Johnson County, Indiana - Chapter 3: The New Purchase and Its Grantors, 1881

Early in 1814, a large stream of emigration began flowing into the Indiana Territory. This had not entirely subsided during the war, but, after the Indian confederacy had been broken by the defeat and death of Tecumseh, and peace had been made, the eastern and southern people came rapidly in, filling up the old settlements and making new. The Whitewater and the lower of the White River valleys, and, in fact, all the tributaries of the Ohio within the bounds of the territory, were fast affording sites for the log cabins and clearings of the pioneers.

In 1816, Indiana was admitted as a State of the Union. At that time the population was 63,897, and, during the next few years, the increase was unprecedented for a new territory of that day. In 1820, the census gave a population of 147,178, an increase of more than 100 per cent in four years. At the time of the organization of the State, the northern Indian boundary line extended as far south as the northern boundary of Jackson County. A line drawn from that point so as to intersect the east boundary line near the corners of Randolph and Jay Counties, and thence west to the Wabash, a short distance above Terre Haute, and thence southeast to the place of beginning, inclosed the lands owned and occupied by the Delaware Indians. This country was watered by the White River and its numerous tributaries, and, as settlements were established in the counties bordering the Delaware Territory on the south, men "eagerly desired" that the Delaware title be purchased and their rich lands thrown open to emigration. Two attempts had been made on the part of the Federal Government to purchase their lands, but, owing to the blunders of the Commissioners appointed for the purpose, both had failed. In 1818, President Monroe appointed Jonathan Jennings, then Governor of the State, Gen. Cass and Mr. Benjamin Parke as Commissioners. Repairing to the St. Mary's in Ohio, the Delaware chiefs were met in council, and, on the 3d of October, a treaty was concluded, and the Delaware lands ceded to the United States, and for many years thereafter these lands were known as the "New Purchase." By the terms of the treaty the United States were obligated to pay the vendors a perpetual annuity of $4,000, provide them a suitable residence west of the Mississippi, and forever protect them in the enjoyment of the

\ melancholy interest attaches to the fate of a once powerful, though dow nearly extinct, people. If a hero, overpowered and falling before a superior force, claims our sympathy, surely we may "drop a tear at the fate of nations, whose defeat followed the exile, if it did not indeed shadow forth the decline and ultimate extinction, of a race." While we contemplate with feelings of honesl pride our well-improved and expanding farms, our fruitful orchards, our growing towns, alive with the din of business, and our comfortable country habitations, let us not forget the brave people who once had an undoubted right to our soil, who once took fish from our streams, game from our woods and pitched their bark tents on our hilly slopes, but who fled at the approach of the white man and sought for repose far beyond the confines of civilization.

At the time of the discovery and exploration of the West, the Miami tribe of Indians occupied the whole of Indiana, the western part of < )hio, the southern of Michigan, and the eastern of Illinois. Unlike most other tribes, the Miamis had no traditions of former migrations, and are presumed therefore to have occupied this land for a time " whence the memory of man runneth not to the contrary." Little Turtle, a celebrated chief of the Miamis, confirms this in a speech made to Gen. Wayne at the treaty of Greenville, in 1795. " You have pointed out to us," said the unlettered orator, " the boundary line between the Indians and the United States ; but I now take the liberty to inform you that the line cuts off from the Indians a large portion of country which has been enjoyed by my forefathers from time immemorial, without molestation or dispute. The prints of my ancestors" houses are everywhere to be seen in this portion. * * - * It is well known by all my brothers present, that my forefathers kindled the first fire at Detroit ; from there he extended his lines to the headquarters of the Scioto ; thence to its mouth ; thence down the Ohio to the Wabash, and thence to Chicago, on Lake Michigan."

