The people's guide; a business, political and religious directory of Vermillion Co., Ind., together with a collection of very important documents and statistics connected with our moral, political and scientific history; also, A historical sketch of Vermillion County, Part 11

Author: Cline & McHaffie; Hibben, W. W
Publication date: 1874
Publisher: Indianapolis, Indianapolis Prtg. and Pub. House
Number of Pages: 418


USA > Indiana > Vermillion County > The people's guide; a business, political and religious directory of Vermillion Co., Ind., together with a collection of very important documents and statistics connected with our moral, political and scientific history; also, A historical sketch of Vermillion County > Part 11


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For Distemper in Horses .- Ground ginger, two ounces; flour of sulphur, two ounces; copperas, two ounces; Spanish brown, two ounces; saltpeter, one-half ounce; mix thoroughly. Give a tablespoonful once a day in bran mash. Keep the ani- mal warm and dry, with light exercise.


Whitewash for Out Doors .- Take good white unslacked lime, one peck; salt, one quart; two pounds Spanish whiting; one gallon good flour paste ; first slack the lime in hot water ; be sure to put enough on to keep the lime from burning; then add while warm the salt and Spanish white, and then the paste; let stand over night. It is better to have it warm while applying it.


For Removing Paint From Glass .- Baking soda and warm water.


Antidote for Poison .- Give sweet oil in large doses.


For Worms in Children .- Santenine, nine grains; calomel, six grains; white sugur, eighteen grains; mix well; make in six powders for a child two years old, and give one before each meal for two days ; work off with oil.


For Removing Grease Spots From Cloth .- Soda, two drachms; borax, one drachm; dissolve it together in one ounce of hot water, then add one ounce of alconol. Shake it well and apply with woolen rag or brush, rubbing briskly.


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VALUABLE RECIPES.


To Get Rid of Little Ants .- Use salt and water freely where they infest.


Washing Fluid .- Borax, one pound; soda, one pound ; dis- solve in two gallons of hot water. Put the clothes in the tub, cover them with water containing a half gallon of the fluid, and let stand over night.


For Toothache, Headache, Neuralgia, and Rheumatic Pains .- Make a liniment of the following preparations: One ounce of tincture of Amonia, one ounce tincture of cam- phor, one ounce oil of organum, one-half ounce oil of cedar, one ounce oil of hemlock, and one quart linseed oil ; mix all together, put it in a bottle and shake well. Directions for using. Apply the liniment freely to the affected parts, and rub and bathe it as often as three or four times daily. For the toothache, put a little on a piece of cotton, and put it in the tooth, and rub it on the jaw of the patient. I have found this to be one of the best liniments in use.


For Cuts and Bruises on Man or Beast .- Take two ounces tincture of camphor, two ounces linseed oil, one ounce of tur- pentine ; mix all together, and apply to the affected parts.


For Pickling Beef .- To 100 pounds of beef take one gal- lon of salt, three-fourths of a pound of sugar, three ounces black pepper ground; add together, put all in a kettle con- taining three gallons of water; boil slowly, and skim occa- sionally. Pack the beef in tight tubs, and cover with the brine.


DIRECTORY OF


VERMILLION COUNTY


FOR


. 1874.


9


-


TO OUR PATRONS.


SICKNESS has interfered very provokingly in the work of get- ting out Vermillion County Directory and Guide, and we will have to ask for liberal allowances for any apparent defects.


The work done, however, is not sufficiently patronized to make the enterprise profitable, and yet we have not in any sense slighted it on this account.


Our aim has been to do full justice to each township of the county, and to gather the names of the citizens of the county generally, and yet in some instances we have no doubt failed because we had no guides to lead us back to those we had acci- dentally passed. Still, take it all in all, we think we have done well, and are able to present to the citizens of Vermillion county the ablest and most satisfactory Guide Book yet published in the State. We feel, after all, that we have done our duty.


1


HISTORICAL SKETCH


OF


VERMILLION COUNTY.


PREPARED EXPRESSLY FOR THIS VOLUME.


