USA > Indiana > Knox County > Vincennes > History of Old Vincennes and Knox County, Indiana, Volume I > Part 39
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ing "the most essential service and communicating his orders in every direc- tion, and by conduct and bravery exciting the troops to press for victory."
Soon after this battle Lieutenant Harrison was promoted to a cap- taincy and placed in charge of Fort Washington, the most important fort on the western frontier. In 1797, there remaining no longer an oppor- tunity for him to render his country service on the battle field, he tendered his resignation and quitted the military to enter civil life. Almost im- mediately on leaving the army he received the appointment of secretary, and, ex officio, lieutenant-governor of the northwest territory. The fol- lowing year, by a faithful performance of his official duties, an intelli- gent conception of the people's needs, and a desire to promote their in- terests at all times, he became deservedly popular with the masses, and was elected their first delegate to congress, being at this time in the twenty- sixth year of his age.
He took his seat in the national house of representatives, December, 1779, at the beginning of the sixth session of congress, when some of the ablest men the country has ever produced were members of that honorable body-ripe in statecraft, learned in letters and law, orators and debaters of superior eloquence and superb skill. Yet among these talented and learned wiseacres Harrison's abilities were not only recognized, but they were ad- mired and respected. The all-absorbing topic of discussion in the national legislative halls at that time was the acquisition and disposition of public lands. Harrison framed much of the legislation pertaining to these impor- tant measures, and subsequently was clothed with authority to execute the provisions of said measures, displaying such fine business acumen and ex- ercising such unscrupulously honest methods that he won the government's thanks and the people's approbation. By introducing legislative action to overthrow the pernicious system of disposing of the public domain in large tracts, limited to four thousand acres, Mr. Harrison made a master stroke in defense of the poor man, thwarted the land grabbers, speculators and monopolists in their scheme to get a corner on land, and paved the way for poor emigrants to procure a homestead at trifling cost. In defending the bill he had introduced in the house to reduce the size of tracts of public land offered for sale, which was the joint production of himself and Albert Gallatin, Mr. Harrison won an enviable distinction as a statesman and an ' orator. It was through the workings of this act that thousands of indus- trious farmers from the northern and middle states, and many of the poorer planters of the south came into a field where fair and honest deals for public lands could be had. And it was by providing such conditions as these that growth, life, vitality and respectability were imparted at an early day to the western settlements.
The condition of the Northwest Territory, and the masterly manner in which Governor Harrison managed its civil and military affairs when he took the reins of government in 1800, have been already briefly touched on. The ability with which Harrison discharged the functions of territorial
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governor, extending over a period of thirteen years, during which the people clamored at the expiration of each successive term for his reap- pointment, was so marked that congress took official cognizance of it year by year. To reproduce these reports of commendation would require vol- umes; and to set out the many state papers, official reports and addresses of Governor Harrison, all illustrative of a patriot, statesman, soldier, scholar, and diplomat, would result in the compilation of an exhaustive work, re- plete with the purest patriotic sentiments, the choicest language, the sound- est logic and the nicest arrangement of words, clothed in the finest tissues of rhetoric.
Upon the declaration of war against Great Britain Harrison was unan- imously chosen to assume chief command of the American forces in the northwest, where the hostile Indians were still continuing their bloody work at the bidding of British interests. Having been thus vested with supreme control of this division of the army, on September 17, 1812, he directed his attention to the immediate objects of the campaign-the recapture of De- troit (which the cowardly and imbecile Hull had surrendered), the reduc- tion of Malden, and the protection of the borders on the northwestern frontiers. To retrieve the great losses sustained by General Winchester at the river Raisin (where nine hundred of the most promising young men of the northwest yielded up their lives), and in the disastrous defeats suffered by others who had preceded him, and in the maintenance of the defenses and the preparation of offensive movements against the British and Indians, he directed all his energies.
Early in the spring of 1813 he learned that an expedition, composed of the combined forces of Proctor and Tecumseh, was about to march against Fort Meigs. By May 3d ample preparations had been made for the attack, and his forces had been augmented by an addition of 3,000 troops from Kentucky. The attack of the fort was made on May 5th, and at the end of a five days' siege in which many on both sides were killed, the ene- mies were driven from their batteries, notwithstanding their superior num- bers. It is said that the final charges on the enemies batteries, after which the guns were spiked, was the most spirited, desperate and sanguinary recorded in the annals of border warfare. The period of its duration was only forty-five minutes, yet in that time the British and their Indian allies lost nearly two hundred men while the number of killed and wounded on the American side was eighty or ninety. Disheartening as was this de- feat to the enemy, they sought to compensate for their losses by an attack on the fort at Sandusky of which Col. Croghan was commandant, but the gallant Croghan repulsed them and perceptibly thinned their ranks.
