USA > Indiana > Northwestern Indiana from 1800 to 1900; or, A view of our region through the nineteenth century > Part 4
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May-Elias Myrick, William Myrick, Thomas Reid, S. P. Stringham, Vermillion, Ills., and Aaron Cox. June-Peter Stainbrook.
November-David Hornor, Thomas Hornor, Jacob
L. Brown, Thomas Wiles, Jesse Bond, and Milo Robinson.
December-John Wood, Henry Wells, William S. Thornburg, R. Dunham, R. Hamilton, and John G. Forbes.
Settlers in 1836-
William A. Purdy, New York.
Elisha Chapman, Michigan City.
S. Havilance, Canada.
William N. Sykes. David Campbell.
W. Williams, La Porte.
Benjamin Joslen.
John Ball.
Richard Church, Michigan.
Darling Church, Michigan.
Leonard Cutler, Michigan.
.
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NORTHWESTERN INDIANA.
Charles Cutler, Michigan.
B. Rhodes, La Porte.
J. Rhodes, La Porte.
Jacob Van Valkenburg, New York.
James S. Castle, Michigan City.
Hiram Nordyke, sen., Tippecanoe.
Charles H. Paine, Ohio.
Hiram Nordyke, Jr., Tippecanoe County.
Joseph C. Batton, Boone County.
James Knickerbocker, New York. John T. Knickerbocker.
G. C. Woodbridge. H. Bones.
John J. Van Valkenburg.
Horace Taylor. -F
S. D. Bryant. Daniel E. Bryant.
Peter Barnard.
Jonathan Brown.
E. J. Robinson. David Fowler.
Cyrus Danforth.
M. Pierce, State of New York.
Sprague Lee, Pennsylvania.
John A. Bothwell, Vermont.
Peleg S. Mason.
Adonijah Taylor, "Timber and Outlet."
The last according to Claim Register, "May 15th." John Cole, New York. F. A. Halbrook, New York. Stephen Mix, New York.
Silas Clough, New York.
Rufus Norton, Canada.
Elijah Morton, Vermont.
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EARLY SETTLERS.
Francis Barney. Hiram Holmes.
Samuel Halsted, "Timber and Millseat."
"Nov. 29th transferred to James M. Whitney and Mark Burroughs for $212."
Calvin Lilley, South Bend.
Samuel Hutchins, La Porte.
Jacob Nordyke, Tippecanoe.
Hiram S. Pelton, New York.
Ithamar Cobb.
J. P. Smith, New York,-settled July 5th. Twelve-Dressler.
G. Zuver, Bartholomew County. H. McGee.
Henry Farmer, Bartholomew County.
William S. Hunt, "blacksmith," Wayne County.
George Parkinson. C. L. Greenman. Charles Marvin.
S. Wilson.
James Farwell.
Mercy Perry, widow.
Abel Farwell.
Peter Selpry.
Carlos Farwell.
Jacob Mendenhall.
M. C. Farwell.
H. M. Beedle.
Henry Hornor.
B. Rich.
Ruth Barney, widow.
D. Y. Bond.
J. V. Johns.
S. L. Hodgman.
James Anderson.
John Kitchel.
E. W. Centre.
Henry A. Palmer.
Simeon Beedle.
Paul Palmer.
Isaac M. Beedle.
H. Edgarton.
William Wells.
D. Barney.
S. D. Wells.
William Hodson.
W. W. Centre.
George Earle.
T. M. Dustin.
E. Dustin, Jr.
Jackson Cady. A. Hitchcock.
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NORTHWESTERN INDIANA.
E. H. Hitchcock.
O. Hitchcock.
Russell Eddy.
Elisha Greene.
C. Carpenter.
W. Page.
William Brown.
R. Wilder.
R. S. Witherel.
John McLean.
Charles Walton.
Solomon Russell.
William Farmer.
Daniel May.
Jonathan Gray.
A. Albee.
Nathan D. Hall. Settlers in 1837-
James Westbrook.
