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General Harrison, who was stationed over at Piqua, Ohio, with an army, had sent Maj. William Oliver to notify the garrison that he was on his way with relief. Oliver reached the fort after some re- markable feats of daring, and it was the news he brought that nerved the little garrison through the seven days' battle. At the approach of the reinforce- ments, September 12, the Indians retired.9
For the purpose of terrorizing the border and pre-
9 Blanchard, Discovery and Conquest of the Northwest, 289; Benson J. Lossing, Pictorial Field Book of War of 1812, 315; Historical Register, II, ch. 3, No. 2; Wallace A. Bryce, History of Fort Wayne; Mann Butler, History of Kentucky.
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PIGEON ROOST MASSACRE
venting any aid being sent to Fort Wayne or Fort Har- rison, a band of warriors penetrated the forests to the Pigeon Roost Settlement in the northern part of what is now Scott county, September 3. Two men hunting on the outskirts of the little community were murdered. The Indians then fell on the unprotected settlement and killed, within one hour, another man, five women. and sixteen children. The murders were accompanied by all the cruelty of which the Indians were capable. William Collings, a man past 60 years of age, de- fended his house successfully against the cowardly wretches.
. The Clark county militia were immediately called out and proceeded to the Pigeon Roost Settlement. Next day two companies of militia followed the trail of the Indians till dark, but gave it up. The Indians, numbering more than a dozen, were thus allowed to escape without punishment.10
At almost the same hour when Payne and Coffman, the hunters, were killed at the Pigeon Roost, two work- men were killed near Fort Harrison. The next day a party of Indians, chiefs from the Winnebago, Kicka- poo, Pottawattomie, and Shawnee tribes, came to the fort and asked the commander, Capt. Zachary Taylor, for a conference the next day. They were from the Prophetstown, and Taylor suspected at once that they were on the warpath.
The next Captain Taylor heard of them was when he was awakened at eleven o'oclock that night by the report of a sentinel's rifle. The captain rushed out of his quarters to find that the Indians had fired the blockhouse at the lower corner of the fort. Of the
10 Charles Martindale, Publications of Indiana Historical So- ciety, II; Dillon, History of Indiana, 492; Good accounts are in Western Sun, September 26 and October 6, 1812. Lossing, Field Book of War of 1812, 314; John Ketcham, Reminiscences; John C. Lazenby, in Indiana Magazine of History, X, 263.
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HISTORY OF INDIANA
fifty men in the garrison over half, including Captain Taylor himself, were on the sick list. By the time Taylor had paraded his troops the blockhouse, where all the supplies except the powder were kept, was burning rapidly, and the Indians were pressing the attack. The prospect looked gloomy. Some of the soldiers who responded were too weak to stand up. Two of the ablest jumped over the palisade and at- tempted to escape. Nothing saved the fort from de- struction but the spirit of the captain. The block- house burned, but the barracks were saved by heroic efforts. The gap in the wall was only twenty feet and no Indian dared enter it. The troops were properly placed, order was restored, men repaired the fort where the fire had damaged it, and by daylight the Indians were repulsed.
The Indians merely drew back to the cover of the woods. It was necessary for Captain Taylor to get word to Vincennes. At length after several failures a messenger, on a dark night, succeded in passing the Indian lines and reaching Vincennes. Col. William Russell, who was collecting an army to make an attack on the upper Wabash towns, pushed on up the valley after receiving Taylor's letter, and soon relieved the fort. Captain Taylor lost six men, three killed and three wounded. Of the two cowards who attempted to run away, one ran directly into the hands of the Indians, by whom he was killed; the other was driven back to the walls of the fort by the Indians, and sneaked inside after they were repulsed.11
General Harrison reached Fort Wayne September 12, 1812, with over 2,000 men. Disappointed in not meeting the Indians in battle, he determined to punish the tribesmen at once. After resting his men a few
11 Niles' Register, II1, 90, which gives Taylor's official report. Lossing, Field Book of War of 1812, 317; Historical Register, II, ch. 3, No. 8.
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HARRISON DESTROYS THE MIAMIS
days he divided them into several battalions. One of these, under Colonel Simrall, was sent to destroy the town of Little Turtle on Eel river. Col. Samuel Wells led another division against the town of Chief Five Medals of the Pottawattomies on the Elkhart. Colonel Payne led still another division down to the forks of the Wabash to destroy the Miami towns in that neighborhood. All these towns were deserted by the Indians.