W. W. HIBBEN, HISTORIAN.


THE county of Vermillion, which is one of the most fertile of any in the State, is worthy of special notice for its interesting historical record, its beautiful physical scenery, its agricultural products, and for its rich and immense mineral resources .*


It is bounded on the north by Warren county; on the east by Fountain and Parke counties, with the channel of the Wa- bash river as its boundary line; on the south by Vigo county, and on the west by Edgar and Vermillion counties, of the State of Illinois. It is thirty-six miles long, and varies in breadth from five to ten miles, with an average of a little less than


*The fine and very appropriate map of Vermillion county, which was gotten up in 1872 by James Tarrance, we have found to be our best guide in giving our topographical sketches of this beautiful county. This map is geographically correct. and affords at a bird's-eye view a complete out- line of every township, section, village and improvement. The thanks of Vermillion are certainly largely due Mr. Tarrance for the production of this appropriate map of this county.


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VERMILLION COUNTY.


seven miles, thus including an area of two hundred and forty- nine square miles.


Of this area from one-fourth to one-third consists of the rich productive bottoms and terraces of the valleys of the Wabash and its affluents, the Big and Little Vermillions, and Norton Creek.


TOPOGRAPHICALLY,


Its attractions of beautiful, picturesque scenery are equal to any other county in the State. The modest meanderings of the classic old Wabash, which ever and anon are hiding their sil- very waters away amid the luxurious foliage of the forest trees, give to its eastern border a lineal presentation of romantic beauty such as attracts universal attention; while the long range of bench-hills, which skirt the west of this garden valley, throw along its railroad line a continued display of panoramic, rural beauty, which, without any coloring, might be termed "the lovely valley of the West."


The main terrace, or second bottom, is especially developed between Perryville and Newport-an order of nature resulting, probably, from the combined action of the two main affluents, which join the Wabash within these limits.


The terrace is here from one to four miles wide, furnishing a broad stretch of rich farming lands, and has an average eleva- tion of about forty feet above the more immediate bottoms.


Below the town of Newport, the bluffs approach the river so closely that this famed terrace is almost obliterated, and even the bottoms become somewhat narrowed and unattractive.


At the mouth of Little Raccoon Creek, the bottoms set in again in a wider form, though the terrace assumes no considera- ble extent until we reach the head of Helt Prairie, about six


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HISTORICAL SKETCH.


miles north of Clinton, whence it stretches southward with an average width of from two to three miles. It narrows again about three miles below Clinton, as we approach the mouth of Brouillet's Creek and the county line.


THE AZTEC MOUNDS.


The fact that these whole beautiful regions were once, per- haps, densely inhabited by an extinct race, gives, even now, an interest to the country that inspires one with a sort of reveren- tial awe as he looks out upon the numerous "mounds " which still lift their quiet and unpretending elevations, here and there, after having been washed by the rain storms of centuries, as if they were, or had been preserved by the Grand Architect of the universe Himself, that all succeeding generations of people might learn that any race which might thereafter become denizens of this lower world,


" Build too low, who build beneath the skies."


In company with Hon. John Collett, an intelligent gentle- man of this county, and to whom we are indebted for a vast amount of our historical notes, we visited a number of these mounds which lay thickly scattered over his farm, as if there the ancient Aztec had once held empire when his race was in the zenith of their glory. The lost history of this once won- derful people can now only be gathered up in scattered and broken fragments as they are seen, at the present time, over the various plains of the West.


What precise purpose these mounds were built for, of course may now only be guessed at. But the evidence is sufficient to satisfy any one that they were in some way connected with the burial of their dead. At least there are evidences of such


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VERMILLION COUNTY.


use to be found in the fact that bones are found in nearly all of them that have been examined. Still these bones may have belonged to the subsequent race of the red man who, as is supposed, exterminated the former.


These mounds are of different circumferences and of various hights. None that we have seen, save those at Marietta, Ohio. are of any remarkable elevation at the present time. Whether all these works had their origin among the Indians, or are the monumental relics of a lost race, such as the Aztecs, is a his- torical question which as yet has never been satisfactorily settled.


Looking over those in Vermillion county, and remembering that they may be thousands of years old, one would naturally presume that they had some connection with war or were intended as burial places for the dead.


In his able report of 1870, Prof. John Collett says :


"When first explored by the white race this county was oc- cupied by savage Indians, without fixed habitations, averse to labor, and delighting only in war and the chase. Their misty traditions did not reach back to a previous people or age.


"But numerous earth-works are found in this region, of such extent as to require, for their construction, time and the persist- ent labor of many people. Situated on the river bluffs, their lo- cation combines picturesque scenery, susceptibility of defense, and convenience to transportation, water, and productive lands. These are not requisites in the nomadic life of the red man, and identify the Mound Builders as a more ancient and partially civilized and agricultural people."


