawfish' out of the crowd at the first opportunity.
"The settlers made it definitely understood to foreign capitalists that they wouldl enter the tract of land they had settled on before allowing the latter to come in with their speculations. The land was sold in tiers of townships. be- ginning at the southern part of the district and continuing north until all had been offered at public sale. This plan was persisted in, although it kept many on the ground for several days waiting, who desired to purchase land in the northern part of the district.
"In 1827 a regular 'Indian scare' was gotten up to keep speculators away for a short time. A man who owned a claim on Tippecanoe river, near Pretty Prairie, fearing that some one of the numerous land hunters constantly scour- ing the country, might enter the land he had settled on before he could raise the money to buy it with. and seeing one day a cavalcade of land hunters riding toward where his land lay, mounted his horse and darted off at full speed to meet them, swinging his hat and shouting at the top of his voice: 'Indians! Indians! The woods are full of Indians, murdering and scalping all before them!' They paused a moment. but as the terrified horseman still urged his jaded steed along and cried : 'Help! Longlois, Cicots, help!' they turned and Hled like a troop of retreating cavalry, hastening to the thickest settlement and giving the alarm, which spread like wild-fire among the stubble until the whole frontier region was shocked with the startling cry. The 'squatter, who had fabricated the story and started a false alarm, took a circuitous route home that evening, and while others were busy building temporary block-houses and rubbing up their guns to meet the Indians he was quietly gathering up money and slipped down to Crawfordsville and entered his land. chuckling to himself: 'There's a Yankee trick for you, done up by a Hoosier.'"
GREAT ORDINANCE OF 1787.
Marvelous and interesting, indeed, is the Ordinance of 1787, for by its enactment the Northwest Territory, including Indiana, was virtually made a free soil territory, and has forever so remained. There now seems but little doubt that the originators of this ordinance were Nathan Dane. Rufus King and Timothy Pickering. so far as the proviso it contained against slavery, and
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also for aids to religion and knowledge. as well as forever settling the question of the waters of the Mississipi river and the St. Lawrence with tributaries, as common property for highway purposes without any toll or charge system for the same. But to Thomas Jefferson is also due much credit, as some fea- tures of this ordinance were embraced in his ordinance of 1784. But to all four of these distinguished men belongs the honor of consecrating by one un- changeable monument, the very heart of our country to freedom, knowledge and union.
Mr. Jefferson had vainly tried to secure a system of government for the Northwest Territory. He was really an emancipationist and favored the ex- clusion of slavery from the territory, but the South voted him down every time he proposed the question. In 1787, as late as July roth, an organizing act without the anti-slavery issue or clause was pending. The concession of the South was expected to carry it. Congress was then in session in New York City. July 5th Rev. Menasseh Cutler, Massachusetts came into New York to lobby on the Northwestern Territory. Everything scemed to fall into his hands. Events were ripe. The state of the public credit, the growing of Southern prejudice. the basis of his mission, his personal character, all com- bined to complete one of those sudden and almost marvelous revolutions of public sentiment that once in five or ten centuries are seen to sweep over a country like the breath of the Almighty.
Cutler was a Yale College graduate and had taken his degrees in medi- cine, law and divinity. He had published a scientific explanation of the plants of New England. IIe stood in America, in science, second only to Benjamin Franklin. He was a courtly gentlemen of the old school type, and possessed a commanding dignified manner of address. The Southern members of Con- gress said they had never such a true gentleman in the North. He came from Massachusetts representing the company by that name, and they desired to buy a tract of land, now included in Ohio, for the purpose of planting a colony. It was a pure speculation, government money was worth but eight- een cents on a dollar. This company had collected enough to purchase one million five hundred thousand acres of land. Other speculators in New York made Doctor Cutler their agent, which enabled him to represent a demand for five million five hundred thousand acres. As this would reduce the national debt, and Jefferson's policy was to provide for the public credit, it providing a good opportunity to do something.
Massachusetts then owned the territory of Maine, which she was crowd- ing into the market. She was opposed to the opening of the Northwest re- gion. This fired the zeal of Virginia. The whole South caught the inspira- tion and exalted Doctor Cutler. The entire South rallied around his forces. Massachusetts could not vote against him, because many of its constituents were personally interested in the West as speculators. Thus Cutler, making
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friends in the South, and using all known resorts as a lobbyist, he was able to command the situation. True to deeper convictions, he dictated one of the most compact and finished documents of wise statesmanship that had ever adorned any human law book. He borrowed from Thomas Jefferson the term "Ar- ticle of Compact," which preceding the Federal constitution, rose in the inost sacred character. He then followed very closely the constitution of Massa- chusetts, adopted but three years before that date. It contained among other things the following points :
I. The exclusion, from the territory forever, of the institution of slavery.
2. Provision for public schools, giving one township for a seminary. and every section numbered 16 in each township, one thirty-sixth of all public lands for educational purposes.
3. A provision prohibiting the adoption of any constitution or enactment of any law that should nullify pre-existing contracts.
This compact declared that "religion, morality and knowledge being the necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind, schools, and the means of an education shall always be encouraged."
Doctor Cutler planted himself squarely on this platform of sound prin- ciples and started with his horse and buggy for Philadelphia to attend the Con- stitutional Convention. On July 13, 1787, this bill was put upon its passage and was unanimously adopted. Thus the great states of Ohio, Indiana and Illinois, as well as Michigan and Wisconsin (and as United States Senator George W. Jones. of Iowa, remarked "all that territory in the great and un- known West, beyond the states just named"). This vast domain was thus con- secrated to freedom, intelligence and morality.
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