Delaware County, Indiana - Chapter 3: The Indian Torture Stake, 1924

Chapter 3: The Indian Torture Stake

In Dillon's "History of Indiana' it is related that the harangues of The Prophet (brother of Tecumseh) in his efforts to stir his tribesmen against the encroachment of the whites "aroused some bands of Indians to a high degree of superstitious excitement. An old Delaware chief, whose name was Tate-e-bock-o-she, through whose influence a treaty had been made with the Delawares in 1804, was accused of witchcraft, tried, condemned and tomahawked. His body was then consumed by fire. [This execution, according to a footnote by Dillon, took place at the Indian village which stood about at the mouth of the creek at the present site of Yorktown, in this county. ]

"The wife of the old chief, his nephew, who was known by the name of Billy Patterson, and an aged Indian whose name was Joshua, were then accused of witchcraft and condemned to death. The two men were burnt at the stake, but the life of the wife of Tate-e-bocko-she was saved by her brother, who suddenly approached her, took 'her by the hand, and, without meeting with any opposition from the Indians who were present, led her out of the council house. He then immediately returned and checked the growing influence of The Prophet by exclaiming in a strong, earnest voice: 'The evil spirit has come among us and we are killing each other'."

When Governor Harrison received information of these events he sent to the Delawares on White river a special messenger with a speech in which the Indians were strongly entreated to renounce their delusions with relation to witchcraft and to reject the counsels of The Prophet, the address concluding with the admonition: "My children - do not believe that the great and good Creator of mankind has directed you to destroy your own flesh; and do not doubt but that if you pursue this abominable wickedness His vengeance will overtake and crush you."

Seventeen Fires" and then went on to say "I now speak to you from myself, as a friend who wishes nothing more sincerely than to see you prosperous and happy. Clear your eyes, I beseech you, from the mist which surrounds them. No longer be imposed upon by the arts of an imposter. Drive him from your town and let peace and harmony once more prevail amongst you. Let your poor old men and women sleep in quietness and banish from their minds the dreadful idea of being burnt alive by their own friends and countrymen. I charge you to stop your bloody career, and if you wish the friendship of your great father the President, if you wish to preserve the good opinion of the Seventeen Fires, let me hear, by the return of the bearer, that you have determined to follow my advice."

In a footnote to Harrison's Messages and Letters ("Indiana Historical Collections," Vol. VII, p. 182) Esarey points out that Harrison thought that this cultivation of the witchcraft delusion among the Delawares was a carefully laid plan of Tecumseh and The Prophet to get rid of the Indian chiefs and reorganize the tribes. Joseph Renard's son had been deposed among the Kikapoos and Winnemac was marked. Little Turtle was ignored and the old chief Teteboxti (Tate-e-bock-o-she) of the Delawares murdered. Tecumseh usurped the power of the Shawnee chiefs so much that they applied to Harrison for protection. He had followers in every tribe within a hundred miles and it seems insisted on the converts acknowledging the chieftainship of The Prophet.

White Prisoners Burned At Torture Post

In the printed reminiscences of James Shoemaker published in the Indiana Farmer for December 10, 1898, some years after the writer's death, and reproduced in the Indiana Magazine of History (Vol. I, No. 4), definite reference is made to the Delaware county "torture stake,' around which so much conflicting local tradition clings. It is apparent that this is not the same post at which the red victims of The Prophet's craft were immolated (at the present site of Yorktown), but another post which was erected at the village farther up the river at the point still designated as Old Town Hill, the place called Outainink by the Indians during the time of their occupancy of that point.

| are, in Wayne county, where his parents had settled upon coming into Indiana Territory from eastern Tennessee about 1809. Later this family, with three or four other families, became pioneers of what is now Randolph county, settling "in an almost impenetrable wilderness, surrounded by wild beasts and savage Indians." The Shoemaker reminiscence has it that "the nearest white man's cabin on the north was sixty or seventy miles (at Ft. Wayne) ; the nearest settlement on the east was fifteen or twenty miles. All west belonged to the Indians.

