History of Madison County, Indiana ; a narrative account of its historical progress, its people and its principal interests, Volume I, Part 6

Author: Forkner, John La Rue, 1844-1926
Publication date: 1970
Publisher: Evansville Ind. : Unigraphic, Inc.
Number of Pages: 918

USA > Indiana > Madison County > History of Madison County, Indiana ; a narrative account of its historical progress, its people and its principal interests, Volume I > Part 6

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By the Greenville treaty the United States was granted several small tracts of land for military stations, two of which-Fort Wayne and Vincennes-were in Indiana. The United States government was further given the right to build or open roads through the Indian country, one of. which ran from Fort Wayne to the Wabash river and down that stream to the Ohio. For these concessions the United States gave the Indians goods to the value of $20,000 and an annuity of $9,500, in goods, forever. This annuity was to be distributed among the tribes in the following manner: The Delawares, Pottawatomies, Shawnees, Wyandots, Miamis, Ottawas and Chippewas, $1,000 each ; the Kickapoos, Weas, Piankeshaws, Eel Rivers and Kaskaskias, $500 each. The United States further agreed to relinquish elaim to all other Indian lands north of the Ohio, east of the Mississippi and south of the Great Lakes, ceded by Great Britain in the treaty of 1783.

By an act of Congress, approved May 7, 1800, the Northwest Ter- ritory was divided into three territories-Ohio, Indiana and Illinois- and on the 13th of the same month General William Henry Harrison was appointed governor of the Territory of Indiana. At the same

HISTORY OF MADISON COUNTY

time John Gibson, of Pennsylvania, was appointed territorial secretary.

Although the United States, by the treaty of Greenville, agreed to allow the Indians to remain in peaceable possession of their lands north of the Ohio, before a decade had passed the white man began to look with longing eyes at the rich valleys and prairies of Indiana and pressure was brought to bear upon the government to negotiate a treaty whereby these lands could be acquired and opened to settlement. Ac- cordingly, a general council of Indians was called to meet at Fort Wayne on June 7, 1803. The most important acts of the council were the recognition of the right of the Delawares to certain lands lying between the Ohio and the Wabash rivers, the defining of the post boundaries at Vincennes, and the cession of the post tract to the United States by the Delawares. General Harrison was present at the council and made the necessary preliminary arrangements for the treaty after- ward held at Vincennes on August 18, 1804, by which the Delawares "for the considerations hereinafter mentioned relinquish to the United States forever, all their right and title to the tract of country which lies between the Ohio and Wabash rivers and below the tract ceded by the treaty of Fort Wayne, and the road leading from Vincennes to the Falls of the Ohio."

The most northern point of the tract ceded by this treaty is not far from French Lick. For the cession the tribe was to receive an annuity of $300 for ten years "to be appropriated exclusively to the purpose of ameliorating their condition and promoting their civiliza- tion." To accomplish these ends it was agreed that "suitable persons shall be employed at the expense of the United States to teach them to make fences, cultivate the earth, and such of the domestic arts as are adapted to their situation; and a further sum of $300 shall be appropriated annually for five years to this object."

The Piankeshaws claimed the land and refused to recognize the title of the Delawares to the region thus ceded. General Harrison met the Piankeshaw chiefs at Vincennes on August 27, 1804, and concluded a treaty by which the tribe relinquished title to the tract for an addi- tional annuity of $200 for five years.

Another treaty was concluded at Grouseland, near Vincennes, on August 21, 1805, between General Harrison and the chiefs of several tribes, in which "The Pottawatomies, Miamis, Eel Rivers and Weas explicitly acknowledge the right of the Delawares to sell the tract of land conveyed to the United States by the treaty of the 18th of August, 1804, which tract was given by the Piankeshaws to the Delawares, about thirty-seven years ago." At the same time the Eel River and Wea tribes agreed to "cede and relinquish to the United States forever, all that tract of country which lies to the south of a line to be drawn from the northeast corner of the tract ceded by the treaty of Fort Wayne, so as to strike the general boundary line, running from a point opposite to the mouth of the Kentucky river to Fort Recovery, at the distance of fifty miles from its commencement on the Ohio river." The lands thus ceded include the present counties of Jefferson, Ripley, Jennings, Jackson, Scott, Washington and Orange, and small portions of some of the adjoining counties.

