Noble County, Indiana - The whole text, 1902 (part 2 of 21)

The following June ( 1610) the Iroquois, too confident of their invincibility, despatched a small band ( 100) of warriors on a foray into Canada. They were surrounded by a vastly superior force of Indians and French, under Champlain; and preferring death to captivity, nearly all were killed. But defeat, even more than victory, increased the hostility of the Iroquois to the French, and the cause of France in all of its aspects. They were not weakened nor discouraged, but increased in strength and defiant confidence, and the ugly obstacle to French progress loomed larger at the gate of the Ohio valley.

The Brighter Side

Within a few years from the founding of the first permanent settlement at Quebec, Governor Champlain had ingratiated himself and the cause of France with the majorit)- of the natives of the St. Lawrence valley and adjacent region. Through the incessant and adventurous devotion of the French priests, the Cross of Christ was borne through the remotest regions, an emblem of peace and brotherhood, and its holy significance was everywhere well translated to the souls of the savages by the self-sacrificing zeal, meek demeanor and fraternal conduct of the missionaries. They shrank from no toil, nor danger, nor exposure. The\- penetrated hundreds of miles through the snow-clad and tempest-tossed forests of the northern lake region, staggering against blinding blasts, laden with snow and ice, that, whilst they observed the blaze of the northern guiding star, could neither hide the light nor chill the glow of the Star of Bethlehem in the inmost soul

The lone missionary, going with savage guide to distant habitats of strange tribes, cheerfully accepted every unwonted detail of privation and suffering. He helped to' prepare the rough temporary shelter for thenight; and by the light of the pine-knot firethe Indian could see that the noble face was glorified from an inner light, when uplifted; in prayer to the white man's Great Spirit. And lie could, at all times, see the light of love, awful in its emanations of friendship from the presence, on the countenance of his companion. It was a wonder and a mystery to the superstitious barbarian: but it was a delightful wonder - a mystery luminous witli the halo of some inner fountain of goodness.

And these zealous missionaries also represented the cause of France. The lilies of French civil and political dominion were wreathed around the emblems of the spir- itual kingdom of Christ. It was long liefore the Indians could consider them apart. Champlain - himself a devoted Christian communicant - cotild not. The king of France, a consummate flower of the system of "divine right" and feudalism, was no hypocrite in claiming his domination as an essential feature of Christ's earthly kingdom.

In August, 1610, Champlain went to France, to arrange with the government about the fur trade, and a young Frenchman of Quebec went up into the Lake Huron country and passed the winter among the Indians there. The next May he returned with a party of Indians who went to Quebec to trade. Champlain returned from France the same month, with supplies, and satisfactory terms and conditions of the fur trade. He then established a trading post at Montreal (the Hochelaga of Cartier's visit in 1535), one hundred and eighty miles up the river from Quebec, and more central and accessible to the tribes of the fur-bearing region. Having established the post, he immediately returned to France and spent the year 161 2 actively promoting the interests of the colony.

In May, 1613, Champlain. returning to Quebec, actively resumed the work of further exploration, extension of French dominion, anil founding settlements - making- Montreal, more frequently, his point of departure. He ascended the Ottawa river, and passed the winter in a Chippewa camp, north of Lake Huron, endeavoring to verify an Indian story of a great river, flowing eastward and emptying into the great western (Pacific) ocean. He found no great river, other than Lake Superior, which flowed in the opposite direction. His" explorations were not extended westward far enough to ascertain whether the Chippewas had learned from the Dakotahs of the Oregon. But he thus made the acquaintance of the powerful Ojibwa nation and won their friendship for himself and France.

In 161 5, with Father Joseph LeCaron and twelve men, Champlain visited the most distant seats of the Hurons - going with a band of that nation returning from a sale of furs at Montreal. On this trip conferences were held with distant branches of the Huron nation and plans laid for another important invasion of the Iroquois country. pursuance of the plan the French joined the Hurons, and a third formidable expedition moved against the Five Nations. The Fries were to support the attack by striking the Senecas simultaneously with the arrival of the Hurons and French at the eastern towns - Mohawks and Oneidas. This time the expedition reached the immediate vicinity of those towns, and some unimportant skirmishing took place. The Iroquois quietly awaited the onslaught. But the Eries did not appear, and no real assault was made. The invaders retired. More fuel to the fire of Iroquois animosity! Another bar to the barricade against French progress.

First Act Of English French Conflict

In the meantime. Captain Argall of Jamestown. Va., when collecting a cargo of codfish at north Atlantic ports, discovered some new French settlements in Nova Scotia and Maine, just started. The English, it will be remembered, claimed the country up to Labrador, as North Virginia. The French I claimed the same country as part of Canada and New France. Argall's party attacked and destroyed these new French settlements. This was the first act of direct hostility, by force, between the English and French. The English then knew nothing about the \ French-Iroquois conflicts.

The Dutch Involved

Henry Hudson discovered the '"North River" in 1609. the year of Champlain's first invasii n of the Iroquois country in northern New York, and fight with the Mohawks. whose seat was on the west side of that river. Holland, on the strength of Hudson's discovery, set up a claim to the coast and interior, from Delaware Bay to Maine. The Dutch founded settlements on Manhattan Island and at the site of Albany in 1613, four years after the first fight between Champlain and his Indian allies and the Mohawks, in which French firearms terrorized the Iroquois. The Dutch trading- port at Albany soon began to furnish these same Iroquois with guns.

The Five Nations and the Delawares both began to trade with the Dutch - the Five Nations at Albany, the Delawares mostly at Manhattan. But Albany was easily accessible to the northern branch of the Delawares also, and they resorted there for trade. Soon arose the rivalries and troubles that led to national conflict between these great people. It ended in the subjugation of the Delawares, and their expulsion from southeastern New York, by the victorious Iroquois. Some wandered through western Virginia and Ohio, joining their Algonquin kindred and French friends ; some settled for a time in western Pennsylvania and became converts of the Moravian missionaries, and -peaceful Christians. Subsequently, they were massacred in cold blood by white men and Indians. A large remnant of the nation went into Indiana and settled on White river, where they became guests and efficient allies of the Miami confederation. This was long after their expulsion from their native seats in New York. In the meantime, the everywhere victorious Iroquois were extending their forays, north, west and south, shattering and demoralizing the Algonquin tribes of the northwest - especially those most closely allied to the French. The Wyandots, who were connected with the Hurons, were driven from their ancient settlements at the foot of Lake Ontario, south of the St. Lawrence, to become the dependent ,guests of their cousins, the Hurons on the east shores of Lake Huron. The great Ottawas of the central valley of Canada were expelled from their native country - defeated, decimated and terrorized by the ferocious and irresistible assaults of the conquering and merciless confederates of the Five Nations. They were friends of the French, and terribly did they suffer for it from the wounded pride, the hunger for revenge and thirst for conquest and glory, of the barbarous Romans of the New York republic.