William Sherman.
H. Galespie.
Samuel Sigler.
John Bothwell.
J. H. Martin. John Hack.
John Brown.
Henry Torrey.
T. Sprague.
S. Hodgman.
G. L. Zabriska.
Joseph Batton.
J. Hutchinson.
John Kitchel.
John Hutchinson.
N. Hayden.
E. L. Palmer.
H. R. Nichols.
Lewis Swaney.
N. Cochrane.
N. Reynolds.
A. Baldwin.
Francis Swaney.
Lewis Warriner.
B. Demon.
Josiah Chase.
E. T. Fish.
Charles R. Ball.
Thomas O'Brien.
John Fish.
John L. Ennis.
Hervey Ball.
Orrin Smith.
Dennis Donovan.
D. B. Collings.
Benjamin Farley.
Ephraim Cleveland.
D. R. Stewart.
Patrick Donovan.
Z. Collings.
Thomas Donovan.
O. V. Servis. Joel Benton.
George Flint. Lewis Manning.
Edward Greene. S. T. Greene.
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EARLY SETTLERS.
Timothy Rockwell. Daniel Donovan.
Dudley Merrill. William Vangorder.
Jesse Cross.
J. F. Follett.
Oliver Fuller.
.G. W. Hammond.
E. Cross. Thomas Tindal.
R. Cross.
Orrin Dorwin.
A. L. Ball.
J. Rhodes. Adam Sanford. Joseph Jackson. Charles Mathews.
H. Severns.
O. Higbee. James Carpenter.
Daniel Bryant.
Hiram Barnes.
Z. Woodford.
Wid. Elizabeth Owens.
Bartlett Woods.
Jacob Ross. William Hobson.
E. D. Owens.
Patrick Doyle.
P. Anson. W. J. Richards.
Charles Woods.
N. Pierce.
A. D. Foster.
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NORTHWESTERN INDIANA.
In addition to the above from the Claim Register may be added, for December 10, 1836, the name of Benjamin D. Glazier, who then settled at Merrill- ville, or Wiggins' Point, where some of the family still reside. Also for 1837, the name of John Hack, the first German settler, who, with his large family, settled in the spring near the present town of St. John. Many of his descendants now reside in or near Crown Point. And the names of Peter Orte, Michael Adler, and M. Reder, German settlers, with their families in 1838; who commenced that large Catholic settle- ment in what is now St. John's Township; and also in 1838, H. Sasse, Senior, H. Von Hollen, and Lewis Herlitz, the first Lutheran Germans, who were fol- lowed by many others in what is now Hanover Town- ship.
These German immigrants that in those early years came into the different localities of our eight counties from their fatherland, while they could scarcely then have heard of Mrs. Hemans of England, yet soon learned the meaning of what she wrote in her beautiful "Song of Emigration":
"We will rear new homes, under trees that glow As if gems were the fruitage of every bough ;
O'er our white walls we will train the vine,
And sit in its shadow at day's decline ; And watch our herds as they range at will Through the green savannahs, all bright and still.
All, all our own shall the forests be, As to the bound of the roe-buck free ! None shall say, 'Hither, no further pass !' We will track each step through the wavy grass ; We will chase the elk in his speed and might, And bring proud spoils to the hearth at night."
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EARLY SETTLERS.
Perhaps their women may at first have felt, what Mrs. Heman's puts for them into her song,
"But oh! the gray church tower, And the sound of the Sabbath-bell, And the sheltered garden-bower, We have bid them all farewell !"
Whatever some of them may have felt they soon here made new homes, apparently, with no regrets. The women and girls soon had their beautiful flower grounds, and all, Catholic and Lutheran alike, had their chapels and churches and bells.
Instead of chasing the elk the boys found plenty of deer and wolves to chase, and some of them made good hunters in our woods .*
Many pioneer families came into Lake County in the years of 1838 and 1839, but their names were not found on the Claim Register as its entries did not ex- tend over these years, and it would be quite imprac- ticable to collect many of these names now.
