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 28
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In the latter part of September, Simon Covert, having returned during the summer to Kentucky, moved his family to his new home. Quite a company accompanied him. John B. Smock, and his brother Isaac, who settled at Greenwood, and Daniel Covert, Moses Freeman and Joseph Voorheis, who subsequently settled on Young's Creek, in what was afterward known as the Hopewell
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neighborhood, were of the company. About the time Cover set out for Kentucky after his family. Thomas Williams, a Pennsyl- vanian by birth, but hailing from Washington County, in this state, came to the neighborhood, and began the erection of a cabin on the south side of the creek: and in the same month Covert returned, Williams moved his family and goods into his new home. He brought with him the first yoke of oxen that ever came to Franklin.
Five commissioners had been named, in the act of organizing the county, whose duty it was to meet on the first Monday in May, IS23, and select a town site for the new county. For some reason the meeting was deferred, till the 22nd of the month, at which time three of the five met at the house of John Smiley, on Sugar Creek, whence they proceeded to discharge that duty. "A paper village " had been laid out by Amos Durbin, near the mouth of Sugar Creek, the site of which the three commissioners went to see. On the northeast quarter of Section 8, in Township 13 north, Range 4 east, which lay a half mile from the geographical center of the county, was the highest, dryest and best drained tract of land to be found short of the Sugar Creek or White River highlands - a tract on which was an elevation. now known as Donnell's Hill, and there were some who thought the commissioners might make the location in that place. George King, sharing in that thought, had already entered the quarter section, but it is quite evident he pre- ferred the location to be made on his Pritchard purchase. While at his house, and after examining the proposed site in the angle of the creeks, the commissioners inquired about the country at the center of the county, and even set out through the pathless woods to ex- amine the place for themselves. But, for some reason, they went without a guide, and in a violent rain storm, that came up while they were on the journey, they lost their way, and finally, came back to King's cabin, without having seen the hill, whereupon, they at once proceeded to locate the town on the southwest quarter of the southeast quarter of Section 13, Township 12 north, Range 4 east, which forty acre tract King donated to the county, together with eleven acres lying between it and Young's Creek. It was
made the duty of the locating committee to report their action to the county commissioners, and this being done, Samuel Herriott suggested that the new town be called Franklin, and it was so done.
In the following August * Franklin was surveyed, and on Sat- urday, the 2nd of September, the first sale of lots took place. John
* There is no written evidence of the date. Of two men who remembered the circum- stances, one said it was in August, and another September. In my history of Johnson County, published in ISSI, I adopted the latter date, but the fact that the sale of lots took' place on the second of September, of which there is written evidence, excludes that month.
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Campbell, of Sugar Creek, who had been appointed county agent, superintended the sales, and to encourage bidding he laid in a sup- ply of whisky, with which to treat the thirsty crowd. The record shows that he presented a claim for whisky and paper of " $1.1834." and George Adams, who was present, and still survives, remembers that " there was plenty of whisky on hand." This was not the first whisky which had been at the new county seat. The sur- veyor, who ran the town lines, was drunk at the time, and the bend in Madison street remains a silent witness of that fact, to this day. Nor was it the last. In 1826, a further allowance was made to the agent of $2.6134, for " whisky and paper." At the time of the first sale of lots, the town site was covered with trees, logs, bushes and vines. The bush had been cut out enough to mark the lines, but it was several years before the streets and public square were entirely clear of bushes and logs. In the fall of 1824, when Daniel Covert made his second visit to view the coun- try, the town site was yet uncleaned. During that year, however, improvements were begun. A man by the name of Kelly, from Jennings County, built a cabin on the west side of the square, and under the pretence of keeping a bakery, sold beer and cakes. In the same year of 1824, a log court house was erected on lot num- ber 22, the site now occupied as a dwelling place by Christian Axt. William Shaffer, the county recorder, who was a carpenter by trade, had the contract for building the court house, and no sooner was that contract off his hands, than he erected a dwelling for himself on the southeast corner of the square. While he was at that work, John Smiley, the sheriff, built a log house on the north- west corner of Main and Jefferson streets, and about the same time a log cabin was erected on the lot west of Smiley's house, in which Daniel Taylor, hailing from Cincinnati, opened the first store in the new town.
