History of Cass County, Indiana, from its earliest settlement to the present time; with Biographical Sketches and Reference to Biographies, Volume I, Part 6

Author: Powell, Jehu Z., 1848- [from old catalog] ed
Publication date: 1913
Publisher: Chicago and New York. The Lewis publishing company
Number of Pages: 763

USA > Indiana > Cass County > History of Cass County, Indiana, from its earliest settlement to the present time; with Biographical Sketches and Reference to Biographies, Volume I > Part 6

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FAUNA.

A few fossil shells have been discovered in the Devonian limestone outcropping along the Wabash river, but not very distinct or character- istic. Some tusks and teeth of the mastodon or ancient elephant belong- ing to Tertiary or Post-tertiary period have been found in several local- ities of the county ; generally found in boggy ground. The animals found within the bounds of Cass county by the earliest explorers were an occa- sional buffalo or American bison; bear, deer, wolves, beavers, otter, pan- ther, wild-cat, wild hog, lynx, fox, mink, raccoon, opossum, woodchuck, porcupine, and skunk, and possibly others.

The clearing of the forests and draining of marshes have driven them all out except an occasional skunk and woodchuck may be found in cer- tain wood lands along the creeks, and about the only native animals now to be seen are squirrels, rabbits, chip-munks, moles and ground-mice.

REPTILES -

Rattle snakes, copper-heads, black water and land snakes, green snakes, tree snakes, blue racer, garter snake, hard and soft shelled turtle, bull-frog, green-frog, salamanders, eels, and toads were numerous in all parts of the county, but removal of the forests, draining the ponds, culti- vation of the land has destroyed the habitat of these reptiles, and only a few garter snakes, small turtles, frogs, toads, moles and ground-mice can be found in this age of progress, even the hoarse croak of the big bull-frog is heard no more.

BIRDS

In the first settlement of this county wild turkeys, geese, ducks, pheas- ants, prairie-chickens, pigeons, snipe, plover, eagles, sand-hill cranes, and

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several allied species were abundant, all of which have disappeared before the onward march of civilization.

The edible birds and animals were quite a source of food for the early settlers; in fact, these were the only meats they had until the land could be cleared and corn raised to fatten hogs and cattle. Quite a num- ber of small birds with crows, hawks, and buzzards are still numerous, but no edible birds are left except a few quail. The boo of the prairie hen and rumble of the pheasant, the gobble of the wild turkey, the cry of the eagle, the thunder of the thunder-pumper, the mournful sound of the whip-poor-will and the hooting of the owl are seldom now heard, and the sounds of these birds of pioneer days would startle the youths of the present.

Removing the timber and breaking the ground and draining the swamps began to show their effects upon the springs and water courses. Many became dry during the warm season. All life, be it salamander, fishes, mollusks, insects or plants that found therein a home, died. The birds that lived among the reeds and flags, mingling their voices with the frogs, disappeared, and the land reclaimed, tells, in its luxuriant growth of corn, no story of the casual passerby of the former inhabitants which occupied it.

BIRDS OF TO-DAY

The following list of birds may still be found but not in such numbers as formerly : Robin, meadow-lark, blue-jay, black bird, bluebird, wood- pecker, dove, pee-wee, chip bird, catbird, thrush, king-bird, hawk, crow, owl, swallow, and English sparrow, the latter being introduced some years ago, is very hardy and prolific and is becoming a nuisance rather than otherwise. It has great endurance, its fighting qualities and audac- ity is unheard of, and it is driving out such birds as the martin, blue- bird, pee-wee, and barn swallow with which it comes so intimately in contact as their habitats are in common.

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CHAPTER V ARCHAEOLOGY

This subject opens up a wide and most interesting field, "the origin and development of the human race."

Only the briefest outline can be given here.

We find a gradual evolution or development of all things worldly. Scientists have found sufficient evidence to believe that the earth was once a molten mass which has gradually cooled down forming a crust surrounding a still molten mass within. The contracting of this crust and the pent-up forces within has formed our mountains and valleys. As the forces of nature, which is God working, according to His immut- able and fixed laws, developed the earth's surface, the lowest forms of plant and animal life appeared. As each succeeding geologic age pre- pared the earth's surface for other and higher forms of life, they made their appearance, until man, who stands at the head of all animate crea- tion, finally came on the scene, and was given authority and power to control and bring under his rule the entire earth and all things therein, subject, however, to definite and fixed laws, made by a higher and all powerful law giver, whom some would call nature, but we call God.