Here in Vermillion, these mounds, though not so high as in other parts, may be counted by hundreds.


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HISTORICAL SKETCH.


Prof. Collett says, "that over one hundred of these small mounds, from two to four feet high, may be seen about one mile north-west of Middletown, in Vigo county."


On the Hunt farm, conical knolls of loess have been artificially rounded and used for sepulchral purposes. One of these con- tained at the summit, seventy feet above its base, a burial vault, three stories high ; on each floor from five to seven human skel etons were found.


On Mr. Drake's lands, in the same county, there are two large mounds, one two hundred feet in diameter and eighteen feet high; the other twenty-eight feet high, covering an elliptic base one hundred and eighty feet wide and three hundred feet long. The contents of the two mounds amount to nearly 30,000 cubic yards, and at present contract prices for earth-work would cost five thousand dollars.


"All the mounds which have come under my notice," con- tinues Mr. Collett, "are located so as to secure an out-look toward sunrise, confirming the belief that the fires of the sun- worshippers have blazed upon every mound-capped eminence in the great valley of the Continent."


That these mound-builders were worshippers of the sun is circumstantially probable, and that these mounds in some way were used as cemeteries of the dead is as fully corroborated, as the ashes and mineralized bones of the mound-builders have been found at their base, while near the surface the remains of the more modern red man have been discovered.


The lands of this Western Hemisphere, it seems, have not been left without their inhabitants. Their histories are re- corded in the ruined wrecks of their ancient temples as seen in !


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VERMILLION COUNTY.


Central America, and in the mounds and grand earth-works of the plains and terraces of the great North. To their labors and mode of living many attribute the beautiful prairie sceneries of the West. What they did, showed that they were endowed with the intelligence of an honorable enterprise in accordance with their attainments in civilization, and their mysterious dis- appearance and total extinction tell us that they, like ourselves, were only mortal, and that this life at best is only a temporary scene.


To look now upon all that is left of these ancient denizens of our country may be mournful and melancholy, but yet it has a lesson in it, as far as it goes, as deep as the philosophy of human life, and as full of the moral of eternal truth as even the stereotyped letters of our present inspired volumes.


THE SAVAGE RED MAN.


Even the record of the red man is wrapped in mystery. Hence his origin, like his own wild spirit, has never been fully or satisfactorily comprehended. A native of the woods, he par- took for ages of the savage wildness of the ferocious beasts of the forests, and making his living by hunting the weaker animals than himself-blood became his chief currency of trade, and he grew familiar with barbarity and savage warfare long before the white man crossed his path. What he was in history and in the long genealogy of his tribes, we of the present day can not now tell. It is only in cotemporary history that we read anything of his doings, and therefore we are left to class him in his origin with the mound builders or the Aztecs, whose records are only seen in the dilapidated ruins of the past ages.


With but few exceptions, the settlement of the whites, all


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HISTORICAL SKETCH.


over the continent, has been associated with the conflicts of sav- age warfare, where neither age nor sex was respected, or the laws of civilized warfare regarded.


The savage claimed the whole boundless continent as his, and so indeed it was, and when the white man came upon his hunt- ing ground he declared him an intruder, and made war upon him-just as we civilized people would do now. But the Indian was a savage, with no knowledge of the arts and sciences and the higher Christian civilizations of the white man. Hence, he must be driven out in some way-if it even had to be done by war. The improvidence of the Indian, together with his savage barbarities opened the way to apparently justify the white man's attack, and the receding footsteps of the red man have long told the results of the conflict. The light of the western sun directed his retreating footsteps until he lost his vested rights, and now it may be said of him, live where he may, that he is only a "ten- ant at will." The white man now owns the continent.


When the white man first came to this grand Wabash Valley, he found it everywhere populated with various savage tribes. Here and there were their wigwam villages, while forest and prairie, creeks and rivers, mountains and valleys, constituted their unlimited hunting grounds.


The coming of the white man among them made them fear, for they knew he had fire-arms, powder and lead, while they only had the bow and arrow, the tomahawk and scalping-knife. The white man's weapons they dreaded in open battle, and hence they early adopted the guerrilla mode of warfare, which soon educated the whites to hunt him down and put him to death as if he had been but a wild beast.


