USA > Indiana > Vigo County > History of Vigo county, Indiana, with biographical selections > Part 11
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In October, 1812, Gen. Samuel Hopkins passed up the Wabash with his army, but his men became insubordinate and the expedi- tion failed. In 1813 he raised another force and followed Gov. Harrison's route. He laid out a new road through the northern part of Vigo and through Parke county. In this last mentioned expedition was Col. Zach Taylor.
These final tragedies in the ending of the Indian wars in this portion of the country resulted in spreading through the older set- tlements a true knowledge of the great natural beauties and incom- parable wealth of this part of the world; it opened the country to the pioneers to come and possess forever; it resulted in the death of the great conspirator against the whites-Tecumseh; it was the means resulting in making the wilderness the seat of unequaled empire; it gave our country two Whig Presidents and one Vice- President. Taylor followed Harrison here and co-operated with him, and then followed him into the presidential office, and by a singular coincidence both of these men died soon after they were inaugurated and were serving in the most exalted office in the world.
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HISTORY OF VIGO COUNTY.
CHAPTER VIII. HOW VIGO COUNTY ONCE APPEARED.
THE OLD INDIAN ORCHARD-JOHNNY APPLESEED, ETC.
T THE reader is admonished just here that it will require the lively exercise of his imagination to go back more than three hundred years and try to see this locality as it appeared to the first civilized beholder. That first man was no doubt a Frenchman-following the setting sun, the " Beautiful River" (Ohio), the Wabash and its tributaries, the game and the more valuable fur-bearing animals, he roamed at will, shooting the streams in his light canoe, and car- rying his trusty rifle-this self-exile, with his sudden appearance, must have startled the denizens of the wilderness and the solitudes. From stream to portage, from portage to stream, on and on, like the Wandering Jew, he pursued his aimless, ceaseless course. He had left, with no shadow of regret, civilization behind him. For it he cared not, but was joyous in the new wild world unfolding so grandly before him-the new liberty, the free sunshine and air, and his nature was soon as wild and untrammeled as that of the beasts and birds that greeted him on his way. He cared little for the past and nothing for the future. Life to him was the Now and its free air, and his philosophy was "after me the flood," and so far as we are con- cerned he was not given to anticipate the future farther ahead than the next meal. So if he could put upon paper in fit words what met his gaze from day to day, the last thing that would have occurred to him would have been to do so.
Three hundred and seventy years ago the Spaniards landing on the coast of Florida, and in the pursuit of gold and precious gems, plunged into the unknown wildernesses, reached and discovered the Mississippi river, and they pushed on in a short time to the Pacific ocean. As usual among explorers, they claimed, in the name of their Government, everything before them, and everything to the right and the left of them. They were the first white men to see the continent as it came from the hand of God, ready prepared in the vast eons of time for the permanent home of the highest and best civilization. Could we by some miracle bring back again the picture reflected in the camera of the first white man's eye that ever beheld this spot on the world that we know as Vigo county, what
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would it reveal? The woodland and the three prairies in the county. The small mounds just north of Terre Haute were the silent and en- during evidences left by the Mound Builders. The woods deep and dark, with a heavy undergrowth, and clinging vines. The prairies jutting up to these sharply defined timber walls, some rolling away in swells as beautiful as those of the lazy ocean. The others, level and flat, covered mostly with shallow water, and grass often as high as a man's head on a horse. Others again, pastured by the buffalo and deer, until there was a shorter and richer growth of grasses. The lakes and ponds where now are farms, and the air filled with birds, swans, cranes, geese, ducks and nearly every conceivable vari- ety of water fowl. On the high ground the grazing buffalo, often in countless herds, or, if migrating, there extended away a long black line reaching to the front and rear beyond his vision, moving in military precision after their leaders, to or from the southeast or northwest. The deep-trodden trails of these animals were then the only marks upon the face of the ground. The elk, the deer and the antelope were upon this rich pasture land. The prairie wolf, witlı its mean and hungry look, silently passing here and there to wait the nightfall, when its sharp yelp and its grewsome howl would mingle with the fierce screams of the prowling and more dangerous panther of the forests. In the woods were the bears, the panthers, the wild cats and the black wolf. The latter a far more dangerous animal for man to encounter than his skulking congeners of the prairie. On these watery and marshy prairies were sometimes small, beauti- ful groves, setting like gems in the sea. The waters were filled with shining fish, and in the streams were the cunning and sleek coated beavers, teaching civilized man how to build dams and utilize the waters. Where is now Terre Haute he would have seen a mis- erable, straggling Indian village, with their scattered wigwams, made of bark, and the smoke straggling up through the hole in the center of the top. Here were the naked savages fighting for exist- ence on the very borders of brute creation -- filthy and wretched can- nibals, either driving their brother savage, or being driven on and on to ultimate extinction. The birds and beasts were tame and the people were wild. Insect life swarmed like rising clouds, and the snake, spotted with deadly beauty, silently glided beneath the rank vegetable growths.