As to the time man first made his appearance on earth cannot defi- nitely be settled. The human remains of the river drift and cave dwell- ers of Europe show beyond a doubt that many many thousands of years have elapsed since man first trod the earth. Man is no exception to this general rule of development from a lower to a higher state, as all evi- dences show that primeval man existed in a very low condition of sav- agery. It seems to us eminently fitting that God should place man here, granting to him a capacity for improvement, but bestowing on him no gift of accomplishment, which by exertion and experience he could acquire : for labor is, and ever has been, the price of material good. So we see how necessary it is that a very extended time be given us to account for man's present advancement. Supposing an angel of light was to come to the aid of our feeble understanding, and unroll before us the pages of the past, a past which, with all our endeavors, we as yet know but little.

Can we doubt that, from such a review, we would arise with higher ideas of man's worth? Our sense of the depths from which he has ascended is equaled only by our appreciation of the future opening before him. Immediately we shall have passed away. Our nations may dis- appear. But we believe our race has yet but fairly started in its line of progress; time only is wanted. We can but think that, that view which limits man to an existence extending over but a few thousand years of the past, is a belittling one. Rather let us think of him as existing from a past separated from us by these many thousand years; winning his present position by the exercise of God-given powers and faculties. The fiat of Omnipotent power could have created the world in a perfected form for the use of man, but instead of so doing, Infinite Wisdom allowed

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slow acting causes, working through infinite years, to develop the globe from a nebulous mass. Man could indeed have been created a civilized being, but instead of this, his starting-point was certainly very low. He was granted capacities, by virtue of which he has risen. We are not to say what the end shall be, but we think it yet far in the future.

PRE-HISTORIC MAN IN AMERICA

The general accepted view is that the aborigines of America came from eastern Asia and belong to the Mongolian race. A comparison of the skeleton; a study of their implements, utensils, and language all point in that direction. When this migration took place and just how, no man .knoweth. It might have been before Behring Strait was cut through and when it was an isthmus connecting the two continents or some of the hardy Japanese mariners might have been carried to Alaskan shores; all we know is that it was thousands of years ago. Professor Whiting finds many proofs of the existence of man in the gravels of the Pliocene age in California. Under the solid basalt of Table Mountains have been found many works of man's hands as well as the celebrated "Cal- averas skull." This skull was taken from a mining shaft at Altaville, Cal., at a depth of one hundred and thirty feet beneath several different strata of lava and gravel. These auriferous gravels, Professor Whiting ascribes to the Tertiary age, and he mentions twenty or more instances of finding human remains or the works of man in these gravels. (See Cambridge Lecture, 1878.) If some of our eminent scientists are not mistaken, man lived on our Pacific coast before the glacial period, and the great ice sheets pulverized the surface of the earth and dispersed life before them, came down from the North.

He roamed along our western rivers before the giant volcanic peaks of the Sierras were uplifted, and his old hunting grounds are to-day buried underneath the great lava flow which desolated ancient Califor- nia and Oregon. It is generally conceded that man lived in California in the Pliocene age, in the neolithic stage of culture. There is no question but that the climate and geography, the fauna and flora were then greatly different from those of the present. In this case truth is stranger than fiction, where whole continents are elevated or submerged, changing the climate to temperate, torrid or frigid; when we see the great Pacific archipelago emerge from the waves, and in place of the long swell of the ocean, we picture the pleasing scenes of tropic lands, the strange floral growth of a past geological age, the animal forms which have since disappeared, with man already well advanced in culture; when we recall all this and picture forth the surprising changes which then took place, the slowly subsiding land, the encroaching waters, and the result- ant watery waste, with here and there a coral-girth island, the great volcanic uplift on main land, the flaming rivers of molten lava, which come pouring forth out of the bowels of the earth followed by cold, ice and snow; when we consider these and the great lapse of time neces- sary for their accomplishment, how powerless are mere words to set forth the grandeur and the resistless sweep of nature's laws and to paint the insignificance and trifling nature of man and his works.

This people from eastern Asia, who first set foot on American soil, away back in the dawn of the Post-tertiary age, have overrun the entire American continent. By various environments, geological, geographical and climatic changes, and by tribal contentions and wars they have become changed greatly in habits, customs, language and degrees of civilization but all are supposed to have come from one common stock.

