History of Randolph County, Indiana with illustrations and biographical sketches of some of its prominent men and pioneers : to which are appended maps of its several townships, Part 16

Author: Tucker, Ebenezer
Publication date: 1882
Publisher: Chicago : A.L. Klingman
Number of Pages: 664

USA > Indiana > Randolph County > History of Randolph County, Indiana with illustrations and biographical sketches of some of its prominent men and pioneers : to which are appended maps of its several townships > Part 16

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Several of these branches of Christians have but few churches in the county .. The number of each is supposed to be as follows :

Friends, about ten or twelve; Methodist Episcopal, a large number ; Disciples, six or seven ; United Brethren, a consider- able number; Christians, a considerable number; African Metho- dist Episcopal, three or four ; Baptists, two or three ; Lutheran, three or four ; Universalist, one; Catholic, two; Protestant Methodists, one or two; Wesleyans have died out.

Some of the Methodist churches were built very early, as : the Chapel west of Deerfield, the Prospect Meeting House east of Deerfield, etc.

In early times many protracted meetings were held, and sev- eral camp-meetings, at some of which remarkable seasons of relig- ious awakening were witnessed, and many souls were brought to re- pentance and forgiveness. Many preachers too have been promi- nent and successful in their labors for Christ. Protracted meet- ings are still employed, (in addition to regular Sabbath and other stated work), as a powerful and efficient means for the spread of religious knowledge, and the impression of the public mind with religious truth. Camp-meetings are also (though more rarely) held, since the altered condition of aociety renders them less a matter of necessity or convenience than formerly. Almost every neighborhood now has commodious churches, large enough to hold the congregations who desire to gather for Divine worship. There are indeed, in various places in the county, groves which have been furnished with seats, etc., for the convenience of meetinga ; and, during the pleasant Sabbaths of summer, out-door meetings. are occasionally held in them. But immense crowds now are rarely seen, except upon very unusual occasions such as county fairs, political "rallies," traveling menageries, or such like. One religious gathering is still very large, the Richmond Yearly

HISTORY OF RANDOLPH COUNTY.

Meeting of Friends. That is not held in this county but in Wayne, while yet the Randolph "Orthodox Friends" all be- long to that wondrous "body." That far-famed " meeting" is not what it once was, since within twenty years past it has been divided, and now three " yearly meetings" exist upon the terri- tory once occupied by the " Richmond Yearly Meeting " alone.

In the simple-heartedness of those early times, the people are thought, by the aged veterans who can remember what took place forty, fifty or sixty years ago, to have been more warm- hearted and whole-souled in their religious feelings and convic- tions than they are to-day. However that may be, religion, to those who then professed it, was a serious business, and they made thorough work of it. Women would take a babe in their arms and the husband a three-year-old child in his, while together they would go cheerfully on foot for miles to the place appointed for divine service. The daughter of the first settler of the county, who, by the way, is living still near where they first pitched their " camp," states that she often, when a " girl in her teens," walked from near Arba to Newport to Friends' Meetings, (at least six miles), and was not aware of having done anything worthy of especial mention. A young Friend at Cherry Grove would rise at 3 A. M. and work several hours in his field, and then ride on horseback sixteen miles to week-day Friends' Meeting. A Methodist circuit rider would go his round once a month, rid- ing frequently hundreds of miles during the time, and having an appointment every day, and not seldom one at night besides. The preacher honored his calling then, and to be a Methodist circuit rider, meant to go to work at preaching and to have plenty of it to do; and to their honor it should be said that, as a rule, they performed a great amount of ministerial labor, and that, ac- cording to the fall measure of their ability, they served the gra- cious Lord in His vineyard in their appointed lot. And those old- time ministers of Christ have, one by one, lain down to their final rest, and their souls have gone home to receive the gracious wel- come, " Well done, good and faithful servant, enter thou into the joy of thy Lord."

