USA > Indiana > Johnson County > History of Johnson County, Indiana > Part 4
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In the next year King and his brother-in-law, Simon Covert, with William Shannon, a neighbor, again passed through the county on the way to the new capital site to attend the first sale of lots in the new town. They then continued on toward the Wabash country, returning to Kentucky through the western route.
The rest of the story of the county organization we will tell in the words of Judge Banta, who had it from the lips of the principal actor in those stirring scenes :
"In the fall of 1822 George King, Garrett C. Bergen and Simon Covert came from Kentucky to look at the lands in this part of the New Purchase. The capital of the state had been laid out that summer, and thin streams of immigration were pouring into the New Purchase from the east and the south. Not all of the counties of central Indiana were then organized, as at present, but such unorganized territory, including that of Johnson, was at- tached to Delaware county. These land hunters had an eye to the partition of the New Purchase into counties in the near future, and when they reached the Blue River settlement King inquired of Samuel Herriott for an eligible site for the location of a town, and was cited to the tract lying between Young's creek and Camp creek. The place was visited, and it was found to be covered by a fine growth of beech, sugar tree, ash, walnut and poplar timber, while a tangled thicket of enormous spice brush grew up beneath. Along Young's creek, a great hurricane had passed some years before, as was plainly to be seen from the great swaths of timber cast along its bottoms. The storm had evidently come from the west, and at the mouth of Camp creek it had changed its course and, following the course of this stream, had plowed a great, wide furrow, extending for miles in the dense groves of timber which grew along its bottoms. Just above the mouth of Camp creek,
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on the north side of Young's creek, was a tract of boggy ground, and at the upper margin a sulphur spring burst forth. Here was a deer lick, and the numerous paths worn through the dense brush, converging from every quar- ter of the compass, not only testified to the place being a favorite resort of the deer, but to their great abundance. The men were pleased with the prospect, and, King, selecting the eighty-acre tract on which the town of Franklin was afterward located, Covert took the eighty lying to the east, and Bergen that on the north. But, when they reached the land office, it was ascertained that Daniel Pritchard, on the 25th of September before, had entered King's tract; King entered the tract lying to the west of it, while the others purchased as they had originally intended. King sought out Pritchard at once and bought his eighty acres by paying him two hundred dol- lars as an advance of the original cost. The Legislature was expected to meet soon, and, for some reason not well understood now, quite a stir was among the people in some localities as to the probable action to be taken with refer- ence to new counties. Those of the White River neighborhood entertained a lofty idea of the Bluffs as a future shipping port. The commissioners for the location of the capital building visited the spot, and, it is said, that a minority favored the place. But the capital had gone elsewhere, and the White River people now set about the organization of a county with such territorial boundaries as would enable the Bluffs to compete for a county seat location. With county lines so firmly established as they are today, and central Indiana so handsomely platted into counties as it is, it is difficult to appreciate the claims that must have been put forth; but let it be borne in mind that central Indiana was at that time a great wilderness, with here and there a little settlement, and that the Bluffs was one of the noted places in the land.
"There were those in the Blue River settlement aspiring in behalf of their new town of Edinburg; but, while the White River people organized and employed a lawyer to attend the Legislature and look after their inter- est, those of Blue River seem to have taken no active part in the matter.
"George King took upon himself the burden of seeing that the territory lying between Shelby and Morgan counties was duly organized, and to that end a petition was duly prepared, and was circulated by John Smiley. Ac- cording to contemporaneous memory, Smiley seems to have brought to his aid a zeal that insured a numerously signed paper. All the men and all the boys in the Sugar Creek settlement, on both sides the Shelby line, and the larger majority of those living in Blue River, signed that petition, in person
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or by proxy, and Col. James Gregory, a senator from Shelby county, as the friend of the new enterprise, claimed that it contained the names of all who had died and of some who had never lived in the country. That petition was never submitted to a legislative committee; but Mr. Smiley went into Washington county, where he had formerly lived, and there he procured signers to a petition which was used.