The Eskimo according to some American and European scholars is

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HISTORY OF CASS COUNTY

supposed to be one of the oldest races or tribes of men and occupied the , Jersey coast but were driven north by more powerful tribes. The Toltecs and Aztecs in Mexico and South America displayed a higher state of civilization than any other of the American races prior to the coming of Europeans. Perhaps the greatest, grandest and most wonderful ruins of pre-historic man in America are those of Copan, Palenque and Uxmal in Yucatan. They consist of immense buildings, probably palaces, temples and other public structures made of elaborately cut stone, with statues representing man, animals and strange figures sup- posed to be idols. These ruins were first minutely explored and de- scribed by Mr. Stephens in 1839. He found these ruins in the midst of a tropical forest with giant trees growing in and around the buildings that had probably been destroyed by an earthquake at some time in the mystic past, but who carved and erected these great, beautifully designed palaces, or at what time, is only known to the All-Wise Ruler of the universe. But a people capable of erecting such grand and beautiful palaces of cut stone certainly possessed a high degree of culture and civilization. The remarkable ruins found in the midst of a dense tropi- cal forest, in architectural design, comparing with the great and historical ruins of Babylon and Egypt are certainly most interesting to the archæologist.

MOUND BUILDERS

As the naturalist, by the inspection of a single bone, may determine the character and habitat of an animal, so the archaeologist by the aid of fragmentary remains, is able to tell us the manners and customs of a people or race long since removed.

The scientist today passes up and down the valleys and among the relics and bones of a vanished people and as he touches them with the magic wand of scientific induction, these ancient men, so to speak, stand upon their feet, revivified, rehabilitated and proclaim with solemn voice the story of their hidden tribe or race, the contemporaneous animals and physical appearance of the earth during these prehistoric ages.

The mound builders are known by reason of the remains they left, these are principally mounds-hence we call them mound builders. They occupied the valley of the Mississippi with its tributaries and thousands of mounds are found scattered from the lakes to the gulf. These mounds are all sizes, from 20 to 500 feet in diameter and from a few feet to 150 feet in height, and different shapes, are classified accord- . ing to the supposed purpose for which they were used, into, sepulchral or burial mounds, temple mounds, sacrificial mounds, observation, habi- tation and effigy mounds. Some of the largest mounds and fortifications have been found near Marietta, Ohio, and St. Louis, Missouri, but they are found all over Indiana, more especially in the southern part of the state. Dearborn county contains large mounds and fortifications on the banks of the Ohio river; extensive mounds have also been explored in Vanderburg, Knox, Franklin, Clark and other counties. In some mounds ashes and charred remains of animals and human bones have been found; in others, the graves containing human skeletons sometimes encased in stone sarcophagi with various utensils and implements of war and domestic use. Mortars usually made of boulders cut into a bowl shape for grinding corn, seeds, etc., for food. Pestles, made of hard granite rock for grinding food products in the mortars. Stone axes of various shapes and sizes, scrapers, peelers or fleshers. Arrow and spear heads of all sizes and shapes; drills made of hard stone and pointed to drill holes in stones, etc .; knives made of flint are quite com- mon in this state; saws are long flint instruments with serrated edges;

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pipes were made of different kinds of stone and many were artistically carved; hoes and spades. These are broad and thin and well executed implements usually made of flint. Awls, gorgets and ornaments of vari- ous kinds and sizes made of different colored stone.

Pottery-The material used in the manufacture of pottery was a 'variety of clay mixed with powdered shells and thus formed a kind of cement of great tenacity and capable of resisting the actions of fire to a great degree. The specimens of pottery found in the mounds through- out Indiana are rude when compared to the work of civilized people but are remarkably well executed when we consider the conditions of the Indians and their remote ancestors. These articles consist mainly of what appear to have been cooking pots, water vessels, cups, vases, etc.

MOUNDS IN CASS COUNTY

The character of the works of the mound builders indicate that they had permanent places of abode, and were not subject to the vicissitudes of a hunter's life. A study of their institutions has done much in revealing the construction of ancient society and thereby throwing light on some of the mysterious chapters of man's existence. No clearly defined mounds or earth works indicating the residence of mound build- ers or a prehistoric race have been discovered or excavated within the bounds of Cass county, although Isiah W. Kreider reports that many years ago he discovered two mounds on, his father's farm in the north- east quarter of section 36 in Bethlehem township, about seventy rods east of range line between Adams and Bethlehem townships and sixty rods north of the south line of said quarter section. The north mound was fifty feet in diameter and ten feet in height. When plowing around and over this mound the horses broke through the covering and sank up to their bellies, so Mr. Kreider reports. These mounds have never been fully excavated to discover their exact character or what they may contain. Many flint and stone arrow and spear heads, stone hatchets and axes, chisels, ornaments and other implements of the stone age have been found on the surface of the ground, dug up in excavation or found 'in small recesses or caves in different parts of the county.

