Johnson County, Indiana - Chapter 8: Through Johnson County Fifty-Five Years Ago, 1881

After a hard day's travel along the Whetzel trace, the writer, then a lad, just entered into his sixteenth year, accompanied by his mother, an elderly widow lady of sixty, called at the residence of Lewis Morgan, in the northwest pa'rt of Shelby County, Ind. It was Saturday evening of the last week in October, 1825. Between his house on the "trace" and the northwest part of Johnson County, their place of destination, there was at that time but one house, if house it could be called, and that was the celebrated Nathaniel Bell's. Bell's location was at the great crossing of the Whetzel and Berry traces. This crossing of the two traces was renowned for a hundred miles away in every direction, and was a prominent point in all the travels of the pioneers in the New7 Purchase. Morgan's was the last house - the only chance for a lodging in a distance of twenty miles westward ; for Bell's was generally avoided. Morgan's was the place aimed at when leaving in the morning forty miles eastward. " By hard travel, you can reach Morgan's by night. He is a first-rate man, his house is your last chance," said our parting host when we left him in the morning. Then the pioneers knew one another for fifty or a hundred miles away, quite as well as cold-hearted neighbors know7 one another now7 only a mile apart. Wearied and jaded by horseback riding, we called at the last place, Lewis Morgan's, late in the evening, and politely requested a lodging for an old lady and a boy. The request was kindly granted, and we were welcomed into the pioneer residence of this good man as if we had been former intimate acquaintances. I shall never forget that night. I was only a boy from an old settlement across the Ohio, where manners and customs w7ere fossilized, and* admitted of little change. Here everything was new and startling. A thousand questions were propounded by me and obligingly and intelligently answered by Mr. Morgan. I wish I could recall tlir whole conversation. I would incorporate it verbatim as part of this first entrance into Johnson County, believing that it would contain much that would be interesting to the present population along Sugar Creek. Mr. Morgan had been to the Legislature; he was a fine talker, a fair type of the pioneers who first gave shape to the policy of our State in its embryonic condition. He gave me a history of his exploits in the chase in pursuit of the wild game then everywhere abundant ; the public surveys of the wild lands around him by the Messrs. Hendricks ; the dense and tangled jungles of brushwood and fallen logs along the rich valley of Sugar Creek ; the difficulty of traveling in a direct line through them ; of men frequently lost for many days before they could find their way out. Said he : " One fine Sunday morning in July, I visited Sugar Creek, and, looking down the stream, I saw, a mile away, some moving object in the creek wading up stream. Its nearer approach showed it was a man with tattered garments and bare-headed, either Indian or white man. He never left the stream, but waded in the water. Occasionally he halted, and, as if in doubt about something, threw a piece of drift-wood into the stream and carefully watched its motions as if to ascertain whether he was ascending or descending." Mr. Morgan concluded that he was insane, and announced himself to this strange being. When he discovered Mr. Morgan, he no longer waded, but, leaping on the shore, ran toward him extending his arms to embrace him. In half-choked words, he cried, " God bless your soul ! I never was so glad to see a man in my life. For ten days I have been lost, and wading the water, and subsisting on berries." Was the man insane ? By no means. Instead, he was one of the finest woodsmen in the State. The eastern and western parts of the State were first occupied by white men, leaving an intermediate space occupied by the Indians, and which constituted, when finally sold by them, the " New Purchase," about which we are now writing. This lost man made frequent trips across this intermediate wild portion, as business required, without regard to trail or trace. On this trip, he must have struck the valley of Sugar Creek, near Needham's. He was thirsty. He came to a low, rich valley, covered with spicewood. In his judgment, it was a valley of some stream of water near at hand. Leaving his horse in an open space to graze, and throwing down his overcoat, he went on foot in search of it. He traveled on and on, the valley was unchanged, and there was no water. He turned back and sought in vain, but could not find his horse by retracing his steps. By calling him, however, the horse came to him, but he never found his overcoat. Remounting, he endeavored to resume his former line of direction through the impervious spicewood, prickly ash and over prostrate logs, but in vain ; he always returned into his former trail. Then he turned his horse loose to shift for himself, and, by watching his movements, he endeavored to move in a straight line, but in vain. Always he moved in a curve. For several days he floundered about through the dense brushwood and over fallen Logs in this valley. In hi.s wanderings, however, he al last reached Sugar Creek. He had a knowledge of this locality, of Whetzel's trace to the north of him, and of the 9ettlers on it. Starting up stream, he found the creek very crooked, and. to shorten his route, he endeavored to cut across its bends, but, as before, ever found himself going the wrong way. and down stream. Determined no longer to be foiled, he stepped into the water and waded, and often tested, by throwing light pieces of driftwood, whether he was going up or down. By this test only, was he enabled to follow the -tream in the desired direction. This story is strictly given as received, and Mr. Morgan's character for truth and veracity is an infallible guaranty of it- truthfulness.