And true it is that the simple-hearted worship offered and the instruction given in those rude and uncouth cabins, was to the full as acceptable to the Great Father of all our mercies as is any now-a-days to be met with in the grand and magnificent piles of brick and stone that pass for houses of worship in chese later days. Linsey woolsey home-spun, and deer-skin hunting shirts, calico sun bonnets and coon-skin head-gear were as pleasing to the eye of the Omniscient as can any rich and costly methods and fashions be which the descendants of that honest, sturdy, faithful race of sterling men and loving women feel themselves called upon now to indulge or to practice.

It is indeed a comfort to the pure and humble soul, in all ages and places, to know and feel the blessed truth, that while "man looketh upon the outward appearance, God looketh on the heart ;" that the Good Shepherd knoweth His sheep, and leadeth them in peace into the green pastures of His love.

To show that many of the early settlers were religious, we append a few names of families who, in days long gone by, belonged to some one of the various churches of the time. It is not to be understood that none besides the families named were included among the active workers for Christ, but only that these have been mentioned as prominent among the early Christian believers by some one or other of the pioneers who still remain in the land of the living, and whose memory reaches backward into those " beginnings of things " in a religious point of view among the forests of Randolph.

RELIGIOUS PEOPLE.

Alexanders, Addingtons, Akers, Beach, Botkins, Beards, Bowens, Barneses, Ballinger, Burroughs, Brown, Bealscs, Bonds, Buttses, Brumfields, Coateses, Croppers, Carters, Cot- toms, Cadwalladers, Chenoweths, Clenny, Crouses, Canadas, Chandler, Clevengers, Diggses, Devor, Debolts, Engles, Elliots, Edgers, Floods, Goodriches, Grubbs, Gorsuch, Hunts, Hills, Horns,

Hunnicutts, Hinshaws, Hoffman, Harbour, Hammer, Hiatt, Hewitts, Hart, Johnsons, Jacksons, Jordans, Kennedy, Kizer, Lanks, Locke, Moormans, Masons, Murphy, Miller, Marshall, Macys, Middletons, McKew, Monks, Maulsbie, McIntyre, Mendenhall, McProud, Neffs, Nicholses, Overmans, Os- borns, Pucketts, Pollys, Parkers, Phillipses, Peacocks, Reeders, Rubys, Ritenour, Reynolds, Rogers, Recce, Reynards, Shoe- makers, Sumwalt, Stone, Scotts, Starbucks, Sumption, Swain, Smiths, Thornburgs, Thomases, Ways, Wrights, Wickersham, Worths, Wiley, Wiggins, Willmore, Wards, Willcutts, Wiggses.

GENEALOGICAL DATA, ETC.

Ancestry of John Jenkins: John Allen and Esther (Wool- man) Allen were the great-grandparents of John Jenkins, now resident between Buena Vista and Huntsville, Randolph Co., Ind. He was born June 16, 1708, and she (being the daughter of John and Elizabeth Woolman in England), was born in East Nottingham, Old England, July 3, 1706.

Patience Allen, the youngest child of John and Esther Allen, was born November 3, 1746. She was the grandmother of John Jenkins. She married James Gawthrop about 1770, and died in Frederick County, Va., in 1828, in her eighty-second year. Her husband, James Gawthrop, was born at Stenton, near Kendall, in Westmoreland, May 4, 1742.

Hannah Gawthrop, daughter of James and Patience Gaw- throp and mother of John Jenkins, was born December 12, 1788, being one of ten children. She died Sunday, May 23, 1847, in her fifty-ninth year, three miles north of Wilmington, Clinton Co., Ohio, and her husband, Jacob Jenkins, died May 23, 1849, in his sixty-eighth year, at his old residence near Wilmington, Ohio.

Mr. John Jenkins has the family Bible that was purchased by his great-grandmother, Esther Allen, upon her marriage, about 1725. The book was printed at Edinburgh, Scotland, in 1721, by Samuel Watson, printer for the King.

The Bible is now 160 years old, and is in good repair. The print and spelling are like ours, except that the long s's are used.

