Dubois County, Indiana - Chapter 8: Epitome on Pioneers and Their Ethnography in Dubois County, 1910

Life in Dubois county - Water the great highway upon which pioneers traveled - Creeks bear the names of early settlers - Blazing a path through the forest - The Buffalo trace, and its importance as an overland route - Buffalo pond - The first paper in Indiana - Corduroy roads, forts and taverns - Buckingham's base line - Settlers in the north half of Dubois county; settlers in the south half of Dubois county - Neglected grave-yards - Religious history of Harbison township - Piankishaw Indian villages - Isolation of Dubois county - Wedding invitations - German accent.

It was said by Cicero that " not to know what happened before we were born, is to remain always a child, for what were the life of man did we not combine present events with the recollections of the past " ?

The ptirpose of this history will be easily divined as we pass from chapter to chapter. A fair impression will appear of what has entered into the county's making from its earliest beginning in the wilderness down to the present time. To some there is no other romance more picturesque and strange than the story of actual life, and life in Dubois county has not been less romantic than life in surrounding counties. From the first footfall of the white man in her forest down to this hour, our county, as wilderness, clearing, farm, and home has played well its part.

If you carefully scan the pages of the history of the world j'ou will find water to have been the great highway upon which discoverers, explorers, and conquerers traveled. This holds true of races, families, tribes, and individuals, in going to new continents, countries, islands, territories, or even counties. Consider for a moment how many states and counties bear the names of rivers. As a rtile the rivers first bore the names and from them they passed to the state or county. In counties, settlements were frequently named in reference to creeks, and creeks bore the names of the early settlers or explorers. For example. Cane creek, Dillon creek. Hall creek, Hunle^^ creek. Green creek, Risley creek, and many others in our own county. When waterways were wanting forest paths had to be marked out or sometimes even cleared so that man or beast could pass through.

No Hoosier pioneer, woodman, guide, forester, or camper-out needs to be told the meaning of blaze - he knows it as he knows his alphabet. Should we turn to the dictionary we would find it to mean : " To indicate or mark out, as by cutting off pieces of the bark of a number of trees in succession, as to blaze a path through a forest." In the early days when southern Indiana was nearly covered with forests, when cjearings were being made and when there were few or no roads, travel from place to place or from neighbor to neighbor was by means of the blazed paths through the forest. Hunters and woodsmen were in the habit of blazing their course through the deep woods in order that they might not become lost, but at any point that they might be able to retrace their steps by means of the blazed trees to their place of starting or of entering the woods. It is said that Father Kundeck, the founder of Ferdinand, blazed his way through the woods from Jasper, while prospecting for a suitable site to lay out a new town.

It is pleasing to record that the animal world, in the shape of the buffalo, now remembered upon the great seal of our state, served so efficiently as a guide to the pioneers of southern Indiana and our own county in particular. It was the custom of this animal to travel in herds. The buffaloes after feeding upon a species of short, sweet grass, on the prairies of Illinois, crossed the Wabash river below Vincennes, turned south and crossed White river at what was called " Rocky ford," passed through Pike county near Otwell. and through Dubois county near the Sherritt graveyard ; marching on east through Union Valley in Columbia township into Orange county, they passed the initial point in the surveys of the Northwest Territory; thence going southeast they crossed the Ohio river at the " Falls," their destination being the Big Bone and Blue Licks as well as the present blue grass region of Kentucky. To these salt springs they came in armies too great to be counted. After feeding in Kentucky they returned to Indiana and Illinois over this same path. This was an annual occurrence. Near these licks in Kentucky their path was twenty feet wide.

By their annual pilgrimage these wild animals kept a path opened through the forests of southern Indiana, which forest is said to have been one of the densest in the Mississippi valley. They thus marked the way on old mother earth for the coming of civilization. To day their cousins are following their worthy example in darkest Africa.

This buffalo trace, sometimes called "Mud Hole Trace," was for many years the only overland route from and to the first capital of Indiana from the east. Gen. Harrison, the first territorial governor, and later the ninth president, went over this route in 1801, on his way to Vincennes, and for that reason it is frequently called the Governor' s Trace, or Vincen7ies Trace. George Rogers Clark Sullivan, who was prosecuting attorney of this circuit in pioneer days, found his way here by following this old trace. To-day evidences of it remain in some of our highways, which still follow the trace, in what are known as buffalo wallows in Columbia township, and in Buffalo Pond, near Jasper. Here the animal fed upon the wild cane, beds of which may be seen to this day. The buffalo himself is gone, and about all in the neighborhood of the pond that reminds us of his buffaloship is the gnat that makes himself so obnoxious on summer afternoons. But why dwell so long on this old buffalo path? Simply because it was the first all-land path to our own county, and over it traveled hundreds and hundreds of pioneers to this, Pike, and Knox counties, and to the Illinois country. Along this trail the emigrants traveled in search of land on which to settle. Along it came the power that conquered the wilderness and compelled it to yield up its hidden wealth to enrich humanity.