HISTORY OF MADISON COUNTY

About this time some of the Indian chiefs began to see, in the policy of making treaties of cession, the loss of the lands guaranteed to the red men by the treaty of Greenville. They had been accustomed to look upon Little Turtle as one of their wisest men, a leader whose opinions were entitled to respect, but when he bowed to the inevitable and joined in disposing of the lands of his people he was branded as "an Indian with a white man's heart and a traitor to his race." In November, 1805, a prophet arose among the Shawnees in the person of Lalawethika, then about thirty years of age. He went into a trance, saw the spirit world, and came back with a message from the Master of Life to "let fire-water alone, abandon the white man's customs," etc. After his vision he changed his name to Tenskwatawa (sometimes written Elsk- watawa), which in the Shawnee tongue means "The Open Door." This name was selected because he claimed that he was to open the way by

INDIANS AND PIONEERS

which the Indians were to regain the lands of which they had been dispossessed and the power they had lost. He took up his headquarters at Greenville, but the Miamis were jealous of his influence and in order to lessen his power among the braves of that tribe some of the chiefs declared him to be an imposter. Says Mooney :

"By some means he had learned that an eclipse of the sun was to take place in the summer of 1806. As the time drew near, he called about him the scoffers and boldly announced that on a certain day he would prove to them his supernatural authority by causing the sun to become dark. When the day and hour arrived and the earth at mid- day was enveloped in the gloom of twilight, Tenskwatawa, standing in the midst of the terrified Indians, pointed to the sky and cried: 'Did I not speak the truth ? See, the sun is dark !' "

Tenskwatawa then went a step farther in his claims to supernatural power and asserted that he was a reincarnation of Manabozho, the

HISTORY OF MADISON COUNTY

great "first doer" of the Algonquians. He opposed the intermarriage of Indian squaws with white men and accused the Christian Indians of witcheraft. The Delaware chief, Tatebockoshe, through whose influence the treaty of 1804 had been brought about, was tomahawked as a wizard on the accusation of the prophet, and the Indian missionary known as "Joshua" was burned at the stake near the present town of Yorktown, Delaware county, only a few miles east of Anderson. His followers increased, but it soon became apparent that something more than proph- ecy and a display of supernatural ability was necessary to restore the Indians to their birthright.

As Pontiac had taken advantage of the preaching of the Delaware prophet, more than forty years before, to organize a conspiracy, Tecum- seh (the Shooting Star), a brother of the prophet, now came forward as a temporal leader and began the work of cementing the tribes into a confederacy to resist the further encroachment of the white man. Tecumseh and Tenskwatawa were sons of Pukeesheno, who was killed at the battle of the Kanawha, in 1774, when the prophet was an infant.

In the spring of 1801 a mission had been established among the Delawares in what is now Madison connty. This was broken up by Tenskwatawa about 1806 or early in 1807 and some of the Delawares espoused the cause of the Shawnee chieftain. A great many Indians from the lakes came to visit the prophet and his brother in the spring of 1808. The peaceable Delawares and the Miamis protested against this incursion and to avoid an open rupture with these tribes the two brothers removed their headquarters to the Wabash river, just below the mouth of the Tippecanoe, where they established a village known as "Prophet's town."

Tecumseh then notified General Harrison that he and his followers would never consent to the occupation of the Indian lands by white men until all the tribes should agree, instead of the few who claimed to own the lands. Having served this notice upon the governor of the Indiana Territory, he began his active propaganda, visiting the chiefs and head men of the tribes to secure their cooperation and arouse them to action. Some two years were spent in this work, and in the meantime a treaty was concluded at Fort Wayne on September 30, 1809, whereby two large tracts of land in Indiana were ceded to the United States. The first embraced practically all of the present coun- ties of Fayette, Wayne and Randolph, and the second included approx- imately the counties of Monroe, Lawrence, Green, Sullivan, Owen, Clay and Vigo. This treaty so incensed the Shawnees and their allies that they commenced a series of raids upon the frontier settlements. To protect the settlers, General Harrison, in the summer of 1811, went up the Wabash to the site of Terre Haute, where he built a fort.

He then went to Prophet's town, but before arriving at the village he was met by a delegation and arrangements were made for a "talk" the next day. That was on November 6, 1811. That night Harrison's army cncamped on a piece of high ground not far from the village. Harrison distrusted the members of the delegation, so that night he placed a strong guard about the camp and ordered his men to sleep on Vol. 1-3

HISTORY OF MADISON COUNTY

their arms. Events proved that his suspicions were well founded. A little while before the break of day on the morning of the seventh, the Indians, led by Tenskwatawa in person, made their attack, intending to surprise the camp. The precautions taken by Harrison now demon- strated his wisdom. His camp fires were extinguished and his men fought on the defensive until it was light enough to see clearly, when they charged, utterly routing the Indians. Amid the din of battle the voice of the prophet could be heard haranguing his warriors, telling them that through his supernatural power the bullets of the white men would be rendered harmless and that they would win the victory. In this action, known as the battle of Tippecanoe, the whites lost sixty killed and one hundred wounded. The loss of the Indians was much greater. Harrison then burned Prophet's town and returned to Vin- cennes.

