History of Hamilton County Indiana, her people, industries and institutions, Part 15

Author: John F. Haines
Publication date: 1915
Publisher:
Number of Pages: 1051

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ground. Mr. Clampitt's hat was blown violently from his head, while the man with the "nappy" tow suit was enveloped in flames from head to foot. We are not definitely informed but it is to be presumed that the man was not fatally burned. Fortunately also neither of the other two members of the party was hurt. Mr. Clampitt left the well burning for some time and people came for miles to see the wonderful spouting pillar of fire. After a time the owner became afraid of this flaming menace and had the well filled up. He then dug another well, a water well this time, somewhere else.

The first gas well drilled for, and definitely known to be such, was struck eight feet in Trenton rock at a point east of the Follett flouring mill on Febru- ary 16, 1888. From that time on and continuing through the gas years, the wonderful fuel was struck in many places in the township. The true worth of this great resource of Hamilton county unhappily was not fully realized and appreciated till the best of the gas supply was exhausted by carelessness and waste.

The first cook stove was as great a wonder as the first gas well. Caleb Harvey brought an old style step-stove from Ohio and sold it to Daniel War- ren, Sr., for twenty-five dollars. It is recorded that settlers came from all directions to see cooking done on a stove.

CHURCHES OF THE TOWNSHIP.

In the Isaac Sharpe settlement the first regular church services were held in the log house mentioned above which had been erected for school purposes. These services were conducted under Methodist auspices, preliminary services having been held in the homes of Dennis Power and Samuel Seely as well as at Isaac Sharpe's. Among the early preachers mention is made of Rev. Heze- kiah Smith, Rev. Asa Beck and Rev. Welsh. The cabin built on Sharpe's land was known as "Sharpe's meeting house" and was used until 1854 or 1855. The church membership had so increased by that time that the old log church was not large enough longer to accommodate the congregation and the Pleasant Grove church was built. Rev. Michael Johnson was the pastor at the time the new church was erected.

In 1836 in the southwestern part of the township a class was organized and met at the houses of Nathan Wilson and other earnest members for about a year. Then a lot was donated by Elijah Patterson upon which a log church was erected. This pioneer edifice served its purpose until 1856. Nathan Wilson then donated a lot one-half mile east of the log building upon which the present Poplar Grove church was erected. The Baptists had an organiza-

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' tion at an early date, but had no regular house of worship for many years. Finally John Williams donated a lot upon which they erected a church in which services were held regularly until 1877. From that time on, however, they have been without a regular pastor. This church was called Mount Zion Baptist church.

In 1830 the Friends met at the home of Harmon Cox northeast of Carmel to organize and consult about a place in which to hold their services. They decided on the log cabin used for subscription schools and here for a period of three years they met regularly for worship. This was the first meeting of Friends in Hamilton county and is more fully described elsewhere in this volume.

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CHAPTER VII.

DELAWARE TOWNSHIP.

TOPOGRAPHY.

Delaware township is the second oldest division in Hamilton county. When the county was formed in 1822 there was no suitable meeting place for the commissioners in the seat of justice ( Noblesville) and they were ordered to meet at the home of William Conner in Delaware township. The first session of this body was held May 12, 1823, and one of the first acts of the board was the subdivision of the county into two townships, Delaware and White River. The boundaries of the two townships were set forth by the commissioners as follows: "Ordered by the board, that all that part of the county lying south of a line drawn from the most eastwardly boundary of said county, running with the line dividing sections seventeen and twenty. township nineteen north, until it strikes the most westwardly boundary, shall be laid off, established and known by the name of Delaware township." At this same session it also was ordered that George Kirkendall and James Will- iamson be appointed overseers of the poor. Edward Dryer and George Wise were appointed as constables of the new township. The first election was held at the home of William Bush in February, 1824.

From the territory originally set off as Delaware township were formed the townships of Fall Creek and Clay in 1833, with Delaware as the center of the three and containing thirty-five square miles.

EARLY SETTLEMENT.

