USA > Indiana > Knox County > History of Knox and Daviess Counties, Indiana : from the earliest time to the present; with biographical sketches, reminiscences, notes, etc. ; together with an extended history of the colonial days of Vincennes, and its progress down to the formation of the state government > Part 3
USA > Indiana > Daviess County > History of Knox and Daviess Counties, Indiana : from the earliest time to the present; with biographical sketches, reminiscences, notes, etc. ; together with an extended history of the colonial days of Vincennes, and its progress down to the formation of the state government > Part 3
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CAMPAIGN AGAINST THE CHICKASAWS.
In 1736 Vinsenné, in obedience to orders from M. D'Artagette, led his command from this post to engage in the war with the Chickasaws. The plan of the campaign required a force under Bienville to operate from the South, in conjunction with the troops under Vinsenne, who was to descend the Mississippi. The troops under Bienville were delayed, and Vinsenné, without waiting for their arrival, commenced hostilities by attacking and destroying some small villages inhabited by the hostile Indians. The Chickasaw warriors soon assembled in considerable numbers and defeated their assailants. About forty Frenchmen and eight of their Indian allies were killed. Vinsenné and four of his comrades, among them being Father Senat, pastor at St. Francis Xavier, were taken prisoners and burnt at the stake. Charlevoix learned afterward from an Indian, who was a prisoner at the time of the torture but afterward escaped, that M. de Vinsenne might have escaped, but preferred to die with his men, "whom he ceased not with his last breath to exhort to behave worthy of their re- ligion and their country." Father Meurin, probably the priest in charge of the church of St. Francis Xavier, succeeding Senat, without a line of explanation which has been preserved, but cer- tainly a beautiful and fit tribute to the heroism of this early mar- tyr, as early as 1747, inscribes his church records "done at Post de Vincennes." And after this almost unknown hero, whose ashes were scattered by the winds that fed the savage fires of torture in an Arkansas forest, this city, so prominent in the desti- nies of our nation in after years, derived its name.
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HISTORY OF KNOX COUNTY.
THE SUCCESSOR OF VINSENNÉ.
Not until after the war broke out between England and France, in 1744, so far as ascertainable, was any successor desig- nated to command at Vincennes. After that event, St. Louis St. Ange Belle Rive, was ordered from Fort Chartres on the Mississippi, eighteen miles from Kaskaskia, to take up the com- mand on the Wabash. This war ended by the treaty of Aix-la- Chapelle in 1748, and made no change in the life and events in the great forests. After the treaty of peace St. Ange enlarged the church and procured at his own expense a bell (still retained in the upper gallery of the present Cathedral), tore away a por- tion of the old fortifications, and opened two new streets; one, St. Honore (Second Street), led from the rear of the church to St. Peter's (now Broadway) at the lower line of the Indian village. He began to systematically apportion the lands and grant village lots to inhabitants, and appears to have organized a school .* As a specimen of the character of grants, and the quaint brevity of description, one of February 3, 1760, is here transcribed:+
"Nous Capitaine Commandant pour le Roi an poste Vincennes Certifious avan consede an Sieure Antoine Drouet de Richardville un Emplacement de- vingt-cinq toises feu tout bordere a fuces Rue Calvarie, et autre Rue de perdu- pond (?). Fait audo le trois diem Februaire Mil. Sept. cent. soixante.
"St. Ange."
GOVERNMENT OF ST. ANGE.
The policy of St. Ange led to the collection of several tribes of the Miamis, notably the Piankashaws and Pottawattomies, into villages about Vincennes; and, as a measure for their better pro- tection, obtained a grant or concession to the French people of a large tract of land at that point. His interest in the welfare of the savages, whom he sought to bring under the civilizing in- fluences of church and state, led to the establishment and pro- mulgation of a code for the government of the villages, which re- pressed gambling, drunkenness and loitering, and encouraged in- dustry and piety by systems of punishment and rewards. Holi- days, or recesses from irksome labor, were provided, and innocent games and amusements introduced to supply the place of seasons
*Bonneau, quoted by Bruté.
+We, captain comm inding for the king at Post Vincennes, certify that there is conceded to Sieure Autoine Drouet de Richardville, a Int twenty-five yards on each face, bordering Rue Cal- vary Street, on the other the "Street of the Lost" (?). Made on the third day of February, seven- teen hundred and sixty. ST ANGE.