The first hour of the arrival of the white man was the moment of the beginning of the change wrought out in the short centuries in this beautiful panorama that lay spread out over the face of Vigo county and the surrounding country. Slowly has the change in the whole face of the county come, but it is complete. The utilitarian hand of civilized man struck ruthlessly at all these natural beauties. The dark old woods have been hewn away, as the great smoking steam-
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ers have driven off the swift and graceful silent canoes, so has the soft velvet sheen of the prairies disappeared before the mold-board of the plow. Fields and fences, orchards and ornamental trees, houses and barns, bridges and railroads, and mills and clanging factories, and their tall chimneys filled with eager fires, have covered the earth and obliterated the shifting scenes, the lights and the shadows, and the entrancing landscapes, and the tread of the busy feet of men on the stone pavement is now where once in security the wild beasts licked their cubs.
The youth of to-day can only gain some little idea of the work wrought here by his fathers as he may in some measure compre- hend the changes that have come since civilized man first asserted dominion over the land. He simply sees what was here when he was born, and without a thought " it was always so." His views of life will be enlarged as he informs himself of who and what has gone before him, and the details of how it really all came about. That as wide as the gulf is between the long ago and now, it was really all patiently worked out as he works his little tasks in the intervening time in the school hours.
Alas the story can only be so imperfectly told that it may fail to interest him. If it does, then there is but the one consolation-he may never know his loss.
Somewhat later on, travelers came, who wrote down what they saw, and have left us something of the impressions made on their minds the first time they looked upon the country. Capt. Thomas Hutchins, of his majesty's Sixtieth Regiment of Foot, afterward geographer to the United States, who made occasional visits be- tween the years 1764 and 1775, made in his journal such minutes: " Two French settlements are established on the Wabash called Post Vincient and Ouiatanon; the first is 150 miles and the other 262 from its mouth. The former is on the eastern side of the river and consists of sixty settlers and their families. They raise Indian corn, wheat, and tobacco of an extraordinary good quality, superior, it is said, to that produced in Virginia. They have a fine breed of horses (brought originally by the Indians from the Spanish settle- ments on the western side of the River Mississippi), and large stocks of swine and black cattle. The settlers deal with the natives for furs and deer skins to the amount of about £5,000 annually. Hemp of a good texture grows spontaneously in the lowlands of the Wabash, as do grapes in the greatest abundance, having a black thin skin, and of which the inhabitants, in the autumn, make a sufficient quantity of well-tasted red wine. Hops, large and good, are found in many places, and the lands are particularly adapted to the culture of rice. All European fruits-apples, peaches, pears, cherries, currants, goosberries, melons, etc .- thrive well, both here and in the country
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bordering on the River Ohio * The annual amount of skins and furs obtained at Quiatanon is about £8,000. Their route is by the Miami river to a carrying-place, which, as before stated, is nine miles to the Wabash, where this river is raised with freshes, but at other seasons the distance is from eighteen to thirty miles including the portage. Carts are usually employed in transporting boats and merchandise from the Miami to the Wabash. The whole of the latter is through a level country.
