USA > Indiana > Tippecanoe County > Past and present of Tippecanoe County, Indiana, Volume I > Part 13
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[Undoubtedly, at the iron bridge crossing on the Rossville road. one- half mile west of Monitor. 1 examined and carefully mapped this ground twenty-five years ago. The death of the soldiers occurred some distance from the Indian fortress. One of the ravines up to the fortification at the big spring near by the roadside, on the right going east. The "defent" is set forth in General Hopkins's official report. quoted elsewhere .- B. WILSON SMITH. ]
GEN. CHARLES SCOTT'S ADDRESS TO THE INDIANS.
As the address of Gen. Charles Scott, of Kentucky, to the "tribes along the Wabash" is very interesting and significant. it is quoted in full :
"To the various tribes of the Piankeshaws and all other nations of Red People,' lying on the waters of the Wabash. The sovereign council of the thirteen United States have long and patiently borne your depredations against the settlements on this side of the great mountains in the hope that you would see your error and correct it by entering with them into the bonds of amity and lasting peace. Moved by compassion and pitying your mis- guided councils, they have frequently addressed you on this subject, but with- out effect. At length their patience is exhausted and they have stretched forth their arm of power against you. Their mighty sons and chief warriors
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have at length taken up the hatchet. They have penetrated far into your country to meet your warriors and punish them for their later transgressions ; but you have fled before them, and declined the battle, leaving your wives and children to their mercy. They have destroyed your old town Ouiatenon and the neighboring villages and have taken many prisoners. Resting here two days to give you time to collect your strength, they have proceeded to your town of Kethtippecanuck, but you again fled before them and that great town has been destroyed. After having given you this evidence of their power, they have stopped their hands, because they are merciful as strong, and they again indulge the hope that you will come to a sense of your true interests and determine to make a lasting peace with them and all their children forever.
"The United States have no desire to destroy the 'Red People,' although they have the power, but should you decline this invitation and pursue your unprovoked hostilities their strength will again be exerted against you. Your warriors will be slaughtered, your towns and villages ransacked and destroyed, your wives and children be carried into captivity and you may be assured that those who escape the fury of our mighty chief shall find no resting place on this side of the Great Lakes. The warriors of the United States wish not to distress or destroy women and children or old men, and the policy obliges them to retain some in captivity, yet compassion and humanity have induced them to set others at liberty, who will deliver you this talk. Those who have been carried off will be left in the care of our great chief and warrior, General St. Clair, near the mouth of the Miami and opposite the Licking river, where they will be treated with humanity and tenderness. If you wish to recover them, repair to that place by the first day of July next, determined with true hearts, to bury the hatchet and smoke the pipe of peace. They will then be restored to you, and live in peace and happiness, unmolested by the children of the United States, who will become your friends and protectors, and will be ready to furnish you with all the necessaries you may require, but should you foolishly persist in your warfare, the sons of war will be let loose against you and the hatchet will never be buried until your country is desolated and your people humbled to the dust.
"Given under my hand and seal at the Quiatenon Town, this fourth day of June, 1791.
"CHAS. SCOTT. Brig-Gen."
A second expedition under General Wilkinson in August, 1791, con- templated the work of destruction. General Wilkinson left Ft. Washington the first of August. He struck the Wabash at the mouth of Eel river, crossed
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the Wabash at that point, and destroyed the Indian town Ken-a-pa-com-a-qua, situated a few miles above the junction of the two rivers. They then started for Kethtippecanuck, where they leveled to the ground what little the daunt- less red men had rebuilt. The Kentuckians marched thence to Quiatenon, where they forded the Wabash and destroyed all the crops that were left standing and then returned to Ohio.
General Wilkinson, in his report of the expedition, says :
"I have destroyed the chief town of Quiatenon nation and made prison- ers of the sons and daughters of the king. I have burned a respectable Kickapoo village and cut down at least four hundred and thirty acres of corn, chiefly in the milk. The Quiatenons, left without houses or provisions. must cease to war, and will find active employment to subsist their squaws and children during the impending winter."
The French families probably left for a more peaceful abode. The subsequent history of old Quiatenon town is lost to the world and clothed in the deepest mystery. Thus passed out of existence the ancient historic towns of Quiatenon and Kethtippecanuck, but their spirit lived in the hearts of the Indian braves who were forced by the intruding white man a little farther to the westward.