These implements are made of stone not found in this region and indicate that the Indians or mound builders brought them from the Cumberland and Allegheny mountains and the Lake Superior region.

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CHAPTER VI INDIANS

ORIGIN-HABITS-CUSTOMS-INCIDENTS-REMOVALS

When Europeans first settled on American soil they found the Indians occupying the country. It was then the prevailing opinion among the whites that the Indians were one common family, of similar habits and speaking the same language. This error, however, was soon dispelled with a more extended observation and intimate relations with the new people in different sections of the country.

It was found that there were many tribes and combination of tribes or nations, so to speak, differing radically in language, habits and degrees of civilization.

In a former chapter it was stated that it was the consensus of opinion among anthropologists that the various peoples inhabiting the American continent in the past, sprang from one common stock, the Mongolian race in eastern Asia. Many thousand years passed away and this primitive people were scattered over the entire continent, some tribes advancing, others retrograding, in the scale of civilization, brought about by various geologic, climatic and sociological conditions. These peoples having no written language, there was no fixed standard, hence we find great varia- tions in oral expressions until the language of the tribes in widely sep- arated sections of the continent became radically different, as well as their customs and habits, owing to environmental influences and other causes. The great difference between the mound builders of the Mis- sissippi valley, the Toltecs and Aztecs of Mexico and South America and many of the nomadic tribes of our western country can thus be easily accounted for and it is not unreasonable to suppose that they all sprang from one common stock. Since the coming of Europeans to America, many examples of our American Indians have been observed, where they erected mounds for different purposes, thus showing some relationship to the mound builders. De Soto, when he landed in Florida three hundred and fifty years ago, had an opportunity to observe the customs of the Indians as they were in their primitive conditions before the contact with the whites had wrought the great change. At the very spot where he landed, supposed to be Tampa bay, they observed the chief's house stood on a high mound near the shore, made by hand, and goes on to relate that "the Indians try to place their villages on elevated sites, but inasmuch as Florida is a flat and level country they erect elevations themselves, by carrying earth and erecting a kind of platform, two to three pikes in height, the summit of which is large enough to give room for twelve, fifteen or twenty houses to lodge the cacique and his attendants. La Harpe, writing in 1720, says of the tribes on the lower Mississippi: "Their cabins are dispersed over the country upon mounds of earth made with their own hands." Similar mounds were noticed in Arkansas by the first European explorers. In

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southern Illinois, Missouri and Tennessee the sites of thousands of Indian villages were observed, not in or on mounds but marked by little circular saucer shaped depressions, surrounded by a slight earthern ring.

The Natchez Indians also constructed mounds upon which to build their houses. The custom of erecting mounds was not confined to the southern Indians. Colden states that the "Iroquois made burial mounds, placing the body on the ground then raising a round hill over it.

It was the custom among a large number of the tribes to gather together the remains of all who died during several years and bury them all together, erecting a mound over them. About the beginning of the eighteenth century "Blackbird," a celebrated chief of the Omaha's returning to his native home after a visit to Washington, died of small- pox. It was his dying request that his body should be placed on horse- back, and the horse buried alive with him. Accordingly, in the presence of all his nation, his body was placed on the back of his favorite white horse, fully equipped as for a journey with all that was necessary for an Indian's happiness, including the scalps of his enemies.

Turfs were brought and placed around the feet and legs of the horse, and on up the sides of the unsuspecting animal and so gradually the horse and the dead chief were buried from sight, thus forming a large burial mound. (See Catlin's North American Indian, Page 95.) These references show that the Indians of historical times did erect mounds and that there is every reason to suppose they were the authors of the temple mounds of the south; that they lived in permanent vil- lages and knew how to raise mounds and embankments. It would then seem as if this removed all necessity for supposing the existence of an extinct race to explain the numerous remains known as mound builders works. In fact, the more we study the subject, the more firmly we become convinced that there is no hard and fast lines separating the works of the mound builders from those of the later Indians. We therefore think that we may safely assert, that the best authorities in the United States, now consider the mound building tribes were Indians in much the same state of culture as the Indians in the Gulf States at the time of the discovery of America and we shall not probably be far out of the way if we assert that when driven from the valley of the Ohio by more warlike tribes they became absorbed by the southern tribes; indeed, the opinion is quite freely advanced, that the Natchez themselves were a remnant of the mysterious mound builders. Whilst the people inhabiting America prior to its discovery by Columbus in 1492, are supposed to have thus descended from one common stock, yet the Indians, as found by Europeans, were divided into numerous tribes and nations differing greatly in habits, customs and language.