The brave Eries, nearest neighbors of the Five Nations on the west, and who feared them least, unwittingly invited their own doom. Parkman's History of Canada gives the substantial facts upon which the following account is founded :

Games At Tushuway, And Indian Battle

That of the Senecas, of the republic of Five Nations, adjoined the territory of the Eries. The latter were scornfully jealous of the high distinction and brilliant career of their Iroquois neighbors. Seeking a cause for tribal dispute and quarrel, the Eries sent a messenger to the Senecas, bearing a challenge to a game of ball between picked players of one hundred on a side, from each tribe. The Senecas, loyal to their constitutional duty, submitted the matter to the great council at Onondaga. After mature deliberation, the council directed the Senecas to decline the challenge, which was done. Twice the same challenge was repeated, with the same reply. Again the persistent Eries sent the challenge, with added expressions of contempt. This time the wounded pride of the young Senecas revolted from obedience to the council, and the indignant turmoil was so great that the council relented and gave permission.

The contest took place at Tushuway, the Erie capital, for an immensely valuable prize - a large pile of furs, bracelets, beads and rich ornaments of silver and copper. The contest was close and desperate, but the Senecas bore off the prize. The Erie chieftain immediately challenged them to a foot-race, with ten runners on a side. It was accepted, and the visitors were again victorious. Choking with anger, the chief of Tushuway proposed a final and sinister test : Ten wrestlers on a side struggle for the mastery, one pair at a time, until the ten falls were finished - the vistor in each case to brain his fallen adversary with a tomahawk.

The manager of the Seneca team was a middle-aged, experienced .warrior. He gave no sign i if bis disgust at the proposition, but he called his men apart, held a brief consultation and then announced their acceptance of the challenge "to wrestle." He picked his ten wrestlers, and they formed in line, facing their ten opponents. A look of sullen determination had settled upon the features of the Erie chief, and a menacing fire burned in his eyes. The first Seneca fairly threw his adversary, but turned away, refusing to kill him. Like a lightning flash the wrathful Erie chief sped his own hatchet into the brain of the fallen man. Twice was the awful scene re-enacted, the visitors being victorious in the first three falls, and the Erie chief killing his fallen kinsman each time. By this time his suppressed rage was' terrible to witness. The Iroquois manager gave a signal and the victorious hundred retired from the field and hastened toward their homes.

The vanquished Eries at once prepared, for war. The Iroqouis expected and were prepared for it. The whole force of the Five Nations were quickly mustered and went forth to meet the Eries, who were already speeding to attack the Senecas. Half way between Onondaga and Genessee they met. The Eries soon discovered that instead of the Senecas alone, the warriors of the combined Five Nations were upon them ;. but they would not yield, and they did not retreat. They were surrounded. They fought with the fury of demons. All day and long into the night the bloody pandemonium raged, until the Eries were nearly all slaughtered. Not only was the battle irretrievably lost, but nine-tenths of the Erie survivors were butchered.

Without a pause, the flushed and maddened victors rushed on to the villages and strongholds of their vanquished enemies. Frenzied with mericless rage thev stormed the defenses of Tushuway, massacred the inhabitants who did not escape, and destroyed everything. So complete was the extermination that no nation or tribe bearing the name of "Erie" was ever afterward known. The theory that fugitive survivors wandered south, collected in Florida and took part of the ancestral name common to the Iroquois and themselves, has already been mentioned. Under the name "Shaw nees," from Hodens-Sawnee, roving from place to place, they finally drifted back to the neighborhood of their ancestral seat, maintaining to the last an attitude of hostility toward the English, and afterward to the United States settlers. Their hero of later times, Tecumseh, exhibited all the strongest traits of the Fries in their days of power and renown, and added magnanimity that distinguished him above all his most heroic ancestors. Had the old chieftan of Tushuway been a Tecumseh, no such scene as that of the wrestling match and its horrible incidents could have occurred.

Nor would the subsequent fatal move against the Senecas have taken place under the same circumstances. Tecumseh was possessed of the genius of broad combination and command. Had he been living in his prime in Champlain's time, the Five Nations would not have been the only confederacy. The amazing spectacle of four thousand warriors terrorizing a continent and subjugating and destroying contiguous nations with aggregate numbers five times as great would not have been seen.

The weakness of the Algonquins was in their continual discords and internecine jealousies and conflicts. Hiawatha, the traditional wise man of the Hod-eno-Sawnee tribes, realized this, and he saved his people

Had the drama of destiny been forecast for a different progress and conclusion - had a Tecumseh been the leader of the Eries in 1600, - who can doubt that the Iroquois confederacy would have been confronted with a semicircle of confederated tribes - the Wyandots, Hurons, Ottawas, the clans of the Neutral nation. Fries, Andastes and Delawares - the Eries advanced within the center, - immediately confronting the Iroquois. In such case the Iroquois would have been powerless to impede the advance of the French power. The subsequent efforts of the English would have been unavailing against the French, backed by the whole cooperating strength of the Algonquins, under the direction of a leader of commanding genius. We have seen that the failure of the Eries to attack from the west, as planned, caused the failure of the third expedition of Champlain. As it was, without the co-operation of the Iroquois, the English could not have conquered Canada and the northwest.

In 1666 Governor Courcelles, of Canada, invaded the Mohawk country with a force of five hundred men. His march was uninterrupted until he had reached the vicinity of the Iroquois towns. He found an ominous quiet prevailing. His Indian scouts found and reported a condition of fortification, collected force and calm confidence that influenced him to refrain from attack, and he retreated into Canada.

In 1684 Governor I )e la Barre marched into the Iroquois country with a force of nearly two thousand men - French and Indians. Finding the enemy too well prepared, he did not risk an attack at once, but solicited a council, intending to impress them with the invincibility of the French power and incite them to acts of hostility against the English. In response to his invitation to a council three chiefs of the Oneidas, Caegregas and Onondagas visited the French camp. De la Barre placed them in a circle with his own officers, and, standing in the center, he addressed Garangula, the Onondaga chief, who was spokesman of the Indians. He accused the Five Nations of favoring the English, to the detriment of the French and their "royal and good father," the king of France, and threatened to make war upon them unless they should alter their policy and behave themselves. Garangula heard him with respectful attention to the end ; then, after walking three times, with great dignity, around the circle, he faced De la Barre, and calling him "Yonnondio," and the English governor of New York "Corlear," he replied :

"Hear, Yonnondio - I do not sleep, my eyes are open ; the sun gives me light. I see before me a great captain, who talks as if he was dreaming, and thinking Garangula is blind. He tells me he only comes to smoke the great pipe of peace with my people, the Onondagas. But Garangula sees it not so. He sees the French are tired and sick. He sees they are worn out with toil of the long and rough warpath. If his warriors were as strong and brave as when they started Yonnondio knows he would tell them to strike us instead of talking. The Adirondacs brought the French to our castles. The}- are your allies. The English claim our trade. We took them to our lakes, to trade there with the Utawawas and the Ouatogies. We are born free. YVe do not depend on Yonnondio or Corlear. We go where we please. We buy and sell as we please. If your allies are your slaves, use them so. Talk to them. Command them to receive no other people hut the French. Hear, Yonnondio. What I say is the voice of all the Five Nations. They are not slaves. When they buried the hatchet at Cadaracui (in treaty with the English) in the middle of the fort, they planted the tree of peace in the same place, to be watered and preserved - to keep the fort a place for j traders and not for soldiers. Take care that I soldiers too . many do not come there and trample the tree of peace and prevent from covering your country and ours with its branches. Our warriors shall dance under its leaves, and will never dig up the hatchet ' to cut it down - unless their brother, Yoni nondio, or their brother Corlear, shall strike us in the country which the Great Spirit gave to our forefathers."