"Our pioneer fathers had all their provisions (except meat) tq procure in the old settlement, until they could raise the same at home, and that could not be done until they cleared, fenced and cultivated the ground. The roads over which they had to convey their provisions I will not describe, for they had none. The west line of my father's land was the dividing line between the old and the new purchase. Here (in the new purchase) the Indians were the bona fide owners of the soil, not having as yet ceded their lands to the United States. Notwithstanding the Indians professed friendship and came daily either to beg or to exchange baskets, moccasins, leggings or different kinds of embroidery for salt, meat, tobacco, meal, flour or anything you had to dispose of, yet they viewed each white person with jealousy and wished for an opportunity to do an injury. I recollect one day an Indian chief came to my father's house in his absence. He wanted some milk and butter. He had a deer skin to put his milk in. After getting his milk he wanted a saucer to carry his butter in. Mother refused to let him have the saucer, whereupon he became very angry, brandished his tomahawk and swore he wished it would be war again, so that he could get to scalp my mother and a man named Jordan.

"At that time the Indians had a stake or post, around which they burned their prisoners, in the adjoining county of Delaware. It was then near where Muncie now is. I saw this post in 1833. It was considerably burned and charred for several feet above the ground, and a rise or mound of eighteen or twenty inches around the post was overgrown with blue grass. It was then a standing monument of savage cruelty. .

"When I was a lad six or seven years old I would go to the Indian camps and play with the young Indians. Sometimes I would find them at their favorite sport - shooting with bows and arrows. At other times there would be a score or more young Indians lying in their camps, or in the shady grove, in a state of perfect nudity. In the morning the adult Indians would take guns, tomahawks and butcher knives, the younger class their bows and arrows, and start in pursuit of game, leaving the old squaws to perform the drudgery of the camp. They always went armed. From noon until dark the hunters would keep strolling in; one with a deer lashed on his back, another with a turkey, a third with a ham or shoulder of meat, or hog with the hair on, and still another with a raccoon, opossum, porcupine, groundhog, etc.

"The Indian men, women and children, and the dogs would occupy the same tent. The dogs generally slept on meal sacks, as they made them a nice soft bed. I have seen them bake their bread in this manner: They would first burn a brush pile, then rake off the coals and ashes, then roll out their dough, lay it down on the hot ground and cover it up with hot embers and coals, and it would soon bake, and the dog hairs would keep it from crumbling or falling to pieces.

"Tf I were to tell you how annoying the horseflies and mosquitoes were in the summer and fall seasons, you would not believe me, therefore I will not tell you. Wild animals, such as the bear, panther, wolf, catamount and wildcat were numerous and annoying. The settlers had to pen their sheep and hogs in their dooryards around their cabins every night, and even then the wolves and wild cats would often carry off the pigs and lambs, and even young calves, notwithstanding each settler was provided with a good rifle and from one to three dogs. The cows were belled and turned out to range, the horses were belled and hobbled. Each settler could identify the peculiar tinkle of the bells among twenty others. In the spring of the year we had different kinds of tea - tolbit, spicewood, sassafras and the chips of the sycamore, all of which make excellent tea for the spring of the year. While home-made sugar lasted, store tea, sugar and coffee were not in common use. From 1815 to 1823 there was many a young housewife who could spin, weave, cut out and make her husband a decent suit of clothes that did not know how to make a cup of store tea or coffee. . . . When we commenced growing wheat it was sown in the corn among the standing trees and stumps. It was cut with a reap hook and either threshed out with flails or tramped out on the ground with horses. In either case there was always dirt or gravel enough left in the wheat to sharpen your teeth, if not your appetite. When the wheat was threshed it was winnowed with a sheet, taken to a water mill on horse back, ground on a corn cracker, bolted by hand and taken home to be baked in a skillet for breakfast on Sundays."

Further Narratives Relating To Torture Post

Following the reproduction of the above in the Indiana Magazine of History, the editor of that journal (George S. Cottman) commented to the effect that "the allusion in the foregoing reminiscences to the old Indian torture stake that stood within the present bounds of Delaware county is one of the few testimonies to the existence of _ that barbarous relic. Of the various local histories and books of reminiscence only one, as far as we know, makes mention of it. This is the Rev. W. C. Smith's 'Indiana Miscellanies.' Mr. Smith describes the stake as of oak, about ten feet high, with the rough outline of a human face cut on either side. The fires, according to this writer, had been kindled in a circle around the stake at a distance of some five or six feet. When he saw it the ashes formed a perceptible ridge, and an outer circle, where the Indians had danced, was packed so hard that nothing would grow there.