In placing these few hundred names upon this record as pioneers in North-Western Indiana the names of men who came, for the most part, with their women and children, into this then wild region, it is recognized that there were also many others whose names, by some means, have not reached these pages, who were also true and worthy pioneers, doing well their part in laying here the foundations for the pros-
*It was my lot to spend one night in August, 1838, at the home of the large Hack family on "Prairie West," and after "the shades of night" had fallen the family assembled in their door-yard, around a cheerful blaze, and sang the songs of their old homes. They were from one of those Rhine provinces that passed from France to Germany, then Prussia, and those old songs were new and strange to my young ears. T. H. B.
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NORTHWESTERN INDIANA.
perity which we now enjoy; and their descendants who may not find their names on these few pages, will surely see the impossibility of any one's now se- curing every name of the settlers between 1830 and 1840, and also they may be sure that to the whole body of our pioneers, the known and the unknown, every rightminded person must feel that, as this cen- tury closes, we owe a large debt of grateful remem- brance.
Many of the "squatter" families, indeed very many, passed in a few years to the regions further west (these were of a restless class, people who loved fron- tier life), and there as here helped to prepare the way for the railroad life, the modern life, of this our day. They followed the Indians and the deer toward the setting sun, they tried the large western prairies, and the mountain region, and at last the Pacific slope, but the railroads followed them along, and they rest now where the steam whistles blow but do not disturb their slumbers.
Note .- From evidence of different varieties it is con- cluded that fully one-half of the early settlers passed out of Lake County between 1840 and 1850.
TREATIES AND SURVEYS.
In 1818 a treaty with the Indians was made at St. Mary's in accordance with which a large tract of land in central Indiana was purchased and this included at its northern limit what became White County and a part of Jasper. By the terms of another treaty made in 1826 quite a portion of what became Pulaski County was purchased. Some surveys were made in these purchases in 1821 and 1828, but as early as 1821 only a small part of the southeast corner of Pulaski
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EARLY SETTLERS.
was surveyed. As elsewhere stated the eastern part of the ten-mile strip was purchased in 1821 and the western part in 1826. This narrow strip was surveyed, the larger part in 1829, and the extreme eastern por- tion in 1830. The purchase made in 1832, at Tippe- canoe, was surveyed in 1834. Men employed in this survey were, Burnside, Sibley, Clark, Smith, Biggs, Van Ness, Hanna, Goodnow, Morris, Kent.
LAND SALES.
Land sales were held at Crawfordsville for White County in 1829, 1830, and in October, 1832. The Ten-Mile purchase was also offered for sale in 1832. For Pulaski County, land sales were held at Wina- mac in September, 1838, in March, 1839, and in March, 1841. Indian Creek Township was one of the earliest settled parts of that county. It contained some twenty families in 1840.
The lands of Lake County came into market in 1839. The land office was at La Porte. It was after- wards removed to Winamac, where Lake County set- tlers at length went to enter land, finding a place to cross the Kankakee, passing through a wet region, and going by the White-post. It was considered a trying horseback trip.
There were land sales also at Logansport in Octo- ber, 1831, according to General Packard's history, when the "Michigan Road Lands," on which the city of La Porte now stands, were sold and bought.
In 1832 there were land sales at La Fayette. Land in La Porte County was bought this year, and there being then no pre-emption law, speculators, those ruthless men, overbid the settlers. Says General
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NORTHWESTERN INDIANA.
Packard : "This occurred in many instances where the settlers had expended all their means in making im- provements. Much of the land thus situated and lo- cated in New Durham, went as high as five and six dollars per acre." The settlers were not prepared to pay but one dollar and a quarter per acre. Before the land sales of 1839 the citizens of Lake County had organized a Squatters' Union in which they bound themselves to stand by each other in purchasing their land at the government price. The second article of their constitution said, "That if Congress should neg- lect or refuse to pass a law, before the land on which we live is offered for sale, which shall secure to us our rights, we will hereafter adopt such measures as may be necessary effectually to secure each other in our just claims." And they did this. Speculators did not bid against five hundred united, determined, and prob- ably armed men.