The next morning was Sunday, and. having bidden good bye to our kind friend, under his direction we were sent around the north end of the " Great Gulf," as it was usually called, thus leaving Whetzel's trace at Morgan's, and going up Sugar Creek, first on one side and then crossing at Hun's Mill and traveling up the west bank till our northing amounted to two or three miles, thence westward, near where Madison Morgan long after resided, and crossing Flat Creek and Leatherwood, at the north end of the Gulf, and thence along its western bank to a point directly west of Lewis Morgan's, to the Whetzel trace, at a point called at the time Loper's Cabin, but long before known and named Camp Creek by the "W netzels. When Whetzel marked out his trace in the summer of 1818, the weather being exceedingly dry. the waters of the great gulf had disappeared, and he ran straight across it from Morgan's to Camp Creek. Here lie found drinkable water, the first after crossing Sugar Creek. At this place. Jacob Whetzel established his camp and operated both ways in opening his trace to the emigrant and traveler, carrying water to drink through the day, and at night returning to Camp Creek, until the waters of Honey Creek became accessible. He. therefore, named the little brook that quenched his thirst and ran by his camp. Camp Creek, since most shamefully and ungratefully changed into Hurricane, because of a few windfalls found along its banks. Here is the primitive point within the borders of Johnson County, where the first ax was lifted, up against the forest with reference to the ingress of civilization into the rich valley of White River. Jacob Whetzel and Cyrus, his son, were the pioneers of the "New Purchase," and, while yet the Indians held dominion over it, by permission of their chiefs they cut out the fir.-t highway in the summer of 181s, and drove the first team over it in isr.i. He opened the way to the emigrant, and secured an early occupation of the country. In justice to their memory, the streamlet should still be called Camp Creek, for the name would provoke inquiry into its origin ; or, better still, as a posthumous tribute to their merits and worth, the name should be Whetzel's Creek.* But let us return to Sugar Creek; it must not be passed so unceremoniously. It was very low in its waters, but they were the purest, the sweetest, the most limpid imaginable, and elicited an involuntary exclamation : " Oh how beautiful, how appropriate, the name Sugar Creek!" Who gave it the name, and for what reasons, I know not; but to me its qualities justified the name it bore. Every pebble at the bottom shone as if its colors were intensified as they gleamed like brilliants through its limpid waters. Huff's Mill, shortly to be, was at the crossing on the east side of Sugar Creek ; that is, the basement story was up ; but, at the urgent demand for bread, the proprietor was putting down the grinding machinery as the next step in its progress. When I returned on this same route about the middle of November afterward, the grinding was in full play on Sunday, with a temporary covering only. The great gulf is as yet an unsolved problem. It is a depression of two or three miles west of Sugar Creek, being three or four miles in length, and having the same direction and about the same capacity with the present valley of Sugar Creek. Whether that stream once occupied that basin, but was forced, by driftwood and the agency of the beavers. to cut another channel, might yet be determined by a careful examination. Two small creeks entered at the north end, but soon lost their channels, and then mingled their waters and covered the basin generally throughout the year. It sustained a growth of heavy timber of such kinds as would grow in it. It was, during long years after I first saw it, the home of bears, wolves, catamounts, panthers and other wild animals. A volume could be written of the exploits of two brothers named Hosier, who settled near its north border, and who, by traps, guns and dogs, made sad havoc of wolf cubs, catamounts and other game. A more dismal place I never saw, and, as we rode around it for six miles or more - an old woman and a boy - I trembled with fear. Added to the gloom of this dismal place, away to the northwest was an Indian encampment, making the most of their privilege to hunt here.f They seemed to be making a drive of the

*And I now propose to the neighborhood around Wbetzel's old camp to meet and organize an artangement whereby each shall contribute a nigger-head on this location, that it may b« preserved, and that they cause a suitable inscription to be made on a smooth stone, showing that Jacob and Cyrus Whetzel here erected the first habitation toward the ingress of civilization into Johnson County. -- "- game to the southward, the direction we were traveling to Loper's, on Camp Creek. The constant crack of the rifle, the crash of the brushwood caused hy the troops of the flying, frightened deer as they rushed thundering on with branching horns and tails erect, widespread, grandly leaping high above the shrubbery, with heads and eves averted as if to see the distant foe, and the widely scattered flock of wild turkeys as they sped on with long, outstretched necks, half on foot, half on wing, far as the eye could reach, was altogether a sight - one never to be forgotten by an old lady and a boy unused to such a wild display. In our approach to Loper's Cabin, at the camping grounds on Camp /Jreek, the wolf paths leading to the encampment along the side of the road were as continuous and well beaten in the soft soil as hog paths about a farm, and great plantigrade foot prints over the muddy grounds showed that Bruin often quitted his secret hiding covert in the gulf and roamed abroad. Camp Creek afforded good water, and from the time the Whetzels first erected their camp here until the trace ceased to be used as a highway, here was the emigrant's hotel. In the morning, as they moved on, the wolves entered to devour the dead animals and the garbage left in the encampment. Daniel Loper was a wild man. I could never learn whence he came, nor yet where he went when he left Johnson County. The first we knew of him was in October of 1820. Then he had erected a hut at the crossing of the Whetzel and Berry traces, on the northeast quarter of southeast quarter of Section 7, in Township 13 north, and Range 4 east, lately owned by the Brackets. He kept a sort of entertainment there - that is, a man felt that he was not quite out of doors when he stayed in his cabin.