Tecumseh was in Tennessee at the time the battle occurred. Upon his return it is said he called the prophet a fool, took him by the long hair and shook him until his teeth rattled, and declared that he ought to be killed for thwarting their plans. Not long after this Tecumseh went to Canada, joined the British army, in which he was made a brigadier- general, and fell at the battle of the Thames, October 5, 1813.

In December, 1811, a memorial was sent to Congress hy the people of Indiana, asking for admission into the Union as a state, but before any action was taken on the memorial the War of 1812 broke out, which completely engrossed the attention of the national administra- tion for the next three years. In this conflict some of the tribes in the interior acted in accord with the British and brought the war into Indiana. Late in the year 1812 Lieutenant-Colonel Campbell, of the Nineteenth United States Infantry, with about six hundred mounted men, was sent against the hostile Miamis on the Mississinewa river. On the morning of December 17, 1812, Colonel Campbell surprised an Indian town, inhabited by a number of Delawares and Miamis, killed eight warriors and took forty-two prisoners. Before daybreak the next morning, while Campbell and his officers were in council, his camp was attacked by a large party of Indians, but after an action of over an hour the assailants fled, leaving fifteen dead upon the field, many more having been probably carried away. The whites lost eight killed and forty-two wounded. Campbell then sent two messages to the Delawares living on the White river, who had previously been requested to aban- don their towns there and remove to Ohio. In these messages he ex- pressed his regret at having killed some of their tribe and urged them to go to the Indian settlement on the Auglaize river in Ohio. Not long after that they went to Ohio, accompanied by a small number of friendly Miamis, and placed themselves under the protection of the United States.

In June, 1813, Governor Posey received information that some hostile Indians were lurking about the abandoned Delaware villages on the White river and ordered Colonel Joseph Bartholomew to pro- ceed at once to those villages and punish any Indians found there. Bartholomew, with 137 mounted men-parts of three companies of rangers commanded by Captains James Bigger, Williamson Dunn and C. Peyton, and a small detachment of militia under Major Depauw

HISTORY OF MADISON COUNTY

-left Valonia on June 11, 1813, and four days later reached the upper Delaware town on the White river to find the principal part of it had been burned before their arrival. In the four houses that were left standing was a considerable quantity of corn. Three or four miles down the river Bartholomew found another village that had been burned, and twelve miles below the first town visited was another vil- lage still standing. Here a number of horses were captured, a large quantity of corn was destroyed and the village laid waste. The sur- rounding country was then seonred in search of Indians, but only a few were discovered. In the attempt to surround and capture them, one Indian was killed. One of Captain Peyton's men was thrown from his horse and while dismounted was shot in the hip by an Indian lurking in ambush and severely wounded. The expedition then returned to Valonia, arriving there on the 21st of June.

On December 14, 1815, a second memorial was addressed to Congress by the inhabitants of Indiana Territory, praying for admission into the Union. This time their efforts were crowned with success and a bill providing for the admission of the state was approved by Presi- dent Madison on April 19, 1816. At that time there were but thirteen organized counties in Indiana and the greater part of the land, inelud- ing Madison county, was still in the hands of the Indians. In the fall of 1818 Jonathan Jennings, Benjamin Parke and Lewis Cass were appointed commissioners on the part of the United States to negotiate a treaty with the Delawares for their lands in Indiana. The treaty was

coneluded at St. Mary's, October 3, 1818, when the tribe relinquished all elaim and title to the lands, with the understanding that posses- sion was not to be given for three years, at the end of which time they were to remove to a new home to be provided for them by the United States on the west side of the Mississippi river. The United States further agreed to pay to the Delawares a perpetual annuity of $4,000, and to furnish and support a blacksmith for the benefit of the tribe.