The first paper in Indiana issued its first number July 4, 1804, at Vincennes. The type and files of this paper were destroyed by fire in 1807. The outfit, type, paper, ink, etc., to re-establish the IVester?/. Sun were carried from Louisville over this trail on pack horses. For years afterwards all the paper used in its publication was carried over this trail. This route was traveled so much when civilization dawned that the mud holes in it were covered with corduroy. In some places its logs or rails remain to-day.

It was along this path that the first cabin in the clearing stood in Dubois count3\ and where the county was organized. A fort for the protection of settlers was erected, courts were first held here, and here our school system began. Taverns were erected for the wayfaring man, and gunsmiths plied their useful trade, to the satisfaction of the Indian as well as of the pioneer. The first graveyard found its silent acre by its side, while soldiers, emigrants, adventurers, governors, and ministers followed its weary way. Buckingham's base line, from which millions of acres of land in the Northwest Territory count their bearings, crosses this path time and again, its location itself being due to the buffalo trace.

The north half of Dubois county first fell within the white man's power. The settlers came from Pennsylvania, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Kentucky, in 1802, all following the path of the buffalo. The southern part came within the pale of civilization at a later date through the efforts of our German friends. This is shown by actual dates and names of individual settlers. Though all these were lost, a student could demonstrate the correctness of the statement. For example, divide Dubois county into halves by an east and west line; that would be a line just south of Jasper. North of that line we have Hillham, Cuzco, Crystal, Haysville, Portersville, Ireland, Jasper, Dubois, Ellsworth - all of American origin, and only Kellerville and Celestine that bear evidences of the German. On the other hand, south of that line, we find Schnellville, St. Anthony, Bretzville, Huntingburg, Holland, Johnsburg, and Ferdinand, all showing foreign origin, while only Birdseye, Altoga, Kyana, St. Marks, and Duff show a mixture or an American source.

Orange county, northeast of us, was settled by people from North Carolina. In fact, it is named in honor of their home county away down in their native state. The same line of people came on west and found at least a temporary home in Dubois county. Some of their old cotton fields may be seen to-day, while rocks from their old cotton gin lie near the scenes of its early usefulness. Colored servants rest beneath the sod in forgotton fields. As a rule, the earlj' settlers were abolitionists, and their descendants were the first in Dubois county to answer Lincoln's call to arms.

Were all written records of their passage through our county obliterated, you could read its history in the private graveyard to be found on nearly every long-settled farm in northern Dubois, while the graceful willow, the tall pine, and the green cedar to be found near old established house sites bear evidences of southern tastes.

In speaking about the south half of Dubois county, it is better to say it was colonized. The Germans, as a rule, came here in colonies, and immediately established places of worship and interment. Hence, private graveyards are not to be found, except where an American found a habitation and a home before our German friends found their way hither.

The American pioneer came from a countr}- scarcely more settled, brought his horse, his ox, his cow, his dog, his gun, and his family, to remain as long as fancy dictated, then to move on with the firing line of civilization. The German came from his crowded home in Europe. He brought his belts of gold and his family, and settled down in the heart of the wilderness to remain; hence his work was permanent.

Some of the pioneer graveyards are strange, sad places. Many are now open spaces, unfenced, with the roughest possible surface, while some are plowed over annually. Sometimes large forest trees have grown on the unkept graves, whose very existences are known only by the sunken surfaces, and the smooth French Lick grit stones, upon which is the record in the scrawling characters of early days. Sometimes wanton bushes hide broken stones and wild running vines cover long forgotten names. From every sunken and dismantled grave there comes a tale. That, of course, is a myster}' forever. Some pioneers were put away in walnut coffins rudely constructed. Occasionally one is found in a good state of preservation, save that the ochre stain used on the cofl&n has disappeared.