* Be- tween the Wabash and Miami there are beaver dams, which, when water is low, passengers break down to raise it, and by that means pass easier than they otherwise would. When they are gone the beavers come and mend the breach; for this reason they have been hitherto sacred as neither Indian nor white man hunt them."
The journal of Capt. Croghan, who was carried a prisoner up the Wabash by the Indians in 1765, tells how the country appeared to an Englishman's eyes, with all his natural prejudices against the French: "On my arrival there (Vincennes ), I found a village of eighty or ninety French families, settled on the east side of the river, being one of the finest situations that can be found. The country is level and clear and the soil very rich, producing wheat and tobacco. I think the latter preferable to that of Maryland or Virginia. The Frenchi inhabitants hereabouts are an idle, lazy people, a parcel of renegades from Canada, and are much worse than the Indians. They took a secret pleasure in our misfortunes, and the moment we arrived they came to the Indians exchanging trifles for their valuable plunder. As the savages took from me a considerable quantity of gold and silver in specie, the French traders extorted ten half-johannes (about $40) from them for a pound of vermilion. * * Post Vincent is a place of great consequence for trade, being a fine hunting country all along the Ouabache, and too far for the Indians which reside hereabouts to go either to the Illinois or elsewhere to fetch their necessaries *
*
* The country hereabouts is exceedingly pleasant, being open and clear (prairies) for many miles; the soil is very rich and well watered; all plants have a quick vegetation, and the climate is very temperate through the winter. The great plenty of furs taken in this country induced the French to establish this post (Ouiatanon), which was the first on the Wabash, and by a very ad- vantageous trade they have been richly recompensed for their labor. On the south side of the Ouabache runs a big bank in which are several fine coal mines, and behind this bank is a very large meadow clear for several miles."
A characteristic of the French colonists was the practice of planting orchards. Wherever was made a settlement that was ex- pected to be permanent, fruit trees were planted, and long before
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the English occupation the inhabitants reveled in the annual burden of lusciousness that came to them almost without labor or care. Tradition puts the establishment of orchards about Detroit-in the year 1720. Hutchins says that nearly all the species of large and small fruit had been planted at the posts on the Wabash, and were thrifty before his time. This is the earliest explicit mention of horticulture in this section. The probabilities are that fruit trees were brought as early as 1735. As early as 1711, of the vicinity of Kaskaskia it was said: "Grain grows here as well as in France, and every kind of vegetable roots and herbs; there are also all sorts of fruits and of excellent taste."
The French here were so isolated from the world that they made few changes in manners or customs during the time from their coming until the British came into possession. Simple, happy and contented were these scattered people. Volney, who visited Vin- cennes in the eighteenth century says: "The language of these people is not a vulgar provincial dialect (patois) as I had been told, but tolerable French intermixed with many military phrases. Their written language was worse than their speech. Their home and their country was the little spot of ground around the widely scattered forts in the howling wilderness. Here they passed their careless and happy lives. The rich soil, bountiful as mother earth ever offered her sons and daughters, required so little labor to pro- duce all they needed, that serious, wearying labors afield were unknown to them. They moved their barns instead of the accumu- lated manure, because this was the easiest to do. Their little cul- tivation of the soil was exceedingly primitive-wooden plows ex- cept the share-the beam ten or twelve feet long; two solid wooden wheels in front of the plow, one taller than the other to run in the furrow; no chains or whiffle-trees. Oxen pulled this by a pole. They used both oxen and horses, and what little harness was used each one made for himself of raw-hide or twisted withes. A curi- ous shaped yoke was fastened in front of the ox's horns. This plow and a heavy iron hoe was about the extent of farming utensils. Even with such farming they could produce enough for home sup- ply, and ship down the river to New Orleans, barge after barge laden with flour, pork, tallow, hides and leather, and from New Orleans went cargoes of this stuff to France and the West Indies, and in return came sugar, European fabrics and metal goods. In 1746 there was a great scarcity of provisions at New Orleans, and the French settlements of the Illinois sent in that winter upward of 800,000 pounds of flour. These French never learned to use corn to make bread-they made no corn meal, but consumed all they used for food as hominy.