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VERMILLION COUNTY.


The southern portion of this county was occupied, when first a visited by the white man, by the Pi-unka-shaw tribe of the Miami nation; and the northern part by the Kickapoo and Pot- tawattomies-subdivisions of the same tribe. Their common headquarters or treaty grounds were at the village which the whites called Springfield, south of Eugene. At this point trea- ties were made with the English and French colonial governors, and even after the county began to be settled old pioneers remember seeing on ordinary occasions a thousand Indians assembled there.


The early French missionaries visited these regions of the Wabash, with the hope and purpose of converting the Indians to,Christianity, about the year 1670.


A French trading-post was established at an early day here, called La Chappelle, by Monsieur Laselle, the father of Hon. Charles Laselle, who is now one of the distinguished and worthy lawyers of the city of Logansport, Cass county.


Another trading post was subsequently established on the farm now owned by Hon. John Collett. ,


In the year 1790, the Indians of this region, while acting only on the defensive, were attacked at their village by Major Ham- tramck, who commanded a force from "The Old Post"-Vin- 1 cennes. Their village was situated on the lands since con- stituting a part of the farm of the late Colonel Shelby, near where Eugene is now located. The entire Indian village was de- 1 stroyed and most of the inhabitants indiscriminately massacred. It was not a matter of wonder, therefore, that the Indians of these regions subsequently took part in the battles of Fallen Timber and of Tippecanoe.


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HISTORICAL SKETCH.


James Blair, a soldier of the war of 1812, and Isaac Coleman, who were among the first as well as most distinguished of the early pioneers of this portion of the Wabash, settled three miles south of what is now the village of Eugene in the year 1818. They formed an intimate acquaintance with the Indians, and lived in friendship with them for a number of years. It fre- quently fell to their lot to act as peace-makers between the Indians and what were termed the "Border Ruffians," who were much the worse class of the two. These old pioneers always spoke in the highest terms of Se-Sepp (Si-Siep), the last Chief, who lived in the vicinity, and who was said to be one hundred and ten years old when he was foully murdered by a renegade Indian of his own tribe.


Like the fading of the autumn leaves, the aborigines of the forest died away. The guns of the white man frightened the game from their hunting grounds, and the virtue of a dire necessity called upon them to emigrate, to make room for the ax and plow, the cabin and the school house of the incoming white man.


EARLY PIONEERS.


Among the first settlers who came to this part of the Wabash before the county of Vermillion was organized, were the Groe- nendykes, Colemans and Colletts.


John Groenendyke, the father of James and Samuel, and the grandfather of Hon. John Groenendyke, and his cousin Samuel, now living at Eugene, and also the grandfather of the present . Colletts, came from near Ovid, Cayuga county, New York, first to Terre Haute in 1818, and to this region in 1819. He settled on the Big Vermillion river, where Eugene now stands, and where his son James built a mill subsequently, of very fine


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VERMILLION COUNTY.


1


water capacity for that early day, which was esteemed by the new immigrants as one of the most substantial hopes of the settlement. This Groenendyke family is among the oldest in America, having emigrated from Holland to New Amsterdam, and settled among the Knickerbockers in 1650.


John was the first generation of this family to strike for Indi- a .. .. ana, bringing with him his sons, James and Samuel, who were long known here as enterprising farmers and business men, and who did much to build up the country, and to establish a good order of civil society. These men appeared not to know or think they were making history, and therefore they have, like many others, passed away without having left those more defin- ite records, which the present generation would be proud to have, as the memorable relics of the pioneer age. James Groe- nendyke died in 1856.


The cabin and forest history of the earliest settlers of the West involves the most interesting records of the State, and yet much of it has gone down into the grave with the pioneer him- self. There was no Homer to sing the song of his battles, and no chronicler even to make a note of his toils and sacrifices. His children chiefly remember him, and even they speak of him only in the terms of modesty, lest they excite the envy or criti- cisms of some pigmy cynic who lives only for himself. It has been said that "he who makes two blades of grass grow where only one grew before, is a benefactor." There is certainly solid philosophy in the declaration, and the deduction should be made that the honorable mention of any of these good old pioneers is history deservedly and well told.


James Amour, who was one of the early pioneers of Vermil- lion, and who assisted James Groenendyke in the erection of his


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HISTORICAL SKETCH.


first mill, yet lives. In the simple complacency of a green old age he lives to see the living progress of the third generation, with no regrets of the past, and with no fault to find with the present or future.