In Porter County lands came into market in 1835.
CHAPTER IV. 1830 to 1840.
What These Early Settlers Found-Pre-Historic and Historic Man.
By prehistoric in this chapter is not meant, before human history on the earth commenced; that early Asiatic, African, and European written history, so many thousand pages of which yet remain; but only before the real American written history finds its sure beginning, dating no further back than to the dis- covery of America by Christopher Columbus. Prehis- toric in this chapter, will denote not only any traces of man up to 1492, but even up to the time of the first recorded explorations of French and English in this region. So that, to reach our prehistoric period, we will not need to go far back in time.
The early settlers first found the Indians, called sometimes aborigines, in actual possession here, with whom, for some ten years, more or less, they were brought in contact ; but they soon found, as they came out from the "thick woods," as they looked over the rich and beautiful prairies, and then over the low- lands and marshes, and viewed the rivers,-here and there not to be mistaken, they found those singular traces of an unknown people, called sometimes the Moundbuilders. In various places they found these mounds, evidently formed at some time by human hands, one of these, ten feet in height and some forty feet in diameter, being on the Iroquois River, four
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NORTHWESTERN INDIANA.
miles from the present town of Rensselear, from which have been taken shells, bones, and ashes. Other mounds were found some three miles north of the pres- ent town of Morocco, in Newton County, from which have been taken human bones and stone implements ; another in what became Washington Township, in the same county; and yet another on the south bank of the Iroquois near the State line. Other mounds were found north of the Kankakee River, from some of which human skeletons have been taken, over some of which the plowshare has passed year after year, still bringing to the surface human remains ; and some are even yet undisturbed. Large trees were found growing on some of the mounds when the pioneers first saw them. They were in shape circular and smooth, and regularly formed, although the wolves had in some of them made their dens .*
The following is taken from Lake County, 1884, page 474: "On the farm now owned by J. P. Spal- ding, near the northwest corner of section 33, town-
*The writer of this remembers well his first visit to one of these mounds with his father and mother, each on horse- back; that father a graduate of Middlebury College, Vermont, that mother educated in the best schools of Hartford, Con- necticut, and then 34 years of age; and what an interest they both took in that work of prehistoric man, as they rode up the sloping sides and looked at its smooth, level top, and looked around the landscape from that elevation, himself admiring it with the eyes of a boy twelve years of age. That mother had seen many beautiful and grand New England and Southern and ocean sights, nature she dearly loved, but on such a mound she had never looked before. I am quite sure no spade or plow has yet touched that mound. T. H. B.
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WHAT THESE EARLY SETTLERS FOUND.
ship 33, range 8 west, are the remains of two mounds. They have been plowed over for more than forty years, [written in 1884] but human skeletons, arrow heads and pottery are still unearthed, as the plow- share goes deeper year by year. The pottery found is of two varieties." These ancient mounds were per- haps used in later times for Indian burial places.
General Packard mentions two mounds near the early village of New Durham, in La Porte County, which were six feet in height.
Hubert S. Skinner, in the history of Porter County says that, "numerous earth mounds are found" there, and that "In the mounds have been found human bones, arrow heads, and fragments of pottery."
Says Mr. William Niles, of La Porte, in his his- torical sketch of the La Porte Natural History Asso- ciation : "At one time Dr. Higday got up an excur- sion to the Indian mounds near the Kankakee River, and secured for the association a large number of flint and copper implements and pottery, and skulls and other bones. He read a paper before the Chicago Historical Society describing this excursion and its re- sults. Some of the specimens were left with the Chi- cago society." The others, it seems to be implied, are still in La Porte. Very little copper as yet has been found in our excavations.
