USA > Indiana > Knox County > Vincennes > History of Old Vincennes and Knox County, Indiana, Volume I > Part 11
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which reside hereabouts, to go either to the Illinois or elsewhere, to fetch their necessaries."
Capt. Philip Pitman, the author of the first English publication de- scribing the Wabash and Illinois countries, printed in London in 1770, of which a reprint edition was issued by Frank Haywood Hodder, A. M., professor of American History, University of Kansas, 1906, writes that the air in general of this (Illinois*) climate "is pure, and the sky serene, except in the month of March and the latter end of September, when there are heavy rains and hard gales of wind. The months of May, June, July and August are excessively hot and subject to sudden and violent storms ; January and February are extremely cold. The other months of the year are moderate. The principal Indian nations in this country are the Cas- casquias, Kaoquias, Mitchigamias and Peoryas; these four tribes are gen- erally called the Illinois Indians. Except in the hunting seasons, they reside near the English settlements in this country, where they have built their huts. They are a poor, debauched and dastardly people. They count about three hundred and fifty warriors. The Peanquichas, Mascoutins, Miamis, Kickapoos and Pyatonons, though not very numerous, are a brave and warlike people. The soil of this country in general is very rich and luxuriant ; it produces all sorts of European grains, hops, hemp, flax, cot- ton and tobacco, and European fruits come to great perfection. The in- habitants make wine of the wild grapes, which is very inebriating, and is, in color and taste, very like the red wine of Provence. The country abounds with buffalo, deer, and wild fowl, particularly ducks, geese, swans, turkeys and pheasants. The rivers and lakes afford plenty of fish. In the late wars New Orleans and the lower parts of Louisiana were supplied with flour, beer, wines, hams and other provisions from this country. At pres- ent the commerce is mostly confined to peltries and furs, which are got in traffic with the Indians, for which are received in return such European commodities as are necessary to carry on that commerce and the support of the inhabitants. The men of these countries are very superstitious and ignorant ; they are, in general, active and well made; they are as good hunters, can bear as much fatigue, and are as well acquainted with the woods as the Indians; most of them have some knowledge of the dialects of the neighboring Indians and much affect their manners. The price of labor in general is very high, as most of the young men rather choose to hunt and trade among the Indians than apply to agriculture or become handicrafts. At the Illinois a man may be boarded and lodged the year round on condition of his working two months, one month in plowing the land and sowing the corn, and one month in the harvest. The only trades they have among them are carpenters, smiths, masons, tailors and mill- wrights. The number of white inhabitants in this country, exclusive of the troops, are about two thousand, of all ages and sexes; in this number are included those who live at Ft. St. Vincent, on the Ouabache. Thirty
* Vincennes was at that time in the Illinois country.
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French soldiers were withdrawn from thence in the latter end of the year 1764. The inhabitants at this post live very much at their ease, having ยท everything necessary for their subsistence of their own production. Their commerce is the same as that of the other inhabitants of this country."
For some unexplained reason, the Spaniards who early made frequent visits to this part of the country, never became transfixed in its social or commercial soil. After the secret treaty with France in 1762, by which Spain, in 1769, came into possession of Louisiana, Vincennes occasionally felt the bitter effects of that power's prohibition of navigation on the Mis- sissippi. That government, however, did not exert domination as a nation over any of the territory in the Wabash country, yet it has been asserted, by the older settlers, who put their faith in traditional stories handed down by their ancestors, that alleged representatives of his most Catholic majesty came here (by what authority it is not stated) and took possession of a small quantity of land, and subsequently sold portions of it to settlers. This tract of land (according to Thomas Dubois, an old citizen of Vincennes, who volunteered the information to the writer) a portion of which lay within Vincennes, extending into Illinois for some distance beyond the west bank of the Wabash, and reaching to a point on this side of the river as far south as Gibson County, comprised about seven leagues- equal to about twenty-one square miles. The pretended agents of the king of Spain (so says tradition) sold the land aforesaid in parcels to in- dividuals who, not being able afterwards to furnish clear titles of posses- sion, were deprived of their purchases. From the same source, informa- tion is given out that a small number of Spaniards, claiming delegated powers from the king, occupied the fort here for a brief season shortly after the retirement of St. Ange as commandant and before the advent of Governor Abbott, which, if it were true, would have made Vincennes the military post of three instead of two, nations of the old world. However, in the earlier stages of Vincennes' village existence, the social as well as the commercial life of the old town presented a variety of Spanish types, as it did also of French and English peoples. Those hailing from the coun- tries last named seemed to find permanent lodgment; while natives of the former land, after a brief sojourn, sought more congenial climes. Not since the advent of Col. Francis Vigo, who rendered such valuable services to George Rogers Clark in the conquest of the northwest territory, and especially in the capture of Vincennes from the British, and who was at that time a Spanish subject, has the census reports of the old post con- tained the name of a Spaniard. Nor can it boast of another citizen, unless it be Father Gibault, a Frenchman, who was more readily swayed by the promptings of American patriotism, or who believed more firmly in the doctrines of American liberty.