He has several antiquities, such as old tools, etc. Among them are two chairs, made in 1795. They are stout and firm. One of them has never lost a slat nor a round, and is as solid now as when new. The other is sound also, except that one of the slats in the back is loose. The chairs have been for most of the time in constant use, as kitchen chairs.

The bottoms of the posts have been worn off nearly two inches. Of course they have been re-bottomed one or more times. He has also a mattock sixty years old, nearly as good as new.

Rev. Greenman, of Union City, Ind., has a book about 250 years old, picked up at a second-hand book-stall in Cincinnati.

OLD MAIL ROUTES.

One of the chief mail routes in "auld lang syne," and per- haps the most difficult and severe as well, was the one from Win- chester to Fort Wayne.

That route was established before 1829. It was then the main link that the northern settlers had to civilization and to the great world "outside the woods."

Elias Kizer carried the mail on that obscure and well-nigh impassable track for several years before 1830. The Hawkins boys, sons of John J. Hawkins, Esq., almost the earliest settler in the forests of Jay, carried the mail for about eighteen months, about 1833. They went sometimes by the solitary Hawkins cabin near what has since been the village of Antioch in the county of Jay, and the "Quaker Trace;" and sometimes by Joab Ward's, and the Godfroy farm west of Camden, and thence to Fort Wayne by the " Godfroy Trail." It was a lonely, wearisome, burdensome task, and was too much for the boys; and ere long they were full fain to relinquish the labor to some more hardy pioneer. And such a one was found in the per-

Shortland

HISTORY OF RANDOLPH COUNTY.

son of John Connor, who in the spring of 1835 laid hold of the work, and who kept it, through rain and mud, and frost and snow and floods, year in and year out, for twenty-six or twenty- seven years, till 1861 ; and then he went into the army, old and wayworn aa he was, and laid him down to die in the enemy's land.

Many a struggle had he with the hostile forces of nature, many a mud-hole, sometimes seventy-five miles long, undertook to bury him out of sight ; many a flood rose across his pathway, many a fierce and bitter storm frowned and howled in his face, but ever in vain. The old hero came out of the contest a conqueror every time.

Sometimes hia horses, one or both, would lie down and die, under the terrible aervice; but he would simply get more and try it again.

It was almost a thing of necessity that his farm near Port- land should come to be what some rather cruelly nicknamed it "Connor's bone-yard." The fault lay not so much in Con- nor, as in the inexorable and relentless nature of the service to which he had devoted his life.

Those old horseback or hack mail routes (and the latter were perhaps worse than the former), were truly serious realities in the days of "auld lang syne." When that route was opened, not one post office was to be found along the entire distance.

After some years, Deerfield was established, and still later a post office in Jay (then Randolph) County, June 11, 1835, at the house of Daniel Farber, near College Corner. John Con- ner then had two post offices to serve with mail instead of one. And gradually settlers found their way into the northern woods, till that whole region became filled with dwellings and dotted with towns and schoolhouses and churches and post offices. And still John Connor kept on carrying the mail, till people on the route got to think that Uncle John Connor and " Uncle Sam " must be one and the same.

WRIGHT FAMILY.

They were a very numerous family. As mentioned already, three of the first officers were Wrights, and there were more Wrights than anything else. Two of the three officers, John and Solomon, were brothers, and the other was their cousin, and in particular there were many John Wrights.

John Wright, blacksmith, who donated land for the county seat, was brother to David Wright, Sheriff, and went to the Legislature three or four times ; moved to Illinois in 1830, and died long ago. When he left, William M. Way, his son-in-law, became the owner of his land, who sold it to John Mumma, who laid it out as Mumma's addition (the tract long known as the " goose pasture").

John Wright, Judge. He served as judge twenty-eight years (four terms), up to 1846. He then moved over the Wabash, where he died some years ago. His oldest son, Edward, who lived (1880) on the Huntsville road, two and a half miles from Winchester, died in 1881.

Hominy John Wright, father to Solomon, Wright, who is now living near the crossing of Cabin Creek. This John settled two and a half miles west of Winchester. He had twelve children, three of them triplets, Abram, Isaac and Jacob. He had a son John, also called Hominy John.

