USA > Indiana > Johnson County > History of Johnston County, Indiana. From the earliest time to the present, with biographical sketches, notes, etc., together with a short history of the Northwest, the Indiana territory, and the state of Indiana > Part 26
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In ISIS, Jacob Whetzel, an inhabitant of Franklin County, in this state, became the owner of a tract of land in what was known as " Harrison's Purchase," near the mouth of Eel River, to reach which, by the ordinary route of travel, required a journey by the way of Louisville. But Jacob Whetzel was not the man to go a round-about way when a nearer lay through the woods. He was of that Whetzel family so celebrated in border warfare. He had been used to the wilderness all his life, and was not a stranger to Indian fighting. When eleven years of age, his father had been killed, and himself and Lewis, a brother two years older, taken prisoners. Crossing the Ohio River, near which his father's cabin stood (which was not far from Wheeling, W. Va. ), the Indians led the lads a distance of twenty miles in the Ohio woods, and camped for the night. Under cover of the darkness they escaped, and, eluding their enemies, who followed in hot haste, they reached the Ohio, which they crossed in safety, to find their father's cabin in ashes, and his mutilated body a prey to the wild beasts. It is said the boys vowed eternal enmity to the Indians, a vow which the elder kept in letter and spirit to the day of his death. His name never ceased, as long as he lived, to be a terror to the red men, and it is connected with many of the most romantic and thrilling episodes of border warfare.
Jacob Whetzel seems to have been of a less sanguinary disposi- tion than his brother Lewis, although he bore his part well in the Indian wars of his time. He was in many of the principal cam- paigns, and rendered to both Generals St. Clair and Harrison, sig- nal service as a spy. But when the fighting was done, he settled down to the peaceable life of an agriculturist. Nevertheless he remained a woodsman in a sense, and so the Eel River purchase being made, he applied to Anderson, the chief of the Delawares, and from him obtained a license to cut a trace from Brookville, on the White Water, to the White River. This was in June, ISIS, and in July following, he set out to perform the work. His son
* Edward Maxwell, a brother of Dr. David H. Maxwell, who afterward lived and died at Bloomington, was living at the time at Madison,
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Cyrus, a youth of eighteen, accompanied him, as also did Thomas Howe, Thomas Rush, Richard Rush and Walter Banks. His plan was to reach White River. and work back to Brookville. Taking one of the men, Thomas Rush, he went in advance, marking the route, leaving his son and the rest of the men to follow with nine days provisions. Cyrus and his men had not entered far into the wilderness when, late one evening, they met a party of Indians whose actions, notwithstanding their warm protestations of friend- ship, excited suspicion. The two parties passed each other, but the white men who were unarmed, kept a more vigilant guard that night than was common even in that day. The night set in cloudy, and rain soon began falling, but the hours passed quietly on, until the camp fire burned low, when the man on guard discovered In- dians lurking in the vicinity. Quietly waking his sleeping com- panions, they as quietly abandoned their camp. and, notwithstand- ing the gloom of the night, they followed Jacob Whetzel and his man, by " feeling of the notches and blazes cut in the trees." Whatever the motive that led the red men to prowl around their camp-fire that night, nothing more was seen of them again on that journey.
Meeting with no other hindrances, save such as were incident to the trackless wilderness, Cyrus Whetzel and his comrades journeved on in the path indicated by the blazing of the trees. and crossed Flat Rock about seven miles below the present site of Rush- ville and Blue River, about four miles above Shelbyville and Sugar Creek, a little north of Boggstown. On reaching a water-course a few miles east of White River, a nest of honey bees was discovered in the hollow limb of a walnut tree, which yielded a liberal supply of honey: but it was too bitter to be eaten. and reluctantly they threw it away. Nevertheless, from this circumstance. came the name of " Honey Creek," the first creek within the borders of this county to receive a name at the hands of white men.
White River was struck at the Bluffs, the place being so named by Jacob Whetzel at the time, and we may well imagine that the scene which met the gaze of himself and companions was such as they little expected to see. Jacob Whetzel had set out to reach by- a short cut a home at the mouth of the Eel River; but standing on the Bluff in the July days, he looked out over a wide, deep and rapidly flowing river, through whose clear depths the eye could penetrate to the white pebbles that lay on the bottom, far below, whose waters swarmed with fish, and whose level bottoms and the adjacent rolling uplands were covered with great forests that grew from a soil of wonderful richness, and there on the banks of the Ope-co-mec-cah, of the Delaware tongue, he resolved to establish his future home.