"Armed with his petitions, King, on his way home to Kentucky, turned aside and stopped at Corydon, where the Legislature was in session, and the battle was soon on. Harvey Gregg, a shrewd lawyer and an active poli- tician, winning in manner and popular in his address, who had lately moved to the new capital from Kentucky, was there as the representative of the White River interest. King feared Gregg and his winning ways, and, had it not been for geographical position, the lawyer would most likely have carried off the prize, and the Bluffs have been a county town.
"A Mr. Johnson, from some point still lower down White river, also appeared on the scene, and, as the sequel will show, lacked little of securing the prize to himself, in spite of all others. His plan, as also the plan of Gregg, is not now remembered, and, but for the testimony of some who took part in these scenes, it would be difficult to believe that any legislator could seriously have thought of disturbing the harmony of counties already organized.
"King and Gregory, finding their interests identical, pulled together. The Sugar Creek and Blue River petition was destroyed, on the advice of the latter, but a bill was prepared, and the Washington county petition kept in the field.
"In the House of Representatives the King bill was passed at once; but in the Senate trouble began. King was acquainted with but two mem- hers in that body, one of whom was Marston G. Clarke, the member from Washington, and a nephew of the celebrated George Rogers Clarke. He was a stern, dignified man, "barely able," says Oliver H. Smith, "to read a chapter in the Bible, and wrote his name as large as John Hancock's in the Declaration of Independence." His sense of justice was acute, his mental force great, and his influence in the Senate almost unbounded. A man of his character and temperament, King thought it not safe to attempt to in- fluence in behalf of his bill, lest he should be suspected of mercenary mo- tives and a prejudice spring up in the mind of the legislator against him and his measure.
"For two weeks Gregg and King were making their best endeavors to
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carry their respective measures to a triumphant issue. In the House, Gregg was powerless; and in the Senate so was King. In the House every measure antagonistic to the King bill was voted down, while in the Senate no action was taken.
"There was but one map of the state at the time, accessible to mem- bers of the Legislature, and it not infrequently happened that while one committee was using it another wanted it. In the belief that a map placed before the Senate committee on the organization of counties at the proper time might be in his favor, King procured paper and the necessary instru- ments, and, occupying the better part of a night in the work, he traced out a rude map of the state.
"In a few days the Senate committee on the organization of counties was to meet, and Johnson asked for the use of King's map for that com- mittee. General Clarke, who was a member of the committee, was not present during the early part of the meeting, nor was Harvey Gregg; and Johnson, who was a fluent talker and an importunate man, had it all his own way. The committee, as a compromise measure doubtless, agreed to report in favor of his plan; but before the session adjourned, Clarke came in and inquired what had been done. Being told, he studied the map at- tentively for some moments, and then burst out with : 'That fellow,' pointing to Johnson, 'or some friend of his, owns land on which he expects the county seat of this new county to be located,' and, at this sally, Johnson in- dignantly left the room.
"Then King approached the table on which the map lay and pointed out, as well as he could, the reasons why the House bill organizing Johnson county should become a law; and, after considering the matter carefully, General Clarke said: 'You shall have it, sir!' and, before the committee ad- journed, it was agreed to report in favor of the House bill.
"The next day the report was accordingly made and concurred in, the bill was passed, and, on the last day of December, 1822, it received the Governor's signature and became a law of the land. It is in the following words :
"'Section I. Be it enacted by the General Assembly of the State of Indiana, That from and after the first Monday in May next, all that part of the county of Delaware contained in the following boundaries, to-wit: Be- ginning at the southwest corner of section thirty-four, in township eleven north, of range five east, the same being the southwest corner of Shelby county; thence running north with the line of said county to the southeast
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corner of Marion county; thence west to the northeast corner of Morgan county ; thence south on the line of said county to the township line dividing townships ten and eleven; thence east to said line to the place of beginning, shall constitute and form a new county, which shall be called and designated by the name of Johnson.
