USA > Indiana > Knox County > Vincennes > History of Old Vincennes and Knox County, Indiana, Volume I > Part 2
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49 | Part 50 | Part 51 | Part 52 | Part 53 | Part 54 | Part 55 | Part 56 | Part 57 | Part 58 | Part 59 | Part 60 | Part 61 | Part 62 | Part 63 | Part 64
8
9
HISTORY OF KNOX COUNTY
that the Mound Builders at one period of the world's existence inhabited this locality in large numbers, as indicated by the numerous mounds to be found in all sections of the county. But whence these mysterious people came, or whither they went, has always been a matter of historical conjecture. Among many learned writers of the day there is a great diversity of opinion respecting the
MOUND BUILDERS AND THEIR CULTURE.
The revelations of history and tradition, the rock-carved hieroglyphics and inscriptions, the earthen effigies of which they were the authors, are all susceptible of different interpretations by the students of archaeology, and do not reveal with any degree of certainty the identity of this pre- historic race. The crumbling mounds and broken down embankments, a study of their locations and an observation of their forms, are the only avenues left open, according to Mr. Allen,* to seek information. In this respect the state geologist's report, printed some years ago, and an ac- count by the late Orland F. Baker, published in Goodspeed's History of Knox County, 1886, furnishes a bit of interesting reading. The works in Knox County of the vanished people we are discussing consist of moundst of habitation, sepulchral and temple embankments, and number more than two hundred, with probably as many more not yet explored. "Mounds of habitation are found a short distance to the north and south- west of Vincennes, along the summit of the high bluff of White river south of Edwardsport, on the graveled road between the latter town and Sanborn, and on the top and sides of the Dicksburg hills, in Decker township. A group of fifty-two mounds on the old Vaulting farm, six miles southeast of Purcell station, show more attention to regularity than is elsewhere seen, being arranged somewhat in regular lines from north to south, and from east to west. Sepulchral mounds are rare. The only one certainly identified is situated centrally in the last mentioned group. Explored by Samuel Jordon, it was found to contain human skeletons and round-bottomed pottery. Plumb-bobs, stone shuttles, spinerets and numer- ous fragments of pottery have been found on the land adjoining, which was formerly owned by the late Samuel Catt, in survey twenty-two, Decker township. Other tumuli of this character will reward the am- bitious archeologist who desires to prosecute further explorations at this point. This region was well to the center of the Mound Builders' nation. Remote from the dangers incident to a more exposed situation, and en- circled by a bulwark of loving hearts, forts, walled inclosures and citadels were unnecessary, and not erected as at exposed points on the frontier.
* E. A. Allen, History of Civilization.
t The measurements of these mounds were taken by James E. Baker, civil engineer, Kansas City, formerly of Vincennes.
10
HISTORY OF KNOX COUNTY
Perhaps the seat of a royal priesthood, their efforts essayed to build a series of temples which constituted at once a capital and holy city-the Heliopolis of the west. Three sacred mounds thrown upon, or against the sides of the second terrace or bluff east and southeast of Vincennes are the result ; and in size, symmetry and grandeur of aspect, rival, if not excel, any prehistoric remains in the United States. All three are trun- cated cones or pyramidal, and without doubt erected designedly for sacred purposes; their flat areas on their summits being reserved for oratorical forums and sacred altars, as in the Teocalli of Mexico. The Pyramid mound, which is about one mile southeast of the city, on what is known as the Miller farm, (commons lot 83, division "B.") is placed on a slightly elevated terrace surrounded by a cluster of small mounds. It is oblong with extreme diameter from east to west, at the base of three hundred feet, one hundred and fifty feet wide, and is forty-seven feet high. The level area on the summit, 15x50 feet, is crowded with intrusive burials of a later race. The Sugar Loaf mound, on the land of Dr. George Knapp, just east of the city's eastern corporate limits, is built against and on the side of the bluff, but stands out in bold relief with sharply inclined sides. Its diameter from east to west is two hundred and sixteen feet; from north to south, one hundred and eighty feet, and towering aloft one hun- dred and forty feet above Vincennes plain, it commands by twenty-seven feet the high plateau to the east. Its area on top is 16x25 feet. A section of the Sugar Loaf mound was developed quite a number of years ago, by sinking a shaft directly from the top, and the log of results then shown is as follows:
Materials.
Feet.