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Jacob Whetzel went alone down the river to his Eel River pos- sessions, while young Cyrus, with the axemen, turned back and be- gan the work of cutting out what was long known as " Whetzel's Trace." Their progress was slow. A path was cut of sufficient width to admit the passage of a team. Their chosen route led them by what is now known as "Doty's Hill." After passing the rolling land extending a short distance back from the river, they found a level country, which at that season of the year, was one con- tinuous swamp. In the dry seasons of previous years the Indians had burned it off, and the road makers went farther in their work that first day than any succeeding one. They reached the place of an ancient beaver dam near the present eastern boundary line of Pleasant Township. It was built across the outlet of a swamp and made a pond of water a half mile long, and varying in width from a few yards to several hundred, but at that time it apparently had long been deserted by its furry inhabitants.
The road these men made wound in and out among the trees and around the fallen logs as sinuous as a "runway." The pur- pose of its makers was to make a path along which the Whetzel teams could travel to the White River. They had no thought of any subsequent travel.
At the Hurricane, which they crossed in Section IS, Town 13 north, Range 5 east, and which afforded the only running water between Honey Creek and Sugar Creek, they established their camp, and thence worked on the road east and west. This they found to be a good camp site, and it occurred to Cyrus Whetzel to name the stream Camp Creek, a name that afterward gave place to Covert's Creek, and that in time to the present name, Hurricane, so given to commemorate a wind storm that prior to the settlement of the country had prostrated much of the timber along its course.
Slowly hewing their way through the woods eastward, the axe- men came at length to a great swamp about two miles west of the present east boundary line of the county, which was known in the early day as the Great Gulf. This was a mile in width and two miles in length. Two streams, Flat Creek and the Leatherwood, entered the low land, constituting the gulf at its northern end, and their combined waters at the southern made Little Sugar Creek. Sugar Creek was already named when the Whetzels came. Its Indian name of Theu-a-me-say was not in use among the white trappers and hunters who were already familiar with it. Great for- ests of sugar trees grew at intervals along its banks, to which the Indians themselves, in the sugar making season, came, and to the circumstance of these growing trees, it is supposed the present name of the stream is owing.
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Cyrus Whetzel never forgot the hardships endured while cut- ting out the "Whetzel Trace," and especially that part of it lying between Camp Creek and Sugar Creek. "We were often mid- sides in water," said he, "and at night we had to make brush heaps on which to sleep."
After crossing Sugar Creek they cut through to the next considerable stream, a distance of five miles, encamping on its banks late one evening, when Jacob Whetzel, on his return from his Eel River expedition, rejoined them. After the scanty meal of the evening, Jacob produced a bottle of peach brandy, which he had procured in Owen County, and over it, the party in a merry mood, pledged the memory of wives and sweethearts at home. To the inspiration due to that bottle, are the people of Shelby County indebted for the name of one of their prettiest streams- Brandyavinc. The name was given that night. Soon after, their provisions giving out, the road making was abandoned, and Whet- zel and his men went on to their homes: but in a short time he re- turned and completed his work. Whetzel's trace proved of consid- erable importance in the settlement of Marion, Johnson, Morgan and Shelby counties. Hundreds of the early settlers traveled over all or parts of it in search of wilderness homes.
The following March, 1819, Jacob Whetzel, with his son Cyrus, returned to the Bluffs. Selecting a camping ground about 500 yards below the place where the Waverly mills were afterward built, he began building a cabin. but ere this was done, a violent snow storm came on and lasted until the snow was fifteen inches deep. At length, he prepared a place of shelter, and that spring cleared a small field in which he planted corn, not forgetting to plant a quantity of peach seeds he had brought with him. The following fall he moved his family to his new home, and thus he became the first settler in Morgan County.