De la Barre was enraged - but he was : convinced. His soldiers were exhausted. He was in a perilous situation, and from being a bold accuser now descended to supplications for compromise and peace Garangula's speech showed him that the Indians fully understood the situation and knew thev could destroy his army if they chose, and following up the blow by harrassing I raids upon the Canadian settlements. He j at once adopted a policy of conciliation and peace, and was permitted to retire unmolested.

The successor of De la Barre, Governor De Nonville, choosing to ignore his predecessor's peace policy, raised a larger army, and invaded the Iroquois district. He was ambuscaded, and suffered defeat. This was followed up by two successive attacks upon Montreal by the Iroquois, and the destruction of several outlying settlements, and the slaughter of many people. What De la Barre had apprehended, and endeavored to prevent by his peace policy, now actually occurred, under the administration of De Nonville. The French colonies, instead of extension westward, seemed in danger of collapse, and retreat from the continent. The Five Nations were now in a full career of triumphant aggression; and had become the invaders instead of the invaded. In 1689, they captured the town of Montreal. But they did not try to retain possession, further than to secure a ransom, and to impress the French and their Indian (Algonquin) allies with a realizing sense of Iroquois power; for the Iroquois never made territorial conquests nor founded distant settlements. They never migrated. Their warrior bands never tarried in the country of a subjugated tribe. It was mainly for military glory that they made distant regions ring with their warwhoops and the tribes of Canada, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois and Michigan cower and fly before them. They carried away no prisoners. They exacted tribute from defeated and terrorized enemies, but they established no provinces; they left no local agencies. Their trophies were the scalps of their victims in the individual lodges of their home villages in New York. They erected no monuments of victory on distant prairies, but carried home - always home - their wreaths of glory, and with them adorned the sanctuaries of their capitals and the mystic brows of their genius of Iroquois power and patriotism.

Kino William S War

In 16S9, the year of the capture of Montreal by the Five Nations, war was declared between England and France - called "King William's War." It grew largely out of the disputes and conflicting claims of the two governments respecting their American colonies and possessions. Good local administration of colonial affairs was of the utmost importance. The French were conscious of a lack of practical intelligence and wise policy in the administration of Governor De Nonville in Canada, and he was recalled and Count Frontignac installed as governor and furnished with a large and well-equipped reinforcement. Under Frontignac's skillful and energetic administration the welfare of the colony was reinstated. The drooping "lillies" revived and hope once more smiled and beckoned "onward."

Frontignac endeavored to gain the friendship of the Five Nations and thought he had succeeded. In a great council of sachems and warriors called by him at < )nondaga, he thought he saw manifested a decided inclination on the part of the Iroquois to join him, and in order to give active direction to the assumed change of sentiment and inspire the still despondent French people of the colony, .he planned the memorable Schenectady expeditii m.

Two hundred disciplined French regulars, accompanied by Caghnewaga Indians, set out, and after toiling through deep snows, resting and resuming their march for nearly three weeks, reached Schenectady on the 8th of February, at 1 1 o'clock in the night. The surprise was complete. The village was burned, sixty persons were in- humanly butchered and many perished in their flight, naked, through the snow to Albany. The butchery over, and the conflagration in fully destructive career, the French retreated, carrying away twenty-seven captives. They were pursued by a band of Albany young men and Mohawk Indians, who killed many of the retreating foe. What a blood_\- blunder! These Mohawk pursuers and avengers were members of the Iroquois confederacy, whom he was anxious to conciliate. He had succeeded in inspiring renewed and increased hatred instead of friendship. There seemed to be a sinister fatality attending all the efforts of the French to conciliate the Iroquois. Garangula, the Onondaga orator, had warned Governor De la Barre not to trample the roots of the tree of peace with soldiers, lest it should fail to grow and cover the French as well as the Indians with its branches. .And now Frontignac had been both trampling and burning the roots of the sacred tree and poisoning the earth around it with the blood of slaughtered innocence.

For seven years the struggle was violent, and extended from the St. Lawrence to the Mississippi; La Salle, Marquette and others had explored the lakes, the Mississippi, the Ohio and the Wabash. A chain of missions, trading posts and forts had been projected to occupy and command the whole "northwest ;" French traders, voyagers and priests were traveling- the whole region and occupying the commanding positions. They everywhere easily ingratiated themselves with the Algonquin tribes and won their affection for. and reverent loyalty to, their "great French father," who smiled upon them from his royal throne beyond the sea and sent kind greetings by these white brethren. The lilies of France were taking root in the soil of a new Bourbon empire; the genius of feudal aristocracy ami thraldom of class was twining silken fetters for time to harden into steel around the wilds of the children of the forest.

But the distant interior of the growing New France was not exempt from the perils and disturbances of the parent colonies. The terrible Iroquois war-whoop sounded through the forests of Ohio, Indiana and Michigan and over the prairies of Illinois from bands of warriors who swiftly traversed hundreds of miles of wilderness, fell upon French trading posts and destroyed them, punished the Algonquin friends jf France in the most distant regions and returned to their capitals, leaving indelible traces of their ferocity and a continued sense of insecurity and impending danger.

La Salle, in ]68o, had built a fort at Peoria (Fort Crevecceur), where he left a garrison under the protection of the Indians while he went to Montreal to procure supplies for continuing an expedition down the Mississippi. When he returned the fort was in ashes and the garrison was gone. The Illinois tribe were scattered and their town was in ruins. An Iroquois band had traversed the intervening- six hundred miles, slaughtered most of the Peorias and French and destroyed the fort and village. The commandant, Captain Tonti, and two companions, escaped to Green Bay.

After the war, in which the French had encountered their most effective opposition from the Five Nations, they took advantage of the peace to forward their design of western dominion. Fort Frontignac was erected at the outlet of Lake Ontario; two vessels were launched upon the lake and Fort Ni- saw plainly the design to limit the English possessions to the seacoast region. To frustrate that design it was essential to retain the alliance of the Six Nations.