"'Sec. 2. That John Parr, of the county of Washington; Adam Mil- ler, of the county of Jackson; John W. Lee, of the county of Monroe; James Gregory, of the county of Shelby, and Archibald McEwing, of the county of Bartholomew, be and they are hereby appointed commissioners for the purpose of fixing the permanent seat of justice for said county, agreeably to the provisions of an act entitled, "An act for fixing of seats of justice in all new counties that may be laid off." The commissioners above named or a majority of them shall meet at the house of John Smiley in said new county, on the first Monday in May, and proceed to the duties assigned them by the law.
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"'Sec. 3. That the said county shall enjoy all the rights, privileges and jurisdictions, which, to a separate county, do or may properly belong.
" 'Sec. 4. It shall be the duty of the sheriff of Bartholomew county to notify the commissioners above named, either in person or by written notice, of their said appointment, and the county commissioners of the county of Johnson shall allow him such compensation therefor as they shall deem just and reasonable, to be paid out of the county treasury of said county.
" 'Sec. 5. The circuit court and all other courts of said county of John- son shall meet and be holden at the house of John Smiley, or at any other place the said court shall adjourn to, until suitable accommodations can be provided at the permanent seat of justice of said county; and so soon as the said courts are satisfied of that fact, they shall adjourn thereto, after which they shall meet and be permanently held at such seat of justice.
" 'Sec. 6. The agent who shall be appointed to superintend the sales of lots at the said seat of justice shall reserve ten per centum out of the proceeds thereof, and also of all donations made to said county, which he shall pay over to such person or persons as may be appointed by law to receive the same, for the use of a library for said county.
" 'Sec. 7. The board of county commissioners of said county of John- son shall, within twelve months after the permanent seat of justice shall have been selected, proceed to erect necessary public buildings therein.
" "Sec. 8. The same powers, privileged and authorized, that are granted to the qualified voters of the county of DuBois and other counties named in
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an act entitled, "An act incorporating a county library in the counties therein named," approved January 28, 1819, to organize, conduct and support a county library, are hereby granted to the qualified voters of the county of Johnson, and the same power and authority therein granted to, and the same duties therein required of, the several officers and the person or persons elected by the qualified voters of DuBois county and the other counties in the said act named, for carrying into effect the provisions of the act en- titled, "An act incorporating a county library in the county of DuBois," and the counties therein named, according to the true interest and meaning thereof, are hereby extended to and required of the officers and other per- sons elected by the qualified voters of the county of Johnson.
"'Sec. 9. This act to be in force from and after its passage.
"'G. W. JOHNSON, Speaker of the House of Representatives.
" 'RATLIFF BOON, President Assembly.
"'Approved December 31, 1822.
" 'WILLIAM HENDRICKS.'
"Oliver H. Smith was, at the time, a member of the Legislature, and he proposed for the new county the name of Johnson, in memory of John Johnson, one of the judges of the first supreme court of the state. Governor Hendricks at the same time appointed John Smiley sheriff of the new county and issued a writ of election directed to him, appointing the 8th of March, 1823, as the day on which the qualified voters of the county were to as- semble at the house of Hezekiah Davison, on Blue river, and Daniel Boaz, on White river, and elect two associate judges, one clerk of the circuit court and one recorder, in manner and form as required by law."
The error in fixing the place of beginning of the boundary at the southwest corner of section 34, instead of at the southeast corner, persisted until the revision of the laws of the state in 1843, when it was corrected. Johnson county, therefore, has an area of three hundred and twenty square miles, or two hundred and eleven thousand two hundred and six acres, count- ing the "over-run" shown by the plat surveys.
The county is drained by White river (the west fork), Blue river and their tributaries. The first named crosses the extreme northwestern part of the county, cutting off about one thousand acres. Its tributaries, beginning at the north side of the county, are Pleasant run. Honey creek, Stott's creek and Indian creek. In pioneer days these creeks were good mill streams, (4)
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though not large. Especially were Stott's creek and Indian creek favored as mill sites, Houghter's and Slaughter's and St. John's mills being located on Stott's creek, and Barnes' mill and Porter's mill on Indian creek. But these streams, especially Stott's and Indian creek, draining the rougher sections of the extreme western and southwestern part of the county, are now, except in times of freshet, mere rivulets, affording a scant water supply in the woodland pastures. It is estimated that one-third of the territory of the county finds its natural drainage into the White river tributaries.