William Conner was the first white man to locate in the county. He built his trading post early in the century. It is said he and his brother, John Conner, were given their liberty by the Indians who had captured them when young boys, as a reward for their courage displayed in successfully running the gauntlet. This feat, with liberty at the triumphant close of the trial, was performed in 1806 on White River banks just across from the site where William Conner later established his trading post. The subsequent history of

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William Conner is given elsewhere in this volume. George Shirts and his wife and three sons were the next white settlers, they having come through on pack horses in 1818. Mr. Shirts was one of the settlers who took up land with the understanding that he could enter it when the land was put up for sale. John Conner, however, entered thirteen hundred acres in that vicinity, including Mr. Shirts' selection of land, in consequence of which Shirts later moved to Noblesville township.

The Delaware Indian village was located on the west side of White River on the south bank of Dry Run. There were three considerable stretches of prairie land in the vicinity and on these the Indians cultivated corn. The Delawares were well advanced in the rudiments of civilization and built their log houses much as the white settlers did later. During the War of 1812 the Delaware village was destroyed by fire. In 1818, when the first white settlers came, the blackened ruins of the once comfortable homes of the Delawares were all that remained of the once prosperous village. It was never rebuilt, though the Indians continued to linger in the neighborhood, living in lodges until the tribe departed west. A large spring in the vicinity of their former village was a favorite haunt of the Indians and around it they held many drunken revels. However, it was not the water from the spring that formed the basis of these revels. Most of their "fire water" was said to come from William Conner. Whether this be true or libel it is known that Conner was very generous with his neighbors, white or red, and was said to sell rather to people without any money than to those having plenty, because he said those having cash could buy elsewhere, while those without could buy only of him.

FIRST DEATH IN COUNTY.

Sidney Sevift Shirts was the first white male child born in the township. The exact date is not known, but it is probable he was born in 1818 or 1819. Mrs. George Shirts, the mother of this child was the first white person to die in the county. She was buried by the Indians. William Conner erected the first brick house in 1823. The brick used in building this residence was manu- factured from the clay on his land. Making the brick in a brick kiln on the premises of the owner of the building to be erected was a common practice for a number of years. After the kiln had served its purpose and sufficient bricks for the house were completed the kiln was torn down, being of no further use to the owner.

Silas Moffitt erected the second brick house in 1827; and later in the (II)

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same year William Wilkinson, Sr., built the third brick residence in the town- ship. The Moffitt house and lands are now owned by the heirs of Silas Moffitt and have never changed hands, except as it was divided among the heirs. All three of the original brick houses are still standing substantial monuments of the early days.

EARLY INDUSTRIES.

The settlers on the east side of the river did most of their milling at the Betts mill on Stony Creek. On the west side of the river some of the settlers went to the mill of Jacob Whitinger in Marion county, others going to John Conner's mill. Mr. Conner operated a small corn mill on his farm and it is said that this was used as an auxiliary to a small distillery which he conducted. Occasionally, he ground corn for his neighbors, but this was done only as a special accommodation, the extension of the favor depending wholly upon the humor he happened to be in when his patrons arrived.

William Rooker erected the first grist mill in the township in 1831 or 1832. This mill was situated within a mile of Rooker's residence on Cool creek. The stream on which it was situated furnished the motive power. The machinery was of rather an ancient variety and its capacity was limited, but this primitive mill served the purpose and filled the needs of the settlement, saving the settlers several miles of travel over difficult roads. Mr. Rooker added a saw mill when the building of frame houses became popular and this he developed into a prosperous industry. In 1839 Amasa Bond bought the mill. Peter Wise and sons were the next and last owners, for by this time the mill had outgrown its usefulness.

The second mill was erected by William Wilkinson in 1839 or 1840 a short distance west of the Rooker mill on the banks of the same stream .. This mill was operated but a few years when it was torn down and replaced by a more modern structure. Several times this mill changed hands, the names of James Mendenhall and W. W. Rooker being noted as among the various owners.