"By inquiring through the columns of the Indiana Farmer, the present writer elicted three communications that contained considerable information touching the all but forgotten tradition of the old torture post, and these we reproduce in the order in which they appeared in the Farmer:

By Isaac Cartwright of Fillmore, Ind. - '"At the suggestion of friend George 8. Cottman of Irvington, I would with your permission add my testimony in regard to the old Indian stake in Delaware county. Sometime in the summer of 1841 or '42 father, mother and myself visited relatives then living in Yorktown, a small village about five or six miles west of Muncie. On our return home, then in Union county, Indiana, we were accompanied by Israel Shoemaker, brother of the late James Shoemaker before referred to, who was well acquainted in the vicinity, and when about half way from Yorktown to Muncie he pointed out to us the historic place now under consideration. The surrounding grounds were to some extent grown up with timber and underbrush, leaving a space of some twenty-five or thirty feet in diameter destitute of any growth except a little grass, The stake or post had been about seven or eight feet high and about sixteen or eighteen inches in diameter, but had rotted off at the top of the ground and had fallen down. A much used path led from the road to the post. There is no betrayal of memory in the above statement. Although many are the years that have come and gone, my recollection of the scene is as vivid as those of yesterday. As to how late this post was used I am unable to state."

By George W. Eddy of Columbia, Ind. - "At your request for information about the old Indian torture stake in Delaware county, I will give you and your readers the facts as I saw them in the year 1842. In the fall of that year, in company with my father and uncle, I journeyed to Delaware county from Fayette county. As we arrived within three or four miles south from Muncie my father asked me if I wished to take a look at the torture stake where the Indians used to torture their prisoners. As I was anxious to do so we left the team in care of my uncle and walked a short distance south from the main road through a beautiful grove of wild plum trees and underbrush. No doubt this was the same path that friend Isaac Cartwright speaks of. We found the circle with a carpet of fine blue grass growing over the ground. The post was lying on the ground in the center of the circle on a heap of fine coals. The post I should suppose had been about eight feet high from the ground. About five or six feet from the ground there was a portion of the post cut out or rounded out, as my father explained to me at the time, for the purpose of fitting the prisoner's head in at the time of torture; as the Indians bound their prisoners fast to the stake at all times of burning. A few years after this date I saw an old black and charred stake in the court house at Muncie, and was informed that it was the same torture stake that I saw in the circle south of Muncie."

By Samuel Cecil of Muncie - "Mr. Charles Fullhart handed me a copy of the Indiana Farmer of February 4, 1899, and cited me to an article written by Mr. Isaac Cartwright concerning the location of the old Indian torture stake, and requested me to correct some mistakes in the article, as I am the owner, for more than fifty years, of the land on which the historic stake stood, three miles southeast of the city of Muncie, in Center township, Delaware county, Indiana, on the old Richmond and Logansport state road. I first saw the stake in 1832. It was then standing, but somewhat inclined to the southeast.

It was some charred by the burning of the fagots. It stood near the center of the Indian village named Munsey, after the Indian chief. The place is now called Old Muncie or Old Town Hill. Soon after the tragedy, the Indians vacated the place and settled on the site where Muncie now stands, and called it New Muncie. The stake was eight or ten inches in diameter, and during the campaign of 1840 of William Henry Harrison for the Presidency, the Whig party took the stake away and sent parts of it to every state in the Union as a token of respect to him as an Indian fighter. The stake or post fell to the ground about 1836 or 1838. It stood fifty feet south of the road and a well beaten path led each way to the post through the dense undergrowth that had grown up after the evacuation of the village. About two acres had been entirely cleared off. I first plowed the ground in 1861 and could tell where every hut had stood by the ground being burned. The huts had been built in a circle with the council house in the center, near where the post stood. The village stood on an elevation of 100 feet above White river with a deep gully on the southwest and sloping gently to the south eighty rods to a creek called Juber, after an Indian chief. Beyond this creek forty rods stood an Indian trading post. Around this several acres had been cleared and cultivated in corn. What I have written is from my own observation.

