USA > Indiana > Boone County > History of Boone County, Indiana : With biographical sketches of representative citizens and genealogical records of old families, Volume I > Part 5
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INDIAN WARS.
There was a cause. Speak as we may about the Indian and his charac- teristics, his temperament and disposition, he was provoked to battle for his home, his hunting-ground and his burial-place. The white man, from the time he landed on our Atlantic slope, was pressing westward. He had crossed the Alleghany mountains came down on the inland slope. He ascended the rivers and explored the lakes and the large streams. On many of these he established homes and forts and was pressing on into the forest every- where. We say that the Indian was cruel and treacherous because he fought for his home the best he knew how. He could see that his lands were dis- appearing. Sometimes they were sold by the chiefs without consulting with the people, sometimes they were taken by treaty, that the Indian knew noth- ing about and could not understand; and that other times they were taken by violence. He saw his game driven from the forests and his hunting grounds transformed into fields. When the civilized man fights for home and native land he is called a patriot, and highly honored in his deeds of valor. When the Indian puts on the war paint actuated by the same motives, and fights for the same sentiments crude as his war methods may be, he is con-
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BOONE COUNTY, INDIANA.
demned and killed. When he uses the best implements for defense that he has, the white man terms them cruel, and becomes even more heartless towards the Indian and seeks his destruction. The Indian is not only driven to fight for his life, but also for his home and his property. In the face of facts it is doubtful whether the means used by the white man were not as cruel and barbarous as those of the red man. If accounts and conditions were fairly balanced between man and man, the white man would not have room to boast of his humanity and the justness of his course over the red man. The cruelties of war were on both sides, and the white man was the aggressor. He justified himself on the ground that the Indian was not im- proving the land. This is a question of moral ethics, that we will not con- sider here but leave each to settle it with his own conscience. The Indian regarded Kentucky as common hunting ground, and they resisted the occu- pancy of it by the white man. They guarded the beautiful Ohio river day and night, and many hand to hand conflicts were had between the natives and immigrants and tradesmen on the banks and placid bosom of that great river. The tales of suffering and daring will never be told. General George Rogers Clark's foothold in southern Indiana aggravated them. His last explorations to the Wabash in 1786 provoked the Indians; and they began preparations to resist the onward march of the white man. The British influence was used to the utmost to fan the disaffection into angry flames of war. The white man wanted the great woods northwest of the Ohio river to develop into farms. The red man wanted it for his hunting grounds and claimed title to the lands. The Indian tribes confederated together for self- defense and the situation grew rapidly worse. General Arthur St. Clair was Governor of the northwest territory. In a few years it was necessary to send an armed force to take care of the white settlements in Kentucky and along the frontier of Indiana. St. Clair was ordered to prepare a large force.
HARMAR'S EXPEDITION.
In 1790 things became desperate, and General Joseph Harmar was sent with four hundred regulars and one thousand fifty militia to the Indian village, Kekionga, near where the city of Ft. Wayne now stands. When he reached the village October 15, 1790, he found that it was deserted. On the 16th he sent out a force under Colonel John Hardin of thirty regulars and two hundred militia. Three days after on the 19th they met a large
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BOONE COUNTY, INDIANA.
body of Miamis under command of Chief Little Turtle (Mi-ci-ki-noq-kwa) and were badly whipped. The battle occurred at the headwaters of Eel river, near the northwest corner of what is now Allen county. Hardin's loss was twenty regulars and six militia killed and many wounded. He rejoined Harmar and a hasty retreat was begun towards Ft. Washington (Cincin- nati) on the 21st. Hardin had claimed to be an Indian fighter, and he was so chagrined by his defeat that he prevailed on Gen. Harmar to let him try again. His plea was granted and on the morning of the 21st of October, at the head of sixty regulars and three hundred militia under Major Wyllys, he set back with a defiant air toward the seat of defeat. The little army reached the Maumee near Kekionga early on the morning of the 22nd. The militia was sent to pursue a party of Indians that seemed to be on the re- treat ; but they were drawn into an ambush and attacked by a superior num- ber. Little Turtle at the same time furiously assailed the regulars. It was a disastrous defeat. Several officers were killed, including Major Wyllys. Over one hundred and fifty men were killed. Hardin led the retreat. The Indians suffered an equal loss, and did not attempt to pursue the fleeing rem- nant. General Harmar gathered the fragments of his army, and began their march October 23rd for Ft. Washington. The expedition had suffered a loss of one hundred and eighty-three men killed and thirty-one wounded. While the disaster was going on at the Maumee, Major Hamtramck at Vin- cennes, led a small force against the Indians on Vermilion river, and de- stroyed several of their villages without serious loss. General Scott, in May, 1791, crossed the Ohio river and marched to the Wabash, destroying the Ouiatenon and surrounding villages. In July, 1791, Governor St. Clair sent out General Wilkinson against the Indians on the upper Wabash. The chief towns of the Ouiatenon on the Eel river and the Kickapoo village were de- stroyed. General St. Clair takes the field. The Indians were jubilant over their victories on the Maumee and the war spirit grew intense. Depredations became frequent and all settlements insecure. Something had to be done quickly or all would be lost. A force of three thousand was raised and put under the command of General St. Clair. He had orders to march to the Maumee and establish a post at Kekionga and garrison it. Meanwhile the Pottawattomies, Kickapoos, Delawares, Ottawas, Wyandottes and Shawnees had federated together and gathered an army of one thousand four hundred warriors, by joining with the Miamis in their coming great struggle for the expulsion of the whites. General St. Clair on the 3rd of November, 1791, reached the point where Ft. Recovery was afterward erected. On the morn-
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BOONE COUNTY, INDIANA.