Spencer John Wright, son of James Wright who settled the Kizer farm north of Winchester.

Blue-chin John Wright, son of David Wright, Sheriff.

Thus there were at least six John Wrights. Old Thomas Wright, the oldest of all, was father-in-law of John Coats, who died since (1871). Thomas Wright's progeny are too many to be counted. Mr. Smith says of them, " Whole colonies of them have emigrated westward. If they and all the other descendants of the Wrights who were here in 1818 had remained in the county, there would be little room for any one else."

The above is a specimen of some members of a single con- nection among the pioneers. Similar accounts might be given of other families, as the Ways, the Diggses, the Johnsons, the

Hodgsons, etc., etc. The pioneers indeed were remarkable, as a rule, for their large families. The original command to the pro- genitor of the human race was, " Be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth, and subdue it ;" and these sturdy emigrants considered themselves only in the line of primal human duty (as indeed they were thus) in raising flocka of children to grow up and possess the goodly and excellent land.

CHAPTER V. ORGANIZATION.

COUNTIES - PRELIMINARY -COUNTY SEAT-OFFICIAL HISTORY- PUBLIC BUILDINGS-TOWNSHIPS-ROADS, ETC.

ORGANIZATION OF COUNTIES.

I "T may be proper at this point to give a brief statement con- cerning the counties of Indiana as to the time of their crea- tion, that the reader may gain a clear idea of the course and pro- gress of settlement in the different sections of the State, and in our own section as well.

Some sketches are given also of governmental mattera previ- ous to that time.

NORTHWEST TERRITORY.

The State of Virginia had, before the Revolution, claimed the body of the territory lying northwest of the Ohio. Con- necticut also had a claim, which was quieted by giving her the proceeds of several million acres of land lying on the southern shore of Lake Erie, embracing what is now known as the " West- ern Reserve," and including Ashtabula, Lake, Geauga, Portage, Summit, Medina, Cuyahoga, Lorain, Huron, Erie and parts of Ashland and Mahoning Counties, Ohio. Virginia ceded her claim to the United States by an act dated January 2, 1781. Congress accepted the grant, September 13, 1783, as a national domain.

Virginia, by an act passed December 20, 1783, directed her delegates in Congress, Thomas Jefferson, Samuel Hardy, Arthur Lee and James Monroe, to accomplish the cession. This was done by them March 1, 1784.

On the 13th of July, 1787, the Congress of the Confedera- tion passed the now famous " Ordinance of '87" for the gov- ernment of the Northwest Territory. And on the 5th of Octo- her, 1787, Arthur St. Clair was appointed Governor thereof. He was President of Congress at the passage of the ordinance, and retained the Governorship for twelve years (1788-1800).

In July, 1788, Gov. St. Clair organized the Territory, mak- ing Ft. Harmar (Marietta) the capital. January 9, 1789, he con- cluded a treaty with some of the leading men among the Indians, at Fort Harmar, but its validity was questioned or absolutely denied and hence the treaty was never enforced.

In 1790, Gov. St. Clair made a journey to Clarksville, Vin- cennes and Kaskaskia, to conciliate the Indians. His efforts, however, were fruitless.

September 13, 1790, Gen. Harmar moved from Fort Wash- ington (Cincinnati), reaching the vicinity of Fort Wayne, and suffering a disastrous defeat October 19.

May 23 and August 24, 1791, Gens. Scott and Wilkinson led expeditions against the Indians on the Wabash (the Wea Prairie), eight miles below Lafayette, and at Ke-na-purr-a-qua on Eel River, six miles from Logansport. Both expeditions were suc- cessful. In September, 1792, Gov. St. Clair marched from Fort Washington, erecting Forts Hamilton and Jefferson on the way. On the third day of November, 1792, the army reached the Wabash at Recovery, and the next day (November 4) was terribly defeated by the Indians under Little Turtle, Blue Jacket and other chiefs.