In that year of 1824, or the following, Edward Springer built a cabin in the west side close to Kelly's and opened a smithy. In IS25, Joseph Young and Samuel Herriott erected the first frame building in the town which adjoined Shaffer's home on the north, and in which they conducted a general store and tavern business. The town developed slowly. The brush and logs and trees were still in the public square and the roads wound in and out among the trees and around the largest logs. Fire wood was convenient, and as late as IS28, when John Tracy came to the county, he found the town "still full of logs. The trees had been cut down and the tops used for firewood." The brush was grubbed in the public square by Nicholas Shaffer, who was paid for the work out of the county treasury, $6.58. Preparing the logs for
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rolling, and rolling and burning, seems to have been done volun- tarily by the citizens, but they evidently made a long job of it. In the fall of 1826, Daniel Covert helped roll logs on the public square. The late John Herriott said: " I came here in May, 1827, and helped to cut the brush out of the public square. We met every evening for two or three weeks to burn logs and brush .* "After the logs were ready for rolling," said the late Jefferson D. Jones, " the citi- zens would meet about sundown and roll a few heaps." In 1828, the work was still going on. " All the trees were down in the pub- lic square " when John Tracy came in that year, " but a good many were still on the ground." When these were rolled and burned, the historian has been unable to learn. There are some secrets sealed even to him.
In 1826, one John Williams put up a saw-mill, which was pro- pelled by oxen on a tramp-wheel; but it seems to have been a failure. Among the early settlers was John K. Powell, a hatter. It is remembered that for want of better material, he made his " sizing " of wheat flour, and that his hats in consequence had the infirmity of melting in rainy weather and of breaking in dry. Caleb Vannoy started a tan yard, in those early days, and Pierson Murphey and James Pitchey came as physicians and Fabrius M. Fuch and Gilderoy Hicks, as lawyers and Samuel Headly and Samuel Lambertson, as tailors. Others remembered were: Robert Gilchrist, Hezekiah McKinney, Harvey Sloan, Eli Gilchrist, James Frary, Simon Moore, Jesse Williams, John High, the Joneses and others.
The country around Franklin was settled slowly. One of the first to move in was John Harter, who settled on Young's Creek, about a mile below town, where he built a mill. 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.
In 1825, Simon Covert and George King made an exchange of lands whereby the former became invested with title to King's 160 acres at the center of the county, to which he at once cut out a road and moved. Shortly after, Thomas Henderson, from Kentucky, located the quarter section containing the Big Spring, and made preparation to move to it. A large immigration soon followed, of Presbyterians, all of whom were from Henry, Shelby and . Mercer counties, in Kentucky. Most of them were related, and all were
* History Presbyterian Church of Franklin, 1874, p. 196.
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descendents of Dutch or French families, that had settled in or around New Amsterdam (New York), during the seventeenth century. Among those who moved to the Hopewell neighborhood, as it has since been called, during the early years of its history, may be mentioned, Moses Freeman, Daniel, John and Cornelius Covert, brothers of Simon; Joseph Voorheis and Isaac, the latter of whom came to the country as we have seen, with George King; Isaac Vannice and Samuel Vaunuys, Stephen Luyster, David Banta, Peter LeGrange and his sons, Peter D. and Aaron; John Voris, Simon Vanarsdall, Zachariah Ramsdall, Melvin Wheat, William Magill, John P. Banta, John Bergen, Peter Demaree, Andrew Car- nine, Theodore List, Stephen Whitenack, Peter Banta, Henry Van- nice, Peter Shuck, John Davis, Simon Vanarsdall, Joseph Combs and Thomas Roberts. On the south and west sides and south- west corner of the township, we find that Thomas Mitchel, Michael Canary, Dr. Robert McAuley, Jacob Demaree, Henry Byers and Ebenezer Perry, John Brunk and Joseph Hunt moved in quite early, and passing up the south side are the names of Major Townsend, John D. Mitchell, John Gratner, Joseph Ashley, John Harter, Alexander McCaslin, John C. Goodman, John Gibben and Jonathan Williams. In the central and northern parts were Will- iam Magill, Garrett C. Bergen, Peter A. Banta, Milton Utter, Henry, James, John and William Whitesides, Stephen and Lem- uel Tilson, Thomas J. Mitchel, John Brown, Elisha Dungan, Ed- ward Crow, David McCaslin, Harvey McCaslin, Robert Jeffrey, John Herriott, Middleton Waldren, Travis Burnett, David Berry, Samuel Overstreet, John Wilson, David, Thomas and George Al- exander, and William and Samuel Alison.