Inches
Loess sand
IO
0
Ashes, charcoal and bones
0
IO
Loess sand
17
0
Ashes, charcoal and bones
0
IO
Loess sand
9
0
Ashes, charcoal and bones
2
0
Red altar clays, burned
3
O
-
-
41
20
"The shaft evidently closely approached or actually reached the former surface of the hill. It settled beyond all dispute that the mound was of ar- tificial origin, and indicated that it was a temple of three stories in height. The Terraced mound, on Burnet's heights, skirted by Fairground avenue, almost within the city limits, has an east and west diameter of three hundred and sixty feet; from north to south, two hundred and eighty-two feet, and rises to an elevation of sixty-seven feet above the
11
HISTORY OF KNOX COUNTY
plain, with a level area on top of 10 x 50 feet. A winding roadway from the east furnished the votaries of the sun easy access to the summit.
"The Dicksburg Hills, which comprises a chain of elevation, rear their summits one hundred and fifty feet above the level plain and hence re- quired no additional elevation to catch the first kiss from the god of day, the deity whom the Mound Builders worshipped. These hills are very imposing viewed from any direction, but the view presented from White river to the east of them is probably the more pleasing. In extent they cover an area of from thirty-five to forty acres and their broad and flat summits were easily shaped for the establishment of sacred and sepulchral mounds. No very extensive explorations have been made of these hills (which have a strong suggestiveness of containing minerals), in quest of information pertaining to the Mound Builders, who have left unmistakable signs of having been there in implements wrought from stone and other articles of different material. The specimens of the handicraft of the Mound Builder as executed in stone and displayed in private collections, show a symmetry of form and perfection of finish, which could scarcely be equaled by a skilled mechanic if deprived of steel implements, the emery wheel and diamond dust. They consisted of hoes, spades, awls, knives, saws and spear and arrow points of flint and quartz; axes, chisels, hammers and pestles of drift granite; pipes,* beads and ornamental gorgets of greenstone, jasper and cornelian; and plumb-bobs (pendants), made from the specular ores of Missouri; all the last harder than steel, indicating a maturity of skill (not possessed by human beings between whom and the lower order of animals it would be difficult to draw a line of distinction, to be found only where society is stable and advancing towards a degree of civilization.
The LaPlante hill, one and one-half miles south of the city, is noted for its height and symmetery; and its gigantic proportions, when clad in the mantle of springtime's verdure, give it the appearance of a picturesque miniature mountain. There is a legend that a portion of the hill is com- posed of foreign soil, brought by the Indians from Missouri, to make a tomb for their medicine man, who had delivered the tribe from a terrible scourge and afterwards came here and died among his people; the earth having been transported from the spot where the invocation of the Great Spirit, preceding the deliverance, took place. It has never been explored and that is was used as a temple mound by the Mound Builders is as much a matter of conjecture as that it was the burial place of Indians.
* We are apt to judge the culture of a people by the skill they display in works of art. The article on which the Mound Builder lavished most of his skill was his pipe. This would show that with them, as with the modern Indians, the use of the pipe was largely interwoven with their civil and religious observances. In making war and concluding peace it probably played a very important part. To know the whole history of tobacco, of the custom of smoking, and of the origin of the pipe, would be to solve many of the most interesting problems of ethnology. [E. A. Allen, History of Civilization, vol. i, p. 398.]
12
HISTORY OF KNOX COUNTY
Robeson's hills,* just across the river, are another chain of minia- ture mountains of which a commanding view may be obtained from the wagon bridge. Studded with giant trees and decked with wild flowers of variegated hues, in the summer time the hills are a grand feature in a landscape picture of surpassing beattty. There are many legends con- nected with these hills relating to the Indians, who undoubtedly used them for entombing their dead.
There seems to be no doubt in the minds of archaeologists that the Mound Builders practiced agriculture, which of course, could not have been anything more than rude tillage, such as was followed by the village Indian tribes.t "This is evident," says Mr. Allen, "from the tools with which they worked. In a few cases copper tools have been recovered which may have served for digging in the ground, but in most cases their art furnished them nothing higher than spades, shovels, picks and hoes made of stone, horn, bone and probably wood." The stone implements, in the opinion of Mr. Allen, were doubtless furnished with handles of wood. "That we are right," says he, "in regarding these implements as agricultural tools, is shown not only by their large size, but also by the traces of wear discovered on them. We must admit, however, that agri- culture carried on with such tools as these, must have been in a compara- tively rude state."