Frequently these old graveyards were in one corner of the farm, where surveyors often found them while locating property lines and corners. In some places in this county they have fallen into the hands of owners who, lacking in interest and sentiment, use them as lots upon which to feed their stock. In many cases the crumbling stones are hidden beneath shrubbery grown rank. Again dead trees support tangled and unpruned vines. Ivy runs wild over name and epitaph. For those forgotten graves without markers there is no bloom now save that of the "paradise tree," sorrel grass, mullein, and white clover. Time equalizes all things. What is left but mother earth ? These forgotten and desecrated graves may be but a phase in our county's history, but what a phase ! One that would put to blush a Chinese or an Indian - who do not allow the desecration of the bones of their ancestors. Is it possible that land in Dubois county has become so valuable that the graves of the very men who gave their lives to wrest and develop this county from the wilderness should be used for material or commercial purposes?

Various church houses and parsonages came and went (as have the pioneers) to be succeeded by structures of other religious denominations. The most striking illustration of this is the religious history of Harbison township. It once contained several English speaking churches; now none remain. At Haysville years ago was a well established Methodist Episcopal church and parsonage. Now the graveyard is all that remains of that congregation. The iron fences and granite headstones are being crushed to earth by the falling of forest trees. Its unmarked graves have been obliterated by the rains and snows of winter. The Methodist Episcopal church house has been "enlarged," "improved," and is now a village blacksmith shop, while a few crumbling logs are all that remain of the old parsonage. We are not measuring the relative worth or value of different church denominations, or even nationalities, but simply recording observations.

The Scotch-Irish settlers of this county brought with them the Presbyterian creed, and they have demonstrated some tenacity and staying qualities. Their location is in the northwestern section of the county.

The construction of the Wabash and Erie canal near Petersburg made itself felt even this far from its bed, in that some of our pioneers reached here over this watery route. In one sense this far reaching effect is not surprising for 106675 53 acres of land in Dubois county were donated by the general government toward its construction. The grant contained thirty-nine per cent of the county's area.

So isolated was the county that even in 1830, when Jasper became the county seat, not one forty-acre-tract south and east of the Southern railroad had been entered. Buying land of the government was then called ' 'enterijig it. ' '

Before 1800, there were two Piankishaw Indian villages near Jasper; one on what is now the Troy road at the hill north of Straight river, and one on the hill where the Southern railroad passes between Buffalo pond and Patoka river two miles northeast of Jasper. The roadbed cuts through the Indian burial ground. Both villages were located upon hills facing the south and toward small rivers. Whether this is a coincidence or was intentional can not now be ascertained, but it has been observed that the Indians in this locality buried their dead near flowing water.

For years Dubois county was practically alone in the wilderness. No large navigable rivers touched her territory and transportation was always a factor in going to and from the county. The county did not lie in the lines followed by state or other great internal improvements. The Ohio river is one county south of us, the New Albany and Paoli "turnpike" one county east, the Baltimore and Ohio Southwestern railroad one county north, and the Wabash and Erie canal was one county west. Thus it sat isolated as it were from the great highways of travel, and in all the grandeur of a primeval forest. Consequently the early settlers and emigrants were left to "reason in a circle," until the construction of the Southern railroad.

Their isolation caused them to retain many customs of their native states or the country of their nativity. A few may yet be noticed, for in one part of our county a rather poetic, pleasing, and picturesque custom prevails of conveying and accepting wedding invitations. A friend of the high contracting parties is commissioned to invite friends to the wedding. He carries a staff as a badge of honor and "symbol of authority." Mounting his horse he rides from house to house as instructed. He delivers the invitation and the invited party ties a silk ribbon a yard long to the staff as an acceptance of the invitation and an emblem of joy over the favor bestowed. Since each invited guest chooses any color of ribbon his fancy suggests, by the time the staff is returned to the prospective bride it bears all the colors of the rainbow with all their shades and tints. If the invited party has no ribbon at hand, the money for its purchase is given to the bearer of the invitation, who secures the article at the village store. Thus the children and grand children, even unto the fourth generation, have souvenirs galore.

Another point noticed by strangers is that nearly everyone in Dubois county - the real American as well as the hyphenated American - has a German accent in his speech, or uses German idioms. Lapses in pronunciation have never been punished with death on the banks of the Patoka, as at the fords of the Jordan, where the shibboleth test is said to have cost forty and two thousand lives.

Let us add that the gradual rise of Dubois county has been accomplished by phenomena of unusual interest and variety, and whatever contributions the county may make to the total of Indiana's achievement - as a state - are to be valued in the light of her history and development. The origin of the pioneers of the county, the influences that wrought upon them, the embarrassments that have attended the later generations in their labors, become matters of moment in any inquiry that is directed to their intellectual and social history.

Dubois county has given to the state no great men, but it is not of so much importance that individuals within a county shall from time to time succeed and show unusual talent or genius, as that the general level of patriotism, education, manhood, honesty, and the cardinal virtues in full, shall be continually raised.