Three days later (October 6, 1818), the treaty was ratified by the Miamis, making it valid, and on September 20, 1821, the Delawares turned their faees toward the setting sun and set out for their new home beyond the great Father of Waters. The white man was now in full possession. In the century that has elapsed since the burning of the Delaware villages on the White river, great changes have come to the beautiful valley. The scream of the factory whistle is heard instead of the howl of the wolf or the war-whoop of the savage; the smoke of the council fire has been displaced by the smoke that rolls from the chimneys of great industrial establishments; the schoolhouse has taken the place of the tepee; the trail through the forest has been broadened into a highway, over which eivilized man skims along in his automobile at the rate of thirty or forty miles an hour; along these highways are stretehed telephone and telegraph lines that hear testimony to the century's progress, and coaches, almost palatial in their magnificence, propelled by steam or eleetrieity traverse the land where once the red · man roamed in all his freedom.

The seat of government of the Territory of Indiana was established at Vincennes when the territory was organized in 1800 and remained there until 1813. On March 11, 1813, the territorial legislature passed

HISTORY OF MADISON COUNTY

an act providing that "from and after the first day of May next, the seat of government of this territory shall be located at Corydon, Har- rison county." There the capital remained until after the admission of the state in 1816. By the act of January 11, 1820, the legislature appointed ten commissioners to "select and locate a tract of land, not exceeding four sections, for a permanent capital." The commissioners entered at once upon their duties and after visiting several proposed locations selected the one on the White river, where the city of In- dianapolis now stands. There is a current rumor that the little vil- lage of Strawtown, Hamilton county, only a short distance west of the Madison county line, came within one vote of being the choice of the commission. Had that site been selected, Madison county would have been several miles nearer to the capital city. The selection of the Indianapolis site was confirmed by the legislature on January 6, 1821, but the seat of government was not removed from Corydon until Janu- ary 10, 1825.

CHAPTER IV

SETTLEMENT AND ORGANIZATION

FIRST SETTLERS IN MADISON COUNTY-SKETCHIES OF PROMINENT PIO- NEERS-FRONTIER LIFE AND CUSTOMS-THIE LOG CABIN-FURNITURE -"SWAPPING WORK" -- LOG ROLLINGS-HARVESTING-HOMESPUN CLOTHING-MADISON COUNTY ORGANIZED-PROVISIONS OF THE OR- GANIC ACT-COUNTY SEAT DIFFICULTIES-ANDERSON FINALLY SELECTED-PUBLIC BUILDINGS-THE THREE COURTHOUSES-LAYING THE CORNER-STONE OF THE PRESENT COURTHOUSE-THE FOUR JAILS- CHANGES IN THE ORIGINAL BOUNDARIES.

When it beeame known that the Delaware Indians had eeded their lands in Indiana to the United States by the treaty of St. Mary's, October 3, 1818, emigrants from the older states began coming into the "New Purchase" for the purpose of securing lands and establishing homes. Although the treaty gave the Indians the privilege of remain- ing upon the ceded lands for three years, before the expiration of that period a number of white men had located in what is now Madison county, the majority of them coming from Virginia and Kentucky.

The first actual settler in the county, of whom anything authentie can be learned, was an Irishman named John Rogers, who came from North Carolina and on December 29, 1818, less than two months after the eonelusion of the treaty, located on a tract about a mile and a half east of the present town of Pendleton. The lands had not yet been sur- veyed, but Mr. Rogers set to work elearing his land and preparing for a erop the following season. When the survey was made by the gov- ernment, he did not like the tract he was on and removed a short dis- tance southeast, where he entered a farm and lived until 1838, when he sold out to Abraham Vernon and went to Iowa.

Among those who located in the county in 1819 were Frederick Bronnenberg and Adam Winsell, both of whom were afterward prom- inently identified with publie affairs. Frederick Bronnenberg was a German, who first settled on a piece of land about three and a half miles east of Anderson, on the south side of the White river. A year or so later he removed to the north side of that stream, where he remained for one year, when he reerossed the river and entered a traet of land about a mile west of the present town of Chesterfield. There he eontinued to reside until his death in 1853. Mr. Bronnenberg was one of the most energetic and progressive of Madison county's pioneers. He built a sawmill, gristmill and woolen factory, all of which were destroyed by fire some five or six years before his death. He was a member of the first grand jury after the county was organized.