The permanent settlements of the Delaware Indians were on White River, and their favorite mode of travel was in canoes along that stream. But their towns were nevertheless connected by trails, usually winding through the forests not far from the river. Through that part of, Johnson County, in which White River runs, the Indian trail was on the east bank of the stream. Indeed, the highway from Martinsville to Indianapolis, which passes through Waverly and over the Bluffs, runs, in the main, not far from the line of that ancient trail. Other trails intersected it coming from the south, and so the White River trail was an important highway of the red men. And it cut some figure in the colonization of Johnson County by the white men. While many of the early set- ler s came into White River Township by the Whetzel trace, the
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very first ones came by the White River trail, and it is therefore deserving of notice in this place.
From the year of the admission of Indiana, up to the time of the taking of the census in 1820, the population of the State more than doubled. The census showed a population of 147,178 in IS20. Indiana was well advertised abroad during the Indian wars. It had been well traversed by a citizen soldiery, principally from Kentucky, and the wars being over, the same soldiery and their friends came in large numbers in hunt of homes.
On the 11th of January, 1820, commissioners were appointed by the General Assembly to locate a new seat of government, which was done in the month of June following. John Tipton, who was subsequently elected to a seat in the United States Senate from Indiana, was a member of that commission, and he has left a Jour- nal containing an account of the travels and action of himself and the commission, which, although very brief, and written without any pretence of literary skill, is nevertheless packed with valuable information to the student of the past. Tipton and Gov. Jennings set out from their homes at Corydon on the 17th of May. They laid in plenty of " baken coffey etc.," and took with them " Bill, a black boy" and a tent. Striking the ancient river trail some- where below the present site of Columbus, they traveled thereon all the way through this county and on to the mouth of Fall Creek, above the present site of Indianapolis. The party, which had in- creased on the way till it numbered seven. did not reach Bezzy's place till Saturday evening, the 20th of the month. It took them four days to ride from Corydon to that place, and two hours and a quarter to ride from the upper rapids of the In-quah-sah-quah. With Bezzy they staid over night. Tipton, who " had an eye for good ground, and at various times owned large tracts," saw the beauty of the prospect around him. "Good land, good water and timber," he wrote in his Journal. The next morning at half after four o'clock they set out again, but now that these commissioners, accompanied by the Governor of the State, are traveling through Johnson County over an Indian path, and their movements become more interesting to the thread of this history, the Journal becomes provokingly obscure. It says:
"Sunday, twenty-first, set out at half-past four. At five passed a corner of Section 36, Township II north, of Range 4 east, passed a place where Bartholomew and myself had encamped in June, 1813, missed our way. Traveled east then. At 8 o'clock stopped on a muddy branch, boiled our coffey. At 9:30 turned back. I killed a deer, the first one I have killed since 1814. Came on the train (trail) at ro; found tree where I had wrote my name on the 19th
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of June, IS13. We traveled fast and at 7 encamped on a small creek, having traveled about forty-five miles."
It was the northeast corner of the southeast Section of Nineveh Township, that was passed at 5 o'clock that Sunday morn- ing: but where was it that General Bartholomew and himself had encamped in June, 1813? It was after passing that corner they missed their way and traveled east. If we knew the time that elapsed after passing the Section corner, before they missed their way, we might, with some degree of certainty, locate the " muddy branch " and perhaps identify the very farm whereon the future United States Senator killed his deer, that Sunday, June morning, so many years ago, and may be find the spot where grew the tree on which he wrote his name on the 19th of June, IS13. But the most we can say, is, that the encampment must have been in Nieveh Township. The boiling of the "coffey" and the shooting of the deer, most likely took place within the borders of Blue River, and the tree on which the name was written may have been in Nineveh Township. but was probably in Franklin Township.
The Commissioners were sworn in on the 23rd of May, and made the location on the 7th of June, fifteen days having been spent traveling up and down the country examining the several places men- tioned in connection therewith. One of these was the Bluffs on White River. Recurring to Tipton's Journal, we find of the date of May 26th, this: "The bluff is about 150 feet above the river, but very uneven. The water good. Out of this bluff issues a num- ber of fine springs, one of which some distance back from the river, has near twenty feet fall. Back of this bluff is a beautiful creek. 'They (the bluffs ) front on the river near one mile. If they were level on top it would be the most beautiful site for a town that I have ever seen."