(Note. - This was in 1720. The Five Nations had become Six by the accession of the Tuscaroras from North Carolina in 171 j. They were kindred of the Iroquois, who had migrated southward and settled before the organization of the confederacy).-

He summoned the sachems to a public conference at Albany, to ascertain their sentiments as to the operations of the French at Niagara. The effect of the question on the chiefs and their answer convinced him that any apprehension of favor to the French, on the part of the Iroquois, was groundless. Their answer was a revelation of sentiment even stronger than his own. Parts of the answering "talk" of the Indian orator have been preserved. Among other things he said, with fierce emphasis:

"We come to you howling. We speak in the name of all the Six Nations. We howl because the governor of Canada encroaches on our land, and has built on it. '

The Final Struggle

In the prosecution of their plan of domination over the entire trans- Allegany county the French were alert, persistent and energetic. Flanking the obstacle of Iroquois opposition, they entered the Ohio valley by way of Lake Erie and projected a chain of trading posts and fortifications from the lake to the navigable waters of the Ohio, at the site of Pittsburg, and laid out an important one there, at the junction of the Allegheny and Monongaheia rivers, called Fort Duquesne. These menacing incursions into the Ohio valley indirectly caused the introduction of young George Washington upon the stage of action. The state of Virginia, as a measure of defense, was divided into districts, with a major for each. Washington, though young - just of age, - had highly commended himself to the governor and other leading men of the colony by his conduct in all relations, and was appointed over the district embracing the theater of the most conspicuous French aggressions - the region of West Virginia and the headwaters of the Ohio. He solicited a commission from the governor as a sole commissioner to visit the French military posts south of Lake Erie to ascertain the intentions of the commander and request a withdrawal of French soldiers from territory claimed as English. He made the perilous and toilsome journey, accompanied only by a guide, executed his I commission, ascertained that the French au- ! thorities were determined to pursue their line of action and not to withdraw their soldiers. A colonial army of about two 1 thousand men was then raised - to march to Fort Duquesne and take possession. Washington held an important command in this force. On the way they encountered a French force under Colonel De Jumonville, at Great Meadows, where a sudden illness of the English commander had for the time devolved the chief command upon Washington. He promptly ordered an attack, and, seizing a musket, fired the first shot. In the fight the Virginians were victorious, and De Jumonville. the French commander, was mortally wounded. George Washington thus delivered the first blow upon the enemy in the long, bloody and final struggle be-

Sir William Johnson

In the final conflict between the colonies of France and England and their Indian allies, Sir William Johnson was a conspicuous figure. Originally sent to New York to be resident superintendent of an uncle's immense estate in the Mohawk valley, he had established bachelor headquarters in a sort of castle in the neighborhood of the tribal home of the Mohawks, one of the Iroquois Six Nations. He was unmarried, and from disappointment in a love affair was selfalienated from the society of his aristocratic class. Fie turned in disgust from the gilded shams and venal politeness of the "cultured" circles and ingratiated himself in the hearts of his savage neighbors. He soon became deservedly popular among the Mohawks, and through them with all the tribes of the Iroquois, as a good friend, judicious adviser and sagacious leader. He learned their language (colloquial) and was benevolently active in promoting their best interests and perfectly honorable and just in his dealings with them. He was unanimously elected a chief of the Mohawks, and, finally, superintendent of the affairs of the whole confederacy by the choice of the Indians. They named him "W'ar-ragh-ia-ghv." meaning "he who takes charge of affairs." The governor confirmed the choice by appointing him general superintendent of the affairs of the Six Nations. Alary, sister of the halfbreed Brandt ( afterward' chief sachem of the Mohawks), was installed as housekeeper at Johnson's Castle, with a retinue of servants. She was a young woman of more than the common education, of the middle class, superior native intellect, personal grace and good sense. Her brother, Joseph Brandt, half white-blood, became a distinguished war-leader in the confederacy, able and brilliant, but brutal and ferocious beyond even the native ferocity of the full-blooded Mohawks.

Battle Of Lake George

In 1755 Johnson was appointed sole superintendent of the affairs of the Six Nations and their allies and dependents, and the British king commissioned him a majorgeneral and assigned him to the chief command of an expedition against the French and Algonquins under Baron Dieskan, who had invaded and was holding the Champlain region in northern New York.

With his Iroquois warriors, led by the veteran Hendrick. then chief sachem, and some colonial troops, Johnson attacked, defeated and routed the invaders near Lake George, September 8, 1755. Baron Dieskan was killed. In this battle the Mohawks, under Hendrick. bore a conspicuous part, and Hendrick and forty of his warriors were killed.

Hendrick was seventy years old when he led his brave Mohawks in that battle. His death was deeply mourned by General Johnson and all who knew and appreciated him. To Johnson it was the loss of an intimate friend. Hendrick bad been a very frequent and always welcome visitor at Johnson Castle, and his visits bad been as frequently returned. A pleasant story used to be told of their friendly intercourse, in substance as. follows:

Hendrick S Dream

Hendrick was at Johnson's house i >nc day when the latter was unpacking sever suits of fine clothing just received from England for himself. Of course, Hendrick had the privilege of examining and admir ing them, and he expressed the wonder am delight of a child. Before leaving he be came silent, and seemed to ponder over sorm unspoken idea. He reappeared at the castli a few days afterward, and after the usua friendly greetings, something like the following dialogue took place :

Hendrick - 'Ale see Warraghiaghy in my dream an' he hoi' up nice coat and breeches, an' he look so kind and good, and' hoi' em out to me an' say, Hendrick. take urn. brother."

Johnson, well knowing the Indian supersitition about impressive dreams thrice repeated, without hesitation brought one of the new suits and presented it to Hendrick, who was profuse in his profession of gratitude and pleasure in this delightful confiimation of his faith in such good dreams.

It is related that Johnson soon afterward told Hendrick that he also had a strange but pleasant dream that was very bright and clear and was ever before his eyes, even when he was awake. Hendrick was curious to know the nature of his friend's dream and Johnson thus described it : red me a bright morning. The sun was shining clear, and smiled kindly as he cast his gifts of glory and beauty through the air and down over the wide forests and laughing waters. The big trees wore crowns of golden light; the birds fluttered and sang through the leaves; the sky was blue and pleasant ; the air was fresh and sweet. The Great Spirit smiled blessings on the earth. 1 heard a voice calling: 'Warriaghaghy.' 1 looked, and saw my brother Hendrick standing on yonder hillto]), beckoning to me. I answered and climbed to his side, and Hendrick. standing there in the bright morning, pointed to the wide woodland between the hills and the river on the farther side - eight arrowflights wide and sixteen long, with the big creek winding through to the river. - and as he pointed he looked good, and turned his kind face to me and in a voice of music: 'Warriaghiaghy, take um, brother.' "

For a moment Hendrick was dazed. The tract described was about six hundred acres of bottom land, well timbered and watered and finely situated. But he faithfully confirmed the dream and ceded the land to Johnson.