Early in 1794, Gen. Anthony Wayne, then chief commander, having marched into the Indian country, built Fort Recovery on

HISTORY OF RANDOLPH COUNTY.

the ground of St. Clair's defeat, moved onward July 26, 1794, and erected Fort Adams on the St. Mary's, and Fort Defiance at the junction of the Auglaize and Maumee Rivers.

August 20, 1794, he defeated the Indians at the rapids of the Maumee, and, September 14, he began the erection of Fort Wayne. October 28, Gen. Wayne returned to Greenville.

The treaty of Greenville was framed and ratified at a meeting lasting from June 16 to August 10, 1795. The land embraced in that treaty included much of Ohioand a small portion of southeast- ern Indiana. The line agreed upon extended (with exceptions and reservations specified) from the Tuscarawas branch of the Musk- ingum River, westward by a varying line to Fort Recovery, Ohio, and thence southwest in a straight line to the Ohio opposite the mouth of the Kentucky River.

This is Wayne's boundary, already sufficiently described. Wayne had defeated the Indians so severely, and had so thoroughly convinced them of the hopeless folly of resisting the powers of the United States, that they sincerely and heartily observed the terms of the treaty. Public confidence was restored, and emi- gration set in to the region ceded thereby, with a strong and steady current.

Oct. 29, 1798, Gov. St. Clair issued a proclamation for a General Assembly for the Northwest Territory, to be held at Cincinnati, January 22, 1799. The Assembly met and ad journed to September 16, 1799, at which time it convened again and continued in session till December 30, of the same year. There were then in the whole northwest only seven counties, and but one of them (Knox) was within the present State of Indiana.

May 7, 1800, Congress divided the Northwest Territory into two parts, Ohio and Indiana. Ohio Territory embraced substantially what is now the State of Ohio, and Indiana Terri- tory took in all the Northwest, containing by census that year only 4,875 souls. Gen. William II. Harrison was appointed Governor of Indiana Territory.

January 10-26, 1800, the judges met at Vincennes, and framed necded regulations. Ohio was made a State in 1802, Michigan Territory was set off in 1805, and Illinois Territory in 1809.

The hrst General Assembly for Indiana Territory convened at Vincennes July 29, 1805. At this time two more counties had been formed, viz. : Clark, in 1801, and Dearborn in 1803. Dearborn embraced all the territory in Indiana east of Wayne's boundary, and Clark took a large extent of country on the Ohio River.

Wayne was made in 1810, and Franklin in 1811.

By 1816, when Indiana became a State, thirteen counties had been formed, in all, to wit: Knox, 1796, (when created), all of Indiana and Michigan ; Clark, 1801, on the Ohio River ; Dearborn, 1803, east of Wayne's boundary; Harrison, 1809, on the Ohio near Corydon, the first State capital; Wayne, 1810, north part of Dearborn ; Jefferson, 1810, cut off from Clark : Franklin, 1811, between Dearborn and Wayne, includ- ing also Fayette and Union ; Gibson, 1813, south of what is now Knox ; Warwick, 1813, next east of Gibson ; Washington, 1814, north of IIarrison and Clark ; Switzerland, 1814, southern part of Dearborn, on Ohio River; Posey, 1814, southwestern county in the State ; Perry, 1815. somewhat west of Harrison County; Jackson, 1815, north of Washington. [This last county, Jackson, though erected in 1815, would seem not to have been represented in the Constitutional Convention of 1816, or it may be that, being small in population, it was united with some other county]. Thus the settlements at this time (1816) were :

First-East of the (old) boundary (and perhaps some between the two boundaries) Switzerland, Dearborn, Franklin, Wayne.

Second-On or near the Ohio River, west of the boundaries, Clark, Harrison, Perry, Warrick, Posey.

Third-On the Wabash (northward) Gibson, Knox.

Fourth-Interior, (north of Harrison and Clark), Washing- ton and Jackson.

A year or two before the Constitutional Convention of 1816,

the settlement of Wayne bad been pushed northward into the south part of what is now Randolph, and the Constitutional Con- vention met at Corydon June 10-19, 1816.

