USA > Indiana > Adams County > Standard history of Adams and Wells counties, Indiana : An authentic narrative of the past, with an extended survey of modern developments in the progress of town and country, Volume I > Part 6
USA > Indiana > Wells County > Standard history of Adams and Wells counties, Indiana : An authentic narrative of the past, with an extended survey of modern developments in the progress of town and country, Volume I > Part 6
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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 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40
In December, 1904, the importance of the smaller varieties of live stock in the scheme of prosperity which blessed Adams County was. recognized in the organization of the Adams County Poultry and Pet Stoek Association.
CHAPTER III
GENERAL POLITICAL HISTORY
THE AMERICAN NORTHWEST FOUNDED-AUTHORS OF THE ORDINANCE OF 1787-MANASSEH CUTLER'S PRACTICAL PARTICIPATION-CLEARING INDIANA OF INDIANS-ST. CLAIR'S DEFEAT-CHANGES IN CIVIL GOV- ERNMENT-EVOLUTION OF ADAMS COUNTY-GENERAL CONDITIONS IN 1819.
There was both a French Northwest and an English Northwest be- fore the civil territory northwest of the Ohio River was created by the Ordinance of 1787. The territory was far too vague when claimed by the French to be covered by any definite laws. The English were too busy consolidating their gains over the French, previous to the Revo- lutionary war, to attempt much in the way of civil administration.
THE AMERICAN NORTHWEST FOUNDED
General Clark, by his capture of Vincennes in 1779, cleared the way for the founding of the American Northwest. Col. John Todd, who had already been appointed lieutenant for the County of Illinois, visited both Vincennes and Kaskaskia in the following spring, and established temporary courts at those points, headquarters of the French civilization of what was to be the Northwest Territory of the United States.
AUTHORS OF THE ORDINANCE OF 1787
Three years after Virginia had ceded to the General Government the territory which the commonwealth claimed. by right of Clerk's conquest, Congress passed the famons Ordinance for the government of the Northwest Territory. The Ordinance of 1787 has an interest- ing history. Considerable controversy has arisen as to whom is en- titled to the credit of farming it. The principles finally incorporated into the ordinance had been earnestly discussed by the leading states- men and thinkers of the day, and represented the best sentiment of
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the young republic. Jefferson himself had vainly endeavored to se- cure a system of government for the Northwest Territory excluding slavery from it forever. The southern members of Congress as a body were opposed to any such provision and had consistently voted
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STATE DIVISIONS OF OLD NORTHWEST TERRITORY
against it. Undoubtedly Jefferson's views had much influence in the final framing of the Ordinance of 1787, but the weight of history now gives credit to the active consolidation and the actual composition of that great instrument to Nathan Dane, Rufus King and Manasseh Cutler.
MISSISSIPPI
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MANASSEH CUTLER'S PRACTICAL PARTICIPATION
Doctor Cutler's connection with the framing of the ordinance was perhaps more complicated than that of its other authors. In July, 1787, an organizing act for the Northwest Territory, without the anti- slavery clause, was before the Congress then sitting in New York. On the fifth of that month Doctor Cutler, of Massachusetts, came to the national capital as the accredited representative of an eastern com- pany which wished to purchase and colonize 5,000,000 acres of land in the new Northwest. He was one of the most learned men in the country, a graduate of Yale who had taken the degrees in medicine, law and divinity, and a scientist second only to Franklin, whose fame had extended into Europe. Doctor Cutler was also a courtly, at- tractive gentleman, and a shrewd student of men and their practical affairs-one who could approach all classes with confidence and good effect. Jefferson and his administration, with the southern members of Congress, wished to make a record on the reduction of the public debt, and the fund to be raised from the sale of 5,000,000 acres of land would go far toward that end. The members of Congress from Mas- sachusetts would not vote against the proposed land purchase, as many of their constituents were interested in the measure-and the Old Bay State was the leader of the North.
It thus came about that Doctor Cutler held the key to the situa- tien and dictated the terms which resulted in the formation of those provisions in the Ordinance of 1787 excluding slavery forever from the Northwest Territory and donating one thirty-sixth of all public lands to the support of the common schools. He insisted firmly upon the adoption of these provisions, stating that unless the company could procure the lands under desirable conditions and surroundings they did not want them. The result was the passage of the ordinance, on the 13th of July, containing the provisions which have made that great measure most famous-those excluding slavery and donating public lands for the support of the schools. They consecrated the great states of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan and Wisconsin to freedom, intelligence and morality and, as commonwealths, they have never been back-sliders.