Johnson, with his Iroquois braves, did signal service for the English cause during the war. He led a thousand warriors and provincial recruits and captured the French fort at Niagara, in 1759, and cut to pieces a force sent to relieve the garrison. They were with General Amherst's expedition in 1760. and were present at the surrender of Montreal when the entire Canadian territory and Xew France were given up to the British. The formal transfer was made in the treaty of Paris, in February, 1703.

less glory of the coming reign of freedom. The pioneer agencies of the Old and Newhad joined in battle for supremacy at Lake Champlain in 1609, when the French superintendent and his Algonquin allies invaded the country of the Iroquois. Unconsciously, but effectively, the latter had been for a hundred and fifty- four years champions of a new era, which was now dawning. Equally unconscious, the Algonquin tribes had clung to a failing cause. The conflict left them weak and demoralized, without independent prestige, destined victims, to1 be crushed beneath the chariot wheels of an impetuous progression, and able only to stain the future with blotches of pitiful, unavailing tragedy.

After the destruction of the Hurons the most powerful allies of France were the Ottawas, inhabiting southeastern Michigan, western Canada and the northwest corner of -Ohio. Their chief was Pontiac. whose remarkable power as a leader, politician and statesman are already historic and need not to be retold. He first became famous as an efficient French partisan, and was an implacable enemy of the English, as well as their victorious allies, the Iroquois. He viewed with disgust and indignation the vanishing insignia of the French rule and the advance of an unfriendly power. From friends to enemies - from sympathetic brothers to haughty masters, - the change was too much to be tamely endured. And Pontiac did not despair. The surrender at Montreal might not mean irreparable and final loss. A great blow, that would stagger the British power, might renew the hopes of France and recall her fleets and armies to the recovery of her dominion.

Thus, probably, reasoned the great chief. He did not understand the lesson of a hundred and fifty years of unsuccessful effort - of unavailing employment of all available means. In one sense his sagacity was true. The change was pregnant with misery for the Indians from their standpoint. The aggressive, self-assertive industrial and political enterprise of the Anglo-Saxon, pushing for material wealth and political liberty - imperatively shouting "Get out of my way!" and ruthlessly tearing down all barriers in his pathway - was not manifest in the character of the French colonists ; it was not the spirit of France, but it was the genius of the coming dominion, and to the clear vision of Pontiac it foreshadowed the destruction of

1 cheating his apprehensions. The manner m which he faced the peril has usually been described as Pontiac's "conspiracy." The sinister word "conspiracy" is copied for historical identity, but not so ought Pontiac's plan and its execution to be characterized. Pontiac's plan was to arouse to concerted action all the Algonquin tribes of the terj ritorv menaced by hostile invasion, and, on a day appointed, to surprise and destroy all the British forts commanding and protecting the existing and projected lines of settlement in western Pennsylvania, southwestj ern New York, Ohio, Michigan, Indiana and Illim >is. This gigantic scheme involved the simultaneous capture and destruction of the flirts and garrisons of Presque Isle, Le Boeuf. Venango, Pitt, Sandusky, Detroit, Mackinaw, St. Joseph. Miami (Fort Wayne") , Ouatenon and Vincennes. situated mi lines thirteen hundred miles in extent. This was to be followed up by driving all the English settlers out of the territory or exterminating them, but no French man, woman or child was to he knowingly injured.

Such, in substance, was Pontiac's masterly scheme for the defense of the Indian's birthright and the protection of his countrymen, as he viewed it. Less able and comprehensive planning has often been lauded as brilliant generalship and statesmanship, and when prosecuted with motives such as Pontiac's - whether successful or not - have entitled the projector and actor to admiration and gratitude as a hero and patriot. Why call Pontiac a "conspirator?" The term is inapt and unjust.

The energy displayed by Pontiac in preparing for the execution of his great design was wonderful. He succeeded in inspiring the tribes over a wide extent of country with the hope that by the execution of his plan they could save their hunting-grounds and homes. The Chippewas, Ottawas, Pottawatomies. Sacs and Foxes, Miamis, Shawnees, Menominees, Wyandots and parts of other tribes agreed to- co-operate, and in April, 1763, Pontiac called a great council of chiefs and warriors and addressed them in a long and eloquent speech. The plan of the campaign was approved unanimously, and in May and June, 1763, three months after the cession of New France to Great Britain, nine of the forts named were surprised and captured and their defenders killed. Detroit, where Pontiac commanded in Person, and Fort Pitt, which was relieved by the timely arrival of Colonel Bocpiet's company, were saved.

until the interference of the Six Nations became imminent. The great chief was finally convinced that their French father had abandoned them, and he sullenly submitted to necessity, threw down the hatchet and retired, heartbroken, to his home on the Maumee. Here he lived retired for nearly six years. In April, 1709, he visited his friend St. Ange, French commandant at St. Louis. While there he visited an encampment of Illinois Indians on the east side of the Mississippi, and was killed by a drunken Indian who was bribed by a British trader to do the deed. He was stealthily followed and stabbed in the back. A small party of Ottawas there claimed the Indian right to kill the murderer. The Illinois tribes interfered, and took the assassin under their protection and a fight arose. The Ottawas -were compelled to flee for their lives, but they dispatched swift messengers to all tribes of the northwest, north and east, with the news and called for a general uprising for revenge. A thrill of horror ran through all the tribes who had participated in Pontiac's efforts to save the country. Wisconsin, Michigan, Canada and northwestern Ohio echoed with fierce cries for revenge, accompanied by instant action.

From north, east and northeast through the shadowy aisles of the forest and acrossthe vistas of the openings dusky forms with gleaming eyes and fiendish faces sped toward the rendezvous of retribution. The avengers of Pontiac paused not to discriminate. The shock of the onset was felt in every Illinois village. Carnage reigned over all the prairies, reddened the rivers and blotched the green of the beautiful groves. Pontiac's murder was awfully avenged. The confederation of Illinois tribes was vir-

During the Revolutionary war the most important event bearing directly upon the destiny of the "northwest" was the conquest of the territory by Colonel George Rogers Clark, at the head of a small force of special recruits raised in the name and by the authority of the state of Virginia. The enterprise was conceived, urged and successfullycarried out by Clark, who had great difficulty in first obtaining the consent and cooperation of the authorities. The history of those wonderful expeditions, their incidents and results, are matters of history. It elevates Colonel Clark to a high position among the heroes of the world and crowns all the men of his little band with honor in the memories of their countrymen. They saved the northwest to the United States by conquering it from Great Britain - a magnificent accomplishment, that would have reflected glory upon an army under commanders of renown if viewed from the standpoint of developed consequences. But the feat had been rendered possible by the influences of the train of events of one hundred and seventy preceding years, which had culminated in the domination of a power whose possession was contrary to the wishes of, and whose rule was hated by, both the Algonquin Indians and the French settlers who occupied the country.