Two of the commissioners favored the Bluff for the capital lo- cation, but the majority went for the present site of Indianapolis. Before the commission to locate the capital set forth on their work, the United States Surveyors had begun their work in the New Purchase, and they kept it up, long after the capital site was chosen. All of Nineveh Township was surveyed by Abraham Lee, as early as the month of September in 1819. In June, 1820. John Hen- dricks surveyed so much of Franklin Township as lies in Congres- sional Township 12, Range 5, and, in August of that year, Thomas Hendricks surveyed Congressional Township 12, Range 4, being in the west part of Franklin Township. In the same month of August, John Hendricks surveyed all the lands comprised within the present boundaries of Blue River Township, and, as soon as he had completed this, he went over and surveyed the Congressional
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Township, better known as Union, and, while he was at that, B. Bently was surveying Hensley. W. B. Mclaughlin surveyed all of White River, in Congressional Township 14, and Bently all that is in Township 13; and, later in the season, all the territory now con- tained within Pleasant Township was surveyed by Thomas Hen- dricks, while John Hendricks surveyed all contained within Clark Township.
First Permanent Settlement .- The time has now come when the first permanent settlement is to be planted in Johnson County. In 1814 a young man by the name of John Campbell, born and reared in Tennessee, went to find a home north of the Ohio. Fate directed his footsteps to the vicinity of Waynesville, in the State of Ohio, where he married Ruth Perkins, a native of South Carolina. In 1817 he moved to Connersville, and in 1820 to the " new pur- chase " on Blue River. It was as early as the latter part of Feb- ruary, when, with his wife and four sons he set out through the wilderness to become the first settler of a county that was yet un- formed and unnamed. Four little girls belonged to his household, but these were left behind to follow on horseback, when the home was prepared for them. A neighbor, Benjamin Crews, went with him and helped to clear a path and drive his domestic animals and team. The road which they cut must have been the most prim- itive of paths, for, when two years after, Alexander Thompson, Israel Watts and William Reynolds came over the same general route, they found a wagon road to Flat Rock, south of Rushville, but thence on they were compelled to cut their own way.
Campbell reached the Blue River on Saturday, the 4th of March, and at once began the erection of a pole cabin, on the tract of land lying immediately south of the present site of Edinburg, and the same spring cleared a small field which he enclosed with a brush fence to keep out his own stock, in time to raise a crop of corn. Crews returned to Connersville for his family and moved to Campbell's neighborhood the same spring, arriving on the 17th of April. On a spot already selected by him, which afterward proved to be on the Bartholomew side of the line, he encamped the evening of his arrival. That night his son Jonathan, a lad eight years of age, while lying down and looking at the moon, through the limbs of a large tree, " saw something reach out a hand and pull up a limb," to which he at once called his father's attention, who said it was a coon. The next morning, on inspec- tion, the tree was found to be hollow, and Benjamin Crews at once cut it down, and as it fell crashing to the ground, a she bear and her two cubs tumbled to the earth from their den in a hollow limb. The dogs at once mounted the old beast, but cuffing them right
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and left, she made her escape, leaving her cubs in the hands of their captors. Stripping the horses of their halters the two young bears were soon securely tied, but the horses now thoroughly alarmed at the unwonted commotion, and finding themselves at liberty, took the back track for the White Water country and ran eight miles before being overtaken and recaptured.
John Campbell's neighbors were Crews and Richard Beny, the latter who lived a little over a mile below him, but within the pres- ent limits of Bartholomew County, whither he had removed the year before. But he did not have to wait long for others to come in. A half dozen or more families, it is said, moved into the Blue River woods, the same spring, but this is not certain. A large number did come in during the year. The lands since incorporated, in part, into Blue River Township, were surveyed in August of that year, and on the 4th of October, the same year, were exposed for sale at the land office in Brookville. That day these purchases were made of Blue River lands ( which were the first within the county ) by James Jacobs, William W. Robinson, and John Campbell, (who afterward lived in Sugar Creek ), and on the day following, John Campbell, the first settler, and eight others made entries. Thirty-nine entries in all were made before the close of the year, covering a total of 4,400 acres.
As far as now known, eighteen families moved into the new settlement during the year, of which Henry Catsinger, Simon Schaffer, Jesse Dawson, Zachariah Sparks, Elias Brock and Joseph Townsend, were Kentuckians; William Williams, and as already stated. John Campbell, were Tennesseeans; Amos Durbin was from Virginia; John A. Mow and Joshua Palmer, were from Ohio; Isaac Marshall and John Wheeler were from North Caro- lina: Samuel Herriott, from Pensylvania, while the native places of Louis Bishop, Thomas Ralston and Richard Cormorave are un- kown.