CLEARING INDIANA OF INDIANS
But before the civil administration had been fairly inaugurated Governor St. Clair decided that something decisive must be done to chastise enemy Indians about the headwaters of the Wabash. After
MAJOR GENERAL ST. CLAIR
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consultation with General Harmar at Fort Washington, in the fall of 1790, he sent an expedition of about 1,500 men under that commander. Another expedition had marched up the Wabash from Vincennes. Gen- eral Harmar's men reached the Maumee and after campaigning against the Miamis for about a month returned to Fort Washington, with a loss of 183 soldiers killed and 31 wounded. The military venture among the Wabash savages in 1791, under General Scott, resulted in the destruction of some Indian villages, but a scarcity of even bad horses made it impossible to follow up the advantage. That was in the spring of 1791.
ST. CLAIR'S DEFEAT
During the summer the Secretary of War authorized Governor St. Clair himself to conduct a campaign of extermination, if necessary. In June, one of his commanders, General Wilkinson, made some prog- ress along that line, and in September the governor took matters in his own hands. During that month he moved from Fort Washington with a force of 2,000 men and a number of pieces of artillery. On November 3d he reached the headquarters of the Wabash in Western Ohio, where Fort Recovery was afterward built by General Wayne, and there the army encamped. On the following morning its 1,400 effective men engaged the 1,200 Indians under Little Turtle, and were disastrously defeated. The American loss was 39 officers and 539 men killed and missing, and 22 officers and 232 men wounded.
St. Clair resigned his commission as major general and was suc- ceeded by Anthony Wayne, who, two years later, avenged the gov- ernor's defeat by crushing the dangerous Indians of Indiana beyond revival.
CHANGES IN CIVIL GOVERNMENT
As has already been noted the routes taken by the unfortunate Harmar expedition through Adams County against the defiant Miamis of the Wabash County, and the whirlwind and triumphant campaigns of Wayne over the same region, were subsequently defined as the Harmar and Wayne trails, traces or roads. The treaty of peace con- cluded at Greenville, or Fort Recovery, brought quiet to the regions along the Wabash and the Maumee, with all the adjacent areas, and in 1800 Congress organized the Territory of Indiana, with the civil seat of government fixed at Vincennes. The first Territorial Legis- lature convened in March of the following year.
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Indiana acquired its present limits in 1809, when the Territory of Illinois was erected, to comprise all that part of its former domain west of the Wabash River and a line drawn from that river at the longitude of Vineennes due north to the international line between the United States and Canada. In April, 1816, the President ap- proved the Congressional bill creating the State of Indiana, and its first General Assembly met at Corydon in November of that year.
EVOLUTION OF ADAMS COUNTY
When Indiana was admitted into the Union as a state it com- prised the counties of Wayne, Franklin, Dearborn, Switzerland, Jef- ferson, Clark, Washington, Harrison, Knox, Gibson, Posey, Warrick and Perry. Thirty counties were subsequently carved from Knox, the territory of which included what is now Adams. From 1818 to 1823 Randolph County embraced it. When Allen County was organ- ized in the latter year, the present Adams County formed a portion of it. From 1823 to 1836 the territory within the present limits of Adams County was a part of Allen. It became an independent eivil body by the Legislative organic act which was approved by the gov- ernor January 23, 1836.
GENERAL CONDITIONS IN 1819
At the time of its civil organization, the county had enjoyed a progressive settlement for a period of seventeen years, but there were only a very few people within its limits. The commencement of this era of pioneer settlement marked a distinet line in the development of Indiana as a state. It had been graduated from the territorial form but three years. At Tippecanoe, eight years before, Harrison had completed the work of Wayne, and the Indian power was forever broken in Indiana. A popular system of education had been born three years before, through the provision of the enabling aet of 1816, granting to the inhabitants of each Congressional township Section 16 for the use of the schools. These lands were sold and the proceeds thereof form the Congressional school fund, which is apportioned by the state to each county. This money is loaned out under the diree- tion of the auditor of each county on first mortgage securities and the income thus derived is used for the maintenance of the common schools. Of course, these common school funds which really dated back to the Ordinance of 1787 were, in 1819, eredited to Randolph County. When the cabin of the first white man to settle in what is
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now Adams County was completed on Blue Creek, the treaty held at St. Mary's, Ohio, was only a few months old. Its proceedings covered the period October 2-6, 1818, and by the terms of that agreement a large tract of land was ceded to the National Government by the Miami Indian Nation. It extended across the center of Indiana and included virtually all of the Adams County of today. The Rivare Indian Res- ervation, in the present Township of St. Mary's, was granted on the last day of the treaty proceedings to the children of Antoine Rivard, as described more particularly in another place. The year 1819 further marked the abandonment of Fort Wayne as a military post, the national authorities having decided that there was no possible danger from Indian depredations which could not be effectually met by home forces. In other words the commencement of the permanent period of settlement in Adams County indicated the dawn of an era of security and substantial development which was widespread and generally recognized.