"T will write a few lines from tradition. The most certain account of the burning at the stake I got from my mother. She lived in Kentucky near Lexington. The three men all lived where she was raised. I have forgotten the names of the two who escaped. The one that was burned was Smith. They were a scouting party from General Wayne's command. The Indians captured them near where Hagerstown now stands and brought them here, and held a council of war over them and decided to burn Smith in the presence of the other two, for some crime they had done. They were accused of killing a squaw and wounding another. Smith was tied to the post and fagots placed around him. The other two men were tied nearby with rawhide strings. Just at that time there came up a most terrific rain and thunder storm. It was then night and the Indians repaired to their huts. The rawhide strings became so wet that they stretched until the other two men got loose, but the lightning betrayed them before they had time to loosen Smith. The Indians gave chase, following them by the lightning flashes to the creek above mentioned where they leaped over a large tree that had fallen and escaped in the darkness. The Indians abandoned the chase. The men were nine days in reaching their home in Kentucky. They lived on roots and whatever game they could catch in the unbroken forests. This traditional narrative is closely corroborated by an Indian by the name of Jake, of the Musco tribe. His wife, Sally, and his son, James Musco, not being friendly with the other tribes, remained here with the first white settlers in April, 1820. The old folks soon died and James lived and worked among the whites for many years in this neighborhood. He was quite old when he died, and I had the honor to help inter him in the Rees cemetery."

The Neely Reminiscence

Thomas 8S. Neely's reminiscences (1880) carry a note concerning this old torture post, this having it that "on the farm of Samuel Cecil, in section 25, Center township, in 1839 [the year in which Mr. Neely arrived in Delaware county] was a piece of ground near the side of the then Richmond state road, where tradition says a Colonel Winchester was burned at the stake by the Indians. The stake was visible when I came and was charred. Around it, for a distance of some fifty feet, it was level and smooth and round, like a circus ring, only not thrown up on the circle. The tradition had gained considerable credence at the time, and all believed it to be true."

John S. Ellis's interesting reminiscences (1898) place the "torture post" locale in section 24 of Center township and the Muncie chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution has accepted this as the definite site and has erected a marker at the spot so designated. "Here among these hills," says the Ellis review, "was the famous 'Old Town,' and near here on the south line of section 24 is the place where legend says was planted the stake where the Indians executed their prisoners by burning them at the stake. It is said that the stake was afterward cut down and made into canes or walking sticks; but be this as it may, when we were boys there were many stories told of the ghosts that were seen hovering about the 'Old Town' hills, supposed to be the spirits of the departed Indians and their victims, and many bloodless battles were fought over again by these specters for the special delectation of the gullible and the superstitious. At one time the excitement ran so high that persons came for many miles around to witness the uncanny ghost dances at 'Old Town' hill, but after a certain painter, with other associates, had played ghost until they were about to be captured, or at least feared so, they desisted, which broke up 'the ghost business." The Paul Revere (Muncie) chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution also have set up a marker (in 1917), a boulder and bronze tablet, designating the site of the village maintained by the Delawares on the river bluff north of Muncie.

Savagery Of The Redskins

Were there several "torture posts" set up here during the period of the Delaware occupancy? The obvious discrepancy in the above narratives raises the question. Dillon places the scene at the present site of Yorktown. Cartwright places it midway between that village and Muncie, and Cecil and Ellis place it on Old Town Hill, which more nearly conforms to the general local tradition respecting this gruesome spot, and is so recognized by the local chapter of the D. A. R. Cartwright and Eddy state that they saw the remnant of the charred post in 1842. Cecil has it that the post was cut up into bits and distributed in 1840 as souvenirs of the Harrison campaign. Eddy has it that "a few years after" 1842 he saw an old charred post in the court house and was informed that it was the "torture stake."

How shall these differences be reconciled, or is it important that they should be? Indians generally were savages and the torture, even to the fire, of their prisoners was a common practice among them. It is not improbable that even among the generally peaceable and somewhat "Christianized" Delawares a torture stake may have been set up at any point suitable to their convenience and whatever inclination might at the moment of savagery move them. Hence there easily may have been more than one such relic of barbarism here. It is interesting that testimony regarding at least three has come down through definite sources, confirming some of the traditions clinging to the days of the beginning of white settlement hereabout.