It was the eighteenth day of September when the fleet of Commodore Perry arrived off Sandusky bay, and several days later he had cut a large swath through the columns of the enemy who fled from the scenes of carnage with their ranks sadly depleted. Harrison was again on the trail of Proctor, pursuing him up the river Thames towards the towns of the
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Moravians, where he overtook him on October 5th and illustrated the superiority of American arms to British by administering to the Briton butcher a scathing defeat. Here it was where fell the great Tecumseh, whose death deprived Proctor of one of his best generals and created a void in the ranks he never could fill. The loss to the British, killed and wounded, was little less than seven hundred. President Madison, in his message to congress, December 7, 1813, said the result of this engagement was "signally honorable to Major General Harrison by whose military talents it was prepared." And Mr. Cheever, addressing his remarks to con- gress, said "the victory of Harrison was such as would have secured to a Roman general, in the best days of the republic, the honors of a triumph. He put an end to the war in uppermost Canada." Governor Snyder of Pennsylvania, in his message of that year, says: "The blessings of thou- sands of women and children, rescued from the scalping knife and the ruthless savage of the wilderness, and the still more savage Proctor, rest on Harrison and his gallant army." In further recognition of his eminent services on that occasion, by joint resolution of both houses of congress, at that session, the thanks of the Union were tendered and a gold medal awarded him.
This ended Harrison's brilliant military career, which was the begin- ning of a new chapter in the history already replete with his civil cares and responsibilities. He was appointed by President Madison in 1814, in con- junction with Gov. Shelby and Gen. Cass, to treat with the Indians of the northwest, at Greenville, O., the old headquarters of Gen. Wayne. In 1815 when the treaty of Ghent provided for the pacification of several important tribes, he was placed at the head of the commission. In 1816 he was elected to represent his district in congress. He was elected to the senate of Ohio in 1819. In 1824, having been chosen as one of the presidential electors for Ohio, he cast his vote for Henry Clay. The same year he was elected to the senate of the United States, where he was honored with the chair- manship of the committee on military affairs. In 1828 he was appointed by President Adams, Minister Plenipotentiary to the Republic of Colom- bia, in South America, and on his arrival at the capital, Bogota, given a demonstrative reception and overwhelmed with evidences of profound re- spect and admiration.
The inauguration of President Jackson's administration necessitated the recall of General Harrison from South America the year after he entered upon his official duties in that country. Returning joyfully to the land of his birth, he withdrew from the pursuits of active life, and re- tired to his farm at North Bend, on the Ohio river, near Cincinnati. For quite a number of years he was made clerk of Hamilton county, of which he was a resident. He tried to seek retirement towards the latter days of his life but the people would not sanction it, and in 1835 brought him out as a candidate for the presidency. While he was not elected, owing to a peculiar complication existing among political parties at that period, the
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vote showed that he had a great popular following with the people. His race had demonstrated so clearly his popularity, that his friends induced him to accept another nomination, and in 1840 placed his name at the head of the whig ticket. In the electoral college he was given 234 of the 294 votes cast, his opponent, Mr. Van Buren, receiving only sixty. On March 4, 1841, he was duly inaugurated, at which time he delivered an address in the presence of a large concourse of people, * "expressing the fear that we were in danger of placing too much power in the hands of the president, and declaring his intention of exercising the powers intrusted to him with great moderation."
He had fairly entered upon the dicharge of duties incumbent on the chief magistrate of the nation, to which exalted position the voice of the people had called him from a retirement for which he yearned, when the joy of his constituents was suddenly transformed to grief, by the an- nouncement that the president was dead! The malady which suddenly seized him was pleurisy fever, and after a few days of intense suffering he died on April 4th, just one month following the date of his inauguration. Had Harrison been permitted to have served out his term, with Daniel Webster, head of the cabinet, he would have no doubt given the most bril- liant and wholesome administration of affairs in the country's history. In speaking of his death the National Intelligencer of April 9, 1841, says: "Never since the days of Washington has any one man so concentrated upon himself the love and confidence of the American people; and never, since the melancholy day which shrouded a nation in mourning for his sud- den death, has any event produced so general and so profound a sensation of surprise and sorrow."