Returning now south of the Kankakee, in White County, there were found several mounds on what was named Little Mound Creek ; these were only from three to five feet high, but at another location there were some about ten feet in height. Fifteen have been counted in White. A full account of the many mounds of this region does not enter into the plan of
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this work; but elsewhere will be found yet more par- ticulars in regard to human remains, or prehistoric man.
That the pioneers found not a few Indians here has been already stated, and they found that these true native Americans had villages, camping places, danc- ing floors and burial grounds, and gardens and corn fields. South of the Kankakee River, in what became known as Beaver Woods, and along the Iroquois and Tippecanoe rivers, they had many favorite re- sorts, and a large Indian village was found and a favorite dancing floor or ground a few miles north of where the whites started their village called Morocco. Corn fields were found in various places near that same locality.
In White County an Indian village was found half a mile north of the present Monticello, and another five miles up the river, where large corn fields were cultivated. For some reason these Indian fields seem to have been much larger on the south than on the north side of the Kankakee. For one thing, the soil was quite different. A noted Indian trail passed along the bank of the Tippecanoe, crossing it where is now Monticello, and leading from the Wabash River up to Lake Michigan.
In what is now Jasper County many corn fields were found, generally small patches of land, but some- times in a single field would be an area of ten or fif- teen acres. One large field was four miles and an- other seven miles west of the present county seat of Jasper County. There were groves of sugar maple trees along the Iroquois River, and the first settlers found the Indians along that river knowing how to make maple sugar. .
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WHAT THESE EARLY SETTLERS FOUND.
North of the Kankakee, at what took the name of Wiggin's Point, now Merrillville, in Lake County, was found, in 1834, quite an Indian village. It was called McGwinn's Village. There was a large danc- ing floor or ground, and there were trails, which were well-trodden foot-paths, sixteen in number, leading from it in every direction. The dancing ground, called a floor, but not a floor of wood, is said to have been very smooth and well worn. A few rods distant was the village burial ground, the situation, where the prairie joined the woodland, well chosen. A few black- walnut trees were found growing there, of which very few are native in Lake County, as also there were two or three near an Indian burial place found on the northeastern shore of the Red Cedar Lake.
At this Wiggin's Point burial place the pioneers found in the center of the ground a pole some twenty feet in height on which was a white flag. This was the best known Indian cemetery in Lake County. As many as one hundred graves were there. Some dese- crating hands, said to have been those of a physician from Michigan City, took out from the earth here an Indian form about which were a blanket, a deer skin, and a belt of wampuni; and with the body were found a rifle and a kettle full of hickory nuts. The pioneers found that some of these Indians had not only the idea of a future life, but that they had received from their white teachers some idea of the resurrection of the body. Some of them preferred not to be placed in the earth, as they were to live again; and some of these early settlers found suspended in a tree, in a basket, with bells attached, the dead body of an In- dian child. The writer of this obtained his best knowl- edge of an Indian cemetery and of Indians lamenting
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their dead, from a sand mound in Porter County, near the shore of Lake Michigan, which will be mentioned in the account of City West.
Besides the Indians themselves, (and some of them were in contact with the settlers for ten full years) and their gardens, where the Indians cultivated some choice grapes as well as vegetables, and their trails, and camping grounds and dancing grounds, these pioneers found, and the later inhabitants have been finding through all these seventy years, flint and stone instruments of various kinds, evidently the work of human hands. A very little copper, not in its na- tive bed or form, they also found. One of the large collections of arrow heads, spear heads, and various small instruments, whose manufacture is attributed to our Indians, is in possession of the present genial and intelligent trustee of St. John's Township, H. L. Keil- man, all, some two hundred in number, having been found on the Keilman farm near Dyer, on section eighteen, township thirty-five, range nine west of the second principal meridian.