Blue river crosses the extreme southeastern part of the county, cutting off perhaps fourteen hundred acres. Just within the limits of the county, Sugar creek unites with it to form Driftwood. Sugar creek and its princi- pal tributary, Young's creek, receives the drainage of nearly all the rest of the county. Sugar creek is a fine stream, entering the county one and a half miles northeast of Needham, passing out of the county for two miles in the range of Franklin, and then in a general southerly course to its outlet. Its extreme western channel is near the mouth of Young's creek, about three miles west of the eastern boundary line of the county.
Sugar creek has always been marked by the purity of its water and its abundance of fish. In pioneer days its waters were fairly alive with fine fish, and even today almost every bend of the stream is marked with camp sites. Numerous fine springs abound along its course, notably at the Yellow Bluffs west of Edinburg, at the Barnett Bluffs just below the mouth of Young's creek, at Camp Comfort, and at the Needham railroad bridge.
Along Sugar creek many grist mills were built at a very early day. Collier's mill was built near the old ford at the foot of Yellow Bluffs, it being certain that it was built and running in March, 1831. Two miles further north, near the center of section 20, William, Simon and James Shaffer built a saw mill about the year 1832, to which was later added a grist mill. At the crossing of the Greensburg state road, as early as 1822, John Smiley, first sheriff of the county, built a mill, probably the first struc- ture of the kind in this county. About the same time that the Shaffer brothers built their mill, the McDermed brothers erected a mill near the center of section 10, in what is now Needham township.
Little Sugar creek is the principal tributary of Sugar creek in the north half of the county, and affords an outlet for most of the drainage of Clark township. Near its confluence with Sugar creek John Ogle built a mill, prob- ably before 1826, and it was still known as Ogle's mill as late as 1830. No stream of any importance drains into Sugar creek from the east, at any place
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within the confines of the county. Herriott's creek is a small stream flowing into Sugar creek about one mile south of the mouth of Young's creek, deriv- ing its name from Samuel Herriott, who entered the "eighty" where the streams unite their flow.
Young's creek, the principal tributary of Sugar creek, drains a large part of the middle section of the county, and flows into Sugar creek near the west half-mile stone in section 17, in Blue River township, and near the head of Barnett's Bluff. It was named from Joseph Young, who entered one hundred and sixty acres in section 8, near its mouth, in 1821. The United States surveyors who originally surveyed the lands in the county named the stream Lick creek, because of the numerous and excellent deer licks that were scattered along its course. According to Judge Banta, "a noted deer lick was found a few miles north of the Big Spring at Hopewell, while an- other, equally noted, was at the mouth of the Hurricane. But Young's Cabin soon came to be known better than the licks, and the first settlers, caring little for the work of the surveyors in naming the streams, by com- mon consent changed Lick creek into Young's creek, and time has sanctioned their act." No county record perpetuates the earlier name.
Young's creek also furnished power for the rude water mills of the first settlers. John Harter located thereon in the "twenties," and for a few years ran a mill about a mile below Franklin. "He bought his mill irons of John Smiley, for which he agreed to pay in corn, two bushels to be due every other week, until the irons were paid for." The late Jefferson D. Jones used to tell that Harter had no bacon and he no meal, and that by agreement, he took a half bushel of meal every other week from the mill, for which he left with the miller its worth in bacon.
About 1827 Levi Moore got a little mill in operation on Young's creek at the mouth of Moore's creek, and, still later, Cornelius Covert built a mill on Young's creek about one-fourth of a mile north of the Bluff road. The mills on Young's creek, however, were, like those built on the smaller streams in the western part of the county, not successful and by 1850 all were abandoned.
Flowing into Young's creek from the east and northeast are Grassy creek, having its headwaters near Greenwood; Indian creek, with its source near Whiteland; and Hurricane creek, its biggest feeder on that side. Hur- ricane creek, sometimes in the early records known as "Harikane creek," was originally called Camp creek, but the latter name was soon displaced. A few years before the first settlers came to Franklin, a hurricane had passed
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through this place and had left its devastating mark upon the two valleys joining here. This incident was sufficient to fasten the name to the stream in preference to the name given by Whetzel when he located his camp thereon at an earlier day.