There is yet much mystery connected with the modes and customs of the Mound Builders and the real purposes for which their variety of effigy mounds were builded, despite the luminous light historians of today are throwing upon the subject. Some writers have concluded that the mounds were constructed as a great tomb for the dead, but Mr. Allen is not one of that class. He says it should not be supposed "that the mounds were the sole cemeteries of the people who built them. Like the barrows of Europe, they were probably erected only over the bodies of the chiefs
* In and around Vincennes the topography of the country gives evidences of the glacial period. The Dicksburg, La Plante and Robeson Hills are no doubt the deposits from glaciers, as the soil on the summits of each is altogether different from that which is found at the base, and the timber growth of the hills (especially noticeable on Robeson's), is unlike the varieties which grow on the level plain. The Indian legend relative to the Missouri soil on La Plante's Hill probably had its origin on account of that elevation being a glacial deposit. That the Dicksburg Hills belong to the glacial epoch is further evidenced by the fact that in range of them skeletons of mastodons have been found. Skeletons of these prehistoric mammals have also been unearthed on the farm adjacent to Robeson's Hills; but the most remarkable find of remains of mammalia was recently made at Beaver Dam, north of Robeson's Hills, when the shovel of a steam dredge lifted from the bed of that stream the huge skull of a mastodon. The upper jaw held a portion of one tusk, which measured nine inches in diameter. Bones of these prehistoric monsters are frequently found in Johnson township, and have recently been discovered on the Brevoort farm, near St. Francesville, and on Tindolph's farm. in the vicinity of Bunker Hill.
+ E. A. Allen, History of Civilization, p. 409.
13
HISTORY OF KNOX COUNTY
and priests, the wise men and warriors of the tribe. The amount of work required for the erection of a mound was too great to provide one for every person. The greater number of the dead were deposited elsewhere than in mounds, but it is doubtful whether we can always distinguish the prehistoric burial places from those of the later Indians." The re- mains of mounds indicate that different sections of country are dis- tinquished by different classes of mounds. While the western country has a greater number of burial mounds than any other kind, the temple mounds seem to predominate in the south. Beyond the northern lakes their presence has never been noted and it is said that no definite trace of them can be found in Texas. "And, yet," says Mr. Allen, in speaking further of these "vanished people." particularly of the remains of their industry, "we must not forget that these are the antiquities of our own country ; that the broken archaeological fragments we pick up will, when put together, give us knowledge of tribes that lived here when civiliza- tion was struggling into being in the east. It should be to us far more interesting than the history of the land of the Pharoahs, or of storied Greece. Yet, strange to say, the facts we have just mentioned are un- known to the mass of our people. Accustomed to regard this as the new world, they have turned their attention to Europe and the east where they would learn of prehistoric times. In a general way we have regarded the Indians as a late arrival from Asia, and cared but little for their early history. It is only recently that we have become convinced of an ex- tended past in the history of this country and it is only of late that able writers have brought to our attention the wonders of an ancient culture and shown us the footprints of a vanished people."
Neither the period of the arrival of the Mound Builders in this country nor the date of their withdrawal from it has been stated by writers of an- tiquities, but it is known that at a very early day this broad land, with its rolling prairies and dense woodlands, its mighty lakes and endless rivers, was inhabited by a race of people whose knowledge of the arts seemed several stages in advance of a barbarian age. They had preceded Co- lumbus to this country many years, and had established settlements, reared monuments and practiced religion long before the ill-fated dis- coverer landed on these shores. That they were not unlearned in war is shown in their implements of warfare and the fortified inclosures they left behind them and that they were tillers of the soil and had perfected an organized state of society is quite evident. But whether or not they were associated with the American Indian by tribal ties, or otherwise, has never been determined. It is the general supposition that the Indian, who seemed to adopt many of the customs of the Mound Builders-from mining minerals and metals and working them into implements of useful- ness and articles of ornament-banished them from the domains over which for so many years he ruled as lord and master and earned the title
14
HISTORY OF KNOX COUNTY
of the first American. Though long since withdrawn from the stage of action, the part played by the Indian in the history of the northwest ter- ritory-especially the Wabash country-has been of such importance as to call for a review at this juncture of his dealings with the white man.
