History of Vigo county, Indiana, with biographical selections, Part 7

Author: Bradsby, Henry C
Publication date: 1891
Publisher: Chicago : S.B. Nelson & co.
Number of Pages: 1032

USA > Indiana > Vigo County > History of Vigo county, Indiana, with biographical selections > Part 7

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Mostly it is to the severe religious persecutions that three cen- turies ago overran Europe that we owe the people that came and the conquering of the New World. This severe and bloody era was

HISTORY OF VIGO COUNTY.

much of the preparatory school that bred the virile races of men destined to conquer and possess the wilderness, and cause it to bloom in peaceful civilization. They were in the hunt of homes and the free temples of God, to worship and adore the heavenly Master with none to molest or make them afraid. These were some of the results of these long and cruel persecutions. They were the fiery ordeals that brought forth the men and women, equipped for the great work that lay before them.

The Old World was sadly and cruelly governed and of all these the bloodiest was that of Great Britain. Here were the peculiar strong people, made to oppress and to resist. On the one side full of the spirit of revolt, on the other simply savage and pitiless in re- pression. Wild and unreasoning in their adoration and fealty to the crowned head, yet those rugged, wild, carousing old barons would lay down their lives for the king as readily to-day as they would chop off his head to-morrow. Among no other people in the world's history would the nasal-twanged fanatic, Cromwell, and his terrible following have been possible. He was the noblest fetich smasher, particularly that ancient and deep delusion of " the divin- ity of kings," that has appeared since creation began. He enjoyed beheading kings and princelets, shooting lords and confiscating their landed estates, and he picked up tinkers, hostlers, scavengers, any- body, the lower in the old order of society the better, and made them premiers, judges, chancellors and high state officers, and his psalm-singing, praying army was a flaming sword and the fiery blast. Think of the man as you may, yet who can withhold some meed of praise and admiration for the sovereign contempt with which he kicked over the nation's idols, the assumed human divinities, bowed to by the nation as fetiches. Cromwell's school was the seed of America, its possession and independence.

Back in the Old World, its travails, its persecutions and its bloody schools, were laid the preparations and making possible North America, and to-day, here as everywhere and in all time, are effects following causes.

In the preceding chapters I have attempted to point out some of the preliminary work of nature in building and preparing this continent for the habitation of civilized man. Nature's labors are first, always and the most important, yet the historian in the move- ments of man is often beset with more difficulties in connecting cause and effect than he is in following the courses of nature.

The Saxon and the Gaul, impelled by the same motives, came in parallel lines, crossed and re-crossed each other's paths in the wil- derness. The immigrants to the New World were at first allured by the fur trade, and the glittering wealth from this source was the incentive that bore along that wave of humanity that has covered

HISTORY OF VIGO COUNTY.

finally the continent from shore to shore. The French about Que- bec were originally the most successful in getting the fur trade. Among them grew up a remarkable class of men known to history as the courier des bois-translated-"travelers of the woods." The peculiar times as well as people were necessary to produce this distinct class of men. They were land sailors, and something of their remains may now be seen among the western cow-boys of the plains. They were young Frenchmen who had come to or grown up in this country, who upon the slightest taste of nomadic life in the wilderness were enchanted by it, and they threw off the stern morals of the churchmen who were in control of Canada and re- pelled by austerity at home and allured by absolute freedom toward the wild wood, they practically abandoned civilized life and adopted that of the wild man. They traveled among the Indians, learned their ways of capturing game and living, and these brave and hardy young men soon became as naked barbarians. Their long light bark canoes shot around the bends of the rivers, floated along the currents of the smaller streams, were carried over the portage here and there, and to every tribe and Indian village they traveled and were welcomed for the bright trinkets and fire water that they exchanged for pelts and furs. Sailor-like these voyagers in the woods married squaws with great impartiality in nearly every tribe and village after the Indian fashion. The Indian law required the purchase of wives for an agreed time, and these rollicking young outlaws no doubt often for a single colored glass bead completed the wedding trade for as many days as they would remain trading at that particular place. They could equal if not excel the Indian in making the light canoe and then in handling it on the water. They were expert hunters and marksmen with the long old style flint-lock guns, and they could make and use the bow and arrow. They spoke the Indian language, and in meeting a new tribe with a new language they could readily by signs make their wants under- stood by the strangers.