One of these owners was Jesse John and for a number of years it was known as "John's Mill." The writer remembers, when a small boy going to this mill with his father. It was the custom to go early in the day and re- main until the grist was ground, each customer receiving the flour made from his own wheat. At certain seasons of the year farmers took enough grain to have ground into flour and meal to last for a number of months. The mill yard would be filled with wagons, with horses unhitched and tied so they could

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eat hay from the wagon-bed. The men sat around talking politics or swapping bits of news, while the boys spent the time in fishing in the creek or paddling up and down the mill race in a canoe. It was a time the small boy looked forward to and it lingers in the mind of the man who experienced it as a pleas- ant recollection of boyhood days.

EARLY HIGHWAYS.

Among the early settlers beside those already mentioned, was William Bush who came to the county in 1819, and lived for several years upon the land which he cleared. Later he moved away from the neighborhood. Joab Brooks was the next comer either in the latter part of 1821 or the first of 1822. Charles Lacy, William Wilkinson, Benjamin Mendenhall, John S. Heaton, Aquilla Cross, and John Deer each entered land in Delaware town- ship in 1822, and each resided on the land which he had entered. George Peter and Michael Wise entered land near Joab Brooks in 1823. By this time the settlement was well established, and new settlers were continually throw- ing in their lot with those already there. By the year of 1836, there was not a section of land in the township upon which no settler had lived and made improvements.

With the growth of the settlement the settlers began to petition the com- missioners for the location of roads. They asked for these roads to connect places of interest to them and over the most suitable lands. This meant the roads would be surveyed to avoid when possible the marshes and ponds which were plentiful before the country was ditched and drained. Travel through this marshy section, even after the corduroy roads were laid over the marshes, was an exceedingly "shaky" business. In driving over this kind of a road as the wagon bumped from one log to the next, the whole ground in the im- mediate vicinity quivered or shook with each jar of the vehicle on the logs. Humanity was not the only sufferer from the "shakes" caused by the un- drained marshes. The very ground trembled underfoot. The first road was surveyed from Winchester, Indiana, to intersect a road running from Con- ner's farm to Indianapolis and was known as the Winchester and Indianapolis state road. The first county road was cut along Cool Creek with Noblesville as its terminus. State and county roads were distinguished by three marks cut in the trees along their course, while the private or neighborhood roads were distinguished by having only one mark cut in the trees. In the early days when the inhabitants were scattered, it was customary to follow the line of least resistance in the matter of roads, that is following the high and dry

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districts instead of the line surveyed which often led through marshes. So when all these sections became settled often times the road in use was through privately owned land, which as it was gradually fenced in, forced the traveler from the road into the marshes. In the first years of the settlement only the fields under cultivation were enclosed by fences, the stock being turned out to pasture in the woods. In this settlement, as in every other section of Hamilton county at that period, the pioneers found the wolves very trouble- some to the stock. They often became very bold and ventured near the houses picking up lambs, pigs, and even attacking young calves. The settlers beside all their other work in the fields and in the homes made a great fight to exterminate the terrible wolf. They hunted the animals and caught them in traps and destroyed them in every way possible. It seems almost impossible when driving over this beautiful county now, that much less than a century ago, where beautiful farms and homes now abound, wolves and other wild ani- mals roamed and ravaged the country making it unsafe for stock and even women and children to wander far from home.

THE TOWNSHIP'S FIRST SCHOOL.

The first school in the township was opened in the winter of 1830 in a log cabin on the farm of Abraham Williams. The children of Mr. Williams and the children of his neighbor, Joseph Eller, were the only pupils. In 1832 the residents of the district erected a school house and Mr. Lynch was the first teacher. Both of these schools were maintained by subscription. The Farley school was built in 1837, Johnson Farley being the first teacher. About the same year, Joseph Gore taught a school in a cabin on land belonging to George Wise. All these early schools were conducted on the subscription plan until the present school system was inaugurated. Then, one by one, each district obtained its school house and a teacher. At one time there were ten district schools in the township. At present there are only two district schools and only one one-roomed building. The remainder of the students attend the graded schools at Carmel and Fishers. These schools also include a four-year high school course.

