USA > Indiana > Perry County > Perry County: A History > Part 4
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Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27
The labors of these commissioners (or a majority of them) when they met were conducted along lines closely parallel to the proceedings of that earlier board which had chosen Troy. Accessibility and convenience in transportation logically commanded a location upon the only commercial highway, the Ohio river, and after due deliberation and inspection the choice fell upon a site approximately bisecting the winding course of the county's southern boundary. This was opposite the mouth of Sinking Creek in Breckinridge County, Ken- tucky, now Stephensport, where the allied Stephens, Minor and Holt families had taken up extensive gov- ernment grants for services in the American Revo- lution, Nicholas Minor III, a member of the same fam- ily connection, coming early into Perry County, where many descendants perpetuate his name to the present.
Here, upon a somewhat narrow though level tract
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projecting into Kentucky, in May, 1818, Uriah Cum- mings had laid out under the name Washington a town- site embracing a public square, one hundred and eighty-nine lots, and fifteen outlots. With the excep- tion of such lots as had already been sold, all this land was given by Cummings to the county, in consideration of fixing the county seat thereon, besides the donation a little later of an additional forty acres adjoining. At the same time thirty-five adjacent acres were sold to the county by John Crist for $300.
By way of explaining the speedy change of name, it should be stated that it was necessary, to avoid du- plication, the Father of his Country having been hon- oured during the preceding year, on August 18, 1817, when the newly located county seat of Daviess County assumed the title of Washington in substitution for that of Liverpool, the style under which it had been originally platted.
The many-sided Benjamin Franklin appears to have been next in favour among distinguished Americans worthy of veneration, so the plat was re-entered under the name Franklin in the autumn of 1818, although the last court ever held at Troy, in October of that year, with David Hart as president judge, adjourned to meet in the following February "at Washington."
When, however, the initial court at the new county seat convened, in February, 1819, it was at Franklin, Richard Daniel producing his commission as president judge, with James McDaniel, Sr., and John Stephen- son as his associates. Willis C. Osborn was admitted to practice, though little was on the docket save cases of assault and battery. At the term in May, 1819, Samuel Fribie, Charles I. Battell, G. W. Johnson and G. W. Lindsey were admitted. James Main obtained a verdict of $45 for slander, against John Dunigan ; James McDaniel recovered judgment for $349, with interest from April, 1815, against Thomas Polk, James Lanman and David D. Grimes, county commissioners,
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although upon what plea is not indicated in any rec- ord found.
Just why the title of Franklin was not retained may never be known to this generation-whether practical considerations, as in the case of Washington, or merely sentimental bias toward antiquity. The probability of the latter is based on a peculiarity of the times, es- pecially marked in Governor William Henry Harrison -an exalted reverence for the republics of Greece and Rome.
Our earliest statesmen naturally directed their at- tention to those governments in the search for experi- ence whereby they might guide our first tottering foot- steps, and such-added to the circumstance that cul- ture in that day was indicated by its wealth of classical allusion-gave to everything set down in writing a strong flavour of the antique.
Harrison far surpassed even his contemporaries in this respect, and even in his papers of state, declares Jacob Piatt Dunn, the Indiana historian, "if Leonidas, Epaminondas and Lycurgus escaped, Cincinnatus, Sci- pio or the Gracchi were sure to be taken in the net."
Not infrequently is it the idiosyncrasies of great men, rather than their stronger characteristics which are copied by admiring followers, hence the surmise that General Harrison's choice of Corydon as the name for Harrison County's capital (drawn, we are told, from an old-time classic ballad which was one of his favourites), had its weighty influence in the second and final change in the nomenclature of Perry County's metropolis.
No mythical Romulus and Remus figure in local tra- ditions of the period, the level land boasts no Seven Hills as a "throne of beauty" in geographical sugges- tiveness, yet classic history was again drawn upon by the sponsors for the infant community, and a new Rome was christened, whose history has its beginning not Anno Urbe Condita (from Foundation of the City) but from the term of September, 1819, when the
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name Rome first appears on the records of the Perry Circuit Court, Samuel Liggett and Samuel Hall being then admitted to the bar.
As ancient Rome outlived the first Troy, even so the years when all Perry County roads led to Rome out- numbered the brief period of Trojan dominance. Best and proudest, however, were the earliest days of Hoo- sier Rome, Destiny holding in store for the county capital on the Ohio River a period of decline and fall swifter and more complete than that of the Empire which once held sway in the Eternal City beside the yellow Tiber.