They learned the streams and the country well, and were famil- iar with all this northwest for nearly a century before the pioneer . settlers followed them to possess and hold it. While the authori- ties at Quebec were greatly scandalized by the immoral and reck- less lives of these men, and enacted severe laws against them, yet they increased in numbers and were the builders of the fur trade that came to be the chief concern of the contending English and French at one time. These voyagers built up an important trade, as well as were first to visit nearly every part of the great north- west. They would load their canoes with the little provision neces- sary and the trinkets to trade and go out on their fifteen months' expedition and return laden with valuable furs. These they would

HISTORY OF VIGO COUNTY.

sell to the merchants, and then in a few days' drunken debauch spend the entire proceeds, often selling the last rag of new clothes they had purchased on their arrival, and when everything was gone go to the trader and on credit get their meager supplies and outfit and start on another fifteen months' expedition. Their commissary supplies were hominy and bear's grease-a bushel of lye hominy and two pounds of grease was a month's subsistence. To this mea- ger fare they added but little of such as they could readily get, and on it fared abundantly. When the adjustments of war came, these couriers were the nucleus of armies that could successfully con- tend with the cunning and scattered savages in the forests and the swamps.

The Wabash and all its tributaries had long been well known io them before La Salle made the record of his discovery and explor- ation of the Ohio. Their presence was often denoted by the half- breeds that would be found in the different tribes by the explorers who came first in acquisition of new territory for their king and country. They left us no dates and records of their visits to the country ; they in their hard pursuit of life had cared nothing for the country, but it was the valuable furs that they wanted, and hence who or when the first white men were that ever were in the confines of Vigo county will never be known.

CHAPTER IV.

WHO FIRST PASSED UP THE WABASH-ARMIES OF THE REVOLUTION WERE UPON THE SOIL OF VIGO COUNTY-THE WAR CHANGES THE OWNERSHIP OF THIS TERRITORY-OUR FIRST REGULARLY ORGANIZED GOVERNMENT UNDER TIIE MILITARY-GEN. GEORGE ROGERS CLARKE AND HIS IMPOR- TANT ACHIEVEMENTS-THIS TERRITORY BECOMES ILLINOIS COUNTY, VA .- CAPT. LEONARD HELM-ETC.

TN the year 1759-one hundred and thirty-one years ago, the French and Indian army that had been recruited in the Illinois, along the Mississippi at Kaskaskia and other points, floated in their canoes and batteaux down the Mississippi, up the Ohio to the mouth of the Wabash, and thence up this river on their way to the lakes and to Quebec.

This was during the French-Indian war commencing in 1756, for the possession of Canada and the northwest, and prior to the fall of Quebec. During the year 1759 the French made every effort to stir up the Indians north of the Ohio, and in their savage

HISTORY OF VIGO COUNTY.

war upon the English to make one more effort to preserve the northwest to the French and their Indian allies. Emissaries were sent to Lake Erie, Detroit, Mackinaw, Vincennes, Kaskaskia and Fort Chartres, with presents and ammunition for the purpose of col- lecting all the forces possible. The French army in Canada was hard pressed for reinforcements. The English navy had cut off their supplies and reinforcements from the mother country, while the English were constantly receiving reinforcements from Eng- land.

Mons. de Aubry, commandant at Fort Chartres, induced 400 of the Illinois French to enlist in his army to go to Canada. He carried with his army 200,000 pounds of flour. To this French force he gathered nearly a thousand Indians. The route by way of the Ohio was closed, the English being in possession of Fort Pitt (Pittsburgh ). He with his heterogeneous army of relief therefore ascended the Wabash, following this stream to where is Fort Wayne, and making the portage, floated down the Maumee and entered Lake Erie. During the entire voyage they were being reinforced from the different tribes through whose borders they passed.

We have no authentic records as to what de Aubry did with the Indians occupying a Wea village near where is now Terre Haute. There is no doubt the fleet stopped here and pow-wowed with the chief men of the place. They may have indulged in royal dog feast, a war dance or any of the other high joint, fashionable amusements of that time.