CHAPTER IV
REAL PERIOD OF PIONEERING
COMING OF FIRST ACTUAL SETTLERS- THOMPSON, OF THOMPSON'S PRAIRIE- FIRST OUT-AND-OUT LANDLORD-FIRST SURVEYS AND LAND ENTRIES-THE REYNOLDS FARM AND INN-SAMUEL L. RUGG -FIRST TO SETTLE IN THE NORTH-STUDABAKER-SIMISON-McDow- ELL COLONY-THE STUDABAKERS AND SIMISONS-SIMISON'S BEAR STORY-COL. WILLIAM VANCE-THE MARTINS AND DEFFENBAUGHS ENTER THE LIMBERLOST REGION-FIRST DROWNING IN THE LIMBER- LOST- 'SQUIRE MARTIN PUTS ON STYLE THE JUDAYS, MCDANIELS AND ELEYS-JOHN H. FUELLING-THE ELZEYS OF ROOT TOWNSHIP -SETTLED NEAR AND AT DECATUR-ANDREW DAUGHERTY. AND HIS $1.50 RESIDENCE-GEORGE A. AND BYRON H. DENT- FIRST TOWN OF ADAMS COUNTY -- THE BONDS THAT BIND THE HOOSIERS-EARLY FOURTH OF JULY CELEBRATIONS-THE TRUE VETERANS OF ADAMS COUNTY-PATRIOTIC GATHERINGS-OLD SETTLERS' MEETINGS RE- VIVED-THE OLDEST TWINS IN THE UNITED STATES.
From the time that Henry Lowe built his cabin at the head of Thompson's Prairie, in Blue Creek Township, until the county was organized as a civil body, represents the real period of pioneering in that section of the state. In fact, so few entered its territory within that era that they are nearly all known by name, and their goings and comings have been described quite in detail. It was not until 1832 when 1,100 Indians-the bulk of the remaining Miamis and Potta- watomies in the state-were moved to their Kansas Reservations from the Valley of the Wabash and the headquarters of the St. Mary's River near the town by that name in Ohio, that the Red Men were considered "out of it." Although the latter did not formally re- linquish their title until 1837. for all practical purposes-that is, as any material impediment to the coming of white settlers-they were a negligible quantity after 1832. Being thus convinced, pioneers who had already selected their homes commenced to improve the main roads coming from such older towns as Fort Wayne to the north and Win-
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chester to the south, so that immigration was encouraged and actually stimulated.
COMING OF FIRST ACTUAL SETTLERS
But first as to the few leading pioneers who came into the country during the years of famine-considered from the standpoint of set- tlement. In 1819 Henry Lowe, the first settler of Adams County, located on the old Godfrey trace, at the head of the east end of Thompson's Prairie. His location is otherwise described as in section 29, Blue Creek Township, "on or near what has been known as the Pruden farm."
In the following year (1820) Robert Douglas, finding about an aere of cleared land at the Springs on St. Mary's River, in what is now section 20, Root Township, decided to make that locality his stopping place. His land formerly comprised one of Wayne's military camps and was also a part of the Reynolds farm. Mr. Douglas added a few acres to the old clearing, built the second cabin in Adams County, and in the summer of 1820 raised a crop of corn upon his little farm. But he soon tired of this country life and moved northward to the hamlet of Fort Wayne, which had been abandoned during the pre- vious year as a military post and was now busy growing as a village. From Fort Wayne he moved to Peru and there died.
It appears, also, that Mr. Lowe was an uneasy settler, for he disap- peared in 1820, and his place was taken by one William Robinson. Mr. Robinson resided two years in Blue Creek Township and in 1822 returned to his old home in Greenville, Ohio.
THOMPSON, OF THOMPSON'S PRAIRIE
Thompson's Prairie, in the southern part of Blue Creek Town- ship, was yet to be named. In 1822 a "man whose name was Thomp- son" settled in that locality and lived there about ten years. He succeeded Robinson on the old Rowe place and there opened his cabin as a sort of inn for anyone traveling through those parts. Without any formal christening, the prairie on which his popular house of entertainment stood, took the name of the proprietor; and Thomp- son's Prairie it has remained. Mr. Thompson died in 1831, the first of the settlers to pass away in Adams County, although probably not the first white to die within its bounds. It is said that six of Wayne's soldiers, who died while returning from the fort in 1794, are buried in the Shaffer graveyard southeast of where the Town of Rivare (Bobo postoffice) is situated.