Colonel Clark's first expedition, in 1778, was successful at both Kaskaskia and Vincennes without bloodshed. He had only to convince the French and Indians that he was acting against Great Britain as representative of a new power and that their former French rulers were in sympathy with the new power and aiding it. Lafayette was fighting by the side of Washington. France was contributing money and men to the cause of the United Colonies and had entered into alliance with them against the English. The triumph of that cause, Colonel Clark represented, was assured. The American States would soon be acknowledged by the world as sovereign over all this region and British power would disappear. The true nature of the situation and of his mission once made clear, Colonel Clark, in August, 1778, had little difficulty in securing the willing allegiance of the French residents of Kaskaskia and of the Indian chief in the neighboring country. The French priests secured the allegiance of the inhabitants of Vincennes. town and country, and Clark sent Captain Helm to take charge of the post. The British governor of Vincennes post was absent at Detroit when this renunciation of British autthority occurred. The state of Virginia proceeded to organize the whole country under the name of "Illinois County, of Virginia."

But the British governor, Hamilton, interfered with this peaceable transfer of allegiance and title. From Detroit he descended upon Vincennes with an army of regulars and Indians numbering five hundred. Of course it would have been suicidal to attempt holding the fort against such a force, but the bravery and coolness of Captain Helm did not desert him. The English force came on without interruption or obstacle. When within plain sight and hearing distance of the gate they were greeted with a loud and stern command to "halt.''

The gate was open, a cannon was mounted in the entrance, bearing directly upon the front of the advancing column, a man stood ready to apply the match, and beside the gun stood Captain Helm, whose voice had just shouted "halt." The rest of the garrison (so thought the British) were concealed. Ceneral Hamilton ordered a halt of his column and, addressing Captain Helm, demanded the surrender of the fort. Helm promptly answered: "No man shall enter here until I know the terms."

Hamilton, convinced that his men would receive the contents of the cannon at short range if they moved, and supposing the discharge would be followed by a determined sortie from the concealed forces of the garrison, causing considerable loss of life, offered the honors of war if they would quietly surrender. Helm agreed to that, and Hamilton formed his lines to receive the outmarching garrison with the customary militry courtesies, when lo! - to the intense astonisment and chagrin of the British commander and his men, out came Captain Helm and private Henry, marching in good style down between the lines - two men. all told - capitulating with the honors of war to rive hundred ! General Hamilton's conservative conduct and respect to principle hardly deserved the humiliation, but there had been no deception, and Helm did the best he could - he surrendered his entire force !

Here, it may be remarked, had the settlers and Indians been in sympathy with the British cause no such surprise would have been possible, for Hamilton would have been informed of the actual strength of the garrison. And in the first place, had the Indians not been decimated, weak and

This recapture of Vincennes put Clark in a perilous dilemma. The line of hostile domination through the center of Virginia's new "Illinois County" was certain to he formidably strengthened by reinforcements within a few weeks at most. The situation demanded instant action to recover the post

; or abandonment of the enterprise. Supplies for the movement, guarded by an important part of his forces, had to go around by way of the rivers and were on the way. but the emergency forbade waiting for the boats. They must immediately attempt the recovery of the post by the few men left marching across the country from Kaskaskia. The

I whole intervening country was flooded. In the valleys of the Great and Little Wabash rivers it was deeply flooded; boats could not be used for transporting men or provisions before reaching these deeply-flooded districts, and there were no means for transferring them overland. The little army must wade through those winter floods by the shortest route, without prospect of supplies, shelter or rest, except in the speedy recapture of the post. But Clark was indomitable; his men were of similar spirit. Then followed that almost hopeless undertaking, that march of floundering and plunging through the chilling waters in February, 1770,, often immersed to their throats, weak and exhausted ones held up and helped along by the stronger while on their way to attack and capture a well-garrisoned British fort in order to save and secure to their country the wide and fertile region that was to become its chief glory. They might not have foreseen the magnificent development of after times, but they did see and feel that the perilous undertaking was in their country's cause, and for the sake of freedom the}- succeeded. The imperial "northwest" became Virginia's. Her title she afterward transferred to the Union by act of cession, and the territory was organized with conditions that will forever illuminate the upward course of progress with a benignant glory akin to that which once o'er Bethlehem divinely shone. "Honor to whom honor is due." The spirit that sustained those drenched forms, the inspiration burned in the souls of the humble heroes of that march and conquest were vital influences in the destiny of the empire they won and saved for Freedom. The Ordinance of 1787, the basis of the constitution of all the states subsequently carved out of the great northwest, besides prohibiting slavery provided for popular education by liberal donations of public lands for the maintenance of common schools. Freedom and education stepped hand in hand to the front, and the great work of settlement and ' civilization commenced, in the face of formidable difficulties and dangers. Great Britain relinquished her title, but the savage owners and occupants of the soil remained, and neither the fears nor the policies of Pontiac were forgotten.

After The Revolution

At the close of the Revolution and for many years afterward no particular localities, no minor divisions, were contemplated in discussions or acts concerning the Northwest Territory. It was viewed as a vast unit. And even after Indiana Territory was separately organized the northern parts were not identified bv reference to subdivisions.

such as counties, townships, etc. There were no organized and separately identified localities north of Fort Wayne, nor were there any localities identified by name south of Detroit and the route through to the site of the present Chicago, except 'an occasional Indian village or French mission. Hence the impossibility, now when all contemporaries are dead, of determining whether an event that might be historical in a general I way occurred within the present limits of Noble county or not.

The Indians inhabiting northwestern Indiana, especially the Noble county district, at the time of the first settlement by white people and long before, were of the Algonquin stock and the Pottawatomie nations. Individuals of other tribes undoubtedly were

I aboriginal possessors of the country and had permanent possession of the regions south, at Fort Wayne, in the Whitley and southern Kosciusko territory. On the question of

General W. H. Harrison S Report

To the War Department, in 1814, says: "The Miamis are the undoubted proprietors of that beautiful country which is watered by the Wabash and its branches, and there is little doubt that their claims extend as far east as the Scioto. They have no tradition of removing" from any other part of the country; whereas all the neighboring tribes - the Piaukeshaws excepted, who are a branch of the Miamis - are either intruders upon them or have been permitted to settle in their country. The Wyandots emigrated first from Lake Ontario, and subsequently from Lake Huron, the Delawares from Pennsylvania and Maryland, the Shawnees from Georgia, the Kickapoos and Pottawatomies from the country between Lake .Michigan and the Mississippi, the Ottawas and Chippewas from the peninsula formed by lakes Michigan, Huron and St. Clair and the strait connecting the latter with Lake Erie.