Years of peace had taught the Indians many of the simpler arts of civilization. Large fields of growing corn surrounded the villages. Log huts had largely taken the places of the earlier wigwams. Everything, nevertheless, was included in the vengeance of the in- vaders except the house of Little Turtle, built for him by the government at his village on Eel river. That aged chief had passed away, July 21, 1812, and had been buried with military honors by the garrison at Fort Wayne. A worse blow than the destruction of their towns could not have been inflicted on the sav- ages. During the approaching winter there was noth- ing for them to do but go to Malden and beg from the British.
Harrison left his army under command of Gen. James Winchester while he hastened over to Piqua to organize forces for the recovery of Detroit. Winches- ter soon moved down the Maumee and the scene of war drifted over into Ohio.12
The urgent message of Captain Taylor, as noted above, brought Col. William Russell posthaste from Vincennes with 1,200 men. Russell reached Fort Har- rison with his army, September 16, without having seen the enemy, but his provision train, together with an escort of eleven men, fell into the hands of the sav- ages. A regiment of Kentucky volunteers under Colonel Wilcox remained at Fort Harrison. Russell
12 Historical Register, II, ch. 3, No. 11.
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HISTORY OF INDIANA
with the remainder hastened back to Vincennes, as he had been on his way to join Governor Ninian Ed- wards of Illinois in an attack on the Kickapoo Indians on Peoria lake.
Meanwhile Kentucky volunteers kept arriving at Vincennes and joining Gen. Samuel Hopkins until that commander found himself in charge of a well-equipped army of 4,000 men, 2,000 of whom were expert rifle- men well mounted. On October 10, he left Vincennes with the mounted riflemen on an expedition against the Illinois tribes on the Illinois river. In four days he reached Fort Harrison, crossed the Wabash, and camped on the edge of the great prairie. On October 20, after meeting a prairie fire which did no damage, the army refused to march further. The general called for 500 volunteers to go on with him, but no one re- sponded. The infamous rabble then came back to Vincennes and was dismissed from the service.
As mentioned above, Colonel Russell was to join the governor of Illinois and cooperate with Hopkins in an attack. Russell with two companies of United States regulars left Vincennes, October 11, 1812, and, joining Governor Edwards, fell on the principal Kickapoo town at the head of Peoria lake, inflicting a severe defeat on the Indians. More than a score of warriors were killed.
After returning to Vincennes and dismissing his mutinous troops, General Hopkins organized an expe- dition of 1,200 infantry, with which he set out up the Wabash for the purpose of destroying the Prophets- town. His three regiments were commanded by Col- onels Barbour, Miller, and Wilcox, while Captain Tay- lor led the regulars. On November 11 he left Fort Harrison by the road Governor Harrison had made the previous year. The expedition continued up the east side of the Wabash and reached the Prophetstown, November 19. Butler was sent from there with 300
223
BATTLE OF MISSISSINEWA
men to destroy a Winnebago town near the mouth of Wildcat creek. The Prophetstown and a large Kicka- poo village of 160 huts, a short distance down the river, together with a large amount of provisions stored in the three towns, were destroyed.
No Indians were met until two days later when a small force of soldiers was attacked and one man killed. On the next morning a party of sixty horse- men were ambushed on Wildcat creek and eighteen killed. The Indian camp was broken up, but the weather suddenly turning bitter cold, the army re- turned hastily to Vincennes.13
Driven from their home towns, the Miamis, now nearly all in the service of the British, had gathered in the Mississinewa towns. There they had been joined by the Delawares and the Munsees from White river. They were in threatening distance of the set- tlements both in Indiana and Ohio. For this reason General Harrison, then at Franklinton, Ohio, decided to destroy them. A strong column was accordingly made up of Colonel Simrall's Kentucky dragoons, some United States dragoons under Maj. James V. Ball, a corps of United States regulars, and some Pennsyl- vania riflemen. The force numbered about 600 men.
On November 25, 1812, Col. John B. Campbell, who commanded the expedition, left camp for the attack on the Mississinewa towns. His route led by Spring- field, Xenia, Dayton, Eaton, and Greenville. At Day- ton he was delayed till December 14, by the lack of horses. Winter had set in and the frozen ground was covered with a mantle of snow. By forced marches he covered the remaining eighty miles in three days.