Within seventeen years another great French-Indian town was flour- ishing on the banks of the Wabash, and at Prophet's Town, not more than two miles below old Kethtippecanuck. the Indians under the leadership of the noble Tecumseh and the Prophet were hatching plans for the redemp- tion of their own race and the destruction of the whites, but after their last brave struggle, the battle of Tippecanoe, November 7. 1811, the red man's dominion passed away forever.
A lover of the Indians cannot pass over the page of the red man's history without a few vain regrets; but after all. it is only another applica- tion of nature's great law-"the survival of the fittest."
"The old order changeth, yielding place to new. And God fulfills himself in many ways."
THE "YELLOW JACKETS" COMPANY-TIPTON AS ENSIGN.
He who was later known as Gen. John Tipton, and the person who finally secured the Tippecanoe battle grounds for the state of Indiana, was an ensign at the time of this battle in which he bore a singular and truly heroic part.
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The "Yellow Jackets" was a company made up of forty-seven men, ex- clusive of officers, which company had been organized by Spier Spencer, at the time acting sheriff of Harrison county, Indiana.
"Purposely, or accidentally, his company was the one placed where the most deadly fighting in all that bloody fight was done."
The Indians were in a hand-to-hand combat with the company at times. and Spier Spencer, in the front rank, was soon shot down. Samuel Pfrimmer and Bogard, his comrades, lifted him in their arms and started to carry him to a protected place, but a second bullet struck him in the shoulder, and ranging lengthwise through his body, killed him almost instantly.
The battle lasted two hours and twenty minutes, and in addition to Captain Spencer, Lieutenant McMahan and Captain Berry, attached to the company, there were five others killed and fifteen wounded, a total of twen- ty-three out of forty-seven or fifty per cent. of dead and wounded.
Among the wounded was George Spencer, the brother, who was so badly injured that he died when they reached the Wabash on their way home.
General Harrison, with the kindness of the truly great, took the father- less boy, Edward, under his care for the remainder of the campaign, and then secured his admission into West Point, assigning as a reason, bravery shown on the field of battle; and later he secured admission of a younger son to the same institution. And from that time on, there has always been in the army of the United States some descendant of Spier Spencer, trying to live up to the standard of bravery and patriotism set for them by him who has slept so long beneath this soil.
CHAPTER III.
GEOLOGY, TOPOGRAPHY, AND GENERAL FEATURES.
The natural scenery of the Wabash valley as found by the first settlers among the white race was of rare beauty, its landscape being ever a feast to the eye of the beholder. To give a clearer understanding of the formation of the surface of the earth at this point, we will now give the topography of the county :
TOPOGRAPHY.
The public square on which the court house is situated in Lafayette is. according to government reports, forty degrees and twenty-five minutes north latitude, and nine degrees forty-seven minutes west longitude from Washington, District of Columbia. The location of this city gives the time as indicated by an astronomical clock, thirteen minutes ahead of railroad. or "standard" time.
The word "Tippecanoe" is derived from the Indian Quit-te-pe-con-nac. a modification of Kith-tip-pe-ca-nunk, signifying in the Indian dialect, but- falo-fish, a class of the finny tribe, that in far remote, if not in the recent past, abounded in the waters of the Tippecanoe river.
The name of the Wabash river appears to have been derived from the Miami Wah-ba-shik-a, signifying "water flowing over white stones." The propriety of the name becomes apparent when it is known that for the greater part of the length of its waters they flow over beds of whitish lime- stone. The Ouabache, given by the French Jesuits and traders who tra- versed its waters two centuries ago, seems to have been an adaption of the French spelling to the pronunciation of the original Indian word, Wah-bash. or Waba-shik-a.
At this date in the county's history it is impossible to conceive of the luxurious grandeur of the primitive forests and the beauty along the virgin banks of the Wabash river. Their natural wildness, the unmarred clothing of verdure which hung in copious folds down to the very water's edge, was indeed in great contrast with the naked hog-pastured ground which has so universally taken its place since the civilization of which we now so proudly boast had commenced its march through this section. Hundreds of inter- esting plants and flora that carpeted the earth's surface then have nearly all
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given place to blue grass and the like. the dandelion being about all that connects the past with the present. Good-bye. past-time flowers and long ago virgin plant life and beauty !