Events had transpired many years before the delivery of this speech, which more directly concerned the immediate ownership of the land of which I write. While the Cavaliers were building Jamestown and digging for " fool's-gold " on Virginia ground, and the Puritans were exploring the headlands of the Massachusetts Bay and burning witches at Salem, the Leni Lenape, or Original People, were occupying "New Jersey, the Valley of the Delaware, far up toward the sources of that river, and the entire basin of the Schuylkill." This nation was made up of two tribes or families, the Minsi and the Delawares. About the middle of the eighteenth century, their country was overrun by an irruption of the Five Nations, and themselves defeated, whereupon the Delawares set their faces to the setting sun, crossed the mountains and settled upon the banks of the Muskingum. Here, however, they did not long remain, but, on invitation of the Miami people, they left shortly before the beginning of the Revolutionary war, and settled in the White River country. With them came a few families of the Mohican and Minsi tribes. A grant was made them by the Miamis of all the lands watered by the White River, and confirmed by the delivery of a belt of wampum, according to the unwritten law of the red man. In 1808, this grant was formally recognized by the United States, and was reduced to writing at the city of Washington by President Jefferson, which writing was preserved by the chiefs of the tribe with great care, until they sold their lands to the Government in 1818.

At the expiration of the time for which the Delawares had reserved possession, they were removed by the Government west of the Mississippi and located within the present boundaries of the State of Kansas. But even there they were not permitted long to remain. A remnant of the tribe - a mere fragment in comparison to what they were even when they left their huntinggrounds in Indiana, have again set their faces to the setting sun, and doubtless ere this, have lost their identity in the more numerous savage bands about them.

The moral condition of the Delaware Indians at the time of the cession must have been deplorable. Isaac McCoy, a missionary to the Weas, on the Wabash, traveled through the Delaware towns in 1819, and made a note of his observations among them. He found them spiritless and thriftless, given to drunkenness and debauchery. The rights of property were but little respected, and murder was not uncommon. In 1810, a party of Indians visited Whetzel's, and one of them, by the name of Nosey, shot at a mark with young Cyrus. The white man making the better shot, Nosey became indignant and quarrelsome, whereupon Cyrus proposed a second contest, and this time the Indian came out the victor. The party then left, but had not got far beyond the Bluffs, when Nosey, who was still in a bad humor, killed one of his comrades. According to the Indian code of laws, he was given "twelve moons" in which to make reparation to the friends of the dead by paying them $100 in money, or that sum in deer-skins. The twelve moons came and went, but the price of life was not forthcoming. Then Nosey " gave himself up." " He was taken to a tree, his arms drawn up to a limb, his legs parted, his ankles fastened to stakes driven in the ground, and then he was stabbed under the arms and in the groin with a butcher knife, and tortured in other ways until life was extinct."

Owing to the great abundance of game throughout Central Indiana, the place was a favorite resort for the Indians. When Johnson County was first settled, their deserted camps were found on the most eligible sites along all the water-courses, and their graves are yet disturbed in the opening of nearly every gravelly knoll. Tradition and certain facts of historical moment, elsewhere discussed, point to the fact that a thriving Indian town was at one time located on the right bank of White River, within the present borders of Johnson County, and that a battle was fought between the white and red men there, and the town destroyed. For many years after the country was settled, the Indians returned at certain seasons to hunt in the Johnson County woods ; and, when the Delawares had gone, hunting parties came in from other tribes. The Miamis were encamped on Indian Creek after Richardson Hensly had settled there. The Wyandots hunted on the Hurricane in 1825. About the same time, a band of Indian hunters with their families made a camp where Indian Creek, of Franklin Township, empties into Young's Creek, and from this circumstance, Levi Moore gave it the name of Indian Creek. In 1825, the Indians, in large numbers, were on Sugar Creek, and it was shortly before this that a young chief, while out fire-hunting one night, was accidentally shot and killed, and his remains buried on the high bank not far from Needham's Spring. And, when James Kinnick moved in 1832 to the land afterward entered by him in Clark Township, and on which his son William now lives, the remains of an Indian village were found with one of the wigwams in a good state of preservation. Kinnick learned that the Indians had deserted the place only a few years before, and that it had been occupied by a band of the Pottawatomies. On Burkhart's Creek, at Simon Covert's cabin, Henry Byers', Thomas Roberts', Needham's, Adams', on Blue River, White River, Sugar Creek, Young's Creek, Nineveh, Stotts Creek, Indian Creek - evervwhere - we hear of Indians being encamped at intervals for several years after the first settlements were made.