A CONTENTED OLD-TIME. COUPLE
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FIRST OUT-AND-OUT LANDLORD
A Mr. Ayers, in 1821, also settled in St. Mary's Township. He located on the old Wayne trace, where it crossed Twenty-four Mile Creek, and his place was subsequently known as the Acker and Shaffer farms. It was rumored that the gentleman had, in years gone by, deserted from the British army, which did not make him any the less popular with the good Americans of Adams County among whom he settled. Mr. Ayers made a regular business of furnishing meals and lodgings, and is generally considered the first out-and-out landlord of the county.
When mention is made of "a Mr. Green," who became a neighbor of the Ayers family near the St. Mary's River, the list has been com- pleted of all those who are known to have settled within the present limits of Adams County previous to 1826. In that year, therefore, there were four log cabins within the 336 square miles comprising that section of Indiana.
FIRST SURVEYS AND LAND ENTRIES
In 1820 Capt. James Riley had commenced his settlement at Willshire, Ohio, near the state line; in a few years the town had spread nearly to Indiana, and had been regularly platted. He was one of the Government surveyors, who, in 1822-23, laid out Root-Town- ship, Allen County (now Adams County) into sections. The sur- veyors, thus engaged, camped in the woods and had their provisions brought to them on pack horses, generally over the Wayne trace. Fort Wayne and Willshire were laid out at about the same time.
THE REYNOLDS FARM AND INN
In 1824 the first land entry made in Adams County was recorded by Benjamin Kerchaville and comprised a fraction more than five acres above the Rivare reservation. The next was made by Benjamin Bentley and comprised part of what is known as the Reynolds Farm, including the improvements made by Douglas. The third entry to be recorded was by John Ross, December 20, 1829, at the mouth of Blue Creek, although in the preceding year Joshua Lister had settled near the Wayne trace northwest of the present Town of Monmouth, in Root Township.
Mr. Bentley, who entered the second piece of land, was one of the Government surveyors. After thus securing it, he returned to his
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home in Chillicothe, Ohio, and sold the tract to John Reynolds, who, in 1831 eame to reside on it. The traet was located on the old Wayne road near the St. Mary's River below the present City of Decatur. It was on the main thoroughfare between Southwestern Ohio and North- eastern Indiana, between the Ohio and the Maumee rivers, and, in those days, was one of the grand trunk lines of travel in the North- west. As Mr. Reynolds was a man of kind heart, excellent character and mueh enterprise, his house became a popular stopping place for travelers and assumed the character of a homelike and popular tav- ern. As man and landlord he became widely known, took a prominent part in the organization of the county and died in Decatur, of which he was one of the proprietors, in 1844. Mr. Ross outlived most of the early settlers of the country, dying in the late `60s on the homestead which he had founded at the mouth of Blue Creek in 1829.
SAMUEL L. RUGG 1204200 !
In 1832 Samuel L. Rugg, a late arrival, became interested with Mr. Reynolds in the promotion of a town which was to be a possible county seat. In the following year he also started the movement to organize a new township "up the St. Mary's River." Mr. Rugg headed a petition for that purpose which was presented to the Board of Commissioners of Allen County. The prayer was granted and the leader was allowed to name the new township. An incident happened at the session during which his petition was received which was the deeiding factor in the matter. In the course of the meeting, one of those present read from a newspaper an account of the celebration which marked the completion of the Erie Canal. Being called upon for a toast, Governor Root was represented as having proposed the following: "The military of the country-may they never want." He then stammered and well nigh broke down. The self-possessed De Witt Clinton, who was standing by, nudged the embarrassed speaker and added, in a whisper, "and may they never he wanted." Governor Root eaught at the words and repeated "and may they never be wanted," his brilliant conclusion bringing rounds of applause. Although Clinton had "saved Root's face," the governor was a great favorite, and Mr. Rugg's suggestion that the new township be named in his honor was unanimously adopted by the Board of Commissioners.
Soon after the organization of the township in 1833, the first election ever held in what is now Adams County occurred at the house of Jeremiah Roe for the selection of a justice of the peace. The can- didates were Esaias Dailey and Mr. Rugg, and the latter was elected.
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In the same year occurred an event of importance to the progress of the southern part of Allen County-that is, the laying out, as a per- manent pike, of the road from Winchester, Randolph County, to Fort Wayne, the county seat of Allen.