"The claims of the Miamis were bounded on the north and west by those of the Illinois confederacy, consisting originally of five tribes, called the Kaskaskias, Cahokias, Peorians, Michiganies and Temorias, all speaking the Miami language, and were, no doubt, branches of that nation. When I was first appointed governor of Indiana Territory ( 1800) these once powerful tribes were reduced to about thirty warriors, of whom twenty-five were Kaskaskias, four Peorians and a single Michiganian. There was an individual lately at St. Louis who was an enumerator of the five tribes, which was made by the Jesuits in 1745, making the number of their warriors four thousand."

From four thousand to thirty in fifty-five years? The Cahokies and Tamorias annihilated, and of the Michiganian warriors only one left. Such terrible destruction implied some awful catastrophes: and such there had been;

Major Thomas Forsyth, who resided for nearly twenty years among the Sacs and Foxes, is quoted in Drake's history as follows: "Mure than a century ago (he was speaking in 1836) all the country from above Rock river down the .Mississippi to the mouth of I the Ohio, up the Ohio to the W&bash, up 'the Wabash to Fort Wayne, down the Maumee and thence to the St. Joseph and Chicago, also the country south of the Des Moines and north of the Missouri, was inhabited by a numerous nation of Indians who were called 'Minnewas,' divided into several I bands, inhabiting different parts of this exi tensive region - Michiganies, Cahokias, Kas- I kaskias, Tamarios, Piankeshaws, Weas, Miamis and Mascoutins. All spoke the language of the Miamis. These tribes of the Minnewa nation were invaded by the Sacs and Foxes, the Sioux, the Chippewas, Ottawas and Pottawatomies (from the lakes), and the Cherokees and Choctaw s. The war continued many years, and the great nation of the Minnewas destroyed, except the Miamis and the Weas, of whom a few were left - of the Miamis the most."

The Miamis constituted the parent stock. And as General Harrison found no tradition of their having migrated from any other part of the continent, it is probable that they were aborigines. The other tribes mentioned by Major Forsyth in Illinois and spreading over into the country south of the Des Moines, all of whom spoke the language of the Miamis. were branches of the latter, and altogether constituted the Minnewa nation, inhabiting the whole broad and beautiful region from the Scioto river to the Mississippi and from the south end of Lake Michigan to the Ohio.

In 1745 the Illinois and Iowa tribes had been driven by the northern and southern invasion away from the Mississippi and toward the east, toward the central position of the parents stuck - the Miamis. They had formed a confederacy for mutual defense against the invaders. The Mascoutins of the prairies had heen entirely broken up as a distinct tribe, and the Illinois confederacy was formed of five tribes. The Michiganies and Temorias had been forced into the northern Indiana districts and occupied the northern parts of the Miami possessions, the Peorias, Cahokias and Kaskaskias had been driven eastward, and thus the chain of the Illinois confederacy, reaching from below Vincennes along eastern Illinois and around through northern Indiana. constituted the situation described by General Harrison in saying that "the claims of the Miamis were bounded on the north and west by those of the Illinois confederacy, consisting originally of five tribes.'" This referred to 1745 -or earlier, at which time the confederacy could muster four thousand warriors.

But the terrible war of invasion went on. The fierce hordes of the north coveted the more genial climate and the better hunting grounds of the southward regions. Slaughter and dispossession continued until the Illinois confederated tribes were virtually annihilated. The Sacs and Foxes had usurped northern Illinois, the Cahokias and Temorias had been destroyed or scattered, the Peorias reduced to four warriors, the Kaskaskias to twenty-five, the Michiganies had but one warrior, the Miamis were decimated and demoralized and the Pottawatomie invaders took possession of the northern and western parts of the Miami country, including Noble county. The possessions of the Sioux were greatly extended southward by the invasion, the Sacs and Foxes extended their territory, the Chippewas were relieved from the pressure of surplus population - the Kickapoos, Pottawatomies and Ottawas. Immense advantages were gained by the invaders, all around, but the gain was the blood-stained fruit of trespass, rapine and massacre.

And this was how the Pottawatomies came to lie occupants, claiming to be owners of the Elkhart, St. Joseph and Kankakee valleys. Their title was that of deliberate invasion and conquest, possibly afterward confirmed under compulsion by the native Miamis. The Pottawatomies also claimed large tracts of territory southwest. Newman's cyclopedic "America" tells of terrible slaughter of the Piankeshaws by the Pottawatomies in 1801. This, undoubtedly, was in pursuance of a policy of armed conquest, which seems to have been as natural to the savage nations of North America as to the civilized ( ?) nations of Europe.

The situation with respect to the Indians at the organization of the Northwest Territory, so far as the western Ohio and the Indiana regions were concerned, was generally the same as when Pontiac retired. During the Revolutionary war such distant regions received but little attention. What transpired among the western Indians was unknown. Rumors of savage internecine strife in the vast forests and on the great prairies of the distant interior were unheeded. The tragedy of the overthrow and extinction of an Indian nation would not arrest general attention among people who were themselves fighting to the death for rights which were ancestral for generations. The great northern irruption into Illinois and Indiana, and the conquest of a country so far away by one set of barbarians from another, even if known, was not recognized as affecting the interests of the eastern colonies.

The Miami Confederacy

The dreaded Iroquois, instigated 1>\ motives of revenge and ambition and sometimes as agents of white cupidity, made frequent incursions and inflicted severe injuries upon the Algonquins, and in Indiana a loose confederacy had been formed for defense. Parties to it were the Miamis, Pottawatomies, Ottawas, Delawares, Wyandots, Weas, Piankeshaws and Shawnees, with some still recognized fragments of other tribes. This confederacy bad the name of the central and native tribe, and was called the Miami confederacy. It was not a systematic union, like that of the Iroquois, and did not prevent internal strife. After their submission to the British, in 1766. they were quiet until the war of the Revolution, except as among themselves. In the border warfare in Ohio and Pennsylvania the Shawnees, Delawares, Pottawatomies and Ottawas, in parties, took active part against the colonial settlers. They were included in the catalogue of the Declaration of Independence as "the merciless Indian savage" whom the king let loose upon the frontier settlements. In such raids the Shawnees were most active, the Ottawas and Potta- Avatomies next. At the defeat of General Harmar's force, in 1790, it is probable that most of the tribes mentioned were represented somewhat numerously. This defeat of the American militia and regulars was more disastrous than was apparent in the immediate material loss. It encouraged the Indians, and there were not wanting the artful suggestions of the British agents and commandants of forts. They pointed out the weakness of the new power as compared with that of the British government, saying in substance to the chiefs: "You see the difference. When you were all united and led by the great Pontiac seventeen years ago you tailed to drive us nut. You were compelled to submit and bury the hatchet. It was because you were wrong. This country is rightfully under the guardianship of our king; not to take it away from your families and tribes, but to superintend and see that right and justice is done among you; to protect the weak against the strong; to maintain peace and order among you and help you to become prosperous, so that in our dealings your prosperity sin mid result in mutual benefit to you and to the king. But these rebels, who have turned against their king, want to rob you of your lands and bouses and drive you out. You have seen that because you resented their trespasses they sent an army t< destroj you. Did they succeed? No; you defeated Harmar's men. They were weak because they were wrong. You were strong and brave liecause you were right. Why do they not drive us out of our forts if the country is right full_\- theirs? You see they do not. 1 tiey dare not. They are a uiscious that they have not fulfilled the treaty which their king made with them. They are trying to get these lands without doing as they agreed. But they are too weak, and dishonesty makes them cowards."