CHAPTER X.
THE BEAUTIES AND BOUNTIES OF NATURE.
THE EARLY SETTLERS' AVOCATIONS-THE FORESTS YIELD ABUNDANTLY OF FRUIT AND NUTS-SUPERIOR QUALITY OF GRAPES-PRIMITIVE IMPLE- MENTS AND MODES OF AGRICULTURE-PECULIAR HARNESS FOR BEASTS OF BURDEN-THE BEE HUNTER-HOW THE FRENCH VIEWED THE BRITISH- DESCENDANTS OF DISTINGUISIIED FRENCH FAMILIES-MESSIEURS. POULLET AND RICHARDVILLE-THE WABASII CREOLE AN INTERESTING CHARACTER.
While never overly exercised as to what the morrow would bring forth in worldly goods, the life of the first settlers, who followed closely on the heels of the coureur de bois, trappers and traders from Canada, was de- voted primarily to agriculture in its crudest and most primitive state. Trad- ing with the Indians and hunting were also occupations followed by the pioneer agriculturists, who had strolled into this part of the country in an aimless sort of way, only to become bewildered at beholding the beauties and bounties spread broadcast by the lavish hand of nature. Verily, to those who came from the cold regions of the northern lakes, or the barren mountain sides of Carolina, Tennessee and Kentucky, the lovely landscape of woods, prairie and stream appeared to their astonished gaze like the vision of a panoramic picture. Wild fruits in abundance and in endless variety hung temptingly from the boughs of numberless trees. The grapes, plums, crabapples, cherries and persimmons attained a large and healthy growth and a delicious flavor, which less favored regions did not impart. while the hardy hazel nut (which is a scarce article now), the delicate pecan and "shell bark," and hickory nut, the rich walnut and butternut, in quanti- ties so numerous and in quality said to excel in flavor any of the correspond- ing products which grow to perfection in the states along the Atlantic coast, at the first touch of frost, covered the ground as thick as autumn leaves. The domestic fruits were also of prolific growth, and appealed to the eye as well as the palate. In the van of these varieties were apples, peaches, pears and grapes,* the latter possessing a palatableness and wine-producing
* Many of the residents of Vincennes, who have not as yet fully entered the "sere and yellow leaf" season of life, will recall the splendid vineyards of Dr. Beatty, corner Second and Hart streets; John B. Dofar, at First and Hart; W. J. Slinkard, First and Scott ; Cyr. Poullet, Barnet and Dubois, between Sixth and Seventh streets;
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properties likened unto those produced on the vine-clad hills of southern France. The innumerable maple trees yielded unlimited quantities of nec- tareous sap, from which was made a superior grade of sugar, a staple article of merchandise at the fur buyer's cabin, which was generally the only commercial institution of which some localities could boast. Fibrous cotton, to be woven into garments, sweet potatoes, squashes and Indian corn were gathered in goodly quantities, and the fields yielded abundantly of wheat, rye, and other cereals, while the natural meadows, vast in ex- tent, luxuriant in growth, resplendent in garments of verdure, sowed by nature, and untilled by man, were the grazing grounds for buffalo, elk and deer, which congregated in vast herds. The beautiful Wabash was alive with fish for market or home consumption, and the feathered songsters, which made the woods resound with their melodies, and the fowls of the streams, or the meadows, were easily converted into articles of food for the huntsman or became commodities on which he realized small sums of money.
The hunter and farmer of early times and even of a later day, made bee hunting a side industry, which proved a profitable avocation when properly followed. To become a honey and beeswax merchant it was only necessary to catch a bee in the act of sipping nectar from succulent wild flowers, keep her captive for a little while and then give unto the industrious insect her liberty. Nine times out of ten, when the bee was liberated, she would straightway fly to her home in a hollow tree, to which the watchful eye of her former captor followed, thus directing him to her storehouse of honey, from which he was able to supply himself later on without hav- ing to bother in attending to the hive. When the locality in which the hunter or farmer happened to find himself was not brightened with the bloom of flowers, he tempted the busy bee with a bait of some sweetened substance, frequently using a honeycomb saturated with saccharine fluid
Henry Hauser, Dubois and First streets; and the more recent extensive grape arbors (at present in the prime of a productive age) of Anton Heitz, on Lower Ninth street. Many years ago on the Bunker Hill farm, now owned by Hon. Mason J. Niblack, an eccentric Hungarian, said to be the scion of a noble family, who went under the name of George Omoda, cultivated a large vineyard and engaged exten- sively in the manufacture and sale of wines. To facilitate the sales of his grape juices he fitted up a rustic garden, in the very face of Nature, so to speak, which was frequented by some of the best people, as well as good judges of wine, who pronounced his beverages superior to the finest of domestic goods and equal to the choicest brands of the imported varieties. Mr. Omoda had a lively competitor in the person of Maurice Schabbacher, whose resort was within a half mile of Omoda's, on the Evansville road, corner Fifteenth street. "Brother" Joseph was another wine grower, who held forth at the Highlands. In the seventies and early eighties all three of these resorts were liberally patronized by a class of people in whose pres- ence to-day it would be the heighth of impropriety to even mention a wine or beer garden. The purity of the goods, and the establishment of decorum not now so easy to maintain, were features that made the wine gardens of Omoda, Schabbacher and Joseph attractive places for some people classed as the better element of society.
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to lure her to captivity, and after releasing the insect she would sometimes lead her pursuer for miles through the woods before reaching her home. Another method of luring bees for the purpose of captivity and to sub- sequently learn the location of their hives, was to place a small, shallow receptacle filled with sweetened water on a stump, which served as a very attractive bait. A novice might pass a bee tree a hundred times and take no notice of its presence. So adept were a few of these bee hunters, they could tell at a glance, without noting whether or not the insects flew to or from it, the signs of a bee tree. Whenever a bee tree was located, it was marked by the finder, and the same respect for the mark on the tree was shown as if it had been placed on a hog or a cow-the right of property had obtained, and no one questioned the ownership. If the swarm was composed of a large colony of bees, the tree was felled towards the end of the season when food became scarce; if the colony was weak, the tree was left standing for another year. Great quantities of honey were often taken from a single tree, the superiority of its flavor and the pliableness of its wax making it preferable to the domesticated variety.
The earlier agriculturists used plows made entirely of wood, with the exception of the shares. The ordinary plow had a wooden mould-board, and the beam and handle were usually twelve feet in length. Two wooden wheels were directly in front of the share-a small one and a larger one- the former revolving on the unplowed ground and the latter "tracking" in the furrow. Instead of chains or whiffletrees, a long pole, attached with a hinge to the beam was fastened to the oxen, and performed a similar service quite well. Both oxen and horses were used for plowing, as well as other farin work, and the sight of a horse and ox hitched double was not an unusual sight. The harness consisted of withes or plaited rawhides. Instead of using a yoke for oxen, twisted rawhides, made in the form of a rope, were wound around the horus of the beasts, while a hickory withe wrapped with rawhide answered for a horse's bit, to which was attached twisted rawhide lines. Later on the ox-yoke was introduced, which con- sisted of a straight stick of wood, cut at the ends to fit the horns, and tied securely in position with thongs of rawhide. Tandem was the way teams were driven when horses were used-the headstall and reins being attached to rings fastened on either end of the wooden bits. While the single and double-trees, which came at a later date, were similar in construction to the kind in use today, the clips, clevices and lap-rings were made of hick- ory withes, and lasted just for one season. Horse collars were made of corn shucks, plaited in rope-like sections, and sewed together with leather thongs, the bulge in which the hames fitted was made by rolling two plaited pieces together and sewing them on the edge of the collar. Fine ash shav- ings, pounded and mixed with deer hair and stuffed into rawhide of suffi- cient dimensions to roll and sew together, was also used in the manufac- ture of horse collars. The husbandman of ye olden time was satisfied to pitch hay with a wooden fork made from saplings, generally dogwood,
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to rake the meadows with a wooden rake, and dig potatoes or post holes with a hickory spade, which, it is said, if properly oiled, could do effective work.
Naturally, when one surveys the landscape to which the pioneers im- parted a life teeming with human thought and pulsating with human en- deavor, he longs to look upon the scenes of the northern and western world with the wondering eyes of the French who first beheld them-"the eyes of Cartier as he sailed up the St. Lawrence; of Champlain, as he paddled his bark canoe up the current of the Richelieu or shouldered it around the rapids of Ottawa; of Nicollet as he steered through the straits of Macki- naw into the expanse of Lake Michigan; of Jolliet as he rode beneath the cliffs of the Saguenay-the eyes of Boule at the Saut, of Hennepin at Niagara, of Marquette on the River of Conception, of Du L'Hut in the country of the Dakotas-the eyes of La Salle as he descended the Ohio, followed the Indian trails of Illinois and Arkansas, or pronounced that sounding formula at the mouth of the Mississippi-we seem to look out of their eyes upon this virgin world of forest and stream, of prairie and lake, of buffalo and elk, of natural beauty and human ugliness. But after all, our impressions are faint compared with theirs. Ideal presence is not real presence. Even if we could follow them on their old paths, we could not undo the great changes civilization has wrought. Nor can we recall the innocency of their eyes any more than we can renew the devo- tion of their hearts to king and church. All that is possible for us is a pale picture of as grand a panorama of natural beauty and solemnity as was ever unrolled to the vision of explorers."*
The people of the old post, and for that matter, all the French settle- ments east of the Mississippi, were permitted to "pursue the even tenor of their way," so far as English military or civil power asserted itself, from the inception of the conspiracy of Pontiac, the giant chief of the Ottawas, until the lowering clouds of the American revolution had fully descended upon the fair land. Practically, there was no civil government at Vincennes from the time St. Ange took his departure from here for Fort Chartres, in 1764, until 1777, when Lieutenant Governor Edwin Ab- bott came from Detroit, without display of pomp or ceremony, to repre- sent the king of Great Britain. Governor Abbott's first duties, like those of the French commandants who had preceded him, was to enlarge, strengthen and fortify the fort Juchereau built, Morgane de Vinsenne re- established, improved, enlarged and occupied, St. Ange reconstructed, Ram- sey held for a brief space, and St. Marie was holding at the time, which he rechristened "Fort Sackville."t He wrote to his superiors at Quebec
* Milburn, The Pioneers, Preachers and People of the Mississippi Valley.
t According to Mr. Cauthorn, the name Sackville was given the fort in honor of Sir Thomas Sackville, Earl of Dorset, an English scholar and statesman, who was in great favor with the English government, had been employed in many im-
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describing the Wabash in glowing terms, characterizing the stream as the most beautiful river in the world, and the inhabitants as peaceful, happy contented and generally well behaved. Through the persuasive powers of the adroit Abbott, and on the strength of a proclamation he issued as com- mandant, a great number of the inhabitants, with apparently no concern whatever, subscribed their names to an oath of fidelity to the government of Great Britain, which, in form, was as follows:
"I, - - , do sincerely promise and swear that I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to his majesty, King George, and him will defend to the utmost of my power, against all traitorous conspiracies, and attempts whatsoever, which shall be made against his person, crown and dignity; and will do my utmost endeavors to disclose and make known to his majesty, his heirs and successors all treasons and traitorous conspiracies and attempts, which I know shall be against him or any of them; and all this I do swear, without any equivocation, mental evasion or secret reservation; and renouncing all pardons and dispensa- tions from any power or person whomsoever, to the contrary. So help me God."