The second year of the settlement, twenty-seven families are known to have moved in. Elisha Adams came from Kentucky and moved to the north end of the township, and founded the Adams neighborhood. Richard Foster and John and William, his brothers, Patrick Adams, Patrick Cowan, Arthur Robinson, Curtis Pritchard, David Webb, William R. Hensley, William C. Robinson, James Farrell, John Adams, John P. Barnett, Jacob Cutsinger. Isaac Harvey (a Baptist preacher), Lewis Hays, William Rutherford, Jefferson D. Jones, Thomas Russell and Samuel Aldridge, all Kentuckians; and Isaac Collier, Israel Watts and Jonathan Hougham, Ohioans: and Alexander Thompson, from Virginia; Jesse Wells and Thomas Doan, from North Carolina,
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and William Reynolds, from Tennesee, moved in. By the close of this year, the lands contiguous to Blue River were taken up, and a line of settlement extended nearly across the south side of the town- ship, while John Campbell, an Irishman, had laid the foundation of a settlement at the mouth of Sugar Creek, and Lewis Hays and William Rutherford had joined John Adams' settlement higher up the creek.
In 1822, fourteen families moved in. Of these Able Webb, James Connor, Hezekiah Davison, William Hunt, James M. Dan- iels, John Shipp, William Barnett, David Durbin, Hiram Ald- ridge and Thomas Russell were from Kentucky; Charles Martin and Samuel Umpstead were from Ohio; and it is not ascertained whence came Baker Wells and Samuel Johnson, who came in this year. In 1823, William Freeman moved from Bartholomew County into the township, and Richard Shipp and John Hen- drickson also moved in. All these were Kentucky born. By the close of 1823, there were at least sixty-three families living in the township.
Let us turn now from the southeast to the northwest, from Blue River to White River. Capt. White, an Indian, early in 1820, was found occupying a tract of land on the east bank of White River, since known as the Denny place, and being near the center of the northwest quarter of Section 32, in Township 14 north, Range 3 east. Here was an extensive Indian clearing. Capt. White left the country the same spring, going with his people, the Delawares, to Arkansas, and in the " month of April or May," the same year, one Daniel Morgan, a bachelor from western Pennsyl- vania moved to White's place and took possession. He cultivated a small field of corn, but the squirrels devoured his crop before maturity, and he returned to the land of his nativity. In the fall of the same year, George Beeler, a resident of Morgan County, with his wife and sister-in-law, moved to Capt. White's place, and took posession ; but Beeler died the same fall, and the White camp was once more vacated.
The following spring another man moved to the Capt. White place. This was Abraham Sells, a Virginian, who came to Wash- ington County, in Indiana, about the middle of February, IS21. " Leaving the female members of his family in that county, accom- panied by his brother John Sells and four of his sons, and three of his own, Isaac, William and Franklin, he set out for the White River and reached Jacob Whetzel's about the Ist of March." He had crossed over to the Indian trail, on the east bank of White River, up which he traveled, entering White River Township on Friday, the 3d day of March, 1821, and at once he took possession
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of White's old wigwam. Abraham Sell's came to stay. He and his, brought seventy-five hogs, eleven cattle and eight horses, be- sides a goodly assortment of tools and provisions for the summer. Their families were to come in the fall. The hogs and cattle were turned into the woods to shift for themselves, together with such of the horses as were not in immediate use. A field of five or six acres was " brushed out " and enclosed with a temporary fence and planted in corn. "West of the river was an old hackberry dead- ening, containing fifteen acres, requiring but little labor to bring it into cultivation. In the year 1820, and in years subsequent, a small green worm stripped the hackberry trees of all their leaves, killing them in a few weeks."* That was also planted in corn. The corn grown on the Capt. White place was broken into and destroyed by their own hogs. After the crop was laid by, all except two of the company returned to Washington County, where John Sells, the brother of Abraham, and the latter's son, Issac, died. Late in the fall the others, with their families and household stuff, rejoined their White River brethren, and the permanency of their settlement was maintained.
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