The mortal remains of General Harrison are entombed on his farm at North Bend, about five miles below Cincinnati. The burial place is within a short distance of the Baltimore & Ohio Southwestern railroad tracks, on the northeast side thereof, where the attention of the traveler is directed by the presence of a large American flag, which perennially waves above the hallowed spot.
* John S. C. Abbott, Lives of Presidents of the United States, p. 272.
CHAPTER XX.
A FEW OF VINCENNES' NOTABLE CITIZENS IN EARLY DAYS.
GOVERNORS GIBSON AND POSEY-LOGAN'S SPEECH-GENERAL ZACHARY TAYLOR -HIS DAUGHTER WOOED BY JEFFERSON DAVIS-THE "TRYSTING BOULDER" -GENERAL ROBERT EVANS-JUDGE WILLIAM PRINCE-HIS ROMANTIC COURTSHIP-NATHANIEL EWING-JUDGE JOHN LAW-THE FADING OF FORESTS AND STREAMS-DISAPPEARANCE OF BEASTS AND BIRDS-THE BUF- FALO AND THE PAROQUET-SPORTING ITEMS OF THE PAST AND PRESENT- HORSE RACING AND COCK FIGHTING-OLD MAN BLACK-FISHING RESORTS AND BIG GAME FISH-ATHLETIC, SPORTING, HUNTING, FISHING AND OUT- ING CLUBS-THE FEATS OF WILLIAM LAKE, PEDESTRIAN-THE SKINNER- MURRAY PRIZE FIGHT-PUGILIST TOM . ALLEN TRAINS AT VINCENNES- CAMP DEXTER, THE MOHAWK, AND THE MUCH-NAMED WABASH RIVER.
About the time Indiana as a state was admitted into the union Vincennes had become the home of quite a number of brainy and talented men,* among whom was John Gibson, who labored assiduously in the dual ca- pacity of territorial secretary and governor from 1800 to 1816, the year of our statehood. General Gibson was born in Lancaster, Pa., May 23, 1740. He was well schooled in boyhood days, and when but eighteen years old joined the expedition of General Forbes, which marched against Fort Du
*In 1805 much of the territory now occupied by Vincennes was open commons. At this period the village, according to an account written by the late O. F. Baker, and published in Goodspeed's History of Knox and Daviess Counties, 1886. con- tained only sixty-two dwellings, one church, five stores, one saddlery shop, two blacksmith shops, four taverns, one ox mill, one windmill, and one wheel-wright. The professions were represented by three physicians and seven lawyers. The physicians were Drs. Kuykendall, McNamee and Samuel McKee, learned in their profession, and men of eminent respectability and intellectuality. Dr. McKee, who was the father of the late Archibald McKee, was a United States army surgeon, and died here in 1809. The lawyers were Thomas Randolph, a near relative of Thomas Jefferson, Benj. Parke, Henry Hurst, General W. Johnson. John Rice Jones, John Johnson and Henry Vanderburg. The gentlemen last named were very closely identified with the civil and military history of Vincennes and the Northwest Ter- ritory during the last half of the eighteenth and first part of the nineteenth cen- tury, as has been shown in the preceding chapters of this work.
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Quesne, sharing in the glory of the victory that followed. Following the dec- larations of peace he remained in that part of the country, establishing headquarters at Fort Pitt (Du Quesne) as an Indian trader. He was cap- tured with several white companions by the Indians and condemned to die at the stake. An old squaw, lamenting the loss of a son in a recent battle, adopted the youthful trader, and his life was spared. He at once adapted himself to his savage environments, and remained among his new-made friends for several years, maintaining conjugal relations with a sister of Logan, the celebrated chief, acquiring the customs and habits of the red people and learning the Indian language. He, however, eventually tired of the life he was leading, and abandoned it to take up his operations again as a trader at Fort Pitt. He was with Lord Dunmore in 1774 in his ex- pedition against the Shawnees, of which he gave an account in a deposition made in Pittsburg April 4, 1800. wherein he quoted the famous speech made by Logan on the murder of his family, including the sister of the chief, referred to as "Gibson's squaw." It is said that the tragedy which occasioned Logan to express himself so eloquently to Lord Dunmore, was also the ultimate cause of the war of 1774, commonly called Cresap's war. Logan's speech was as follows:
"I appeal to any white man to say, if he ever entered Logan's cabin hungry, and he gave him not meat; if he ever came cold and naked and he clothed him not. During the course of the last long and bloody war Logan remained idle in his cabin, an advocate of peace. Such was my love for the whites, that my country- men pointed as they passed and said, 'Logan is the friend of white men.' I had even thought to have lived with you, but for the injuries of one man, Colonel Cresap, who, last spring, in cold blood and unprovoked, murdered all the relatives of Logan, not even sparing my women and children. There runs not a drop of my blood in the veins of any living creature. This called on me for revenge. I have sought it; I have killed many; I have fully glutted my vengeance; for my country, I rejoice at the beams of peace. But do not harbor a thought that mine is the joy of fear. Logan never felt fear. He will not turn on his heel to save his life. Who is there to mourn for Logan? Not one !"
As soon as the Revolutionary war broke out General Gibson marched to the front with a strong regiment he had himself recruited. He joined forces with the army at New York, and was with it during its retreat through New Jersey. Not long afterward he was given absolute military command of the western frontiers, acquitting himself with distinguished ability. At the conclusion of the war he returned to his former home at Pittsburg to resume the avocation of a trader. As a member of the con- vention, he helped frame the first constitution of Pennsylvania, in 1788; and subsequently, for several years served as judge of the court of com- mon pleas of Allegheny County, while holding also a commission as general of the state militia. The commissioners whom President Washington ap- pointed in 1793 to treat with the Indians northwest of the Ohio river, called on him to select suitable persons to act as interpreters, and to pro- cure 80,000 white wampum to be used in peace negotiations, which requests he cheerfully complied with, selecting the best of men and material. He
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was a civil and military official of Pennsylvania up to the time of coming to Vincennes, in 1800.
In September, 1812, when Fort Harrison, then under charge of Capt. Zachary Taylor, was attacked by Indians, General Gibson, in order to afford succor to Taylor and also for the purpose of protecting Vincennes against the anticipated invasion of Indian armies, in less than one month had mob- ilized probably four thousand soldiers at the Old Post, including troops of the regular army, two thousand mounted volunteers from Kentucky, and militiamen from Indiana. Taylor, in the meantime, had sent word by mes- senger to Gibson that he was able to maintain his garrison at Fort Harri- son, and had demonstrated his ability by defending the fort against an as- sault of the enemy lasting seven hours.
General Gibson was an honest man-fair and just in his treatment of the Indians, against whom he advocated war only as a means of attaining peace. He was a faithful public servant, and devoted all of his time in the consideration and performance of his official duties, which precluded him becoming a conspicuous figure in any events of public concern not con- nected therewith.
When the seat of government was changed to Corydon, General Gibson removed his residence there, but in May, 1813, when he was superseded by General Thomas Posey as governor he returned to Vincennes to reside. He remained a resident of the Old Post for several years, watching the progressive steps Indiana, the child of his early cares, was making as the nineteenth state in the union. He finally removed to Braddock's Field, Pa., and took up his home with his son-in-law, George Wallace, where he died April 10, 1822.
General Thomas Posey, the successor of Gibson, who made the Old Post his home for a brief period, was born on a farm in Virginia, on the banks of the Potomac, July 9, 1750. His education was of the meagre kind which the country schools of that day afforded, but by diligent study on the outside he had acquired considerable knowledge when he arrived at man's estate. Like his predecessor, Governor Gibson, he enlisted as a private sol- dier before attaining his majority, and like Gibson, he, too, was a member of one branch of Dunmore's army in the year 1774, and fought with Dun- more the following year in the war of the colonies against Great Britain. At the conclusion of the Virginia campaign he joined Washington's army, and was with him in the Jerseys, later with Gates at Saratoga, to witness and help hasten Burgoyne's surrender. At Monmouth he was commander of a regiment that played an important part in that undecisive battle. In 1779 he commanded the Eleventh Infantry, which company was a part of Washington's main army. At the taking of Stony Point he was with Wayne. "Colonel Fleury* was the first to enter the fort and strike the
*Marshal quoted by Woollen, in Woollen's Biographical and Historical Sketches of Early Indiana, p. 23.