A fruitful source of evil inspiration for the savages was Fort .Miami, on the Maumee. still held by the British. Colonel Mc- Kee, the superintendent, was especially industrious in fanning the flame of hostility. Seven years bad passed since the treaty of peace was signed, by the terms of which Great Britain relinquished her claims to all this territory. Yet she continued to bold these posts and refused to surrender on trivial pretexts, and the evil influence of her agents inspired the savages to hostility, and all the while impressment of seamen from American vessels went on. The king, authorized by parliament, had formally acknowledged the independence of the United States, but with bullying insolence Great Britain continued to violate the plainest rules of international courtesy and right. The frontier settlements suffered greatly from the effects. Indian troubles increased.)

The next year, 1791, General Arthur St. Clair, having succeeded Harmar in the command of the western forces, marched against the Indians with twenty-three hundred men. The surprise, defeat and massacre of this army by the Indians under Little Turtle, near the Wabash river, November 4, 1791 , made matters worse and extinguished the hope of peace. The black shadow of disaster overhung the prospect of settlement and progress. In August, 1793, peace commissioners failed to secure a treaty with the Indians. The tribes, flushed with victory, became arrogant, and demanded the retirement of the whites beyond the Ohio river. The British agents advised the Indians to make peace but not to give up their lands.

Campaign Of General Anthony Wayne

In the meantime General Anthony Wayne had been appointed to command the army of the west, and knowing that the defeats of Harmar and St. Clair were owing, in part if not mainly, to want of discipline and equipment, he had been preparing in these respects. Impetuous in action as "Mad Anthony" was said to be, he recognized the importance of the emergency and the calamity of another failure. With a force of two thousand men he advanced into the heart of the Indian country, and on the 20th of August, 1794, encountered a large force of Indian warriors and Canadian auxiliaries on the Maumee river, almost within cannon snot of the British fortified post, Miami. This hostile force was commanded by the noted Indian chief, Little Turtle, a Miami. A sanguinary battle took place and the Indians and Canadians were completely routed with fearful losses. The American loss was one hundred and thirty-nine, killed and wounded. The defeat was overwhelming, and broke the spirit and power of the savage. They never recovered from the blow.

General Wayne and his men spent some days in the vicinity of the fort, which mounted fourteen cannon and was garrisoned by two hundred British regulars and two hundred and fifty Canadian militia. The cornfields, wigwams and other property of the Indians for many miles up and down the river and over the adjacent country were destroyed. Colonel McKee, the British agent, lost heavily in the destruction. Property was destroyed under the guns and with- J in pistol-shot of the fort. The command sent an angry and insolent message to Wayne, demanding the reason for his outrageous proceedings. He received a sharp answer, with the addition that his cannon and fort had not been considered any obstacle to the just punishment of the savages and their abetors; that even had they been interposed in action to protect the Indians- it would have been no material obstacle. He would have surmounted it without pausing. It is probable that the formal peace between Great Britain and the United States saved Miami on the Maumee from the fate of Stony Point on the Hudson.

The history is too familiar to require formal statement that General Wayne left a strong" force at the confluence of the Maumee and Auglaize rivers and another at Kekionga ( Fort Wayne ) before proceeding to Greenville, Ohio, eighty miles southwest of Fort Wayne. At Greenville he sent messengers to the Indian tribes concerned, inviting them to a council there, to treat for peace. The Indians hesitated, until their British advisers were compelled to admit that the king had solemnly agreed to evacuate the territory and that all the garrisons, troops and agents must soon pack up and leave. In fact, the Indians had wondered at the failure of the garrison at Miami t< interpose and assist in beating back Wayne's army. Now a great light broke over their minds, showing the British agents as selfish liars and General Wayne as the rightful master of the situation - the representative of the real rulers of the country. It was a sad situation for them; but it was now clear that the only way to make the best of it was to treat with General Wayne. They accordingly responded in numbers large enough to fully represent all the tribes interested.

( )n the [6th day O'f June, [795, the great council assembled at ( ireenville. Present and participating: The Chippewas, Ottawas,. Pottawatomies. Wyandots, Delawares, Shawnees, Miamis, Weas and Kickapoos, altogether over eleven hundred strong. After two months of discussion, in which the Indian leaders proved themselves to be shrewd diplomats and able orators, the council closed in a treat}- confirming that of Fort Harmar, in 1789, by which nearly all northern Ohio was made an Indian reservation, and the cession of several additional posts, including a tract six miles square at Fort Wayne and one of six miles square at Old Wea Town, on the Wabash (^Oniatenon). The entire treaty was unanimously agreed to by all, and was then and there signed by chosen signers on behalf of the Indians then present in person or specially represented.

General Wayne thus secured concessions of the greatest importance and laid the foundations of an enduring peace, in the sunshine of which full tides of immigration set in from the east; the recesses of the forests began to echo the sturdy strokes of pioneer labor and the chorus of advancing civilization. Many years were yet to elapse before these streams of immigration would reach northern Indiana. The immense reservation of northern Ohio deflected them to the southern sections of that part of the territorv, and all Indiana remained Indian territory except a few small tracts for posts and forts and the "grant" to Clark and his men at the falls of the Ohio. But the faint, faraway murmurs of progress had begun to whisper through the forests even before the beginning of the century. They were heard in the subdued voices of returned hunters and braves, telling what the)- had seen in the far southeasterly territory, the opposition of the advancing tide of immigration foreshadowing the red man's doom.

General Harrison S Treaties

After the treaty of Greenville the general attitude of the Indians toward the whites was peaceful. It may be said with truth that the occasional troubles were charged as much to the rapacity of white men as to the savagery of the Indians. There were then, as now, men in whom the instincts of wolves and vultures were dominant. They swindled, bullied and trespassed upon the Indians. They hypnotized them with cheap whisky and obtained outrageous advantages worse than robbery, and when, under the resumed sway of reason, the defrauded savages sought redress, they quieted title by killing them under color of self-defense and extended the fraud and injury by throwing upon the whole race the odium of irredeemable treachery and murderous hostility.

Governor Harrison attested to these evil influences in his official papers, but it was next to impossible, in the thinly occupied condition of the territory, to establish adequate police supervision throughout all sections. Even where the machinery of the law was in operation it was difficult for local juries and magistrates to see through their prejudices the essential truth of causes involving conflicting claims of' white men and Indians. The sinister shadow of fate pursued the foredoomed red man. Xo treaty of peace could efface the brand of Cain from the reputation of the Indians. