USA > Indiana > Pioneer history of Indiana : including stories, incidents, and customs of the early settlers > Part 13
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When the pioneers found that the Indians were gone. they would kill buffalo, bear, deer and turkeys, curing the buffalo and venizen meat by drying it and making bacon out. of the bear meat, storing away large quantities of it in the blockhouses to have when the weather became warm and the Indians were again on the watch for an opportunity to des- troy them. These men had come with a determination to stay and make a home for themselves and families. They: took every precaution for protection against the Indians and they endured the most trying privations to succeed. More people came, thus making the settlement stronger and soon small patches were cleared. Often one man was concealed and on the watch with his rifle while another cleared a small field that was put in corn and vegetables and this was culti- vated in the best way they could. There was great privation. endured by these brave people who for weeks at a time had nothing to eat but lean, jerked meat of the deer and buffalo and a few kernels of nuts and acorns. When the corn was. ripe enough to be used for food there was great comfort in store for those who had become surfeited by eating nothing but meat.
The emigrants who settled in Indiana at an early date came over the traces made by the Indians. One of these routes was by the way of Red Banks, where Henderson, Ken- tucky, now is; thence to the north through Vanderburg county, on through Gibson county to Vincennes. Most of these emigrants who made their homes in northern Vander- burg county and western Gibson county, came over that route. There was another crossing of the Ohio at the Yellow Banks, where Rockport, in Spencer county, stands. This route ran to the north through Spencer, Warrick and Pike counties to the old Delaware town at the forks of the White river and
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there was another crossing at the mouth of Blue river. The emigrants who came over this route settled mostly in Harri- son and Washington counties ..
The old trace that crossed the Ohio river at Louisville, Ky .; known to the white people as the Clarksville and Vin- cennes trace, that had been a main traveled way from time immemorial, was the most favored route and two-thirds of all the early settlers who came to southern Indiana, west of Louisville, came over that route. The settlers east of Louis- ville on the Ohio river or in the country adjacent to it, came down the Ohio in boats from Pennsylvania and Virginia. At the treaty of Greenville made with the Indians in 1795 by General Wayne a small strip was ceded in which parts of sev- eral of the eastern counties of Indiana were situated. Many of the soldiers who were stationed at Ft. Washington (Cin- cinnati) as their terms of enlistment expired settled around that fort, out to the Miami river and up that river on both sides.
There was a settlement made in 1805 near the spot where the city of Richmond now stands. Richard Rue and George Holeman were captured south of Louisville, Kentucky, by the infamous Simon Girty, who was in command of a small band of Indians. During a time of their imprisonment they had seen the rich, fertile regions of the White Water country and as soon as they were released they went home and in a short time, with some of their neighbors, made the first set- tlement in that section of the state. At an early date there was a settlement at Armstrong Station on the Ohio river in Clark county.
The pioneers who first came to Indiana could not have remained for any length of time had it not been for the game which was so abundant on every hand. They often, for weeks at a time, had no other food than the bear, deer and turkey. meat. They used every sort of substitute for bread, often roasting the white-oak acorns and eating them in the place of bread with their meat. They would gather the seeds of the wild rice and wild barley and mix it with the roasted acorn, pounding it all up together, making ash cakes of the
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meal thus obtained. On such food as this with a bountiful supply of meat, the old pioneers and their families subsisted, but as soon as they could raise a patch of corn all this was done away with and the meal made from the corn with beetles, seasoned with the rich bear grease and made into bread was used, and these hardy people prospered and grew fat on it. They were perfectly healthy and the children raised in this way made the strongest men and women. Dys- pepsia and kindred stomach troubles were not known. There was but little opportunity of obtaining an education yet they were students of nature and every day learned useful lessons that stood them in need for self-protection and the protection of their families.
In a few years after the first settlers came there were, in most cases, those about the forts or blockhouses who could teach the young people the first principles of education and in after years these people improved the information thus gained by reading the few books that were in the country and many of them became learned in all things needed at that time. The young people were married at a much earlier period in life than the young people of this day. A boy at that time, sixteen or seventeen years old was counted on to do a man's work and to do his part in hunting or in scouting for Indians. The six or eight years now taken to secure an education by our young people to prepare them to be competent to do their part in the great battle of life was spent by th i . grand and great-grand-fathers and mothers preparing ili; country so that such great attainments could be secured by the present generation. The difficulties in commencing houseke ›p- ing then were not so great as now. They did not have to wait until they had saved money enough to build a fine house and furnish it with the luxuries of life before they got mar- ried, thus spending eight or ten years of the best portio 1 of their lives and often failing in their expectations. They were contented to commence life as their mothers and fathers had before them with nothing but what they could manufac- ture and devise from the cabin down to all their furniture and dress. Instead of spending their time lamenting their
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sad fortune, they were happy in their love for each other and for the great blessing of perfect health which they enjoyed.