ing of the 4th before daylight he was surprised by the Indians in full force. It was a terrible disaster. Fully one-half of the army was destroyed, and the rest were thrown in a helpless panic. Thirty officers and five hundred and ninety-three men were slain. One hundred women that had accompanied the army were destroyed. The Harmar defeat spread alarm, this spread terror over the territory. The battle occurred near the southwest corner of what is now Mercer county and near the state line. The Indians were led by Little Turtle, assisted by Tecumseh, Blue Jacket, Buck-ong-a-helas of the Delawares. General Wayne assumed command, at the head of three thousand soldiers most of whom were regulars, started out from Ft. Washington, Oc- tober, 1793, arriving at the scene of St. Clair's defeat, he erected a fort and called it Ft. Recovery. He received re-enforcements of one thousand six hundred mounted volunteers under General Scott. The Indians on the 20th of August launched their attack. A decisive battle occurred at Fallen Tim- bers, the Indians and their allies being defeated with frightful loss. With this defeat the power of the Indians was effectually broken. Fort Wayne, in honor of the successful general, was completed, and well garrisoned No- vember 22nd, 1794. This brings the struggle to the beginning of the treaties, that we have listed elsewhere 1795, and the establishing of the first line from Ft. Recovery near the southwest corner of Mercer county, Ohio, to the mouth of Blue river on the Ohio river.
The following clipping was taken from a Huntington paper :
Huntington, Ind., March 5, 1912 .- Joseph Engleman, last blood chief of the Miamis, is dead at the ancestral home of the royal Indian family on the old Lafontaine reservation two miles west of Huntington. Chief Joseph had been head of the Miami tribe since the death of Chief Gabriel Godfroy sev- eral years ago. Francis Lafontaine, his grandfather, one of the most noted of the Miami chieftains, succeeded Chief Richardville in 1840.
Lafontaine left no male heirs, and leadership of the once famous tribe reverted to another branch of the royal family. This daughter of Lafon- taine in time married Christian Engleman, a German farmer, and they lived on the old Lafontaine grant west of Huntington. Joseph was the oldest son, and on the death of Chief Godfroy several years ago, Joseph was elected chief.
As no male heir is living, the post of chief may again revert to the God- froy family, the honor going to George Godfroy of Peru, or to White Loon, son of Princess Kilsoquar of Huntington county. The new chief will be named by election at the next gathering of the tribe remnants.
CHAPTER III.
GEOLOGY AND TOPOGRAPHY.
We place under this caption our knowledge of the earth's surface and its formation. All the history that we have is written on the rocks in the fossil remains. The position of the solid elements of the earth's surtace whether in the smooth plain or the upheaved or the broken, crushed and powdered portions, that constitute the drift portion of the earth's surface, all enter into what we understand under the science of geology. It is his- tory that has been made by water, heat and cold. These solid substances have been broken off by wind, upheavals of internal force and moved about on the earth's surface by water and ice. Nature in its formation of the earth's history wrote the story, and what we term geology is the knowledge that men have gathered and classified as the science of geology. There is a great amount of speculation in regard to how this work was done and the time. We will not enter into the many theories of the world's growth and development, but let the reader look this matter up in books devoted to this special branch of history. Indiana is placed by the geologist in the Devonian Carboniferous and subcarboniferous ages. If we go deep enough we can find record of the Azoic age of Archaean time, the very oldest rocks that were formed, when there was neither vegetable nor animal life. Above this comes the Paleozoic time the "Aeon of ancient life," including the Upper and Lower Silurian ages also the Devonian and Carboniferous eras. The latitude and longtitude of Indiana was doubtless here at that time as it is now, but it was the bottom of the sea. How many thou- sands of centuries since that condition existed we can not tell and there is no certain way to ascertain. It must have been a broad expanse of ocean stretching far to the southwest and north and northwest over the great lake legion. It is under this wide expanse of country that the Trenton rock is found and it belongs to the Lower Silurian era which is a subdivision of the
1 i
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BOONE COUNTY, INDIANA.
Paleozoic time. This Trenton rock is the store-house of the natural gas and crude petroleum that have so lately blessed the world. Over this Trenton rock comes the sedimentary covering containing myriads of polyps and other low forms of animal life, which with the abundant and luxuriant plant life entered into the composition of the stone strata. Just how long this process was going on no one in our age can tell. That is a question that yet remains for solution if any desire to delve into the unknown. Next comes the Upper Silurian which is composed of the decomposition of a higher grade of mol- lusks. Above the Silurian is the Devonian epoch laid down in the bottom of the ocean. These rocks are made of the most part of limestone and black shale. During this Silurian period, the exact date is not given, came what is termed the "Cincinnati uplift." The southern portion of Indiana was in- cluded in this, and remained no longer the bottom of the sea and was the first part of Indiana to become dry land. Next in turn comes the Lower Carboniferous formed of what is known as knobstone or sand shales. To this strata belongs the noted Bedford oolitic limestone, considered the best building stone in the country. Also in this period came the formation of the noted caves in southern Indiana. The upper Carboniferous era is the coal formation, composed of the immense growth of vegetation upon the marsh shores of the inland sea, that were in turn swept down and buried, this was done five times, making the veins of coal that underlie a great portion of the state of Indiana. About one-fourth of our state, mostly in the southwest part of the state, is including the coal fields. How long it was in forming no mortal can tell.
POST-TERTIARY PERIOD.
We can form no conception of the length of these periods. Scientific men have been conjecturing for centuries, but nothing definite has been concluded. We may as well leave it in this uncertain condition for no finite mind can unlock the depths of the hidden mystery. The glacial epoch or age of ice belongs to the Post-Tertiary period. Of all past Eons of time this last is most important to the people of Indiana. It was the great influence that fitted this part of the globe for the habitation of man. Slowly it had been growing for cycles of years shaping for life and this last period is to shape it for the highest of creation-Man-the Archon. Just how many sheets
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BOONE COUNTY, INDIANA.
of ice plowed their way, over the rough surface of the land that now composes the state of Indiana is not known. According to the theory of the formation of coal veins there must have been at least five floods of ice, for we have that many veins of coal. There may have been many more. The high places in the state had to be plowed down into the low places so as to make all in- habitable for man. The central portion of the state must have been a great swamp or shallow sea for ages. The great Morain or drift section covers this section of the state. We do not know when the Mound-builders lived in this country but we know that there is no evidence that they ever lived in what is now Boone county, for there are no mounds here. It must have been uninhabitable for man in the age when this strange people lived. We must remember that the general slope of this country is toward the southwest. It must have had the same inclination in the time of the ice flow, for the indi- cations are that the flow of the ice was in the direction of our streams of this day. The only exception is that of the Maumee river. Here are the most singular formations in the state. The St. Mary's river rising in Ohio and flowing toward the northwest and the St. Joseph's rising in Michigan and flowing toward the southwest, meeting the former at what is now Ft. Wayne, and instead of forming the Wabash river they turn upon themselves and form the Maumee and flow toward the northeast and into Lake Erie. This was doubtless caused by the great Morain heaped up in front of them by some monster glacier. The great bank of clay and gravel is there to this day and the peculiar formation of the rivers tells the story. The great ridge of drift stretching from Steuben county to Cass is from two hundred to five hundred feet deep, twenty-five miles wide and nearly one hundred miles long. This made a levee extensive enough to become a permanent barrier to the St. Mary's and St. Joseph's rivers and send their waters back to Lake Erie. Fully three- fourths of the state has been formed by the drift and Boone county lies wholly within this formation. Long after the formation of the coal beds there must have been a lighter drift of ice that formed the beds of mud and muck filled with twigs and decaying vegetable matter that is found in Boone county in various places from sixty to eighty feet deep in the sinking of wells. In addition to the sand, gravel and clay found throughout this drift belt, there are in various localities large boulders of foreign rock that have been carried here by some great force. Wind or water as it is known in our
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BOONE COUNTY, INDIANA.