The first election of State officers took place on the first Mon- day in August, 1816.

In the first State Legislature, Jackson County was repre- sented, and also one more county, formed in 1816, Orange, west of Jackson County.

One of the Representatives from Wayne County resided in the bounds of what became Randolph County, to wit. Ephraim Overman. He was the fifth settler in Randolph County, coming there in November, 1814. He settled oneand a half miles north of Arba, where Joshua Thomas now lives, on the Pike.

[NOTE 1 .- Counties having the names of Wayne and Ran- dolph are mentioned as existing in Northwest Territory, in 1805. But Wayne County thus referred to was in Michigan, embrac- ing all of Michigan and some of northern Indiana, etc. Ran- dolph County was in Illinois].

The counties of Indiana were formed with some rapidity. Before 1817, sixteen counties : during 1817, three counties ; during 1818, eight counties-Randolph County, being one ; 1818-22, seventeen counties ; 1823-1828, fourteen counties ; 1830-37, twenty-one counties ; 1843-71, thirteen counties ; mak- ing in all ninety two counties.

Thus the progress of settlement was, in general, from the south toward the center, and so toward the north.

It will be seen that Randolph County was among those that were early in settlement. The whole central part, and the vast northern and western portions, remained a wilderness for years after Randolph began to be settled. Winchester was laid out some years before Indianapolis and Fort Wayne. Settlement in Randolph began in 1814, but the central and western regions re- mained Indian land till 1818, and they were not surveyed till 1821-22.

Randolph is the sixteenth in population (1880), and the seven- teenth in size. This county, at one time, embraced a large por- tion of the State northward from her present limits, and Dela- ware and Grant besides. At its first formation, however, the county included only the country east of the twelve-mile bound- ary and north of Wayne County, but the boundary was after- ward changed, and other portions were temporarily joined thereto. The regions attached were settled more or less rapidly, and new counties were organized from time to time, till at length, by the erection of Blackford in 1839, Randolphi became "berself and nothing else."

ORGANIZATION.

During the session of the Legislature of Indiana, held at Cory- don, 1817-18, eight new counties was formed, of which Randolph was one.

It embraced, at first, all the territory north of Wayne County, and east and south of the twelve inile boundary. It was afterward so changed as to include, temporarily and for judicial purposes, an area outside of the twelve mile strip, and also an immense indefinite territory north and west, comprising, at one time or other, Dela. ware, Grant, Jay, Adams, Blackford, Wells, Allen, and how much else we do not know, perhaps even to the north line of the state, no county having then been organized in either of those directions. And as settlers moved into those regions they were reckoned as in Randolph until new counties were erected and organized, including them.

The act creating Randolph County was approved by Gov. Jen- nings, January 10, 1818. The law creating the new county ap- pointed William Majors, Williamson Dunn, of Dearborn County, James Brownlee, of Franklin, members of Constitutional Conven- tion, Stephen C. Stevens and John Bryan, to fix the county seat. The boundaries were described in the act as follows :

"All that part of the county of Wayne which is inclosed in the following bounds shall form and constitute a new county, that is to say, beginning at the state of Ohio line, where the line that

HISTORY OF RANDOLPH COUNTY.

divides the 15th and 16th townships strikes said Ohio line, thence westward with said township line until it strikes the old boundary, thence westward with the centre line of the 18th township in the new purchase until it strikes the Indiana boundary, thence north- ward with said boundary until it strikes the Ohio line, thence south with said line to the place of beginning." Until suitable accommodations could be made, the courts were appointed to be held at the house of William Way.

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History of Randolph County, Indiana with illustrations and biographical sketches of some of its prominent men and pioneers : to which are appended maps of its several townships, Part 16

Author: Tucker, Ebenezer Publication date: 1882 Publisher: Chicago : A.L. Klingman Number of Pages: 664

Author: Tucker, Ebenezer
Publication date: 1882
Publisher: Chicago : A.L. Klingman
Number of Pages: 664