HISTORY OF MADISON COUNTY

Adam Winsell was a blacksmith by trade. When he came to the county in 1819, he located on the west half of the northwest quarter of section 22, township 18, range 7, about a mile and a half east of Pendleton, where he established what was probably the first blacksmith shop in the county. He did not enter the land for more than ten years after settling upon it, but told the other settlers as they came in that he had done so, later explaining that he did not want to "run the risk of having it entered from under him." When the county was organized in 1823; he was made one of the first associate judges and held the office for seven years. As a blacksmith he made the irons and fastened them upon the men who murdered the two Indians in 1824, remarking as he did the work that he would put them on so firmly that "no corpus could get them off without his consent." In 1837 he sold his farm to Joseph Weeks and went to Iowa. He has been described as a man of boundless good nature, never cross to his family, and a much better man than many of those who make higher pretensions. In a sketch of Judge Winsell, written by Joseph B. Lewis and published in the Ander- son Herald of September 22, 1881, the writer says: "He always ob- tained religion at camp meeting, just after the harvest times, and con- tinued in good standing in the church until the shooting matches began in the fall, when he would get drunk, and, as a necessary con- sequence, be expelled from the church and remain outside until camp meeting time came around the next year. It is due to truth, if not to the dignity of history, to say that the Judge was a good shot and a boon companion of the boys at these shooting matches."

In 1820, as the time for the departure of the Indians drew nearer, quite a number of white men came into the county, most of them set- tling in what is now Fall Creek township. Among them were eight men who formed a colony in Clarke county, Ohio, and came to Indiana in search of lands. They were Elias Hollingsworth, Thomas and Wil- liam McCartney, Manly Richards, William Curtis, Israel Cox, Saul Shaul and Moses Corwin. All except the last named were married and after selecting their lands they returned to Ohio for their families, mak- ing the journey back to Indiana with one wagon, drawn by an ox team, and four pack horses. From Dayton, Ohio, to Newcastle, Indiana, they had a public highway, but from the latter place they guided their course by a compass, which one of their number was fortunate enough to pos- sess, blazing their way through the forest to mark out a route for use on future occasions. Upon arriving at their destination they found that two men named Stanfield and Burras had settled upon the prairie north of where Pendleton now stands. A little later in the year Thomas and James Scott and Thomas M. Pendleton, with some twelve or fifteen others, settled in the same locality.

Another pioneer of 1820 was Amasa Makepeace, who came from Massachusetts and settled where the town of Chesterfield is now located. Not long after settling there he built a mill, and in 1825 his son, Allen, opened a store. The latter was at one time considered the wealthiest man in Madison county and at the time of his death, in 1872, was the owner of nearly two thousand acres of land. Another son, Alford, was for years a prominent business man of Anderson. He died in 1873.

HISTORY OF MADISON COUNTY

Amasa Makepeace was a member of the county board which ordered the erection of the first jail in 1829.

William Marshall also came to the county in 1820, built a double log house on the west side of the White river, opposite the present city of Anderson, and established a trading post. His stock consisted chiefly of goods adapted to the Indian trade, such as cheap articles of jewelry, showy blankets, etc. Little is known of Mr. Marshall, but it is probable his trading post was discontinued when the Indians left the country. Benjamin Fisher and his family settled near the present village of Fishersburg in 1820. He was killed by Indians while felling a tree near Strawtown, Hamilton county, and his widow afterward married a man named Freel. His son, Charles Fisher, who was but one year old when the family came to Madison county, was the first merchant in Fishersburg. In this year there also came Zenas Beckwith, who set- tled on the White river, near Anderson; Eli Harrison and William Stogdon (or Stockton), near Anderson; and a few others in various parts of the county.

On March 4, 1821, John Berry came with his family from Clark county, Indiana, and established his domicile where the city of Anderson now stands. When the county was organized he donated a consider- able portion of his land (Kingman says sixty acres) for county seat purposes. He was the first postmaster at Anderson, but after several years residence there went to Huntington, Indiana, where he died in 1835. His son, Nineveh Berry, was born in Clark county, April 20, 1804, and was therefore nearly seventeen years of age when the family removed to Anderson. His whole life was passed in his native state and just before his death, which occurred on August 17, 1883, it was claimed that he was the oldest native born Hoosier living. He served for eight years as county recorder; four years as treasurer; was a soldier in the Mexican war; enlisted in the Thirty-fourth Indiana Infantry in the Civil war, but after a year's service in the commissary department failing health compelled him to retire from the army. In 1833 he mar- ried Hannah Pugh, who came with her parents to Madison county from Ohio in 1826, when she was eleven years old. She died on June 11, 1875.

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History of Madison County, Indiana ; a narrative account of its historical progress, its people and its principal interests, Volume I, Part 6

Author: Forkner, John La Rue, 1844-1926 Publication date: 1970 Publisher: Evansville Ind. : Unigraphic, Inc. Number of Pages: 918

Author: Forkner, John La Rue, 1844-1926
Publication date: 1970
Publisher: Evansville Ind. : Unigraphic, Inc.
Number of Pages: 918