day could not do this. We can not think of any force that could do this work except the large fields of ice known as glaciers. There are several places in Boone county where these boulders exist as great tracts of the sea of ice that must have passed over here and left these tracks. The rocks must have been imbedded in the ice and as it slowly passed over the land with its. immense force, grinding the rock into sand and gravel, it made the great deposits that are all over the state. The chemicals embodied in these rocks mingled with the great growth of vegetable matter formed the rich soil that so rewards the husbandman to this day. After the great plain was formed by the ice-fields, the water that came from the melting of the ice sought out the low places and found its way to the sea. By erosion it cut out channels and thus formed our rivers as we have them to this day. If we accept this theory of the formation of this country, we must conclude that God works by slow processes to shape the world for man's comfort and happiness. Through it all is the manifestation of his love and great power. He formed the dry land and shaped it for our good.
WELLS.
Before leaving the physical features of the county we would speak of its wells or supply of water for domestic use. There is no evidence that the Indian ever dug a well. That is a characteristic of a higher civilization. The Indian depended upon the gushing spring of which there was a liberal supply distributed throughout the county. In the old Indian village of the Eel river tribe in the Thorntown reserve, there were some noted springs. One of these northeast of Thorntown became noted as a center for quench- ing thirst of both red and white men gathered in early days. Also, those northwest and east of Thorntown yielded an abundant supply of good water for man and beast. The early pioneers were attracted to these springs and in many cases erected their log cabins near one of them. When no spring could be found it was an easy matter to obtain water by digging a well in any part of the county. Water could be found all the way from ten to forty feet almost anywhere within the limits of Boone county. For the first two generations the springs and shallow wells furnished the supply of water for the people. Later while prospecting for gas a new field for water supply was opened. We found no natural gas but we did learn something about (5)
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BOONE COUNTY, INDIANA.
the under strata of our soil and of the treasures hidden therein. Deep wells were sunk at various points in the county without finding natural gas. Yet in many of them strong veins of pure water was found, which proved a treasure that grows more and more apparent as the years roll by. In the well dug on the Kenworthy farm in the bottom Prairie creek, artesian water was found at a depth of one hundred feet, that rose eight or nine feet above . the top of the well, and has continued to flow without abatement all these years; and is now furnishing water to the home of Grant Riley who now owns and occupies the Kenworthy farm. Out of the search for gas came the period of drilled wells for water. These wells go to the depth of sixty to two hundred and fifty feet. This holds good all over the county and wells have been sunk everywhere for water. We here give the surveys of a few of them, to demonstrate the crust of the earth in Boone county.
In a well on the Michigan road southwest of the center of Marion town- ship dug by Mr. James A. Ball, of Thorntown, we have this find :
Soil and yellow clay
18 feet
Quicksand
3
Blue clay
20
White sand-Gas II
Blue clay
6
Swamp muck, leaves, twigs
7
Blue clay
19
Total depth 84 feet
In a well in Jackson township on the farm of Isaac Emerts, two and one-half miles north of Jamestown, a well was drilled in which the swamp was reached at sixty feet.
Soil
2 feet
Yellow clay and sand
28
Quicksand
I foot 6 in.
Blue clay 29
feet
Black muck, twigs, branches
3
Sand and clay.
I2
Silicious shale
160
Total
235 feet 6 in.
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BOONE COUNTY, INDIANA.
In a well dug on Main street in Lebanon just east of the public square we have this survey :
Soil 2 feet
Blue clay
I2
66
Sand
5
In this strata was found a large number of fresh water shells in a good state of preservation. Four feet lower down in gravel, a number of lower Silurian fossil-shells-Rhynchonella capas-were found.
WITT AND KLIZER'S WELL AT THORNTOWN.
This well was dug to the depth of 104 feet, and continued by boring to the depth of 343 feet. At the depth of 100 feet, the trunk of a tree apparently northern cedar, several inches in diameter, was found. The trunk of the tree extended entirely across the well. The exposed portions of the tree were nearly perfect, showing no scars nor effects of abrasion, such as would have resulted from violent contact with rocks or other hard substances.
The following is the entire section of the well as given by James A. Ball who superintended the boring of the well :
Soil
2 feet
Yellow clay
19
Quicksand
4
Blue clay
125
The cedar tree was found in the blue clay.