In the Indiana geological report for 1886, Prof. John MI. Coulter and others wrote page upon page of interesting matter on the "Seven Floral Regions" of this state, placing Tippecanoe county in the "prairie region." Special reference was made to botany of this county.
The most common trees of this section, at an early day, were the black and white walnut. the black and white and bur oaks, white ash, white (pig- nut, bitternut ) shag-bark and scale bark hickory, wild cherry, the sugar maple and the beech. The most valuable of all these trees was the black walnut. hence has long since been almost all cut off.
The most common shrubs and small trees of this county are the willows, dog-woods, hazel, crabapple, plum, pawpaw. buckeye. sassafras, redbud, mulberry, and the two ironwoods. The pawpaw is quite rare and seldom if ever bears fruit : persimmons are seen growing in a few localities.
The chief water courses of Tippecanoe county are the Wabash. Tippe- canoe, Wild Cat. Big and Little Wea, Buck and Indian creeks.
The county is broken occasionally by low ridges that traverse the county from east to west. One of these ridges extends from the bluffs of the Wabash river, a little distance north of Lafayette, to the Warren county line on the west. Another similar ridge crosses the county about five miles to the south of this, and is known as High Gap Ridge, and is composed largely of sand, gravel and bowlders. It extends from Culver Station to the county line. Five miles to the south of this ridge is another which is almost entirely in Jackson township, in the southwestern portion of the county. This is a sand, gravel and clay ridge. Near its western extremity is a high and prom- inent mound, known as the Shawnee Mound. The numerons creeks of the county have cut through these ridges in many places, but at no point has a complete section of them been taken. The creek bluffs have generally rounded and gentle slopes. These are easily susceptible of cultivation.
The Wabash river enters the county at the northeast corner and flows southwesterly to Lafayette. near the county's center. thence westerly to with- in about two miles of the Warren county line, thence to the southwest. pursu- ing that direction until it leaves the Tippecanoe county line. ten miles north of the southern limit of the county. Light draft steamboats easily ply these waters the year round. In higher stages of water large boats can and have navigated the Wabash successfully.
l'ine creek, in the northwestern part of Tippecanoe county, flows south- westerly and empties into Big Pine creek in Warren county.
CANAL AND TOW PATH WILD CAT CREEK
TIPPECANOE DRIVE TIPPECANOE RIVER
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Big Indian creek rises in Wabash township and finds its way into the Wabash two and a half miles east of the Warren county line.
Little Indian creek rises north of Montmorency and flows south into Indian creek.
The several branches of Burnette creek rise near the White county line. and drain Tippecanoe township. They are crooked in their course and final- ly make their way to the Wabash.
The Tippecanoe river crosses the northern boundary of the county four miles west of the Carroll county line, flows in a southerly direction and empties into the Wabash.
Sugar creek has its head in Carroll county, flows west, crosses the Tippe- canoe county line three miles south of the northeast corner of the county, and empties its waters into the Wabash. nearly opposite the mouth of the Tippecanoe river.
Buck creek has its source in Carroll county, flows west, crosses the Tip- pecanoe county line two miles south of Sugar creek, and discharges its waters into the Wabash opposite the town of Battle Ground.
Wild Cat creek and its numerous tributaries drain Fairfield township in the central, and Perry and Sheffield townships in the eastern part of the county. Wild Cat rises in the northwestern part of Clinton county, flows westerly, emptying its waters into the Wabash river four miles above Lafay- ette. It crosses the Tippecanoe county line eight miles north of the southern boundary line of the county.
The North Fork, which has several branches, rises in Carroll county and unites with the Wild Cat four miles northeast of Lafayette.
Middle Fork rises in Clinton county, flows west and empties into the Wild Cat.
Lauramie creek rises in the extreme southeastern part of Tippecanoe county, flows northwesterly, then northeasterly, and finally flows into the Wild Cat two and one-half miles west of the Clinton county line.
Wea creek takes its rise in the southern part of Tippecanoe county. The east fork drains the western portion of Lauramie township, and the west fork drains Randolph township, the central one on the southern tier in the county. Wea creek flows northwesterly and discharges into the Wabashi four miles west of Lafayette.
Little Wea creek rises in the southwestern corner of the county in Jack- son township, flows northeast. then northwest, and unites with the Wea three miles southwest of Lafayette.
The two branches of Flint creek drain Wayne township: also Union. and Jackson townships. The south fork rises in the northern part of Jack-
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son township, flows north until it unites with the North fork near West Point, then pursues a northwesterly course to the Wabash. The north fork rises in Union township, flows northerly, then westerly to its junction with the south fork near West Point.
Many smaller streams add to the surface configuration and drainage of the county. Here and there throughout the county, may be enjoyed, as "things of beauty forever," cold water springs bubbling forth from the great waterways and underground living fountains. By this means the large number of small creeks are kept running the entire year. For stock raisers and also for domestic use, the crystal springs found in Tippecanoe county are priceless.
The low water mark at Lafayette, of the Wabash river, is five hundred and four feet above the ocean level. The reservoir east of Lafayette is two hundred and twenty-six feet above the low water mark of the Wabash, mak- ing it seven hundred and thirty feet above sea level, which is supposed to be about the general sea level of the entire surface of the county, except the creek and river bottoms.
Shawnee Mound, High Gap Ridge, and the high bluffs of Cedar Hollow, about five miles north of Lafayette, and the high land between Wild Cat creek and Buck creek, and between the latter and Sugar creek, rise to the height of a little more than eight hundred feet. These are doubtless the highest points within Tippecanoe county.
This is one of the best watered counties in Indiana. The rivers and creeks furnish an inexhaustible supply of the purest water, for both mechan- ical and agricultural purposes. Springs of pure, cold water, some tinctured with iron, some with sulphur and others with various medicinal qualities. Wells are easily obtainable at reasonable depths, ranging from twenty to eighty feet. The springs at Battle Ground and in the Wabash valley just north of Lafayette are quite universally known and used for the healing vir- tues they possess. Iron is the chief mineral in the majority of the springs within Tippecanoe county.
The artesian well at Lafayette has long been known and appreciated. Its water precipitates a whitish sediment upon the surface over which it flows and is sometimes known as "white sulphur water." A complete analy- sis of this water was made by Charles M. Wetherill, Ph. D .. M. D .. in 1859 and he discovered that upon being first exposed to the surface the water's temperature was fifty-five degrees F. The taste is similar to that of the celebrated Blue Lick water. One pint contains one-fifth of a cubic inch of sulphureted hydrogen and one and one-fourth cubic inches of carbonic acid
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and two-thirds of a cubic inch of nitrogen gas; also it contains one and a half grains of sulphate of lime, forty grains of common salt, three and a third grains of magnesium, half a grain of chloride of calcium with slight traces of carbonate of magnesia, peroxide of iron and silica.
Dr. Wetherill found his artesian water equal to the far-famed White Sulphur Springs of Virginia and nearly equal to the Blue Lick Springs of Kentucky.
The depth of the Lafayette well is two hundred and thirty feet, and only one hundred and eighty feet lower than the top of the bluffs east of the city. Then it will be seen that the total depth of the well. as measured from the average altitude of the country, is four hundred and ten feet.
PRE-HISTORIC RACE.
Scientific men have ascribed to the Mound Builders varied origins, and though their diversified opinions may for some time continue to be incom- patible with a thorough investigation of the subject, and tend to confuse one, yet no doubt can possibly exist as to the fact that some of these theories are near the truth. That this continent is co-existent with the world of the ancients cannot be doubted; the result of all scientific investigations, down to the present time, combine to establish the fact of the co-existence of the two continents. Historians and learned students and antiquarian writers disa- gree as to the origin of the first inhabitants of the New World. The general conclusions arrived at are, that the ancients came from the east by the way of Behring's Strait, subsequent to the confusion of tongues and dispersion of the inhabitants at that time of the construction of the Tower of Babel. 1757 before Christ. The ancient mounds and earthworks scattered over the entire continent tend to confirm the theory that the Mound Builders were people who had been engaged in raising elevations prior to their advent to this con- tinent. They possessed religious orders corresponding in external show. at least, with the Essenes or Theraputae of the pre-Christian and Christian epochs, and to the monks of the present day.
Every memento of their coming and their stay which has descended to us is an evidence of their civilization.
The free copper found within the tumuli, the open veins of the Superior and Iron Mountains copper mines, with all the implements of ancient mining, such as ladders, levers, chisels, and hammer-heads, discovered by the explor- ers of the Northwest and the Mississippi, are conclusive proofs that these prehistoric people were highly civilized, and that many flourishing colonies were spread throughout the Mississippi valley.
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Within the last few decades great advances have been made toward the discovery of antiquities, whether pertaining to remains of organic or inorganic nature. Together with many small, but telling relics of the early inhabitants of the country, the fossils of pre-historic animals have been unearthed from one end of this continent to the other, many of which are remains of enormous animals long since extinct. Many writers who have devoted their lives to the investigation of the origin of the ancient inhabitants of this continent, and from whence they came, have fixed a period of a second immigration a few centuries prior to the Christian era, and, unlike the first expeditions, to have traversed northeastern Asia to its Arctic confines, then east to Behring Strait, thus reaching the New World by the same route as the first immigration, and, after many years residence in the North, pushed southward and com- mingled with and soon acquired the characteristics of the descendants of the first colonists.
The Esquimaux of North America, the Semoieds of Asia and the Lap- landers of Europe are supposed to be of the same family ; and this supposition is strengthened by the affinity that exists in their languages. The researches of Humboldt have traced the Mexicans to the vicinity of Behring Strait; whence it is conjectured that they, as well as the Peruvians and other tribes, come originally from Asia.
Since this theory is accepted by most antiquarians, there is every reason to believe that from the discovery of what may be termed an overland route to what was then considered an eastern extension of that country, that the immigration increased annually until the new continent became densely populated. The ruins of ancient cities discovered in Mexico and South America prove that this continent was densely populated by a civilized people prior to the Indian or the Caucasian races.
The valley of the Mississippi, and indeed the country from the trap rocks of the Great Lakes southwest to the Gulf and southwest to Mexico, abound in monumental evidences of a race of people much farther advanced in civilization than the Montezumas of the sixteenth century.
The remains of walls and fortifications found in Ohio and Indiana, the earthworks at Vincennes and throughout the valley of the Wabash, the mounds scattered over the several Southern states, also in Illinois, Minnesota and Wisconsin, as well as in eastern Iowa, are evidences of the advancement of the people of that day toward a comparative knowledge of man and cos- mology. At the mouth of Fourteen-mile creek in Indiana (in Clark county), there stands one of these old monuments known as the "Stone Fort." It is an unmistakable heir-loom of a great and ancient people, and must have formed one of their most important posts.
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In Posey county, this state, on the Wabash, ten miles from its junction with the Ohio river, is another remarkable evidence of the great numbers once inhabiting that country. This is known as the "Bone Bank," on account of the human bones continually washed out from the river bank. This process of unearthing the ancient remains has been going on since the remem- brance of the earliest settlers among white men. Various relics of artistic wares are found in that portion of this State. Another great circular earth- work is found near New Washington, and a stone fort near Deputy.
Vigo, Jasper, Sullivan, Switzerland and Ohio counties can boast of a liberal endowment of works of great antiquity, and the entire state of Indiana abounds with numerous relics of the handiwork of an extinct race. Many of the curious devised implements and wares are to be seen in the State Museum at Indianapolis.
Various theories are advanced, but of all the legendary stories told of pre-Columbian visitors to the American continent, the Madoc tradition takes precedence. Then there is the Atlantic tradition, twelve thousand years old; the Phoenician tradition, dating from three-quarters of a century before the Christian era ; the Chinese tradition of the Buddhist priest in the fifth century; the Norse tradition of the tenth century ; the Irish tradition of the eleventh century ; and the Madoc tradition of the Welshmen in America near the close of the eleventh century-all laying claim to the honor of representing the first visit of the white men to the American continent. The greatest probability of truth seems to attach to the Madoc tradition, and the evidence from many different sources gives it a greater credibility than any of the other accounts. This tradition is to the effect that a colony of Welshmen landed on the Ameri- can shores in 1170, and found their way finally to the Falls of the Ohio, and remained there for many years, being finally almost exterminated in a great battle with "Red Indians."
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