The average members of the original K. Ns. about the year 1759, for some reason were prejudiced against the English and par- tial toward the French. The high born native ladies were strongly disposed to cut dead their English lady acquaintances at their most recherche teas and progressive euchre parties. They had no hesi- tation, it is supposed, in saying right out that many of the English were " no better than they ought to be."

The French understood best how to manage the Indians, and in the war between the French and English, the natives sided mostly with the Gaul, and so long as the fighting was in the wilderness they were usually victorious over their English foes. But the Eng- lish were the easy master on the seas and they overthrew the French by attacking Quebec and when that fell into their hands the final results were easy to be seen.

The real point of contention at first was for the fur trade of the northwest, more than that of territorial conquest. In the great wilderness the French and English trappers and furtraders had crossed paths and they appealed to arms as the sole arbiter in the dispute.

When de Aubry's army passed up the Wabash the route from

HISTORY OF VIGO COUNTY.

the Ohio river to the lakes by this river was already well known. The country had been well mapped by the trappers and hunters, as well as by the tribes of Indians on the lakes and scattered along the river. They knew the Fort Wayne portage-the carrying point from where the waters flowed south to where they flow north to the lakes.

It was fifty-two years from the time the French-Indian army passed up the Wabash, and no doubt bivouacked where is now Terre Haute, before the English army under Gen. Harrison came to take possession in the name of the union of States.

The white man had discovered and passed down the Mississippi river nearly one hundred years before de Aubry passed up the Wabash, and it is probable before Joliet and Marquette had navi- gated the Mississippi and the Illinois rivers, or La Salle had crossed from the lakes to Pittsburgh and had passed down the Ohio.

Thus more than two hundred years ago the white man was plant- ing the outposts of civilization in this deep wilderness.

Long intervals of time followed between these earliest comings and goings of the white man. These explorers and discoverers claimed and cross-claimed the great unknown western world generally to its " widest and uttermost boundaries." The hunters and trappers, in the name of their respective kings, made claim to everything wher- ever their pursuit of game or fur animals led them. Back in the Old World the French, English and Spanish nations supported the most extravagant claims made by their respective people.

The English disputed the French claim to the entire fur trade of the northwest, and denied their title to the valley of the Missis- sippi, which lay west of the colonies along the Atlantic coast. The grants from the British crown usually conveyed to the charter pro- prietors all the country lying between certain parallels of latitude according to the location of the several grants, and extending west- ward to the South sea, as the Pacific ocean was then called. Seeing in time the weakness of such flimsy claims to the vast tract of country upon which no Englishman had even set his feet, they ob- tained deeds of cession from the Iroquois Indians-the dominant tribe east of the Mississippi. They claimed all the country between the Alleghanies and the Mississippi by conquest from the several Algonquin tribes who occupied it. On July 13, 1701, the sachems of the Five Nations conveyed to William III., king of Great Britian " their beaver hunting grounds northwest and west from Albany," including a " broad strip on the south side of Lake Erie." Vigo county was in this " broad strip," and this is beyond doubt the first definite bill of sale of the county, that was ever put on record. This deed was evidently to define the other more general transfers of title.

HISTORY OF VIGO COUNTY.

An abstracter therefore of Terre Haute who cared to commence with the commencement in the chain of title, would be no doubt safe in starting with this record deed of the Five Nations to any corner lot in the city. It was always claimed by the English that this was a good and sufficient fee-simple title to the States of Mich- igan, Ohio, Indiana and Illinois. The grantors-the Five Nations -recited in their deed " that their ancestors did, more than four score years before, totally conquer, subdue and drive the former occupants out of the country," etc. Then the deed proceeds to recite "that the Iroquois for themselves and heirs granted the English crown the whole soil, the lakes, the rivers, and all things pertaining to said tract of land, with power to erect forts and castles there," only reserving to the grantors "their descendants forever the right of hunting upon the same."

Now, the fact is, that this claim of conquering the country on the part of the Iroquois was so attenuated that an old veteran of the late war would, on examination, have pronounced it a " camp rumor." But the English were great land sharps. They knew this title was shadowy, but is was a " color of title," and this with possession and the payment of taxes in a few years makes a warranty deed.