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CHAPTER V
REVOLUTIONARY VETERANS AND SOLDIERS OF 1812
Six months after the first term of court on record as held at "Rome," or in February, 1820, James R. E. Goodlett succeeded Richard Daniel as president judge, with Samuel Hall as prosecutor. It is related of Judge Goodlett that he was neither ready nor brilliant as a practitioner, thus lacking two of the qualities essen- tial to a successful advocate; but, always forming his opinions after mature deliberation, he was in his proper sphere upon the bench and continued as judge until 1832, residing for several years of this time in Paoli, Orange County.
Several certificates of service in the American Revo- lution were entered in the court records during Judge Goodlett's term, and reference will here be made to those "venerable men-come down from a former gen- eration," who had lived, as Webster eloquently said, "to see their country's independence established, and to sheathe their swords from war." The data given has been drawn from various sources wherever pos- sibly available, in the wish to give the fullest credit due each individual.
Premier mention must be awarded to Terence Con- nor, a Virginia scion of that distinguished O'Connor family whose name occurs on well-nigh every page of Irish history. Not, however, on such account is he listed first here, but because of his own personal value as a pioneer resident of Perry County and the exten- sive progeny surviving him. His direct descendants maintain the Connor name in many other states besides Indiana, and, through the female line as well, perpetu-
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ate the spirit of unselfish patriotism and public serv- ice which was his.
Terence Connor was born in 1757, in Virginia, and there married Sarah Speaks, the mother of his eight children, whose names, with their marriages, follow: 1. Dade, married Sadie Huff. 2. Samuel, married (a) Elizabeth Claycomb; (b) Nancy Hyde. 3. William, married Elizabeth Green. 4. John, married (a) Eliza- beth Crist, (b) Sinclair. 5. Terence, Jr., married Marilla Crow. 6. Elizabeth, married Anthony Green. 7. Margaret, married Samuel Frisbie. 8. 'Jane, married Elijah Carr.
Terence Connor enlisted in September, 1776, in Prince William County, Virginia, in the Virginia Line Continental Troops, under Colonel Daniel Morgan, in the brigade commanded by General Woodford, serv- ing three years and two months, or until honourably discharged by General Woodford, at the Bush encamp- ment on North River.
Some time prior to the beginning of the nineteenth century he came with his family across the mountains into Kentucky, having received from Virginia bounty- lands in what was "Fincastle County" when a part of the mother state.
As in the case of many other families, Kentucky was but a stopping place for the Connors, and in 1807 they settled permanently in Indiana, Samuel Connor then entering lands in Perry County and Terence Connor, Sr., taking up more, five years afterward. By Act of May 25, 1819, he became eligible to an annual pension of $96 and was placed upon the rolls September 10, 1819, some twelve years after his earliest recorded residence in Perry County.
He continued a pensioner until his death, December 16, 1841, which occurred at Troy, although his remains were interred near Rome, in the "Connor Burying- ground," on a portion of the land he had taken up in 1817, which estate has never passed out of the Connor blood, his descendants in the sixth generations now re-
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siding thereon, and the stone at his head bears the in- scription :
"A Soldier of the Revolution. An Associate of Washington and Lafayette."
George Ewing was born March 16, 1754, at Green- wich, Cumberland County, New Jersey, the great- grandson of Finley Ewing, of Dumbarton, Scotland, and County Derry, Ireland, who had been an officer under William of Orange at the battle of Boyne Water, 1690.
His military services in the American Revolution had their beginning November 11, 1775, when he en- listed in the Fifth Company, Second Battalion, First Establishment, New Jersey Line, Continental Troops, and as he kept from thence forward a diary which is still in possession of his descendants, the full details of his career are easily traced, including Montgomery's ill-fated expedition against Quebec; the battles of Ger- mantown and the Brandywine, and the winter at Val- ley Forge.
He was commissioned an Ensign, February 5, 1777, and August 10, 1778, married Rachel, daughter of Na- thaniel and Abigail (Padgett) Harris, at Greenwich. They removed in 1786 to Ohio County, Virginia (now West Virginia) and six years later into the state of Ohio, whence they came in May, 1818, to Indiana, tak- ing up land as recorded.