The possessions of these people worried them not at all for neither of them had anything but a small wardrobe of common, warm clothes. They had the great book of nature before them and were happy studying its changing scenes. Neither did they worry about dressmakers for they all make their own clothing from shoe pacs and moccasins to the hats or bonnets which they wore. There was no change of fash- ion to keep up with and they did not worry about what this or that one had for they all dressed alike and employed their time about more useful things than learning the different styles of making dresses and clothing. They enjoyed life as they found it and loved the simple amusements that all en- gaged in at that date. Many could go on the puncheon floor and dance for hours without fatigue. They had free use of their bodies, not being encumbered with tight belts that hin- dered them from breathing and did not know what a corset was, that garment which at this date holds the body of its victims as if in the grip of a vise. Thus they could use every part of their body as freely as nature intended it to be used. In raising their children these hardy women furnished all the food they needed in infancy from their own breasts, thus laying the foundations for strong men and women to take their places.
The clothing of the men and boys was in keeping with their daily life and made for the most part of deer skins. When this was well dressed it made comfortable and service- able shirts. leggings and coats. Sometimes the women made their petticoats of this very useful and serviceable material. The deer, elk and buffalo skins furnished the material from which all footwear was made.
In an early day there were many scattered herds of buf- falo in all sections of Indiana but no such innumerable droves as the later hunters were used to see on the great western prairies. The buffalo skin was covered with a shaggy coat of kinky wool. Sometimes this was sheared and when mixed with a small portion of the wild nettle fibre, to give it
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strenth, it was carded and spun the same as sheep's wool was. Later on, from this coarse thread they wove a cloth using the nettle thread for chain that made strong and comfortable clothing. The buffalo hair was mixed with the fur and hair of other animals, usually the long hair of the bear, then was carded and spun. They knit this into warm, serviceable stock- ings but without the fiber of the nettle as it was too short to have the needed strength to hold together.
In most cases the first settlers were young men just mar- ried, who, with their young wives, their axes and their rifles and such other property as they possessed, came boldly into this then dense wilderness. If they were so fortunate as to find any before them, they would stop a few days and select a place to make their home. They then cut the logs for their cabin and with the help of their new found friend's would car- ry the logs and put them up, covering the cabin with boards made with their axes for frows and putting weight poles on to hold the boards in place. Cracks between the logs were stopped by wedging in pieces of timber and then filling it all full of mud. A hole of the proper size was cut in the side for a door and often the only door shutter was a bear skin. For a fire place and chimney they cut out three or four logs the width wanted, at the end of the cabin and built a three- sided crib on the outside, joining it to the building. Layer. upon layer of mud were then put on the inside of the crib making the jambs and backwall as high as needed to be out of danger of the fire, letting the smoke take care of itself.
The floor and carpet were of mother earth. For a bed- stead they would drive a fork into the ground far enough from the side and end of the cabin, then put a pole in the fork and into a crack between the logs and another pole the other way from the fork and to a crack in the logs, thus making the end and side rails of the bedstead. After this they put other poles lengthways as close as they wanted and piled fine brush over this, covering the brush with skins of ani- mals. At this time the proverbial blue figured coverlid made by their good mothers in their old North or South Carolina, Tennessee or Kentucky homes would come into use with such
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other bed clothing as they were fortunate enough to have brought with them. The deficiency, if any, was supplied by bear and deer skins.
They made a table in the corner in the same way as the bed was made only it had for a top thick boards made level with an axe. For seats the back log was used until it was wanted for its place to form the back of the fire, when its mate was put in and used for a seat until it was wanted. If they were fortunate enough to own an auger, three-legged stools were made.
Many of the first settlers for a few years lived in what was called in that day, a half-faced camp, made by putting two large forks in the ground the proper distance from a large fallen tree to make a twelve or fourteen foot pen then putting a pole from fork to fork and other poles from that one to the log as closely as they were wanted and then piling brush on this. They then rolled logs up to the two sides as high as they wanted them leaving the outer end open usually facing the south. Large fires were made at this open end during cold weather, the occupants lying with their feet to it and their heads toward the large log. Usually these camps were made in the dry season and by the time the rainy season came on they would have plenty of skins to cover them and line the sides, thus keeping the rain and cold out and drying the skins at the same time.
These brave people did the best they could to have the comforts of life but they had very little to do with. There was not a nail in a hundred miles of them. The settler's young wife, his cabin, rifle, axe and possibly a horse were all his earthly possessions, but he was rich in good health, de- termination and pluck. With his axe he cleared a few acres for corn and vegetables, with his rifle he could have plenty of the choicest meats and skins of bear, deer, beaver, otter and raccoon to exchange for salt, ammunition and a few necessities of life, when he could get his furs to market prob- ably seventy-five miles away.