It seems desirable that some impression should be upon these pages of the real life of the Indians, as near as it can be obtained from such contact as they had with the whites, thus showing what the pioneers found Pottawatomie customs and ways to be. As, besides other camps and gardens, so-called, in the winter of 1835 and 1836 about six hundred had an encampment in the West Creek woodlands, where deer were abundant, and an encampment was there again the next winter ; and on Red Oak Island, where they had a garden, about two hundred camped in the winter of 1837 and 1838, and about a hundred and fifty on Big White Oak Island, south of Orchard
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WHAT THESE EARLY SETTLERS FOUND.
Grove, and quite an encampment the same winter south of the present Lovell, and a camp of thirty In- dian lodges the same or the preceding winter north of the Red Cedar Lake, and many wigwams along the Calumet, and a large Indian village at Indian Town, it is evident that the pioneers had some opportunities to learn something of their dispositions and ways.
The following is from "Lake County, 1872."
"On Red Oak Island they had two stores, kept by French traders, who had Indian wives. The names of these traders were Bertrand and Lavoire. At Big White Oak was one store, kept by Laslie, who was also French, with an Indian wife. Here a beautiful incident occurred on new year's morning, 1839. Charles Kenney and son had been in the marsh look- ing up some horses. They staid all night, December 3Ist, with Laslie. His Indian wife, neat and thought- ful, like any true woman, gave them clean blankets out of the store, treated them well, and would receive no pay. The morning dawned. The children of the encampment gathered, some thirty in number, and the oldest Indian, an aged, venerable man, gave to each of the children a silver half-dollar as a new year's present. As the children received the shining silver each one returned to the old Indian a kiss. It was their common custom, on such mornings, for the old- est Indian present to bestow upon the children the gifts.
A beautiful picture, surely, could be made by a painter of this island scene; the marsh lying round, the line of timber skirting 'the unseen river, the en- campment, the two white strangers, the joyous chil- dren, and the venerable Pottawatomie who, long years before, had been active in the chase and resolute as a
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NORTHWESTERN INDIANA.
warrior in his tribe, bestowing the half-dollars and bending gracefully down to receive the gentle kisses of the children. Such a picture on canvas, by an artist, would be of great value among our historic scenes."
The following incidents, from different sources, are all well attested :
Into what became Newton County in the time of the Black Hawk War, about five hundred Kickapoos came from Illinois and staid for some little time, but gave no trouble to the few whites then there unless whiskey was furnished them.
In the spring of 1837, a party of Indians came to the location of David Yeoman, on the Iroquois, to catch fish. These they took not by means of spears or hooks, but by throwing them out of the water with their paddles. They were economical. They would exchange the bass with the whites for bread and would themselves eat the dog-fish.
North of the Kankakee, near Indian Town, an enterprising settler proposed to plow some ground for planting. To this the head Indian objected, saying that the land was his, and the squaws wanted it to cultivate. This pioneer knew quite well that the squaws would not cultivate very much land, so he said to the Indian man, "I will plow up some land and the squaws may mark off all they want." As he could turn the ground over much faster than could the In- dian women, this was quite satisfactory. They marked off the little patches which they wanted, and left a good field for the white man. This incident certainly shows a good side of the Indian character.
As mentioned elsewhere, an early school of La Porte County, the first in New Durham Township, was taught by Miss Rachel B. Carter, the school open-
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WHAT THESE EARLY SETTLERS FOUND.
ing January 1, 1833. As illustrating the taciturn dis- position of the Indians, General Packard gives this incident : "When Miss Carter was teaching this school, Indians of various ages would come to the cabin, wrapped in their blankets, and stand for hours without uttering a word or making a motion, while they gazed curiously at the proceedings. Then they would glide away as noiselessly as they came." Other characteristics are illustrated by the following : "Upon one occasion an Indian woman, called Twin Squaw, informed Rachel that the Indians intended to kill all the whites, as soon as the corn was knee high. Rachel replied that the white people were well aware of the intention of the Indians, and taking up a handful of sand, said that soldiers were coming from the East as numerous as its grains, to destroy the Indians be- fore the corn was ankle high. The next morning there were no Indians to be found in the vicinity, and it was several months before they returned.
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