The habitable continent of America at the time of its discovery was traversed by the Indians, who, from their resemblance to the inhabitants of the Indies, were given their name. They were divided into nations, families and tribes, according to locality, habits and degree of consan- guinity. The Algonquins were the Primitive family, the chief elements of whose language constituted the base of the original language of the abori- gines of North America. Modifications of this originated, no doubt, in the offshoots of the parent stock finding a habitation in adjacent territory and subjected to local influences. The representative family of this stock was recognized in the Miamis, whose territory was most extensive. The different tribes which have from time to time inhabitated the territory with which we are concerned, occupied a relation more or less remote from the Miamis, who appear to have been the original and exclusive occupants of this part of Indiana. About one hundred and ninety years ago the Pottawatomies took either forcible or permissive possession of a por- tion of the Miami territory in Indiana and occupied it until their removal westward. The Weas, an immediate branch of the Miamis, the Kicka- poos, Shawnees. Winnebagoes and other tribes, have occupied territory on and adjacent to the Wabash river and its tributaries.
THE MIAMIS.
When the white man first acquired a knowledge of the aboriginal races of America, the Miamis possessed and occupied an extent of terri- tory greater than any other nation or tribe on the continent, exerting also a more powerful influence over the adjacent tribes. The Algonquin family, of which the Miamis are the representative division, occupied about half the territory of the United States east of the Mississippi and extending north to the St. Lawrence and the lakes, including among others the Knistniaux, scattered throughout the extensive domain lying be- tween Hudson's bay and the Rocky mountains; to the southward, cover- ing the area occupied by the middle states of our national union. At that date the Algonquin family possessed more warriors than all the other nations combined.
Because of the widely extended dominion of the Miamis and the numerous branches acknowledging the relation, they were in times past known as the Miami confederacy. We find among them no traditions that they had ever occupied other or different territory than that occupied by them when their existence first became known to the white race; hence it is fair to presume that they never were a migratory people. On the
15
HISTORY OF KNOX COUNTY
20th of July, 1748, a treaty of alliance and friendship was concluded be- tween the Miamis and the agents of Great Britain, at Lancaster, in the province of Pennsylvania, whereby the Miamis, by the name of Twigh- trees, were accepted as friends and allies of the English nation, recog- nized as subjects of the British king, entitled to the privileges and pro- tection of the English laws. Anterior to this date, however, the French missionaries and traders, for a long series of years, had exerted a very powerful influence over the same tribe; and in after years, also, the carly supremacy of the French over them was not forgotten and numerous trading posts continued to be established and maintained in the face of the British alliance.
By the treaty of Greenville, in August, 1795; by the treaty at Grouse- land, near Vincennes, on the 21st of August, 1805; by the treaty at Fort Wayne, on the 30th of September, 1809; by the second treaty at Green- ville on the 22d of July, 1814; and again at the Spring Wells, on the 8th day of September, 1815, the Miamis, in connection with other tribes, ceded to the United States certain joint interests in lands lying chiefly in Ohio and Indiana. In was reserved, however, to the treaty of St. Mary's, Ohio, on the 6th day of October, 1818, between the chiefs, warriors and head men of Miamis, on the one part, and Jonathan Jennings, Lewis Cass and Benjamin Parke, commissioners, representing the United States, on the other, for the Miamis to make the large cessions of territory to the United States, which most interest the people inhabiting the Wabash val- ley. By the provisions of that treaty, the United States acquired title to the following territory: "Beginning at the Wabash river, where the pres- ent Indian boundary line crosses the same, near the mouth of Raccoon creek; thence up the Wabash river to the reserve at its head, near Fort Wayne; thence to the reserve at Fort Wayne; thence, with the lines thereof, to the St. Mary's river; thence up the St. Mary's river to the reservation at the portage ; thence with the line of the cession made by the Wyandotte nation of Indians to the United States, at the foot of the rapids of the Miami of Lake Erie, on the 20th day of September, in the year one thousand eight hundred and seventeen, to the reservation at Lora- mie's store; thence with the present Indian boundary line to Fort Re- covery and with the said line thereof, following the course thereof, to the place of beginning."
In consideration for the cession aforesaid the Miamis were to receive a perpetual annuity of $15,000, payable in silver ; also, 160 bushels of salt ; and. in addition thereto, were to be provided by the United States one grist and sawmill, one blacksmith and one gunsmith shop, with the neces- sary agricultural implements.