About what was going on in the outside world he knew nothing and cared less for he had a world of his own around
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him, fresh and crude as nature could make it. Probably he had not more than two neighbors and they three to five miles away, the only means of communication between them being made on foot over a path running around fallen tree tops and over logs, a blaze made on a tree or sapling now and. then keeping them in the right direction. He had severed all connection with his old home and the outside world bid- ding adieu to mother and friends and to the early associa- tions that are so dear to all. With all this sacrifice he was happy and contented and determined to face the great battle of life and to win. Nature's volumes were ever open before him and he studied well. learning the things need- ful for his protection. He was threatened with danger from the lurking savages who ever watched for an opportunity to destroy him and his home and in many cases did kill and capture the whole family, but still others came to fill their places.
When two or three had settled in the same place they built forts and in dangerous times moved their families into them remaining there much of the time during the summer and fall months. While the women were there their hus- bands and fathers were in the wilderness watching the slip- ping enemy, sometimes killing one and again several of them. It got so that the Indians dreaded them and came less fre- quently. The pioneers determined to drive them away so that the danger to their families would cease. Finally they hunted the Indians in bands and in many battles defeated them. They met them on their own grounds, defeating and driving them out of this region and on the ruins of their sav- age wigwams this beautiful country has been made.
SEBASTIAN FREDRICK MURDERED BY INDIANS NEAR VIN- CENNES.
Some years ago Hon. Jasper N. Davidson related to the author the following interesting story. I asked him to write it for this work which he has kindly done.
"There are many things in connection with the early his- tory of Indiana that doubtless never will be written. The
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early settlers were surrounded by such thrilling occurrences, attacks by prowling bands of Indians and savage wild beasts, lacking the necessities of life and wanting the neighboring enjoyments and communications, that much suffering as well as inconveniences resulted from these things. The innate desire to possess a home of their own, coupled with the love of freedom and religious liberty, led them to plunge into the almost impenetrable wilderness, surmounting all obstacles, en- during privation hunger and want in a way and to an extent that no other people have ever done.
"No history, either sacred or profane, contains accounts of a people who endured more or underwent greater hardships or overcame such opposition with greater deeds of daring than the early settlers. Knowing these things and with a fixed and steadfast belief in the Guiding Hand of the Great Dispenser or all things, we have a right to believe that the discovery and peopling of this God-favored land was provi- dentially delayed until such time as a people should rise up who could be trusted with the marvelous duties of occupying, peopling, redeeming and governing the fairest and best country on the globe.
"None were more fitted for this task than those who set- tled Indiana Territory. Just before the close of the eight- eenth century the few American settlers who were located near Vincennes were driven to the forts in and around the Old Post as Vincennes was then called. The writer has with great interest listened many times to the accounts of those times given by my grandmother. Her father, who was named Sebastian Fredrick had come down from Pennsylvania with the very earliest immigrants. The family consisted of sev- eral sons and one daughter, grandmother. She told of the efforts of the heads of the families in their endeavors to pro- vide for their own; of how her father with his sons and an- other man went about six miles southeast into the sugar woods and prepared to make sugar. After everything was in readiness the season came on, sap flowed in abundance and success seemed to reward their efforts. When the prowling bands of Indians learned of the location of the camp their
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visits were of daily occurence and each of the bucks, after eating all they could of the warm sugar, must have a gener- ous cake or two to carry away with them. This became so common and proved so heavy a tax on the supply that the men objected to the amount carried off and they went away muttering in their own tongue.
"In a few days these men were sent to the fort for pro- visions and to carry in the sugar already made. They left great-grandfather Fredrick in charge of the camp and to keep the kettles going. Early in the night the savages who had become offended by reason of not getting all the sugar they wanted, finding grandfather there alone, attacked him. Evidences next morning when the sons returned from the fort, showed that a desperate encounter had taken place, as the bodies of two dead Indians and the body of my grand- father with a tomahawk sunken in his skull, were found. The tapping gouge had been driven repeatedly into his body around his neck and left sticking in the gash as driven in by the murderous wretches. There was every evidence of a des- perate fight and horrible as the results were there had been enough of them left to sugar off all the syrup on hand and carry away all they had made, together with grandfather's scalp, gun and all tools.
"The faithful dog, a large mastiff, lying dead near the body of his master had been a valiant helper in the fray as long as life lasted. A large piece of a buckskin garment still between his teeth showed by the blood stains on it that his work had not been without results. The savages who could travel made their escape and were not again seen in those parts as anyone knew of.