The Wabash Indians maintained unrelenting hatred and kept up their usual predatory warfare on the English. Their fierce incur- sions from this region upon the settlers of Kentucky, in time brought the Anglo-Saxon's heavy revenges, and was the means of wresting by conquest all this region from the possession and armed ownership of the Indians and French, who had held it as coparceners for a considerable time.

When the colonists had revolted against the mother country, and the war of independence was being waged, then it was that the English resorted to the same tactics with the Indians that the French had used so successfully against them. The English had military posts at Detroit, Vincennes and Kaskaskia, and they used every inducement to incite the savages against the "rebels." In 1777 these Indian depredations were so severe upon the Kentuck- ians, that Gen. George Rogers Clarke conceived and in 1778 exe- cuted an expedition against the French of Kaskaskia and Vincennes. He asked permission and was authorized to raise a regiment, but so poor were the struggling colonies that he was almost left alone to maintain and provide for his little ragged army.

To capture the French posts of Kaskaskia and Vincennes was a bold conception, undertaken by one of America's greatest men. He appealed to Gov. Patrick Henry, of Virginia, and laid before him his daring plans. Gov. Henry at once saw the importance of the proposition, and entered heartily into aiding it all he possibly could. He and Clarke solemnly agreed to keep their secret sacred,

HISTORY OF VIGO COUNTY.

and Clarke was instructed to proceed to enlist seven companies of men, ostensibly for the protection of the Kentucky frontier, and at the same time he had another secret order to attack the British posts of Kaskaskia and Vincennes.

This little secret military expedition was one of the compara- tively unimportant moves on the chess board of war to all appear- ances, yet was in fact, one of the most important movements in behalf of the United States ever conceived and executed. At the time the results were but little understood. The seat of war was east of the Alleghenies, where our Revolutionary sires were winning immortal glory that absorbed the attention of the world. The West was the unknown wilderness, with only the isolated French settle- ments about Vincennes, Kaskaskia and Detroit. The country in its wide boundaries was occupied by savages and wild beasts. It was only after the northwest began to be settled, and its capabilities to main- tain the rich empire it now possesses was at all realized, the mag- nitude of the conquest of Gen. Clarke's expedition. The States of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan and Wisconsin were saved to the Union by Gen. Clarke and Gov. Henry. The memory of Gen. Clarke, the value of his work, has not been sufficiently understood or appreciated by his countrymen.

At the treaty of peace held at Paris at the close of the Revolu- tionary war, the British insisted that the Ohio river should be the northern boundary of the United States. The records and corre- spondence of that important treaty show that the only ground on which the American commissioners relied to sustain their claim that the lakes should be the boundary, was the fact "that Gen. Clarke had conquered the country and was in the undisputed mili- tary possession of it at the time of the negotiations. This fact was affirmed and admitted, and was the chief ground on which the British commissioners reluctantly abandoned their claim."

As this expedition of Gen. Clarke's is a part of the vital history of the territory of Vigo county, it should be kept familiar to our people, and as a part of the history of their country and their homes, it should be told in the high schools of the county. Vigo county gets its name from circumstances connected with the expe- dition that saved us from being yet a part of Canada and British subjects, as well as a part of the record title to the country we inhabit. There can be no early history any more interesting and instructive to our young people, and the facts are best told in Gen. Clarke's own words:

"On the 24th of June, 1778, we left our little island [this was Louisville] and run about a mile up the river in order to gain the main channel and shot the falls at the very moment of the sun being in a great eclipse, which caused various conjectures among

HISTORY OF VIGO COUNTY.

the superstitious. As I knew that spies were kept on the river below the towns of the Illinois, I had resolved to march part of the way by land, and, of course, left the whole of our baggage, except as much as would equip us in the Indian mode. The whole of our force, after leaving such as was judged not competent to the expected fatigue, consisted only of four companies, commanded by Captains John Montgomery, Joseph Bowman, Leonard Helms and William Harrod. My force being so small to what I expected, owing to the various circumstances already mentioned, I found it necessary to alter my plans of operations.