"The Algonquins" was a large and prominent division of the Indians . of North America and all the tribes in this section belonged to this grand division.

When the white man first began to settle in Indiana, it was occupied principally by the Miami confederacy of Indians, which had been formed for the purpose of mutual defense against the five nations who occupied territory to the northeast and consisted of the Mohawks, Cayugas, Onondagas and Senecas.

The Miami League was made up of the following tribes: The Twightwees, later known as Miamis, Eelrivers, Weeas, Piankashaws and Shockeys. The Piankeshaws and Shockeys occupied territory along the lower Wabash about Vincennes; the Weeas' principal village was Ouiatenon, west of Lafayette, while the Miamis had settlements along the head waters of the Great Miami, Maumee, St. Joseph of Lake Michi-

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gan and the upper Wabash and its tributaries. The Pottawattomies or Pouks occupied the northwest part of the state, their lands extending down to the Wabash river at Logansport.

Other tribes of the Algonquin family were the Delawares or Lenne Lennapes, Shawnees, Peorias, Kaskaskias, Ottawas, Chippewas, Mis- sessauges, Kickapoos, Sacs and Foxes. The Miamis and Pottawattomies are the only two tribes that occupied the present territory of Cass county at the time of its first permanent settlement by the whites, and the further consideration of the Indians will be largely confined to these two tribes.

When the first permanent settlers located in Cass county over eighty years ago, they found it occupied by the Miami and Pottawattomie tribes of Indians. While these Indians were wild hunters of the forest, living in a comparatively primitive state of savagery, yet their contact with the whites for one hundred and fifty years in trade and other relations, had changed their character and methods of living to some extent, still it is interesting to study the customs of this mysterious and now almost extinct race, specimens of which are a great curiosity to the people of this generation.

HABITS, CUSTOMS AND PECULIARITIES

The Red Men of America possessed marked peculiarities of features : high cheek bones; long, straight black hair, of special coarseness; a red or copper-colored complexion; black eyes and tall and erect in stature. Their habits were peculiar as well as their physical construction. They lived by hunting and fishing, with a very limited cultivation of the soil. They were fierce, vindictive, remarkably indifferent, stoical, grave in demeanor, treacherous and cowardly. They would fight but not in the open field or on equal terms, if they could avoid it; they preferred cunning to open, brave warfare. Their method of warfare consisted almost wholly in surprises and they possessed peculiar powers of hiding their trail when on the warpath, or in discovering that of their enemies. They lurked in ambush and would often lie hidden away for days, with- out food or water, waiting for an opportunity to surprise and slay an enemy. They would always carry off their own dead, not for the pur- pose of sepulcher, but to conceal their loss from their enemy. They had a stoicism that was absolutely wonderful. They withstood heat or cold with a like indifference. In times of plenty they gorged, in times of scarcity they starved with the same indifference. They endured torture with a sort of ferocious glee. They delighted in inventing new methods of torture to increase the sufferings of their enemies, and noth- ing could so radically gain their favor or excite their admiration as to bear the most intense suffering without a tremor. It was this char- acteristic to suffer stoically, that earned them their title to bravery, but it was not real bravery but stoical indifference. Their dress was of the scantiest kind, the men being almost naked and the women wear- ing a short skirt made of coarse hemp. In cold weather they wore skins of animals rudely stitched together. The men hunted, fished or fought, while the women did all the work and acted as beasts of burden. This did not arise so much from laziness as from a notion of pride, that the man must be a warrior and that work of any kind was beneath the dignity of a warrior. They roamed the woods and had no permanent abiding place for any length of time, although in later years they had villages and were not so nomadic as in the earliest settlements of the country. Their villages were composed of rude houses or wig- wams made of poles stuck in the ground and tied together at the top

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History of Cass County, Indiana, from its earliest settlement to the present time; with Biographical Sketches and Reference to Biographies, Volume I, Part 6

Author: Powell, Jehu Z., 1848- [from old catalog] ed Publication date: 1913 Publisher: Chicago and New York. The Lewis publishing company Number of Pages: 763

Author: Powell, Jehu Z., 1848- [from old catalog] ed
Publication date: 1913
Publisher: Chicago and New York. The Lewis publishing company
Number of Pages: 763