"My grandmother in a year or two after this had a very narrow escape and delivery from one of these savages in the following manner:
"It was the custom at the fort for each family or some member of it to bear a reasonable part of the burdens of pro- viding wood and other necessary supplies for the general want. Grandmother, at that time, being a young widow (named Glass) with two small boys too young to be of any
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service, was in need of wood. There being none nearer than two or three miles (as Vincennes is located in a large prairie) she had, secured the use of a horse and small one-horse cart or wagon and as women in those days, and for many years after this, were accustomed to the use of the axe, she repair- ed to the woods alone for the purpose of gathering and bring- ing in a load of wood. While at work she heard a "click- click" as if some one were trying to fire a piece of "punk" with a pocket-knife or a piece of steel and a flint which was then and until much later, the only mode of making a fire. Now and then the same sound would greet her ears but being very busy and intent upon getting her load of wood, to re- turn to the fort, paying but little attention to the noise. Presently a gun fired some distance from her and soon one of her acquaintances from the fort came to her and threw a fresh Indian scalp at her feet with the remark 'See Mrs. Glass how near you came to losing your life.' She accom- panied him some distance in the thick woods to a large sassafras stump around which sprouts had grown up thickly enough to completely hide a man. Here the Indian had hid- den and tried to shoot grandmother but the flint lock gun would not go off thus giving the white man an opportunity to spy him out and with a well-directed shot bring him down. The "click-click" she had heard and which led the white man to the spot in time to save grandmother's life was the failure of the flint on the Indian's gun to strike fire."
These reminiscences of the daily lives of our ancestors make us realize clearly how they were constantly exposed to the attacks of the stealthy, prowling Indian.
God never gave life to a truer and nobler set of men and women than those who drove out the Indians, subdued the wild animals, cleared away the forests and transmitted life to- the strong hardy race that now occupies this glorious country.
JOHN SEVERNS.
The first man to make a permanent settlement in what is. now Gibson county was John Severns, a Welshman who emigrated to Virginia with his parents. At the beginning
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of the Revolutionary war he enlisted as a soldier and was in the army for a while. Before his time was out he secured a furlough and visited his parents in the wilds of West Virginia and together with all the family was captured by the Ind- ians. His father, mother, a younger brother and sister were murdered by them while he and his older brother were held as prisoners and taken back to the Indian town somewhere on the headwaters of the White River. Mr. Severns claimed that during the years that he was a prisoner, many times on a hunting excursion with the Indians with whom he lived, he had hunted over all the land tributary to the White and Wabash Rivers and over the same land on which he after- ward settled.
After being a prisoner for seven years he made his escape and soon afterward married and settled in Kentucky where he lived for three years. In 1790 he came to this dense wild- erness and settled on the south bank of the Patoka river, two and one-half miles north of Princeton at a point now known as Severns' Bridge. By his knowledge of the Indian dialect, their manners and customs, he was enabled to make friends with them and they permitted him to settle among them. At that time there was a large Indian town on the north bank of the Patoka river, nearly opposite his home. Mr. Severns was a very useful man to the other settlers who came some years after. The Indians had the utmost confidence in him and on this account he rendered very helpful aid to his white neighbors. His older brother, who was captured with him, was given to another family of Indians and taken away and he never saw him again. This brother was adopted by a prominent chief and later married an Indian woman. Many years after Mr. Severns had settled in this country, two of his brother's sons visited him. They were half breeds and were dressed in the Indian costume. He tried to prevail on them to leave off their Indian costume and adopt that of the white man but they refused, saying that their father was dead and they only knew how to live as their tribesmen did and they would not leave their friends.
Mr. Severns lived to a good old age and left several
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children. One of his daughters married Robert Falls and from that union there has been a large family of that name in this part of the state ever since, some of them becoming very prominent. William Leathers married one of the daughters and many of their descendants are in this section yet.
David Johnson who came to Gibson county in an early date, first settled in the southern part of the county but in 1817 located the farm where he spent his life, two miles north of Francisco. He was a noted hunter and was at one time with a hunting party of which John Severns was one. On that occasion the early settlement of that section was dis- cussed. Mr. Severns having been here so many years before any other white man was accepted as authority on all such subjects. He told the party that in the fall of the year 1793 he was with a half dozen of his Indian neighbors hunting and that he stayed all night at an Indian town near the forks of White river. During the night two white prisoners were brought in, having been captured on the Ohio river. Early next morning everything was great excitement; every- one was in great glee over the capture and preparations were made for the trial and killing of the two white men. First two lines were formed facing each other and the two men were compelled to run the gauntlet betweens the lines. A point some hundred yards beyond the lines of the gauntlet was designated as the place that was to be reached to save their lives. One of the men was of middle age but frail and the other was a strong athletic young fellow. The lines were made up of more than one hundred Indians, mostly squaws and boys, with enough active men to keep the prison- ers from getting away. The young man was the first to make the race and he got through the line and to the life station without being much hurt-only a few scratches from sharp sticks. The older man before he started, held up his hands and offered a prayer to God for aid, then commenced the race which was not more than half completed before he was knocked down by a heavy club in the hands of a squaw and was set upon by the horde of squaws and boys and beaten
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