The French occupancy of the northwest were these widely sep-
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HISTORY OF VIGO COUNTY.
arated specks in the trackless wilds. They made little or no per- manent impression upon the country that passed from them to the march of the pressing Anglo-Saxon. They and their simple habits, and, generally, pure and patriotic lives, have gone-the older gen- eration passed away from earth, and the younger adopted Ameri- can ways and habits. None of these interesting people made a per- manent abiding place in Vigo county. They were here, frolicking, singing, dancing, gibbering and trading with the natives, but it was to go and come only. Their long occupancy was an interesting era in the movement of civilization and the volcanic Gaul, as Carlyle has termed the French. They adjusted themselves to their new surroundings, and created a new society-the Gaul and his highly religious civilization, grafted on that of the native wild children of the plains. They were ready to have at any time their allegiance changed for them, and in a moment, from flag to flag, they followed the commands of the home government-changed readily every- thing, except their religious faith, and to this day, wherever you find their descendants, you may count upon them, as a rule, as being still loyal to the mother church. Their best houses were poles stuck in the ground and covered with clapboards, fastened with wooden pegs, or frequently with bark.
The old Indian orchard was a beautiful and noted spot when first seen by English explorers, and was well known to the early settlers of Vigo county, and especially Terre Haute. In its mem- ory, as it has long since passed away, as it once appeared, the poetic romancer has woven a thrilling legend of a captive white girl and a Shawnee Indian. The spot is just south of the Van track, where it strikes the river. It was used for some time in the early day as a common burying ground. A few graves and their leaning stones yet remain in bad conditon. Just above it was a high knoll, now denoted by the "cut" of the railroad. This was one of the most beautiful spots that was to be seen along the winding banks of the Wabash, from its source to its mouth. Here was a com- manding view of the beautiful river, sweeping away in the distance like a silvery ribbon. The white man found here a few stunted, gnarled and scraggy apple trees, that gave its name. It was from the first the "old Indian orchard," and among the Indians was no knowledge of how these evidences of civilization came to be there, and hence the wild poetic mind of the natives would readily invent the groundwork of the romance that tells of the Indian "Nemo" and the white-Indian girl "Lena," who met and loved, and how, when the savages gave up their captives, the poor girl who had been captured and adopted by a warrior, whose home was at the "old Indian orchard," was taken back to her family in Pennsyl- vania, but when she was told that this was her sister and that her
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brother and that her white parents slept in the near graveyard, she thought of her Indian lover and her home on the Wabash. How eventually her faithful dusky lover followed and found her, and how they stole away from civilization, married in the woods, came back to her old home her Indian father gave, and all was desolate, but here they built a wigwam, and lived happily until he was killed by the Miamis, and Lena then killed herself and fell upon her hus- band's body, etc. The historical part of the legend is that when she stole away from her white people in Pennsylvania, she had put some apple seed in her pocket, and planted them here.
The fact is, these apple trees simply explain that the Frenchman had come here and married a squaw, and this was his home, and he was simply doing as did all Frenchmen-at once planted such fruit trees as he could procure the seed. How long he had staid here as a member of the Indian family we can form no idea. If the Indians that were here had any tradition concerning him they never told it, but true to their instincts, substituted the outlines of the legend that the imagination of the writer extended into the romatic lives of Nemo and Lena, and their little boy, or papoose. who was seven years old when his father was killed, and who grew to be a warrior, and was killed by the side of Tecumseh at the battle of the Thames.
That is the Indian way of recording history, helped out by the imaginative white man, and that has done a great deal of this senti- mental nonsense that has clothed the Indian character in false colors, and braced up much of this folly of government making of them wards for the people to pay taxes to feed and support. The savage, as against the civilized, harldy has a valid title to life, much less to the dominion of a great continent. And he can gain rights only as he civilizes himself-ceases to be a cannibal, and becomes domestic in his nature-turns from the wild, and conforms to the new and better order of affairs. It is not the business of the toil- ing white man to be forced to pay tribute to civilize or educate him, he must do these things for himself, or in the struggle for life he may simply follow nature's inevitable laws and perish, fade away, and leave not a wrack behind. A nation that has wards to feed, clothe and educate, must have slaves to render the unpaid labor.