Vol. I-21
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British standard. Major Posey mounted the works almost the same in- stant, and was the first to give the watchword, 'The fort's our own.'"
He was at Yorktown when Cornwallis surrendered and had campaigned in South Carolina prior to that event. The years 1781-2 found him serving with Wayne in Georgia ; and in June, 1781, he engaged Guristersigo and his Indian allies in a fierce fight near Savannah, killing quite a number of sav- ages with his own hands, and giving thrilling examples of his skill, courage and bravery. When the dove of peace descended he was with Greene in Sonth Carolina. From 1785 at his home county until 1793, when he again took up arms in defense of his country, he served as colonel of militia, county lieutenant and magistrate. He fought with Wayne all through the Indian war in the Northwest Territory ; and after "Mad Anthony" had par- tially subdued the hostiles, he resigned his army post and removed to Ken- tucky, where he was elected to the state senate and subsequently became speaker of that body. In 1809 he held a commission as major-general of Kentucky troops. Later he moved to Louisiana where, in 1812, when war between Great Britain and the United States was declared, he recruited a company at Baton Rouge and assumed the captaincy thereof. "Seldom," says Woollen,* speaking of Posey's willingness to take up the office of captain, "in the history of military men do we find one who, having held a major-general's commission, consents to command a company. But General Posey's patriotism was stronger than pride. Had he believed it best for his country, he would have shouldered a musket and marched in the ranks." General Posey came to be United States senator by the grace of Governor Claiborn, who appointed him to fill the unexpired term of John N. Destri- han, who resigned his seat as a member from Louisiana. He wore the sena- torial toga until March, 1813, when President Madison honored him with the appointment of governor of Indiana territory. Mr. William Wesley Woollen, from whose excellent work much of the data herein presented is obtained, concludes an extended biography of General Posey as follows: "When Governor Posey's official term expired by reason of the admission of Indiana into the union, he was appointed Indian agent for Illinois ter- ritory, with headquarters at Shawneetown. Early in the spring of 1818, while descending the Wabash river from Vincennes, he caught a deep cold, which threw him into a fever. When he reached Shawneetown he was compelled to take to his bed. He continued to grow worse until the 19th of March, when he died.
"Governor Posey was an amiable man in private life. He was a mem- ber of the Presbyterian church and very active in church work. He was president of a Bible society, and did much to distribute the scriptures among the poor and needy of the territory.
"In person Governor Posey was exceedingly attractive and commanding. He was tall, athletic, and had a handsome face. His manner was graceful
*Woollen, Biographical and Historical Sketches of Early Indiana, p. 25.
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and easy, denoting the gentleman he was. Some years ago a correspondent of the Cincinnati Commercial started the story that Governor Posey was a natural son of George Washington, but the romance did not take root. Had he been Washington's son, begotten in wedlock, he would have honored his father's name."
General Zachary Taylor, who subsequently became president of the United States, was among the noted men who resided at Vincennes in early days. He lived in a cottage which Benjamin Parke had erected, corner of Hart and First streets, where a daughter was born to him and after- ward became the wife of Jefferson Davis. By this marriage, which was the culmination of a courtship* began here in later years when Miss Sarah Taylor came to the Old Post on a visit and Davis was a young lieutenant in the United States army stationed at this point, Vincennes gained a dis- tinction of which few, if any, towns can boast-that of having been the abiding place of three presidents and the birthplace of the wife of one- William Henry Harrison and Zachary Taylor, respectively presidents of the United States, and Jefferson Davis, president of the Southern Confederacy. As were many distinguished men of that day, Zachary Taylor was born in Virginia, his birthplace being Orange County. In 1808 he was commis- sioned a lieutenant in the United States army and joined the military forces of General Wilkinson at New Orleans. When the American-British war of 1812 broke out he was given the command of Fort Harrison, near Terre Haute, and successfully defended the fortification against the strong as- saults of the Indians in the autumn of that year. For the noble defense he made on this occasion he was promoted from captain to major. At the termination of the war the army was curtailed and he was reduced in rank to captain, which office he promptly resigned. He was afterward rein- stated as major and given command of Fort Crawford on Fox river near Green bay, a dreary and isolated place where he watched the uneventful years glide by, finally attaining the rank of colonel. He was in the Black Hawk war, and in 1836 was sent to Florida to help subjugate the Seminoles,
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