The Miamis, for the most part, were of medium height and well built, active and excessively fond of racing; their heads were more round than most other tribes, with countenances rather agreeable than otherwise and in
16
HISTORY OF KNOX COUNTY
their habits cleanly, with a disposition favorable to the cultivation of the soil.
THE SHAWNEES.
This tribe is classed with that branch of the Algonquin family known as the Lenni Lenapes and claim that their ancestors were not inhabitants of the American continent but originated beyond the waters of the Paci- fic; that, becoming dissatisfied with their country, they marched in a body to the seashore, when, under the guidance of a leader of the Turtle tribe, they walked into the sea, the waters of which separated before them, and they walked, dryshod, along the bottom of the ocean until they reached the opposite shore. The earliest mention of any settlement of this tribe was in the beginning of the sevententh century, on the Susque- hanna, in Pennsylvania. Mr. Jefferson, in his "Notes on Virginia," in speaking of the arrival of Captain John Smith on this continent, in 1607, says that during the following year a fierce war was raging against the allied Mohicans, residing on Long Island and the Shawnees on the Sus- quehanna and to the westward of the river by the Iroquois. An enumera- tion of the Indians inhabiting territory adjacent to the Delaware river, places this tribe among others in that vicinity. Forty years later Charle- voix refers to them as occupying a location on the south of the Senecas; and in 1682 they appear to have been a party to the treaty with William Penn, under the great elm tree at Kensington; subsequently at the treaty of Philadelphia, in February. 1701, the Shawnees were parties, repre- sented by their chiefs Wap-a-tha, Le-moy-tu-ngh and Pe-moy-aj-agh. Within the period of fifty years afterward, we find this tribe occupying territory far to the south, in Kentucky, Georgia and the Carolinas, as early as 1708, from which, in consequence of their restless, warlike disposi- tion, as a measure of safety, they migrated to Ohio about the year 1752. A few years antecedent thereto, with the consent of the Delawares, they built a town at the mouth of the Wabash, on Delaware territory. The re- lations of these two kindred tribes were very amicable and so continued for a number of years, but subsequently a difficulty arose between them which terminated in a fierce battle, in which the Shawnees were defeated and again removed westward of the Ohio river. After the removal of the Miamis from the Big Miami river, in 1763, they established them- selves at Upper and Lower Piqua, making those points their headquarters. At one time, it is said, they numbered nearly four thousand at the former place. Owing to their close proximity to the border settlements on the Ohio, a fierce warfare was waged upon the whites for a number of years, in which the Delawares, Wyandottes, Mingoes and Miamis were partici- pants, the Shawnees being the most aggressive and troublesome. Their warlike dispositions, added to their faithlessness in the observance of com- pacts with other tribes, exerted a strong influence toward gradual de- generacy. Though courageous and powerful, they were deceptive and
17
HISTORY OF KNOX COUNTY
treacherous, arrogating to themselves a prominence not only over other tribes, but also over the whites. A characteristic account of the grounds upon which they claim superiority was given by one of the chiefs of that tribe at a convention held at Fort Wayne, in 1803, when he declared that "the Master of Life, who was himself an Indian, made the Shawnees before any other of the Indian race and they sprang from his brain; He gave them all the knowledge He Himself possessed and placed them upon the great island and all the other red people are descendants from the Shawnees. After He made the Shawnees He made the French and Eng- lish out of his breast, the Dutch out of His feet and the Long Knives out of His hands."
Along the valley of the Ohio the progress of settlement was resisted by this tribe with persevering continuity, the decisive engagement with the army of Gen. Wayne, at the rapids of the Miami of the Lakes, August 20, 1794, being the first effective check upon their movements. In the meantime, however, stimulated by the action of British emissaries, they participated in most of the predatory excursions into the Kentucky set- tlements along the border; and through their agency, also, it is believed, more property was destroyed and more lives sacrificed than by all the other tribes of the northwest. Nevertheless, they encountered fre- quent reverses in the progress of their warlike expeditions; for example : Bowman's expedition, in 1779, into the Mad river country; Clark's, in 1780 and 1782 and Logan's, in 1786, to the same locality; Edwards', in 1787, to the head waters of Big Miami and Todd's, in 1788, into the Scioto valley. The castigation received at the hands of Gen. Wayne, in 1794, had a most salutary effect ; so that, in the treaty at Greenville, on the 3d day of August, 1795, we find them participating in the preliminary councils, and expressing a wish to conclude a firm and lasting peace with the white people.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.