. EARLY RELIGIOUS SERVICES.

As early as 1829 Rev. Ray, a Methodist preacher, conducted religious services in private houses, particularly at the home of Mrs. Dorothy Heady. This was on the east side of the river. On the west side Rev. Hezekiah Smith, a local Methodist preacher, held services as early as 1836. W. D.

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Rooker, also a local preacher, followed Rev. Smith and two years after the first meeting a class was organized. Meetings were then held in the Farley school house until 1852. Rev. White was then the pastor and he urged the building of a house of worship so strongly that the congregation erected a modest frame building and christened it, in honor of their pastor, White chapel. The Friends organized early but their organization was with the meeting place at Carmel and is treated of elsewhere.

Beside having a school house on his land in which school was taught and religious services held, Mr. Farley also was the proud owner of a deer park. The enclosure was surrounded by a high rail fence and Mr. Farley maintained it for a long time. If it could have been made a permanent institution, as Mr. Farley evidently intended it should be, what a wonder it would be today! All modern wonders, gas wells, trolleys, automobiles, even airships, to use modern phraseology "wouldn't be in it" with a deer park containing real live deer.

A Frenchman by the name of Bruitt kept a sort of a store or trading post, selling trinkets and such things as met the simple wants of the settlers, but he was not a permanent settler. He seemed to identify himself with the Dela- ware Indians and when they went west he departed with them.

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CHAPTER VIII.

FALL CREEK TOWNSHIP.

TOPOGRAPHY.

Fall Creek forms the southeast corner of Hamilton county. It was not set apart from the original township of Delaware until 1833. In November of that year the county board of commissioners ordered the forming of the new township giving the boundaries. At the next session the order was amended as there was an error in the boundary lines first given, the following being correct : "Beginning at the southeast corner of county and running north on the county line to the line dividing sections 17 and 20, township 18, north, range 6, east, thence west to the line dividing sections 19 and 20, town- ship 18, north, range 5 east, thence south with said section line to the south line of said county; thence east to the place of beginning." The township embraces an area of thirty-five square miles.

A glance at the map of Fall Creek township shows three principal streams each flowing in a southwesterly direction almost entirely across the township. Fall Creek the largest stream flows a little southeast of the center diagonally across the township. Mud creek crosses in almost the exact center from northeast to southwest while Sand creek waters the northwest corner. The township thus favored is an exceptionally good farming district, the creek bottom land being unusually rich and productive.

EARLY SETTLEMENT.

There is some uncertainty as to who was the first white settler in the township. There were two brothers by the name of Tharpe who came early and gave their name to a small creek, a tributary of Fall creek, but it seems they did not become permanent settlers, having returned to their former home after a brief sojourn in the wilderness.

In the year 1821 Francis Kincaid settled in the township and began improvements on the land which he subsequently entered. Mr. Kincaid is thought by some to be the first permanent settler. Hiram Coffee also came

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to the township about the same time and many others support his claim to priority of settlement. In support of the latter claim there is the testimony of William Mckinstry, who settled in the township in 1832, but who some years prior to that time made a visit to the township with a view to entering land there. He said, "We stopped at Hiram Coffee's house in 1824 to feed our horses and refresh ourselves. He then had quite a large clearing on his farm, and I do not think that his improvements could have been, at that time, less than two or three years old. Mr. Coffee told me then how long he had been living on the land, but so many years have passed since that time that I have forgotten."

Not long after the settlement of Francis Kincaid and Hiram Coffee, they were joined by others, among them being Samuel Halliday and James Nutt. In the following year Richard Curry, Abraham Helms and Francis Whelchel settled in the same neighborhood. In 1825 the latter-named parties entered lands which they cleared and farmed for many years and which is today, for the most part, in the hands of the descendants of those early pioneers.

When these first settlers came to Fall Creek township they found there two deserted cabins and for many years it was a great mystery as to who could have lived there prior to the settlers above mentioned. In later years it has been proved conclusively that these deserted cabins were built by the two men, Bridges and Sawyer, who murdered several Indians, for which crime they were afterward hanged in Fall Creek township. So the mystery of the vacant cabins was explained after many years.