" I had fully acquainted myself that the French inhabitants in those western settlements had great influence among the Indians in general and were more beloved by them than any other Europeans; that their commercial intercourse was universal throughout the western and northwestern countries, and that the governing interests on the lakes was mostly in the hands of the English, who were not much beloved by them. These and many other ideas similar thereto caused me to resolve, if possible, to strengthen myself by such train of conduct as might probably attach the French inhabit- ants to our interests and give us influence in the country we were aim- ing for. These were the principles that influenced my future con- duct, and fortunately I had just received a letter from Col. Camp- bell, dated Pittsburgh, informing me of the contents of the treaties between France and America. As I intended to leave the Ohio at Fort Massac, three leagues below the Tennessee, I landed on a small island in the mouth of that river in order to prepare for the march. In a few hours after one John Duff and a party of hun- ters coming down the river were brought to our boats. They were men formerly from the States, and assured us of their happiness in the adventure. They had been but lately at Kaskaskia, and were able to give us all the intelligence we wished. They said that Gov. Abbot had lately left Port Vincennes and gone to Detroit on business of importance; that Mr. Rochblave commanded at Kas- kaskia, etc .; that the militia was kept in good order, and spies on the Mississippi, and that all hunters, both Indians and others, were ordered to keep a good lookout for the rebels; that the fort was kept in good order as an asylum, etc., but they believed the whole to proceed more from the fondness for parades than the expecta- tion of a visit; that if they received timely notice of us they would collect and give us a warm reception, as they were taught to har- bor a most horrid idea of the rebels, especially the Virginians; but that if we could surprise the place, which they were in hopes we might, they made no doubt of our being able to do as we pleased; . that they hoped to be received as partakers in the enterprise and wished us to put full confidence in them and they would assist the

HISTORY OF VIGO COUNTY.

guides in conducting the party. This was agreed to and they proved valuable men.

" The acquisition to us was great, as I had no intelligence from those posts since the spies I sent twelve months past. But no part of their information pleased me more than that of the inhabitants as viewing us as more savage than their neighbors, the Indians. I was determined to improve upon this if I was fortunate enough to get them into my possession, as I conceived the greater the shock I could give them at first the more sensibly would they feel my lenity and become more valuable friends. This I conceived to be agreeable to human nature, as I had observed it in many instances. Having everything prepared we moved down to a little gully, a small distance above Massac, in which we concealed our boats and set out a northwest course. The weather was favorable. In some parts water was scarce, as well as game. Of course we suffered drought and hunger, but not to excess. On the third day John Saunders, our principal guide, appeared confused and we soon dis- covered that he was totally lost, without there was some other cause of his present conduct."

" I asked him various questions, and from his answers I could scarcely determine what to think of him-whether or not that he was lost or wished to deceive us. The cry of the whole de- tachment was that he was a traitor. He begged that he might be suffered to go some distance into a plain that was in full view to try to make some discovery whether or not he was right. I told him he might go, but that I was suspicious of him from his conduct; that from the first day of his being employed he always said he knew the way well; that there was now a different appearance; that I saw the nature of the country was such that a person once ac- quainted with it could not in a short time forget it; that a few men should go with him to prevent his escape, and that if he did not discover and take us into the hunter's road that led from the east into Kaskaskia, which he had frequently described, I would have him immediately put to death, which I was determined to have done. But after a search of an hour or two he came to a place that he knew perfectly well, and we discovered that the poor fellow had been, as they called it, bewildered.

" On the Fourth of July, in the evening, we got within a few miles of the town, where we lay until near dark, keeping spies ahead, after which we commenced our march and took possession of a house wherein a large family lived on the bank of the Kaskaskia river, about three-quarters of a mile above town. Here we were informed that the people a few days before were under arms, but had concluded that the cause of the alarm was without foundation, and that at that time there was a great number of men in town, but

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History of Vigo county, Indiana, with biographical selections, Part 7

Author: Bradsby, Henry C Publication date: 1891 Publisher: Chicago : S.B. Nelson & co. Number of Pages: 1032

Author: Bradsby, Henry C
Publication date: 1891
Publisher: Chicago : S.B. Nelson & co.
Number of Pages: 1032