Needham Township was originally part of Franklin Township, and was settled as such. The first settlement made within its bor- ders is generally accredited to William Rutherford, who built his cabin in the fall of 1821, a short distance below the place where Smiley built his mill. The same year John Ogle settled within Johnson County, near the present site of the mill now owned by William Clark, Esq., where he himself built the first mill on the site about 1826. In 1822, John Smiley, as we have seen, moved to his place on the creek. The next year, the same in which King and Covert and McCaslin began the settlement at Franklin, John Mozingo, Squire and Lewis Hendricks, Abner Taylor, and William D. Smith, moved in. Afterward, in quick succession came Landron Hendricks, Jacob Fisher, Thomas Needham, Samuel Owens, Will- iam and Isaac Garrison, Jacob Wiles, James Tetrick, Jacob Bowers, and Jesse Beard.
In October, 1820, George King and a number of others as we
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have seen, made a tour through Central Indiana, during which tour they passed the crossing of Whetzel's trace and the old Indian trail, where they discovered a little cabin, newly built and with the roof partly on. It had never been occupied, but as the travelers rode by they noticed a wagon containing movers close at hand, com- ing through the woods, from the east, and they surmised that the movers were coming to the cabin. This is the first that is known of the cabin, at that crossing, and whether the movers then seen by King and his companions, took possession or not, it was Daniel Loper's cabin, and he moved into it about that time. He was distinguished for being the first white man to make a settlement in two townships of Johnson County-Pleasant and Clark-and vet of him very little is certainly known. No one knows whence he came nor whither he went. He seems to have been a genuine backwoods- man, a lover of the forest solitudes, and gave his confidence to no one. With him came a man by the name of John Varner, who was reputed to be of somewhat feeble intellect, and was his depen- dent and henchman. Loper owned a wagon and a yoke of oxen, with which Varner is known to have made several trips to the White Water country with the fruits of the chase which he ex- changed for provisions and whisky.
But Loper did not remain long at the crossing. The following year, Nathaniel Bell, from Ohio, traveled the Whetzel trace in search of a home. " He rode on horseback with a sack under him, in which he carried his provisions. His horse carried a bell around his neck, which was kept silent by day, but when night came Bell made a camp, unloosed the bell, hobbled the horse, turned him out to graze, and then lay down to sleep. Bell having explored the Eel River lands, and not liking them, returned and called at the cabin of John Doty. Here he disclosed his purpose, and that was to get a description of the land at the crossing of the traces and enter it at Brookville, on his way home, and then settle there and keep a tavern and build a house, mill and a distillery for whisky. Applying to Peter Doty, son of John Doty, for aid in getting a description of the land, Peter agreed to furnish it for $1, but Bell declared he had no money bevond the sum necessary to enter the land. Finally, Peter agreed to accept the bell on the horse and the desired information was thus obtained." *
In December, 1821, Bell entered Loper out, and the latter seems to have moved shortly after, to Whetzel's old camp, on Camp Creek, where he put up a cabin and thus became the first settler of Clark Township. Sometime after his removal to that place, John Varner died of a sudden illness, and was buried in a walnut
* Judge Hardin.
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trough, covered with a slab, by Loper, with the assistance of the Dotys, a mode of burial not unfrequently adopted by the Indians. When they reached the place of the funeral, they found Loper digging a grave with a garden hoe and throwing the dirt out with his hands. A belief prevailed among some of the early settlers that Loper had been instrumental in the death of Varner, which was, no doubt, groundless. Soon after his death, Loper left the country, and his going was as mysterious as his coming had been. No one knew when he went nor to what place. Jacob Fisher, who saw his place in 1825, says: "It looked like it had been deserted two or three years." He was a thriftless, and doubtless a harmless frontiersman, who was mean-spirited enough to flee from a rumor, however groundless it may have been, rather than stay and fight it. After Loper left, his place continued to be a camping-ground for movers, but it ultimately gained the reputation of being haunted by a ghost. Old John Varner's spirit was believed in some quarters to rest uneasily in its walnut coffin. On one occasion, it is said, a company of movers were aroused in the dead hour of night by a mysterious appearance, and horror stricken they hitched up their teams and fled in hot haste, not halting until they reached John Doty's, at the hill.
If Loper was shiftless, Bell was worse. Loper courted the soli- tudes and meddled with no one; Bell loved company and that of the worst. He courted the patronage of land-lookers, and other trav- elers, but it was told of him and generally believed, that he or his confederates extorted money from his guests, by secreting their horses in the woods and demanding rewards for their return : and in consequence his cabin soon ceased to be a stopping place. Judge Hardın, in his account of a journey, made by himself and mother, through Johnson County in 1825, says: "Bell's location * was renowned for a hundred miles away in every direction, and was a prominent point in all the travels of the pioneers in the New Purchase." At an early day he built a mill at the crossing which for a few years served to furnish an occasional sack of meal to the settlers. Judge Hardin who saw the mill, thus graphically describes it. " It was a strange piece of machinery, and when in motion pro- duced unearthly sounds in its rattlings and creakings and rumblings. The hoop inelosing the runner was a section of a hollow log, sitting loosely over and around the grinder, to prevent the escape of the meal. When the team made a sudden movement, the revolving momentum often communicated to the enclosed hoop, and it, too, was thrown into a sudden circular motion. The strange drummings so frightened the horses, that they increased their gait beyond con- trol, and the increased whirl of the grinder overcame its gravity
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and caused it 'to take a tangential leap from above down among the horses and men. His mill was never profitable."
It was current report that Bell so managed matters at his mill as to steal more of the grist in corn or meal, or both, than he took by lawful toll. He wore the sleeves of his " warmus" or hunting shirt unusually large, in which he not only managed to pick up a few extra grains while tolling the grist, but on the pretense of ex- amining the meal, as it came from the spout, he caught in his large open sleeves, a tolerable share of the meal as it poured to the chest below, after which folding his arms about him, he would saunter off to his own chest or cabin and unload. Sometimes his victims would remonstrate with him, but his usual reply was, " Well the little old man must live." On one occasion, it is said, his sleeves being well gorged with meal, the horses became frightened and ran off, knocking the mill-stones from their frail scaffolding to the ground below. Bell received a blow that knocked him down and scattered the meal, stored in his ample sleeves, in every direction. He was not seriously hurt, but he was badly scared and promised to do better in the future, a promise he soon forgot.
In addition to Bell's other misdeeds, he was accused of harbor- ing horse thieves, and of being a hog thief himself. At a log roll- ing, Permenter Mullenix and he got into a quarrel, and the latter charged him outright with the crime of hog stealing. This was more than "the little old man" could stand, and so he went to Indianapolis and employed Judge Wick and Calvin Fletcher to prosecute Mullenix for slander. The action was begun, but Mul- lenix defended on the ground the charge was true, and making proof of the fact, to the satisfaction of the jury, had judgment for
his costs. The case then went before the grand jury, the re- sult of which was, Bell was indicted, tried and sent to the peniten- tiary. After serving his term he returned to his home, but soon after he abandoned the county, and his confederates were sent to the state's prison, or followed him. His place "became one of the most lonely and desolate places in the county, being overgrown by briers and brush, and deserted."
When Simon Covert moved his family to Franklin, in Septem- ber, 1823, John B. Smock, and Isaac, his brother, from Mercer County, Ky., came with their families, and household goods also. They were destined to the neighborhood of the after site of Green- wood - a neighborhood soon to be known as the Smock neighbor- hood. Between Franklin and their destination, a pathless woods lay, and they were two days " bushing " a way to it. During the following year, 1824, the state road leading from Madison to Indianapolis was cut out, over which the same year, James Smock,
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a brother, came to join them. In IS25, one over an even half a dozen of families joined them, viz .: Garrett Brewer's, Garrett Van- diver's, Garrett Sorter's, Robert Lyon's, and Joseph and John and Samuel Alexander's - all Kentuckians, from Mercer County. The Smock settlement was a half-way place between Franklin and Indianapolis, and from this may be accounted the fact of its com- paratively slow growth, for many years. Up to about IS30, it ap- pears that the number moving in was quite small. In addition to those already mentioned, may be named John Comingore, who came, in 1826, Cornelius Smock, in IS27, Alexander Wilson, in 1828, and Isaac Voris, in 1829.