William Thompson, the father of James, John and Andrew Thompson, and of Mrs. Col. Jane Shelby, came to the Wabash from Pennsylvania in 1822, and settled at Thompson's Spring, one mile south of Eugene. If we had the full data of these men and families we should be pleased to give them in detail ; but we have not, and hence are compelled to stop at only a brief mention. But the numerous broad acres of rich, productive soil, owned by these families, tell, not only of their prosperity, but give good evidence of their industry and frugality, as well as of their early settler good fortunes. The blessings of the fathers have descended upon the sons and daughters to the third generation ; and endowed, as they now are, it is to be hoped so- ciety will be made better on account of their wealth, and that the nobility of a generous hospitality and true christian charity will never want a name among them.


John Collett came to Indiana, with his sons Josephus and Stephen, from Huntington county, Pennsylvania, in the year 1818, and to the county of Vermillion in 1825. He was an old man when he came here, for he had served under Washington in the battles of the Revolution of 1776, when he was but eighteen years old, and bore in his mien the soldier's bold spirit, and though advanced in years, he led his sons to this beautiful Eldorado of the West, where he could point them to a promised land of wealth and prosperity, which they could not hope to find in the old Keytsone State.


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VERMILLION COUNTY.


He began merchandizing first at Clinton, and then at the Little Vermillion Mills, where he rendered himself useful as a citizen and popular as a man. He served as Agent of the county in selling lots in the town of Newport, the county seat, and entered for himself several choice pieces of land, which have remained in the hands of the family for three generations. He died at Eugene in 1834, aged seventy-two.


Josephus Collett, Sr., was the son of John, and the father of William, who now live back of the village of Eugene, the pos- sessors of some two thousand acres of the rich lands of this county. Josephus, Sr., was one of the marked men in this community. Born in Huntington county, Pennsylvania, in the year 1787, he moved to Columbus, Ohio, in 1816, and was appointed Deputy Sheriff of Ross county the same year, and two years afterward was elected to the same office. After having served out the term of his Sheriffalty, he was appointed, in 1820, Deputy United States Surveyor by Gov. Tiffin, then Surveyor General of the Northwestern Territory, and in his capacity as Deputy Surveyor he surveyed a district of country which embraces a large part of the counties of Parke, Vigo, Hendricks, Montgomery and Putnam. In November, 1815, he joined Ohio Lodge, No. 30, A. F. & A. Masons, at Franklinton. At that time there was no Lodge at Columbus, and the Frank- linton Lodge was subsequently removed to Columbus and was called Columbus Lodge, No. 30.


In 1825, Mr. Collett removed to Vermillion county, Indiana, where he continued to reside till the time of his death. He died of dropsy at his residence near Eugene, February 2Ist, 1872, aged 85.


During the early part of his residence in this county, Mr.


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HISTORICAL SKETCH.


Collett was an active participant in the politics of the county and in all matters of general and public interest. He was a man of sagacity and prudence in the management of his prop- erty, hence, though starting out in life with but little, he amassed a fortune of $130,000, the comforts of which he en- joyed in his old age. He used to say that "the young man who won't dig and work himself will never become wealthy ; for it is grubbing for one's self that teaches economy." He simply meant to say that a man should not be ashamed of or shrink from doing whatever his occupation requires to be done.


Stephen S. Collett, Sr., father of John, Stephen S., and Josephus, who all live in this county, was also born in Hunting- ton county, Pennsylvania. He had a family of ten children, eight of whom are still living. He was a pay-master, with the title of Major, in the war of 1812. In his business life he was active and full of enterprise as farmer, merchant and pork packer. He shipped his pork to New Orleans in flat boats down the Wabash. He was the proprietor of the village of Eugene. He served several terms in the Indiana Senate, rep- resenting the counties of Parke, Vermillion and Warren. He had the honor of being one of the nine that, amid jeers and twits, voted against the internal improvement bill of 1836. He died at Indianapolis, while a member of the Senate, in the year 1843.


Among the early settlers at Walnut Grove were Zeno Worth and Shuble Gardner, from North Carolina. Mr. Worth selected some good lands which have been held by his family to the fourth generation. One of his daughters-Mrs. Dr. Coffin, who still lives near Walnut Grove-is now one of "the old relics."




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