In the early morning light of December 17, the troops attacked an Indian town, killed eight warriors, took forty prisoners, and burned the town. Leaving
13 Hopkins' reports are given in Niles' Register, III, 171, 199 and 204.
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HISTORY OF INDIANA
the prisoners in charge of the infantry, the horsemen pushed on down the river and destroyed three villages, among them that of the Munsee chief, Silver Heels, with their winter stores, including quite a number of cattle and horses. That night they returned to the in- fantry and went into camp. This camp was on the north bank of the Mississinewa river, near the mouth of Metociniah creek, about a mile from the present village of Jalapa, in Grant county. The troops camped in the form of a square, the angles protected by light fortifications.
Here about five o'clock the next morning they were furiously attacked by a force of about 300 Indians who had crept up under cover of a rocky bluff on the north bank of the river. For over an hour a bloody battle raged at close quarters. The onslaught was desperate and it was met bravely. Captain Pierce, who com- manded the guard, was tomahawked as he stubbornly contested the battle. With the coming of daylight the fire of the riflemen put the Indians to rout, but not until they had killed eight and wounded forty-two white men. Fifteen Indians were found dead on the field. The expedition made its way slowly back to headquarters at Franklinton, and the fighting in In- diana was over for the year.14
§ 37 LIFE ON THE FRONTIER
EVERY possible precaution was taken by the terri- torial and national government to protect the Indiana frontier during the year 1813. Three plans were adopted to insure the safety of the settlers.
First-Enough blockhouses were constructed so that each farmer could leave his family in one. This
14 Lossing. Field Book of the War of 1812, 347; Niles' Register, 111, 300; Sarah J. Line, in Indiana Magazine of History, IX, 187; Campbell's Report to Harrison is in the State Papers, 152, and Historical Register, II, 40.
225
DEFENSE OF THE FRONTIER
necessitated one in every settlement. Within the pres- ent limits of Knox, Daviess, Martin, Orange, Jackson, Bartholomew, Jennings, Ripley, Franklin, Decatur, and Wayne counties most of these forts were located, although some were located farther from the border in Gibson, Pike, Clark, and Washington counties.
Second-The militia were organized carefully and some of them kept on duty all the time. The reports show that Indiana had 4,160 men enrolled. Added to these were large numbers of Kentuckians who volun- teered for duty in Indiana. While the militia were not under very strict discipline they did much hard service, usually furnishing their own arms and pro- visions. There were five or six regiments. Sixteen companies were called into active service.
Third-The United States employed from one to five companies of rangers-militia sworn into United States service. At first a single company was organ- ized to guard the country around Vincennes. On No- vember 23, 1812, Jonathan Jennings, the Indiana dele- gate, offered a resolution in Congress giving the Presi- dent power to organize two more companies. Reports were coming in daily showing that raids were being committed by the Indians along a border of 200 miles in Indiana. By act of February 25, 1813, the Presi- dent was given authority to raise ten additional com- panies. Acting under this law, the President author- ized Acting Governor Gibson to organize four new companies of rangers. Each company consisted of about 100 men commanded by a captain.
No attacks in force were made by the Indians in Indiana during the latter years of the war. During the early months of 1813 they kept the border in terror by a series of petty raids. Scouting parties pene- trated deep into the settlements to steal and murder. A man was killed on the Wabash below the mouth of White river; a week later two men were killed just
226
HISTORY OF INDIANA
below Vincennes on the Illinois side. Ten days later, March 13, two men were killed ten miles from Brook- ville in Franklin county. On the same day three men were killed in Wayne county. Five days later one man was killed and three wounded near Vallonia, in Bartholomew county. On March 28, a party of men in boats were attacked below Fort Harrison, two of whom were killed and six wounded. On April 16, two men were killed eight miles west of Vallonia.15
Such outrages as those just mentioned naturally called for vigorous effort on the part of the rangers. The Indians found the swamps and dense forests of Driftwood a complete mask to their depredations. They would slip into a neighborhood, kill a farmer, preferably at daybreak when he came out to feed his stock, gather up the horses on the place, and disappear into the impenetrable thickets of Driftwood before the rangers could get on the trail.
At first the rangers tried to patrol the whole fron- tier, but this was soon found useless. Next, small companies were stationed at advantageous places with orders to pursue any savages that made their appear- ance.