Former conditions, however, prevalent at the different villages under French sovereignty, underwent little or no change with the ascendency of British commandants, the political independence enjoyed by former sub- jects of Louis XIV living in isolated places like Vincennes, where neither the exercise of national or constitutional prerogatives of self-government had been felt, were not made to suffer by the transfer of kingly sceptres. The awful apprehensions entertained by the inhabitants when the con- templated shift of power was first made known, were dispelled by the subsequent conduct of the new commandants, who by no means "ruled with an iron hand." However, the average native of French extraction con- tinued to eye the British officers with incredulity, and treated the back- woodsmen, who had begun to stroll in from Virginia, Carolina, Tennessee and Kentucky with distrust and disdain. By diplomacy on the part of the British commandants, who allowed the natives to keep intact their old laws and policies, the latter became entirely reconciled to the so-called enforce- ment of the new regime. The French language, in all civil or military transactions, was as much in vogue as the English, and the old system of land allotments and titles was closely adhered to, the commandant grant- ing demesne tracts for residence and agricultural purposes on the same conditions as their official predecessors-that the applicant live on the same, and that a portion of it be put in cultivation within a year. It is safe to say that in the majority of cases, where such grants were made, either the spirit or the letter of the compact was violated by the petitioner, for it was just as difficult for many of the natives to forsake the woods and the chase as it would be for a duck to shun water. From their half-savage lives these well-meaning people could not banish an inherent love for the forest any more than they could speak the native tongue of their fathers,
portant foreign missions, and, upon the death of Lord Burleigh, succeeded him as Prime Minister of England. Lieut. Ramsay, a British officer, who came here in 1766, named the fort.
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which, through association with half-breeds and intermarriages with the Anglo-American races, had degenerated into a patois, wholly unintelligible to a native of La Belle France,* but generally understood by some of the older French citizens.
While this class of people may have been a dominant part of the popu- lation at the time of which we write, Vincennes nevertheless was the abid- ing place of quite a number of direct descendants of the nobility and aris- tocracy of France, England and Spain. Nor were all the French who came from Canada, including the coureurs de bois, of the ignorant and vulgar type that Volney and other travelers of the remote past would have us believe. The La Salles, the Gamelins, the Duboises, the Campagniottes, the Richardvilles, and a host of others were all descendants of noble fami- lies, and the purest of French blood coursed through their veins. In the first stages of development of the great northwest, no names are more prominent than those of Jacques Marquette and Robert La Salle. To the first belongs the honor of having first explored the Mississippi, and the other, after incomparable perseverance, under the most distressing condi- tions, succeeded in reaching its mouth. These two men were cousins. One a priest, the other unmarried, they died and with them closed their in- dividual pedigrees. In France, however, a large family of brothers and sisters remained, several of whom added other honors to the names which shine with lustre in the brilliant chapters of American history. More than a century after Jacques Marquette was laid to rest in the sands upon the shores of Lake Michigan, and Robert La Salle had fallen at the hands of an assassin in the long grass of the Texan prairies, their families again became represented on the American continent. Marie Francoise Mar- quette, sister to Jacques Marquette, and third child of Nicholas Marquette and Rose La Salle, married Cyr Alexis De Driencourt in 1754. Their great granddaughter, Emilie De Driencourt, married Jean Charles Poullet in 1794, and their son, Cyr Alexis Gideon Poullet, born in Laon, France, 1803, came to America in 1837 and took up his residence at Vincennes. Mr. Poullet was a man of high culture and accomplishments, a graduate of the College of Rheims, and honored with the degree of belles lettres, bachelor of law and bachelor of science, from the University of France.
* Quite a few years ago, a very suave gentleman, direct from one of the provinces of France, had occasion to visit Vincennes. Aaron Tootles, a very dignified Afro- American, who stood six feet four inches in his stockings, a veritable monument of pomposity, was the proprietor of the only first-class barber-shop in the city, into which the stranger strolled in quest of information. It was impossible, however, for the latter to make known his wants to the gentleman of color. Mr. Tootles, always exceedingly polite to strangers, and not without curiosity as to the visitor's mission here, started out to locate an interpreter, whom he soon found in the person of "Billy" Watson, a native "Frenchman," whom he presented to the stranger with great eclat. After laboring for fully a half hour with the Frenchman, to make himself understood, Mr. Watson withdrew in disgust, and, calling Mr. Tootles to the door from the outside, exclaimed, in a loud tone of voice, "Hell! Tootles, that feller can't talk French !'
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