2
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HISTORY OF KNOX COUNTY.
of debauch and contests of vice and cruelty so ingrained into the Indian character. New families-the Richardvilles, Mellettes, Duboises, Brouillettes, Cardinals and Bouchies were induced to remove from the settlements about the Isle St. Joseph and take up their abode at Vincennes. Gamelin and La Croix came from Montreal, while Quebec sent out Querrez, Lang- lois and Racine. The cultivation of the soil and the man- ufacture of salt at Saline Springs were objects of special solicitude to the commander; and that there might be less excuse for not planting grain, he caused the construction of a mill, after the manner in Holland (a wind-mill) ; and to afford facilities for the condensation of salt, presented the village with suitable kettles, which they were to transport to the springs. As early as 1767 Col. Croghan, a British officer, descending the Ohio from Fort Pitt (Pittsburgh) being made a prisoner at the mouth of the Wabash at the hands of a party of Pottawattomies, and brought to Vincennes, in his diary of the journey writes: "June 15th.' We set out very early, and about one o'clock came to the Oubache, within six or seven miles of Port Vincent. On my arrival there I found a village of about ninety French fami- lies, settled on the east side of this river, being one of the finest situations that can be found. The country is level and clear, and the soil very rich, producing wheat and tobacco. I think the lat- ter preferable to that of Maryland or Virginia." This writer, however, looked at the inhabitants who had developed this ex- ceptional agriculture through English spectacles, for he contin- nes: "The French inhabitants hereabouts are an idle, lazy peo- ple, a parcel of renagades from Canada, and are much worse than the Indians. They took a secret pleasure at our misfortunes, and the moment we arrived they came to the Indians exchanging trifles for their valuable plunder. As the savages took from me a considerable quantity of gold and silver in specie, the French traders extorted 10 half Johannes from them for one pound of vermillion."* The art of tidiness in their homes and the habit of personal cleanliness was often the subject of discourse and lecture by the provident commandant. Count C. F. Volney, at his visit in 1796, remarked the pleasure to the eye the neat
*Journal by Col. Croghan, from American Journal of Geology and Natural Science, Philadel- phia, December, 1831.
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HISTORY OF KNOX COUNTY.
white houses gave after the long feast of green through the solitary woods. *
STRUGGLE BETWEEN THE FRENCH AND ENGLISH.
Protected by a numerous nation of faithful allies from the incursions of the Iroquois, far south of the path of the deadly Sioux, the French at Vincennes lived a life of peace and content- ment. But eastward of the mountains there slowly arose a cloud, destined to pour out its storms of war, to strike, with the light- nings of battle, the beloved ensign of the lilies from above the bastions of Vincennes, where it had so long signified the glory and splendor of La Belle, France, and leave, in its place, the red cross of St. George, as a taunt and reproach. The people of the English colonies regarded their Canadian neighbors with bitterest enmity. Their very name suggested blazing dwellings, children snatched from mothers' arms to be immured in convents and trained up in the abominations of Popery. The English settler in Vermont heard, with a shudder, the evening gun of Fort Fred- erick, fired by his intruding enemy, and retained the misunder- standing which arose out of the cession of Acadia, under the treaty of Aix la Chapelle.
In the spring of 1753 French troops crossed Lake Erie and threw up fortifications at the point of Presque Isle, sending out parties of occupation to the northern branches of the Ohio. The next spring Capt. Trent, at the head of a company of Virginia backwoodsmen, crossed the mountains and began to build a fort at the confluence of the Monongahela and Allegheny where Pitts- burgh now stands, when suddenly they found themselves sur- rounded by a host of French and Indians, who with sixty batteaux and 300 canoes had descended from Le Bœuf and Venango. The English upon being ordered to evacuate the spot withdrew. Meanwhile Washington, then but a youth, with another party of backwoodsmen, was advancing from the borders; hearing of Trent's disaster he resolved to fortify himself on the Monon- gahela, and hold his ground until the arrival of succor. The French sent out a party, under M. Jumonville, to watch his move- ments, but in the darkness of a stormy night, Washington sur-
*Views of America.
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HISTORY OF KNOX COUNTY.
prised them as they lay in a rocky gorge, killed the officer and captured the whole detachment, and then retired to his intrench- ments at Great Meadows. Here he was assaulted by 900 French and Indians under the command of the brother of the slain Jumonville. After a day and night of hard fighting, terms were agreed upon, under which Washington crossed the mountains, leaving the disputed territory in the possession of the French.