As stated above, a man was killed near Vallonia, March 18. Maj. John Tipton, the most skillful of the rangers, with twenty-nine men took up the trail of the savages. Twenty-five miles up Driftwood he found them camped on an Island. Several of the Indians were killed, the rest escaping by swimming the river. On April 16, the same captain with thirty-one took the trail of a band of Indians who had murdered two men west of Vallonia. Swimming five streams, wading for
15 The best accounts of these outrages are given in Niles' Register, and the Western Sun. These were contemporary papers; for other accounts see John Ketcham's Autobiography; writings of John Tipton; letters printed in Cockrum's Pioneer History of Indiana ; and various county histories.
227
RAIDS ON THE DELAWARE TOWNS
miles in swamps waist deep, in almost continuous rain, he followed them three days before he overtook them. He intended to surprise them in their camp that night, but following too closely, they came upon an Indian who had stopped to fix his pack. Warned by the shot, the Indian's companions abandoned their horses and fled, following the high hills bordering Salt creek toward the Delaware towns on White river.
These and other evidences led the people to believe that the Delaware Indians on upper White river were doing the mischief on the border. For the purpose of destroying these towns Col. Joseph Bartholomew, com- mander-in-chief of the militia, mustered an expedition of 137 men at Vallonia in June, 1813. There were three companies of rangers under Captains William- son Dunn, James Bigger, and C. Peyton, John Tipton and David Owen acting as guides.16
They left Vallonia, June 11, and in four days reached the Delaware towns 100 miles distant. The towns were already deserted and most of them burned. Twelve miles lower down, another town was found with a plentiful supply of corn. A small party of In- dians on their way to this town after corn was at- tacked and one of them killed. It was thought that the Indians were using these towns as a half-way place in their attacks on the settlements. Everything was destroyed and the expedition returned home, arriving June 21.
With a view to further punishment of the Indians, Col. William Russell of the Seventh United States regulars, and commander of the department, gath- ered another force at Vallonia as soon as Bartholo- mew had returned, to strike the towns on the lower Mississinewa. He left camp at Vallonia, July 1, with 573 men and marched by way of the Delaware towns
16 The roster of these companies is given in John Ketcham's Autobiography.
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HISTORY OF INDIANA
to the Mississinewa. He found these towns all deserted. It seems no Indians had been there since early spring. From there, Russell marched to the Eel River village, thence to Winnamac, Prophetstown, the Winnebago town on Wild Cat creek, and thence to Fort Harrison. Not an Indian was seen. Small parties left the main force at the Prophetstown and crossed over to the set- tlements on the Ohio river, but no trace of savages could be found. All the old Indian fighters of Indiana and Kentucky, among them Maj. Zachary Taylor, joined Russell in the invasion. It showed beyond a doubt that the Indian power in Indiana was broken.17
After the Indians had been defeated at Fort Wayne and Fort Harrison, especially after the bloody disaster on the Mississinewa, the discouraged warriors began to withdraw out of harm's way. The Miamis and Dela- wares, who had avowed friendship for the white peo- ple, moved over into Ohio under the immediate pro- tection of the American army. The Shawnees, together with those Miamis who had joined them, under the Prophet returned to Detroit and placed themselves un- der the protection of the British.
The British were forced to evacuate Detroit in September, 1813. A few days later they were anni- hilated at the Battle of the Thames. Tecumseh was killed. There was no choice for the Indians but to make the best possible terms of peace with their ene- mies, the Americans. Ottawas, Chippewas, Pottawat- tomies, Kickapoos, and Miamis came to Detroit and asked that the war cease. Their condition was pitiable. The women and children were naked and starving. They hardly dared go on hunting trips for fear of
17 Dillon, History of Indiana, 520, seq. An Autobiography, by John Ketcham, gives an excellent picture of conditions around Vallonia. The muster rolls of the ranger companies are given, those of James Bigger and Williamson Dunn entire. An excellent contemporary account of the War of 1812 is a History of the Late War, by an American, Baltimore, 1816.
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SECOND TREATY OF GREENVILLE
the American rangers, who took no prisoners. The haughty warriors, who a year before had met in high spirits and plotted to drive the Americans across the Ohio, were now compelled to beg bread at the hands of their conquerors.
An armistice was agreed to between Major General Harrison and the assembled tribes at Detroit, October 14, 1813. Over 3,000 Indians at Detroit and 1,500 at Fort Wayne had to be fed by the government during the following winter. The women and children were provided with clothing and shelter and the warriors with guns and ammunition that they might again en- gage in the chase.
On July 8, 1814, General Harrison and Gen. Lewis Cass met the tribes at Greenville and explained to them the terms of a new treaty. This treaty, the Sec- ond Treaty of Greenville, did not materially change the relation between the whites and savages.