From the west Young's creek receives into its channel Moore's creek at Hopewell. This creek is named after Levi Moore, who in 1822 located on the present road leading to Hopewell at the site now occupied by the Mc- Caslin homesteads, just west of Young's creek. The Burkhart brothers- David, Lewis, Henry, George and William-came to Franklin township in 1822 by way of the Indian Trail, David building his cabin near the Canary homestead in section 20 and gave his name to a small stream flowing thence to Young's creek. His brother Henry stopped further south, as did his brother George, both entering lands in section 4, on the north side of Nin- eveh township, and the family name was also given to the creek that enters Young's creek near the line of Nineveh and Franklin.
One other tributary of Sugar creek deserves mention although it finds its outlet in the county to the south. Nineveh creek drains quite a large part of the township of the same name. The tradition as to its name is given by Judge Banta : "Richard Berry, living at the mouth of Sugar creek with his son Nineveh, a lad in his 'teens, wandered up the 'Leatherwood,' as the In- dians had named it, on a hunting expedition. Espying a deer on the oppo- site bank of the stream, young Nineveh shot and killed it. Crossing over for his game, the youth shouldered it and undertook to recross on a log, but a misstep sent both boy and game into the stream, which was covered by a thin coating of ice, and he was well-nigh drowned before rescued. Then the stream came to be known as 'Nineveh's Defeat,' and in the process of time the surplus word was dropped and 'Nineveh' left to perpetuate the memory of the lad's misadventure." Mention is made of one mill on the stream run by Isaac Williams as early as 1832, but it was doubtless a failure from inadequate water supply, as no later record of this mill is found.
The highest ground in the county constitutes a broad, flattened ridge or watershed, extending in a north-south direction three or four miles west of the center of the county, and bending eastward at both its north and south ends to reach points at or beyond the middle line. One of the most striking features of the surface, from the geologist's point of view, is the number of unusually large granitic boulders to be found on the ridge from Greenwood to Rocklane. The same evidence of glacial action is found over widespread areas of the county, but in many farms they have been broken up
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and removed. For many years gravel in abundance and of fine quality was found along the principal streams of the county, but the supply is no longer equal to the demand for road building purposes and pit gravel has now come largely into use in all new work, especially in the western half of the county.
CLIMATE.
The mean temperature and average precipitation at Franklin are given in the following table :
Mean
Average Temperature. Precipitation.
Degrees F.
Inches.
January
29.5
2.91
February
30.0
2.53
March
40.9
3.58
April
52.7
2.44
May
63.5
3.72
June
71.8
3.78
July
76.6
2.52
August
72.0
2.85
September
65.9
3.04
October
53.9
2.50
November
41.5
3.48
December
33.0
2.90
Annual
52.6
36.25
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MINIMUM AND MAXIMUM TEMPERATURES AT FRANKLIN.
Highest temperature recorded, 107° in July, 1901. This record covers the period from 1887 to 1908, inclusive, but within that time the July records are missing in the following years : 1889, 1891, 1892, 1894, 1895, 1896, 1897, 1898, 1904, and 1906. Lowest temperature recorded, 17º below zero, February, 1905. January and February records are complete for the entire period of record, 1887 to 1908, inclusive.
The average dates of killing frosts at Franklin are: Last in spring, April 21 ; first in autumn, October 18.
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AGRICULTURE.
Of the 206,080 acres in the county, 95.8 per cent., or 197,403 acres, is in farms varying in size from less than three to over 1,000 acres. As ascer- tained by the census of 1910, there are 2,025 farms in the county, of which over one-half include 50 to 175 acres each. The farming land in the county increased nearly 118 per cent. in value in the ten years from 1900 to 1910, being listed in the latter year at a total valuation of $19,204,550, or an aver- age of over $97 per acre for the entire county; while the total valuation of farm property, including buildings, implements, domestic animals, etc., adds over $5,000,000 to this amount, making an average valuation of land and farm property together of about $125 per acre.
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