Silicious shale-Soapstone
193
Total
343 feet
WELL AT LEBANON.
The well on Washington street in Lebanon shows a varying condition of strata to a depth of about forty feet.
Soil
7 feet
Yellow sand I foot
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BOONE COUNTY, INDIANA.
Yellow clay
3 feet
Blue sand and clay
I foot
Sand
4 feet
Blue clay
3
66
Gray clay
3
Sand and gravel
4
Blue clay
2
Hard-pan
4
. Blue (laminated) clay
14
Gray clay
3
Sand and clay
IO
Blue clay
23
Coarse gravel
I foot
Blue clay
25 feet
Total
108 feet
WELL OF D. M. BURNS.
The well of D. M. Burns, civil engineer, on his farm two miles north of Lebanon on the Frankfort road exhibited the following section :
Soil
2 feet
Yellow clay
7
Gravel and sand
2
Blue clay
22
Gravel
2
Gravel and clay
3
Blue clay
59
Boulder
I foot
Blue clay
23 feet
Total
II2 feet
1
1
1
"
‹‹
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BOONE COUNTY, INDIANA.
BIG SPRINGS.
In the neighborhood of Big Springs the water is found from eight to ten feet below the surface. Numerous springs throughout this region flow out of the surface of the ground. No clay is reached in this neighborhood. At Rosston, two and one-half miles to the southwest, water is obtained from eight to twenty feet below the surface.
WELL AT ROSSTON.
Soil
I foot 6 in.
Red clay
8 feet
Sand and gravel
IO
Total
19 feet 6 in.
WELL AT NORTHFIELD.
Water is obtained from twenty to forty feet below the surface. Section of average well.
Soil
2 feet
Yellow clay
IO to 20
Sand or gravel. 10 to 20 “
Total
42 feet
At Clarkstown the depth is the same as at Northfield.
ZIONSVILLE.
At Zionsville, in Eagle township, water is found from twenty to sixty feet.
Average of wells at Zionsville :
2 feet Soil
Yellow clay IO
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BOONE COUNTY, INDIANA.
Blue clay
4 to 10 feet
Gravel
I to 3
66
Blue clay
20 to 40 66
Total
65 feet
Section of Foster and Leap's well at Royalton :
Soil
3 feet 6 in.
Yellow clay
17
Gravel
5
Blue clay and gravel.
70 feet 6 in.
Total
96 feet
UNION TOWNSHIP.
At Brunswick and Milledgeville the wells average from eleven to forty- two feet.
JEFFERSON TOWNSHIP.
At Dover abundance of good water is obtained at a depth of seven to twenty-two feet.
FRANK HARRIS' FARM.
On the Harris farm, one mile south of Thorntown, we find
Soil and yellow clay 19 feet
Quicksand 4
Blue clay
IO3
Cemented gravel
6
Total
132 feet
There are great depths of sand and gravel of good quality for building purposes and roads in the northwest part of the county and in various other localities in the county.
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BOONE COUNTY, INDIANA.
On the Moffitt farm, one and one-half miles west of Thorntown, four feet of soil and forty feet of gravel were penetrated but no water was found and the work was discontinued. Two miles farther west, on the Robert Woody farm, a stratum of sand fifty-five feet in thickness was passed through in boring a well. The following is a section of Mr. Woody's well.
Soil and yellow clay
18 feet
Fine white sand.
55
Blue clay
71
66
Limestone
3
Total
147 feet
Throughout the northwest part of the county quicksand almost uniformly occurs under the yellow clay. The thickness of the beds of quicksand varies from two to sixteen feet. The yellow clay runs from three to thirty feet in depth.
The section of a well three miles east of Thorntown in Washington town- ship near the Union church illustrates the character of the deposits through- out that section.
Soil and yellow clay
27 feet
Quicksand
9
66
Blue clay
75
Total
III feet
The boring of these wells throughout the various parts of the county furnish abundant proof of the drift formation that prevails all over the county. No limestone has been struck except in the west part of the county. No organic remains except in the one well at Lebanon. The muck and swamps from seventy-five to one hundred feet below the surface shows a peculiar drift formation in the county. There are no walls or enclosures in the county, nor any mounds of great interest. Occasionally small mounds are seen, but explorations in them have not disclosed any fact other than are generally known concerning these works. Ashes, charcoal and occasionally implements have been found in them. Granite and flint implements, while not so common as in many other counties, are still frequently found here.
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