"If it were possible to draw the veil and disclose a view of the now misty past," says Cockrum's "Pioneer History of Indiana," "many thrilling incidents would be seen that would melt the heart of the stoic and the wail of despair would be heard from those being tortured for no other reason than to gratify the hellish desire of the Indians to destroy. These things took place in this grand country of ours now inhabited by happy prosperous people, but once covered with Indians and Indian towns.

Territory, and not one in ten of them was ever heard of afterward. No doubt two-thirds of these helpless victims were burned at the stake by the Indians, they having no regard for age or sex, but as joyfully gloated over the death of the helpless infant or its mother as they did over a strong warrior whom they had captured. The Indian women would employ all manner of cruel torture to make their helpless victims more miserable. When burning at the stake they would keep the fire so low as to burn them only by slow degrees, causing them 'to suffer for many hours before death would come to their relief. . . . There have been a few instances where individual Indians have shown that the milk of human kindness was in them, but as a rule General Sheridan was right when he said that 'the only good Indians are dead Indians'."

About three months after the disastrous defeat of Gen. Arthur St. Clair's army by the Indians at the headwaters of the Wabash, over the line in Ohio (Ft. Recovery), in 1791, General Wilkinson visited the scene and his report on what he there saw has it that "the scene was truly melancholy. In my opinion those unfortunate men who fell into the enemy's hands with life, were used with the greatest torture - having their limbs torn off; and the women have been treated with the utmost indecent cruelty, having stakes as thick as a person's arm driven through their bodies. Believing that the whites made war merely to acquire land, the Indians crammed clay and sand into the eyes and down the throats of the dying and dead."

There are many accounts in the old books of the days of the Indian wars and of the terrors of the frontier, but they for the great part are closed to the youngsters of the present generation who perhaps regard the incidents of those days of the winning of the West as a story that has been told. They thus not only are unmindful of but uninformed concerning the terrible price paid for their common heritage in the beautiful lands of Indiana.

Nearby Evidences Of The Mound Builders

In the official catalog of prehistoric works east of the Rocky Mountains compiled by the Bureau of Ethnology (Smithsonian Institution) there is mention of many mounds and groups of mounds in Indiana, but none ascribed to Delaware county, though mention is made of a group of five small mounds in section 35 of Penn township and a group of three similar mounds in section 13 of Knox township in the neighboring county of Jay, and of an ancient burying ground near the Salamonie south of Portland; while in the neighboring county of Madison there is revealed an ancient earthworks on the banks of White river three miles east of Anderson and a mound of eliptical shape in section 5, township 18 north, range 7 east.

Mention also is made of mounds and enclosures near Newcastle in the adjacent county of Henry. The neighboring county of Grant is shown to have a group of small mounds on the bluff of the Mississinewa river a little north of Jonesboro, a number of small mounds in section 33 of Monroe township and near Black creek in Van Buren township; two mounds on the bluff east of the river near Marion and large mounds near the court house in Marion and in the city cemetery. In the neighboring county of Randolph there are several mounds, including the large circular works in Washington township, a number of small works north of the Mississinewa between Ridgeville and Fairview, an earth enclosure near Winchester and a circular enclosure in Franklin township. This survey does not reveal the existence of mounds in Blackford county.

No end of speculation may be indulged in when the Mound Builder is considered, for he still is a mystery. His story has not yet been told. He is not yet intelligibly tangent to any known race. He is not only prehistoric but unconnected. His silence is impressive. He is the Pelasgian of the western world. With the exception of his mounds and fortifications and of his stone and flint implements, of which there are countless evidences in Indiana, he left no record of his doings here or of the time of his coming or the time of his going. Evidently he was gone before the Indians came on the scene, for in the traditions of the latter there is no account of him. The study of the Mound Builder therefore is largely confined to a study of his mounds and of the implements he left, and in the conclusions based upon these studies the paleontologist, the ethnologist and the archeologist disagree. And when scientists are in disagreement the layman is left to conjecture. Scientists are divided into two schools on the whole question of glacial man in America and in the meantime the Mound Builder's identity continues a mystery.