Nathaniel Bell came from Ohio in 1821 along the Whetzel trace, destined for the Eel River country in search of some eligible situation for a home for himself and family. He rode on horseback with a sack under him, in which he carried his provision. His horse carried a bell around his neck, which was kept silent by day, but when night came Bell made a camp, unloosed the bell, hobbled the horse, turned him out to graze, and then lay down to sleep. Bell, having explored the Eel River lands, and not liking them, returned and called at the cabin of John Doty, who had located a camp on the school section, near the center of the present White River Township, the 8th of May, 1821. Here he disclosed his purpose, and that was to get a description of the land at the crossing of the traces and enter them at Brookville on his way home, and then settle there and keep a tavern and build a horse-mill and a distillery for whisky. Applying to Peter Doty, son of John Doty, for aid in getting a description of the land,

Peter agreed to furnish it for $1, but Bell declared he had no money beyond the sum necessary to enter the land. Finally, Peter agreed to accept the bell on the horse, and the desired information was thus obtained. Bell forthwith ordered Daniel Loper to leave his cabin, as the land was now his. Thus, under a threat of expulsion and a claim of ownership falsely made, Loper was driven out and retired to Whetzel's old camp, and there erected another hut and occupied it one or two years. Here Loper continued to reside for a time, and give such aid and lodging as he could to emigrants. Loper, when he first came to the county, had a man living with him by the name of John Varner. Varner made several trips to White Water with an old wagon and a yoke of oxen belonging to Loper, and in exchange for the fruits of the chase received and brought back provisions, and occasionally a few gallons of bad whisky. Whether from the unhealthiness of Camp Creek, on the borders of the gulf, or other cause, John Varner took sick and suddenly died. By some means, Loper got word to John Doty to come and assist in his burial. John Doty and his son Peter responded at once, taking with them a shovel for digging the grave. When they arrived, Loper, despairing of assistance, had gone to work with a garden hoe, the only implement for digging he had, and with which he dug, throwing out the earth with his hands. The grave was soon ready. But there was no coffin, nothing except a large trough. Into this they put his body, and covered the trough with a rude slab split from a log, and thus was John Varner buried at Camp Creek.

Thus we have endeavored to snatch from oblivion the history of the beginning, the introduction of civilization into Johnson County, and we date it back to the fall of the year of 1818, at Whetzel's camp on Camp Creek. We have shown how this camp was afterward changed to Loper' s cabin, and known by that name for a distance of 100 miles. We have the strange burial here of the attache of Loper, perhaps in the year 1823. It may have been the first funeral in the north half of Johnson County. When John Varner died, Loper abandoned Whetzel's old camp and the cabin he and Varner had built, and left for parts unknown, leaving the bones of Varner to hold their silent vigils over the place, until the strange coffin was despoiled of the bones of the dead Varner in after years by some foolish young students of anatomy. After Loper left Camp Creek, the place continued to be known as the emigrants' hotel. During the fall season, the place at night was very seldom occupied. Several acres were trodden over by men and their animals, just as if a large army had en- camped upon its grounds. Loper's pole hut was still there, but uncovered. There were scattered about many inclosures built of poles and brush to restrain the movers' stock from wandering away during the night, and altogether it was a very public place.

And now, having finished the history of the first point in the settlement of Johnson County, and the introduction of civilization. I propose before resuming my journey westward, that the people along this little creek shall, in justice to Jacob Whetzel, restore to it its original and rightful name, Camp Creek. Camp Creek has a history. The other name has not, and to perpetuate the name of the beginner of our present prosperity, let it be Whetzel's Camp Creek.

Bidding adieu to Camp Creek with its strange associations and incidents, we continued on the Whetzel trace westward, meeting five or six men who were off for a bear hunt on the borders of the gulf. We were alarmed at the sight of these men as they approached, thinking they were Indians. They were exceedingly rough, large men, with uncouth apparel, dressed in buckskin pants, bearskin caps, each with a large fire-lock on his shoulder, while six or eight great, ugly wolf-dogs were in company. These men were a party of Bell's, then a power in the land. They treated us kindly, and directed us in our travels. Seven miles from Camp Creek, in the midst of a dismal forest of trees, briars and brushwood, there broke suddenly on our view Bell's horsemill and its surroundings. It was a quiet Sabbath evening, but the mill was in full clatter, with its unequaled humdrum produced by its loose machinery. Twenty or thirty men stood around in clusters in friendly chat, and forty to fifty horses in working trim were hitched in every direction. The mill was far behind in its grinding, and was running night and day without halting for Sunday. The men were waiting for their several turns to grind, for the mill ground in the orders of their arrival, and if a man was absent when his turn came, the next succeeded to his right. The history of Nathaniel Bell and his mill and his elan of adherents around him, generally bold, bad men, would make a large volume. I shall therefore pass by him, for the present, at least. At this point, we left W7hetzel's trace in a northerly direction, and in a couple of hours found ourselves at the end of our journey in the midst of our near kindred, and so ends my first trip into and across Johnson County, nearly fifty-five years ago.