In 1755 a fleet, sailing from Cork with English troops, under command of the famous Braddock, gained its destination in safety. Not so with a French vessel from Brest, freighted with munitions of war and a body of soldiers under Baron Dieskau, who suddenly found themselves under the guns of an English vessel belonging to the squadron of Admiral Boscawen. "Are we at peace or war?" demanded the French commander. A broadside from the Englishman was the only answer, and the Frenchman struck his colors.
BRADDOCK'S DEFEAT.
News of these two contests soon found its way into every French village in all New France, and preparations for hostilities upon an extended scale at once began. "Thus." says Dr. Francis Parkman, " began that memorable war which, kindling among the forests of America, scattered its fires over the kingdoms of Europe ' and the sultry empire of the Great Mogul; the war made glori- ous by the heroic death of Wolfe, the victories of Frederic, and the exploits of Clive; the war which controlled the destinies of America, and was first in the chain of events which led on to her Revolution with all its vast and undeveloped consequences." By the 8th of July, 1755, the French had gathered about Fort DuQuesne the hordes of the forest, from the Wabash under the Turtle, to the Mississippi and the lakes under Pontiac; from beyond the Father of Waters, gathered Miamies, Hurons, Ottawas, Objibwas, Delawares and Caughnawagas, interspersed with Frenchmen, from every fort from Chartres to Detroit. In the forests lay the armies of England, commanded by Braddock; with Gage, "who, twenty years later, saw his routed battalions recoil in disorder from before the breastwork on Bunker Hill;" with Gates, the future conqueror of Burgoyne;
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HISTORY OF KNOX COUNTY.
with one destined to a higher fame-George Washington. An ambush planned by Beaujeu, a captain in the garrison, commanded by Countrecouer, demolished the English army and made Braddock's field England's humiliation. But this victory of the French was never again repeated in America. Disaster attended their arms until, upon the plains of Abraham, all Canada capitulated to British power. The treaty of Paris of 1763 ended the French dominion in Canada. The consummation of this bitter fate for the western posts, by actual occupancy, was committed to Maj. Robert Rogers, a native of New Hamp- shire, who commanded the Provincial Rangers.
ENGLISH GOVERNMENT OF VINCENNES.
From some cause this formality was delayed at Vincennes until 1766, when Lieut. Ramsey, of the Forty-second Regiment of British troops, displaced the banners of France from above the old fort, and into the hands of St. Marie Racine, for the people, were committed the "white lilies," which had so long signalized their home and their country. Under this new com- mander the life of the villager underwent but little change. The fort was repaired, greatly strengthened, and soon renamed Sackville. But trade, gossip, and long jaunts, even journeys to New Orleans, 1,500 miles away, to talk with friends, being not uncommon, went on as usual.
THE PONTIAC CONSPIRACY.
The Indian allies, who had tasted victory with the French at Braddock's defeat, and shared the disaster at Quebec, encour- aged by the overthrown French, developed a great leader in Pontiac, who sought by a secret blow, struck in concert at Vin- cennes, Fort Wayne, Detroit, and other points, to destroy the English settlements in the West. Foiled by treachery this great organizer, undaunted, set out from Vincennes to rally the Indians of Illinois and Missouri to his standard for another attack upon the English. Alone, at night, in the great woods of the Missis- sippi bottoms, as he bent over his camp fire, he was assassinated by an Indian who had prowled upon his trace for days, at the instigation of British gold.
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HISTORY OF KNOX COUNTY.
BRITISH INDIAN POLICIES.
English power now began to make alliances with the Indian nations, and especially with the mighty tribes lying about Superior and northern Michigan. Belts of wampum and medals with the sovereign's likeness accompanied by speeches of amity and friendship, were scattered from the Ohio to the head-waters of the Mississippi, and soon produced councils, treaties and com- pacts without number. Trade was not suffered to decline, and reversing the policy of the French, who sought to interdict the brandy trade, the English silenced all qualms of conscience by contemplating the immense gains it afforded, and abolished all restrictions upon its sale. Soon, about each English fort, was gathered the scum of the savage population, to be near the " fire- water," and ready to earn by any act (no matter how revolting) of treachery and cruelty, a sip from the white man's brandy flask. This opening of trade without restrictions brought hither a flock of traffickers-many like M. Graeter, Francis Vigo and M. Chatteau, honorable and enterprising merchants, but too many were unscrupulous, and void of all sense of restraint. By the year 1772 the central authorities began to look after his majesty's subjects in the West, and upon the 22d day of April, 1772, Thomas Gage, styling himself "lieutenant-general of the king's armies, colonel of the Twenty-second Regiment, general com- manding in chief all of his majesty's forces in North America," from his official residence in New York, addressed a proclamation to the inhabitants of the West. The proclamation begins by reciting "that many persons, contrary to the positive orders of the king, have undertaken to make settlements beyond the boundaries fixed by the treaties made with the Indian nations; and a great number of persons on the river Oubache, are leading a wandering life without government and without laws. Present orders are given," then concludes this document,. "to all those who have established themselves on the Oubache, whether at St. Vincent or elsewhere, to quit those countries instantly and with- out delay, and to retire, at their choice, into some one of his majesty's colonies." This proclamation arrived at Vincennes on the 1st of September following, and having been rendered into the French language, was read in the church by the priest Pierre
.