To the east, as you stood upon the eminence of the old orchard, was the prairie coming as close as where is now Fifth street. Lost creek with its sluggish waters meandered near where is now the Union depot. It passed on southeast of the city, as it had been changed from its original course to the northwest to the river, the channel choked by debris and in going south seemed to disappear as a stream in a wide swampy district without current. Hence it was called Lost creek. It however did have an outlet in high
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waters into the river south of town. All that part of the city where is now the Union depot, Tenth and Eleventh streets, was covered with water, where the wild fowls would come in countless numbers. One very venerable pioneer tells me he has seen the time that with a long pole thousands of these birds could have been killed within what is now the city limits. This stream was turned to the north- west, and now empties into the Wabash just north of Terre Haute.
In connection Dr. Swoffard and M. Hollinger give still another theory in reference to the apple trees in the old orchard. They agree that when they were boys they heard the old men who were here the first frequently refer to those fruit trees, and their belief was that a noted character who made regular trips into the wilderness in the latter part of the eighteenth century, and was known as "Johnny Appleseed," from his habit in his aimless travels of carrying with him apple seed and planting them here and there on his way. This man was well received by the Indians, and the whites looked upon him as their truest and best friend from Marietta, near which was his claimed home, to the outer posts of the earliest pioneers. He often, it is said, would pass through the country and warn the whites that the Indians were upon them, and they would heed the warning and flee to the forts and block-houses for safety. It was said that he was always the first to know when the savages were to start on a marauding expedition, and, swifter than they, he would pass through the scattered settlements and give the alarm. This mild maniac would make his rounds among the Indians, and back to the whites every year. His going and coming was apparently as aimless as the movements of the winds, except when moving in that swift silence, and day or night he would pound on the cabin door, and in a loud whisper, "The red devils are com- ing!" and then was gone into the night and darkness, but on and on until all knew he had passed through the desert and that the bloody savages were following.
Johnny Appleseed deserves his place in history-a lunatic, whose gentle nature planted the apple seed and whose mission was much that of a ministering angel to the wigwams and the cabins of the northwest.
All these were the advance preparations of the final coming of the log-cabin-squat and rough, it was the first foot-prints of enduring dominion-destroying much that was wild and beautiful, but re- placing it with that abundance and glory that is benign, growing and ever advancing.
Col. Francis Vigo.
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CHAPTER IX.
FORT HARRISON.
CAPT. ZACHARY TAYLOR IN COMMAND-INDIAN ATTACK AND REPULSE- MAJ. JOHN T. CHUNN-DRUMMER DAVIS-HOW HE GUARDED THE GRAVES OF HIS COMRADES-THE HISTORICAL CURVE OF THE ROAD- MAJ. STURGIS THE LAST IN COMMAND OF THE FORT-ETC.
THE beginning of the permanent possession of this part of In- diana and what is now Vigo county may properly be said to date from the building of this historical structure. It stood near the old "Indian Line," and for some years it was the frontier gar- rison on the borders toward the country of the hostile Indians. It was in its day a place of great importance, and was the land- mark of the far-off coming settler from the east and the south. Under its shadow civilization paused in safety in its slow but grand march across our continent.
This refuge and place of safety to the affrighted pioneer and his family, as they so often in their advances in the wilderness fled by the light of their burning cabins from the painted and piti- less savage, has wholly gone, and no remaining traces mark the spot where it stood. Seventy-nine years have come and gone since Gen. W. H. Harrison came and erected the old fort. They have been great and changeful years. The one first structure in the county so fraught with great events and full of memories has passed away; its old logs, at least many of them, were cut and made into mementos, walking canes, ink-stands, etc., and now but a few of these are to be found in the possession of some of the older citizens. Where the fort stood is about three miles from Main street, Terre Haute.
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