In 1824, the state road was cut out, and notwithstanding the country in the center and south side of the township was inclined to be wet, settlers shortly began making entries of land, and, in 1828, David Trout, and a little later in the year, James Tracy and his grown sons, Nathaniel, Thomas and John, William Pierce and James Chenoweth built cabins and started clearings extending from the center of the townships outhward. All these men -excepting the Alexanders, who were, Pennsylvanians, and David Trout, who was a Virginian, had moved from Nineveh - were Kentuckians.
On the fourth day of May, 1829, Pleasant Township was created by striking off from White River all the territory east of the range line, making the west boundary the same as it now is; but, up to 1838, Clark Township formed a part of Pleasant. Elections were ordered to be held at the house of Isaac Smock, and Isaiah Lewis was appointed inspector. The township took its name from its principal stream, Pleasant Run. Two explanations have been given, accounting for the name of the creek, one of which is, that when the country was first settled the stream was a gently flowing, pleasant running stream; and the other that it was the reverse of this, and the name was given by the way of irony.
Ilere, as everywhere else, it is difficult to fix upon the years when men moved in, but it is certain that an impetus was now given to immigration into the township. By mid-summer of 1834, the following .persons are known to have moved into and about the Smock neighborhood, to wit: the Comingores, Henry and Samuel, the McColloughs, John Lyons, Peter Whitenack, Samuel Eccles, the Henrys, Robert, Iliram and Samuel, J. D. and William Wilson, John and James Carson, Dr. William Woods, William McGee and sons, William and Joseph Brenton, Marine D. West, Berryman Carder, and the Todds. All these were from Kentucky, except the Henrys, from Virginia, the Wilsons who were from North Caro- lins, the Woods, the Mcculloughs and the Carsons, who were from Tennessee. Lower down in the Tracy and Trout neighborhoods,
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Thomas Gant, the Hills, Littleton, Joseph, Squire and Charles, James Stewart, David Lemmasters, Reuben Davis, William Mc- Clelland, Daniel, David and John Brewer, Robert Smith, Abraham Sharp, and probably others, moved in, while over toward the south- east corner and east side came in Thomas Graham and his three sons, Samuel, James and Archibald, and also Lewis Graham, Isaac Clam and Andrew McCaslin, followed soon after by Ashford Dow- den, Abraham Banta, Solomon Steele, Jacob Peggs and others. By the close of 1834, persons were located all over the township, but it could not be said to be fairly inhabited before 1840.
In IS21, Daniel Loper having been " entered out" by Nathaniel Bell, moved eastward on the " trace" to Whetzel's old camp on Camp Creek, where he made the first permanent home in what is now known as Clark Township. Shortly after, John Ogle moved into the northeast corner of what is now known as Needham Township (some say in the same year, but others in the year after), and, at the same time, his brother Levi, moved into the southeast corner of Clark. In IS22, a settlement was made on the east side of Sugar Creek, in Shelby County, by Joseph Reese, John Webb, and some others, and, attracted by this settlement, a few more came quite early into Clark Township, as also into Needham. In 1822, Will- iam and John McConnell came to the neighborhood, and it may be that the Ogles came the same year.
It is extremely difficult, at this time, to ascertain with any de- gree of certainty, the dates of arrival of the first and subsequent set- tlers, but next after Loper's cabin, and the Sugar Creek settlement, pioneers began moving upon the highlands in the north. The first one to go in was Hugh McFadden, and the second, Glen Clark. Both were here in 1825, and the probability is that both came that year. In 1826, there moved into the settlement thus be- gun, John L. McClain and Alexander Clark, from Kentucky, and three Hosiers, Robert, Jacob and Abraham. The next year, James and Moses McClain, and Robert Ritchey came in from Ken- tucky, and Moses Rains from Virginia. The year after, Jacob McClain, from Kentucky, and the year after that, Thomas Clark and Thomas Robinson, Kentuckians, and Edward Wilson and Samuel Billingsly, North Carolinians. In 1832, David Justice, Abraham Jones, Matthias Parr and James Kinnick, from North Corolina; and, in 1833, Andrew Wolf, George Wolf, Tennesseeans, and all those mentioned above, save the few Sugar Creek settlers, and David Parr and John Fitzpatrick went into the neighborhood of Loper's old cabin. In 1834, there was quite an influx of immi- grants: Allen Williams, John Tinkle, Robert Farnsworth, David Farnsworth, Henry Farnsworth, Aaron Huffman and Daniel Mc-
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