FIRST TO SETTLE IN THE NORTH
Joseph Mann was one of the first to settle in what is now the northern part of Adams County, locating in the present Preble Town- ship near the route afterward selected of the Winchester Road. He came in 1830 and resided in the locality for many years.
The year which marked the coming of Mr. Reynolds (1831) recorded the death of Mr. Thompson, of Thompson's Prairie, one of the owners of the tract first settled in Adams County. He was buried at his former home in Greenville, Ohio. Mr. Thompson's widow after- ward married a man named Baze, but her brothers, Daniel and David Miller, had previously come to reside with her, and themselves joined the ranks of the wedded. These three were the only families in the southern half of the county until 1834. -
STUDABAKER-SIMISON-MCDOWELL COLONY
In the preceding year, however, two single young men, of great force of character, appeared in the Limberlost region. They were Robert Simison and Peter Studabaker. They both came from the neighborhood of Greenville and Fort Recovery, Ohio, in November, 1833. At that time there was not a settler in what is now Wabash Township, and not even the Winchester road was completed. The entire party, who were two days making the trip, comprised Peter Studabaker and Robert Simison, with the latter's younger brother, Irwin, and John MeDowell. They crossed the Wabash at the con- fluence of the Limberlost and Loblolly, and upon arriving at the end of their journey set about making a cabin. Robert cut the logs, his brother and MeDowell laid them, and Studabaker hauled them. The Studabaker-Simison-MeDowell colony arrived in time to witness the wonderful display of meteors, or "shooting stars," which so awed or alarmed multitudes of Americans in 1833.
THE STUDABAKERS AND SIMISONS
After the cabin was erected Mr. Studabaker returned to Fort Re- covery for his family, intending to bring his household within a few
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days, but a series of freshets delayed his coming until spring, and Robert Simison spent the late fall and winter alone, but not idle.
During these long winter months Mr. Simison was engaged in splitting rails, entting wood and elearing land, and, in order to keep the larder in operation, was obliged to put in some of his time in hunting game. After Studabaker's return with his family, Simison
PETER STUDABAKER
went baek to Ohio to work and replenish his cash box. As it hap- pened, he had a good reason for doing this, as he married in Novem- ber, 1836, and rejoined Studabaker in Wabash Township. He and his young wife remained with the Stndabakers until he had ereeted a eabin on his claim in Hartford Township. As soon as spring fairly opened he eleared about three acres and planted the land to eorn, and in the following year added an orchard to his improvements.
In 1840 Mr. Studabaker died at his homestead in Wabash Town-
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ship, but Mr. Simison lived nearly seventy years longer, reaching a remarkable age-approaching, as he did, the century mark. Like not a few of the early settlers, he and his good wife, whom he married in Wells County, reared a large family. Their first home was a log cabin nineteen feet square, with puncheon floor, and, his ingenuity spurred on by necessity, not a nail was used in its construction. When he first settled his land was heavily timbered, and the wolves were his closest neighbors. After living in the log house for several years the father built a frame building, which the family occupied until 1874, when another and larger residence was erected. Mr. Simison was the owner of the town site of Buena Vista, which he platted in 1856, the sale of lots beginning on New Year's day of 1857. He always took an active interest in the public affairs of his township and county, and preserved his mental faculties in remarkable strength and clearness. Mr. Simison passed the later years of his life at the home of one of his sons in Bluffton.
SIMISON'S BEAR STORY
As is often the case with those who reach a ripe age, Mr. Simison's recollections were most vivid for that period which covered his earlier experiences, and his stories were well worth listening to and repeat- ing. All the pioneers of his time and country had their tales of Bruin, especially illustrative of his troublesome, as well as unique dis- position. Among all the wild animals, it was the bears which made the most inroads upon the finest of the porkers. Mr. Simison used to tell a very illustrative tale in this connection. He had borrowed a neighbor's horses, had returned them and was on his way home afoot. Upon arriving near his own elearing, he came upon several of his hogs, bearing toward him, squealing and grunting their disapproval of some hidden disturbance. Soon a large bear appeared close behind them, coming along with his nsnal awkward lope. He was so close to one of the porkers that he seemed about to reach ont with his paws and take it in, but, spying the human being, the bear stopped short. Mr. Simison was standing on the end of a log perfectly quiet. Old hunters say that a bear will seldom attaek a man under such cirenm- stances, and Simison always insisted that the truth of that assertion was never more sorely tested and eonchsively proven. First, the bear looked in an inquiring way at the rigid and mysterious figure of Mr. S., then the animal's longing gaze followed the retreating and squealing hogs, again Bruin eonsidered the figure of the weird man on the log, and finally turned his rollicking stump of a tail and rolled
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