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HISTORY OF KNOX COUNTY.
Gibbeault. On the 14th of the same month St. Marie and fourteen other citizens, in behalf of the French inhabitants of Vincennes, dispatched their reply. They therein "deny that we are leading a wandering life, without law and without government. Our settlement is of seventy years standing, and we hold titles to our lands by grants from his Christian majesty, the king of France." This letter from the French people was laid before Gen. Gage in April, 1773, who proceeded to answer it by expressing surprise at the claims it asserted, which he would "cause to be transported to the feet of his majesty. In the meantime," he adds, "I have to demand, without delay, the name of every inhabitant at Vin- cennes and its neighborhood, and by what title each one claims." But before this census could be taken, before the "numbering of the people " demanded could be accomplished, the Stamp Act and the tax on tea had made stirring times for "the king's officers and troops," far from the pleasant homes and peaceful haunts of the ancient French settlers upon the Wabash.
CHAPTER III.
THE COLONY FROM 1767 TO 1779-BRITISH RULE-GEORGE ROGERS CLARK-HIS DREAM OF EMPIRE-THE FIRST FILIBUSTERING EXPE- DITION-THE SECOND SCHEME OF CONQUEST-DESCRIPTION OF FORT SACKVILLE-THE SUBJUGATION OF KASKASKIA-THE MOVEMENT UPON VINCENNES-THE BRITISH OCCUPATION-GENERALSHIP OF CLARK-INVESTMENT OF FORT SACKVILLE-CORRESPONDENCE BE- TWEEN THE BRITISH AND AMERICAN COMMANDERS-THE CAPITULA- TION.
A COLONY will not long remain separated from the parent stock, until it exhibits a peculiar and distinct character. At the seat of its origin, men and customs may slowly vary, in the colony occur developments, vast in their consequences, changing, often within a single generation, instincts and race peculiarities transmitted by inheritance through many centuries. The common- wealth of Oliver Cromwell was supplanted without difficulty by the restored monarchy: not all England could have reared a throne in her colonies after the battle of Bunker Hill. The French in-
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HISTORY OF KNOX COUNTY.
habitants of Vincennes, and their neighbors on the Mississippi, had little resemblance to the gay and frivolous Frenchmen of Louis XIV; and while around the old ancestral towns, his kins- men yet bent in awe at a syllable from the king, the Frenchman of the New World looked royalty in the face without pallor, and without servility demanded his rights. As early as 1773 these people maintained their agent in London (Daniel Blinn), and through him laid before Lord Dartmouth, a protest against the proposed exercise of power over them by the crown, in language of as lofty independence and just indignation as that contained in the immortal Declaration in Congress three years later.
GEORGE ROGERS CLARK.
On the 19th of November, 1752, in the old county of Albe- marle, in the State of Virginia, was born George Rogers Clark. Let it be said in most patriotic reverence, as Washington achieved the title Father of his Country (and his name shall be forever adorned with that splendor), Clark, by deeds of valor and counselsof wisdom and prudence; by braver acts; by the grasp of vaster designs; amid the sufferings from greater privations; by generalship of surpassing brilliancy; and by an administrative policy never equaled, won the right to be called the Father of the West. In 1775 he entered Kentucky. It was the era of new governments, and it was Clark's purpose to erect an independent State out of the territory lying west of the Blue Ridge. And even after the great domain he had carved from Britain was irrevoca- bly joined to the Republic, this dream of a separate empire in the Mississippi Valley tormented him with its sublimity and swayed him by its magic.
THE FIRST FILIBUSTERING EXPEDITION.