The war was extremely disastrous to the red men. It left them a hopeless, sullen, broken people. Had it not been for the interference of the English they could have been spared the humiliation. The English drew the storm down upon them and then gave them no aid. From the fall of Detroit to the defeat on the Thames the British troops did none of the fighting. The conduct of the English was as cowardly as it was disastrous to the Indians. The latter had made con- siderable progress in civilized life before the war, but this was all destroyed. What was worse, the pioneers lost all respect for them, and began a systematic effort to drive them from the border.
CHAPTER IX
FROM TERRITORY TO STATE, 1813-1816
§ 38 NEW SETTLEMENTS
THE year 1800 found very few settlers in what is now Indiana. The Treaty of Greenville in 1795 had established the boundary line between the land of the United States and that set apart for the northwestern Indians and had given to the Indians all lands within the State except a small tract six miles square where Fort Wayne now stands; a tract two miles square on the Wabash, where the portage path from Fort Wayne struck the river; a tract six miles square on the Wa- bash river at Ouiatanon ; 149,000 acres at the Falls of the Ohio, known as Clark's Grant; the land around Vincennes, and a strip of land lying east of the line drawn from Fort Recovery down to the Ohio river opposite the mouth of the Kentucky.
Almost all of the white inhabitants lived under the protection of the stockade at the post of Vincennes. What farming there was, was done in the imme- diate neighborhood of that post. Few Americans had settled at Vincennes this early. On the north side of the Ohio river, at the Falls, there were a few set- tlers on Clark's Grant. This tract, embracing 149,000 acres, had been conveyed by the General Assembly of Virginia in 1786 to General Clark and his soldiers as payment for their services in capturing Vincennes and Kaskaskia.
The townsite of Clarksville had been laid out in 1783. Emigrants began to arrive soon afterwards. The village of Springville with its stockade, Fort Steu-
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EARLY SETTLEMENTS
ben, and its company of soldiers, was most attractive to these new settlers. This village became the county seat of Clark county, and remained so until 1802, when Jeffersonville was founded and made the county seat. It is said that this latter city was planned by Thomas Jefferson. Only alternate squares were to be used for building sites, the others being reserved as parks and city gardens.
Among the distinguished citizens of this early set- tlement were the first governor, Jonathan Jennings, a New Jersey Presbyterian, Gen. John Carr of Pennsyl- vania, who served with distinction in the Battle of Tip- pecanoe and in the War of 1812, and Judge Charles Dewey of Massachusetts, a leading lawyer and law- maker in the early history of the State.
Another settlement that dates back into the eight- eenth century was in Dearborn county. This settle- ment was in and around where Aurora now stands, and the Morrisons, Gards, Geralds, Hardins, and Grays were among the early settlers. A mill was built here in 1800. The Baptist church was organized in 1807. Lawrenceburg, the county seat, was laid out in 1802 by Samuel Vance, James Hamilton, and Benjamin Cham- bers, all of whom had seen service in the Revolution.
Switzerland county was also inhabited at this time, a settlement having been made in 1795 by Heathcote Pickett and family near Plum creek, about three miles above Vevay. This family was joined during the next two or three years by the Dickinson, Cotton, and Gul- lion families, who settled on the lowlands along the river. During the year 1796 there came to this neigh- borhood John James Dufour from Canton Vaud, Switzerland. He was looking for a location for a colonization society, and made the selection of this land between Indian and Plum creeks, purchasing from Congress 2,560 acres. The company did not reach the new home until 1803. The Swiss re-established their
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HISTORY OF INDIANA
Vevay of Switzerland in the new Vevay in Switzerland county, Indiana.
All told, the settlers in the four counties did not exceed 1,000 persons. Besides these there were numerous hunters, trappers, and squatters along the western, southwestern and southern borders. About these there is an endless amount of tradition in the border counties, and many of the traditions have been preserved in the county histories.
In discussing the early settlements of any of the western States one cannot do more than indicate the main lines of immigration. The movement was like the skirmish line of a great army searching out every nook and corner of the new country. The pioneers ad- vanced along all possible lines of travel and located in the most unexpected places. Many of their actions are unexplainable to us after the lapse of a century. The prevalence of game and pure water was an attraction that led many of them. Others kept to the highland to avoid the fevers and the ague. Some sought the tim- ber-land; others for exactly opposite reasons sought the prairies. No single explanation will fit many cases.
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