He was placed on the Pension Roll, January 31, 1820, under Act of April 20, 1818, at $240 per annum, draw- ing this amount until his death, January 15, 1824; Rachel, his wife (born September 2, 1750), following him September 29, 1825. They were buried near the bank of the Ohio River, in Tobin Township, in Section 8, Township 7 South, Range 3 West; but their head- stones err slightly in the dates of death and in the ages given, the particulars here stated having absolute au- thority. Their burial place having passed out of the
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family and through many changes (being now a part of "Sunnycrest Farm," Captain I. H. Odell's estate), in 1907 the remains were removed by a descendant, John G. Ewing, of Roselle, New Jersey, to Cliff Ceme- tery, Cannelton, where the ashes now repose in the Latimer family plot, descendants through the female line.
Many other names are in the direct line of descent from George Ewing, Sr., but the only Ewings of his blood in Perry County are those living in the vicinity of Magnet, the grandchildren of Lafayette Ewing, son of George Ewing, Jr., eldest son of George and Rachel (Harris) Ewing. Their second son was Thomas Ew- ing, one of Ohio's notable lawyers, twice a United States Senator from that state, and twice in the Cabi- net, as Secretary of the Treasury under William Henry Harrison, and under Taylor the first to hold the newly- created portfolio of Secretary of the Interior. His daughter, Ellen Ewing, married William Tecumseh Sherman, the famous general.
Other Revolutionary veterans living in the county at this time, or somewhat later, will be here enumerated for convenience, though it is impossible to give in each case the authentic official particular of their service.
Richard Avitt enlisted in the navy at Newcastle, Pennsylvania, serving on the ship "Alpea," under Com- modore Hopkins, and later on the black brig, "An- dariah," under Captain Courtney. Afterward he en- listed in the artillery, under Colonel Thomas Proctor, of the Pennsylvania Line Continental Troops, where he served three years and became a sergeant.
As such he was placed on the pension roll Septem- ber 16, 1819, under Act of May 24, 1819, at the annual rate of $96. He drew this up to his death, June 12, 1826, but the place of his burial can not be identified, though he had lived in Tobin Township at or near Rome, and had, on August 3, 1818, cast his ballot in an election held at the house of Lemuel Mallory. Prob-
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ably his remains were laid in some now forgotten fam- ily burying ground.
Lemuel Mallory, who came in 1817 into Tobin Town- ship, had been a private in the Connecticut State Troops. He was born May 22, 1763, at Ripton Parish, Stratford, Fairfield County, Connecticut, and at the age of only fifteen volunteered, during the summer of 1778, serving for eight months with Captain John Yates, under Colonel Heman Swift. In March, 1780, he re-enlisted under Lieutenant Pinto in General Stark's Brigade.
He made application for pension May 16, 1833, un- der Act of March 4, 1831, and was placed on the rolls October 18, 1833, at an annual rate of $80. He lived until February 16, 1851, dying at Rome where he was buried in the "Shoemaker Cemetery." Although blind in his last years he was said to have retained his mem- ories of battle experiences with close accuracy.
He was twice wedded, and descendants of his first marriage are yet living in Perry County, as well as the descendants of his brothers, Lanson and Moses Mallory. There were no children by his second wife (whom he married August 15, 1819, in Corydon), Mrs. Rebecca (Reagan) Lang, born November 15, 1767, in Frederick County, Virginia, and herself the daughter of a Revolutionary soldier, Michael Reagan, by his wife, Nancy O'Connell.
Michael Reagan was born 1743, in Ireland, and came in young manhood with other North-Ireland Presby- terians into the northern end of the Valley of Virginia, where he married, his wife belonging to the same fam- ily as the Irish "Liberator", Daniel O'Connell. Fred- erick County lying close to the state line of Pennsyl- vania, Michael Reagan (Regan) enlisted for the war, September 9, 1778, in Lieutenant-Colonel Henry Mil- ler's company in the Second Pennsylvania Regiment, commanded by Colonel Walter Stewart. His name also further appears on the roster of the same company
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and regiment in April, 1780, Lieutenant-Colonel John Murray then commanding under Colonel Stewart.
Through this record of service, on file in the Record and Pension Office of the War Department at Wash- ington (Pennsylvania Archives, 2d Series, Volume 10, Page 424), his descendant, Mrs. Isabelle (Huckeby) de la Hunt, became the first member in Perry County (No. 39017) of the National Society of the Daughters of the American Revolution.
Michael Reagan died 1823, in Sevier County, Ten- nessee, where he is buried, his descendants abounding in the Southern Atlantic and Gulf States. A distin- guished representative and close relative to Rebecca (Reagan) Lang-Mallory, was John H. Reagan, of Texas, Postmaster-General of the Confederacy, after- ward United States Senator from Texas and the last survivor of the Jefferson Davis Cabinet.