After these first settlers had made homes and clearings for themselves, other families seeking new homes in the rich lands of the west were not slow to avail themselves of the opportunity offered by the opening of the new settlement on the banks of Fall creek. By the year 1836 every section of land in the township had been settled upon except section 16, which was reserved as school property. Among the next settlers of the township are found, in 1826, the names of James Brown, Josiah Humbles, Thomas Lackey and John Heath. The following year John and Isaac Helms, James Murrer and Absolem Setters joined those already mentioned, each entering land and beginning improvements as soon as possible. Each succeeding year, until 1836, came other families, until finally the whole township was settled and the land gradually improved to its present high state of cultivation.

The soil of this township is a rich loam intermixed more or less with sand. Along the streams the soil consists of the "black ground," the fertility of which is almost inexhaustible. The drainage is excellent and in all parts of the township fine crops of corn, wheat. rye, oats, etc., are produced.

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A HAPPY HUNTING GROUND.

In the early days Fall Creek township was one of the best "hunting grounds," not only for the red men but later for their pale-faced brothers. It was in this section that the Indians who were murdered by Bridges and Sawyer were hunting and the fine furs and pelts in their possession, coveted by the two whites, were the direct cause of the murders. The streams and forests in Fall Creek were unequaled as watering and feeding grounds for the wild game which was so abundant a century ago.

Enoch Mckay, one of the pioneers, was a famous Nimrod of those days, while all his neighbors participated in the hunt to a greater or less degree, none, however, being more enthusiastic or showing better evidence of skilled marksmanship than he. An early historian gives an account in Mr. Mckay's own words of some of his numerous experiences. He says: "I shot and wounded an old buck, and then advanced upon him with the intention of cutting his throat. As I sprang upon my wounded prey he rose up with me and got his horns fast in a close-fitting roundabout which I wore. We had a desperate struggle, and soon both fell, but in opposite directions. I regained my feet instantly and grasped his horns with one hand, while with the other I clutched my hunting-knife. I made a stroke at his throat, but broke my knife about the middle of the blade and directed several blows at the same point afterwards, before I knew that it was broken. When I made this discovery I began sawing at his throat with the broken blade and finally succeeded in severing the jugular vein. The fight was soon over and I had a big, five-pronged pair of antlers and a splendid lot of venison as trophies of the conquest." Mr. Mckay also tells in the following his way of trapping a bear : "I remember discovering the track of a bear where he came to water. There was a hollow log, which he would have to pass, and I determined to use this log for a trap and capture him without getting within his embrace. I put a piece of venison into the log and set my gun in such a way that it would be discharged as soon as he touched the meat. I then went away to await the result of my scheme and about six o'clock in the evening I heard the explosion which I had expected. I repaired to the spot the next morning and found it was as I had expected, a 'dead shot.' I took him home and had a fine lot of bear's meat." Mr. Mckay enjoyed the hunt for the hunt's sake as well as for the pleasure of supplying the family larder with meat, for in this township, as well as in the others at an early day, hunting and fishing were stern neces- sities. The settlers usually farmed about ten or twelve acres, raising some- times scarcely enough to supply their own family needs, but the land in Fall

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Creek township was rich and each year new clearings were added to those already under cultivation. In the earlier years there were no markets at which to dispose of any extra produce had there been any raised. Despite the common diligence, however, the settlers invariably helped their neighbors when the necessity arose. In case of a newcomer or a failure of the crops of an old neighbor, he who had some grain to spare loaned to the neighbor in need, the grain being repaid, bushel for bushel, when the next year's crop was gathered. No interest was ever charged for such loans and ofttimes, if the crops were scanty, the debt was not all returned till some succeeding and more prosperous year.

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History of Hamilton County Indiana, her people, industries and institutions, Part 15

Author: John F. Haines Publication date: 1915 Publisher: Number of Pages: 1051

Author: John F. Haines
Publication date: 1915
Publisher:
Number of Pages: 1051