In October, 1786, he conceived the project of invading the Spanish possessions west of the Mississippi, and to that end en- listed over 100 infantry and a company of artillery at Vincennes, under the immediate command of Valentine Thomas Dalton. John Rice Jones was detailed from the militia to act as commis- sary, and that officer at once began provisioning the garrison by impressments from the Spanish merchants at Vincennes. At the
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HISTORY OF KNOX COUNTY.
head of a guard Dalton proceeded at night to the store-house of Laurient Barzedon, a Spaniard, upon the corner of Second and Broadway Streets, and demanded through an interpreter to be admitted into his cellar. The Spaniard asked what he wanted. Dalton answered he was sent by the commanding officer to search his cellar. The Spaniard lighted a candle and conducted the com- pany through his premises. A guard was left over the stores that night, and upon the succeeding day, there was transfered to Fort Patrick Henry, upon First and Church Streets, $4,000 worth of goods consisting of peltry, wine, tafia (a West India compound of rum and syrup), honey, tea, coffee, sugar, cordial, French brandy, dry goods and powder. Clark dispatched Maj. Francis Bosseron to the Illinois to inflame the inhabitants against the Spanish, and to justify his seizure of property upon the ground of reprisal for certain alleged seizures of American property by the Spanish commandant at Natchez. February 28, 1787, the council of Virginia disavowed these acts of Clark, and on the 24th of April succeeding, by a resolution of Congress, the Secre- tary of War was directed to order the commanding officer of the troops of the United States on the Ohio to take immediate and efficient measures " for dispossessing a body of men who had in a lawless and unauthorized manner taken possession of Post Vin- cennes in defiance of the proclamation and authority of the United States." November 14, 1787, Gen. Josiah Harmar was directed by the Secretary of War "to form a post of such strength, if in your power, as will be able to prevent the passage" of any party with hostile designs out of the United States into Spanish territory. Thus ended the first American filibustering expedition, the first of those lawless dreams which have since made the Antilles and the Peninsula the graves of American heroes.
CLARK'S SECOND PROJECT. 1318016
But to return to Kentucky. It was then but a hunter's camp, and the primitive laws of defense against the savage constituted its entire system of government. Neither governors nor courts attempted to exercise authority, and each little community felt the possession of sovereignty amid a solitude where there was none to dispute. During Clark's first visit he was placed in command
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HISTORY OF KNOX COUNTY.
of the irregular militia by a general consent. In the spring of 1776 he came again, with the intention of taking up his perma- nent home. In a few months he invited the settlers to a meeting at Harrodstown (now Harrodsburgh), "where matters to their interest would be considered." It was Clark's intention to pro- pose at that meeting the creation of an independent government, but upon the day appointed he was delayed by an accident in crossing a stream, which prevented his arrival at Harrodstown until late in the afternoon. He then found the assembled settlers conducting an election to appoint two delegates to the Virginia Assembly. Clark acquiesced in the plan, and remained silent concerning his own ambitious projects. The election resulted in selecting Clark and Jones as delegates. Upon arriving at Will- iamsburg, the seat of government for Virginia, these delegates found that the Assembly had arisen, and Clark determined to re- main until its next sitting. After various meetings with Gov. Patrick Henry and his executive council, Clark received author- ity to recruit four companies for the defense of Kentucky. Two sets of instructions were delivered to him, the one general, and the other directing him to attack the British posts at Vincennes and Kaskaskia. Vincennes was at that time-1778-as large as Williamsburg, and mustered 400 militia. The old French fort, then known as . Sackville, had been greatly strengthened, until it bore to the country, relatively, a position of impor- tance equal to that of Fortress Monroe at the beginning of the civil war.
DESCRIPTION OF VINCENNES' DEFENSES.
.
Upon the river's side, and within forty feet of the water's edge, two lines of palisades, reaching twenty feet above the sur- face of the earth, constructed of large timbers from the forest, planted firmly in the earth, were backed by a line of earthworks thrown up about eight feet high, behind which were mounted four six-pounders en barbette. Along the line of Vigo Street, at right angles with the river and crossing First Street, with the principal entrance or gateway opening upon the latter highway, protected by a ditch, were similar lines of defenses, protected by guns at each angle of the same caliber, mounted upon platforms of heavy tim- bers. At an elevation of twenty-five feet, at each side of the
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HISTORY OF KNOX COUNTY.
gateway, were swivels, trained to command the approach along the street. The entire walls were pierced, at convenient height, by a row of port-holes from which musketry could be fired. A similar palisade, defended by two guns of ten-pound caliber each, protected the flanks next to the church, and the rear of the works, south of Barnet Street, where were two towers or bastions pierced for musketry, was made exceptionally strong against an assault by a line of heavy timbers joined tightly together and covered with earth. Within the fortification were barracks for 1,000 men, a magazine and officers' quarters.
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