Lemuel Mallory's pension was continued to his widow from November 16, 1853, until her death, Feb- ruary 21, 1856, at Rome. Her first husband, John Lang, had been like herself, a Virginian, and they came with their family and household effects across the Blue Ridge mountains to the Monongahela River, thence by flatboat down that river and the Ohio to Jefferson County, Kentucky, where they lived for a time before crossing into Indiana and establishing themselves in Harrison County. John Lang rode away from Corydon in 1811 to join the forces of General Harrison at Vincennes, but never came back-shot by the Indians early one morning when on duty as sentinel.
His widow continued to reside in Corydon during several of the years when it was the territorial and state capital, making her home with a married daugh- ter, Mrs. Samuel Littell (Rachel Lang) until remov- ing to Rome after her own second marriage. The elder Lang children, by their father's first marriage re- mained in Harrison County, others going on into Spencer County, where the name is still widely repre-
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sented in the thrifty farming country of Ohio and Luce Townships, besides in professional circles of Rockport.
Jeremiah York enlisted as private in the Eighth Regiment Pennsylvania Continental Line, Captain Springer his commanding officer, and was pensioned August 27, 1833, at $80, under Act of March 4, 1831. Neither date nor place of his death could be verified, though the York name is still in existence near Derby.
Thomas Green Alvey was a private in the Maryland Continental Troops, under Colonel Ramsey, and fought at the battle of Paramos. He was given a $96 annual pension, September 29, 1819, under Act of May 24, 1819. Many of the Alvey family live in different parts of the county, but the location of his grave was no- where identified.
Abraham Hiley closes the list of authenticated Revo- lutionary pensioners who were residents of Perry County, receiving an $80 annual bounty, under Act of March 4, 1831, from March 14, 1834, in recompense for his services as private in the Pennsylvania Militia. His grave is beside that of his wife, near Bear Creek in Tobin Township, on the "Hardin Grove" estate, now the home of Mr. and Mrs. Sydney Kepler Groves (Mil- dred Dessa Ramsey). His descendants remain only under other names through the female line.
Jacob Weatherholt, while not a pensioner, was a To- bin Township pioneer whose military service is au- thenticated by W. T. R. Saffell's "Records of the Revo- lutionary War" (pp. 280-281). Born 1758 in Virginia, he enlisted in the Western Department, and March 1, 1780, was honourably discharged from the Detachment of Colonel John Gibson, who served from January 1, 1780, until December 6, 1781, when he surrendered his command to Brigadier-General William Irvine.
Jacob Weatherholt died April 23, 1837, and was buried in the "Upper Cemetery" at Tobinsport, beside his wife, Sarah (-) Weatherholt. Their de- scendants are many in both Perry and Breckinridge Counties, and their youngest child, Mrs. Milicent
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(Weatherholt) Pate, died in Cloverport in only 1915, one of the very few then living to claim the distinc- tion of being a "real" Daughter of the American Revolution.
This same Tobinsport burying ground is one of the few cemeteries in Southern Indiana where two authen- ticated veterans of the War of Independence are buried, and the first interment taking place within its bounds was that of John Lamb in 1818. Rude stones which have never felt the chisel are the grave's only markers at head and foot, but its location has always been distinctively identified from the circumstance that it lies at a peculiar angle wholly different from any others in the cemetery. Steps are being taken (1915) to procure for it an official Government head- stone suitably inscribed.
John Lamb was born May 22, 1757, in Albany County, New York, and had not quite attained his twenty-first birthday when he enlisted as a private in Captain Barent J. Ten Eyck's Company, Second New York Regiment, Continental Troops. He served from May 5, 1778, until February 5, 1779, and we may rea- sonably assume that the causes then interrupting for awhile his military career were of a sentimental na- ture, since on March 21, 1779, he was married to Beu- lah Curtis, by whom he became the father of twelve children. Within the same year he re-enlisted, serving 1779-80-81 in Yates' Regiment of the New York Mili- tia. In 1808 he removed from New York to Indiana, entering land the following year in Perry (then Knox) County, near Tobinsport, where he died in 1818.
The twelve children of John and Beulah (Curtis) Lamb were: 1. Solomon. 2. Beulah. 3. John, Jr. 4. Katherine. 5. Ezra. 6. Israel Thompson. 8. Bath- sheba. 9. John Willis. 10. William B. 11. Dorastus. 12. Rudolphus. From these sprang such an extensive progeny that scarcely a pioneer family of Tobin Town- ship has not now some descent from or connection with the Lamb line.
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In the northern portion of the county but two Revo- lutionary graves have been located. Thomas Rhodes was said to have served with the army of General Gates. He came into Oil Township as a homeless man, and was cared for by the family of James Reily, the pioneer, among whom he died. A plot of ground on his farm had been set apart and given to the public by James Reily as a free burying ground, but Rhodes' was the first and only interment ever made on the spot, as the cemetery was located a little later at what is now known as the "Walker Grave-yard." Joshua Deen, who married Helena, daughter of James and Catherine Ewing (Jamison) Reily, and purchased the farm from the Reily heirs, cleared the ground orig- inally proposed for a cemetery and cared for it as long as he lived there, cutting the name of Thomas Rhodes on a large tree at the head of the grave. He later re- moved to Pike County, and James Goldman is now (1915) owner of the property.
The second Revolutionary grave referred to as in Oil Township is that of Jacob Shaver, buried in the Oil Creek Cemetery, about a mile northwest of Asbury Meeting-house. He had married Nancy Allen, an own cousin to General Ethan Allen, the hero of Fort Ti- conderoga, and their daughter Sarah was the wife of Jonathan D. Esarey, with whom the Shavers came into Perry County in the second decade of the Nineteenth Century.
David Harley enlisted at Philadelphia under Cap- tain Shay. He was captured at Fort Washington and held prisoner by the British until paroled. Afterward re-enlisting, he saw service on Long Island.
Silas Taylor had enlisted in Pennsylvania under Captain Lenox, serving at Germantown and Chestnut Hill, and was finally present at the Surrender of Corn- wallis at Yorktown, October 19, 1781.
Benjamin Rosecrans enlisted in New York under Colonel Morgan, and was with him at Short Hills, Red Bank, Princeton, Trenton, York Island and White
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Plains. It was told of him that he claimed to have often seen George Washington, who spoke to him, and once took him by the hand. This may or may not have been true.
Thomas Bolin, who had enlisted as a private in the North Carolina Militia (no date found), was granted a pension October 15, 1833, under Act of March 4, 1831, but its rate $60 per annum, might seem to indi- cate his service as having been performed in the War of 1812, especially as his age was then given as 67, which would place his birth in the very year of the Declaration of Independence.
Perry County's most conspicuous representative in the War of 1812 was Captain Samuel Connor, who raised a company in the county, with some reinforce- ments from the Kentucky side of the river opposite Tobin Township, the home of most of the privates. Captain Connor's company was mustered in for three months' service, in August, 1812, at Princeton, as part of the regiment commanded by Colonel Ephraim Jordan.
They were sent to Vincennes and assigned for duty north of that point, although their actual service could not be more definitely ascertained. Squads of the com- pany were engaged as guards for transport wagons and mail carriers in their course along the banks of the Wabash between the post at Vincennes and Fort Harrison near Terre Haute. Skulking Indians, of course, were often seen, but it is not known that any of the company were killed or wounded by the red- skins.
Among the enlisted men are preserved the names of John B. Alvey, Terence Connor, Jr., Richard Deen (son of William and Mary (Hardin) Deen, of Oil Township), Thomas Drinkwater, Robert Gardner, Daniel Hays, Hart Humphrey, Samuel Kellums, Solo- mon Lamb, Edward Morgan, Robert Niles, Edmond Polk, Stephen Shoemaker and Joseph Tobin. Edmond Polk, who was a son of the Rev. Charles and Willey
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(Devers) Polke, married Mary, daughter of John and Rachel (Avery) Winchel, and their two children, Avery Polk and Miss Margaret Polk, are yet living (1915), a direct link with the Second War with England.
In a company raised by Captain David Robb at Har- dinsburg, Breckinridge County, Kentucky, were sev- eral men probably then and certainly afterward resi- dents of Perry County, although accredited to Ken- tucky; John Crist, Alexander Cunningham, James De Jarnett, Philip Jenkins, John Riggs and William Weatherholt. The company lost several men at Tippe- canoe, fighting in the Kentucky regiment commanded by a Colonel Allen, in whose regiment was also a com- pany commanded by Captain Joseph Allen. It served three months, and among the privates mustered out at Shakertown were Philip Miller, Peter Miller and Benjamin Smith, who lived at a later date in Perry County.
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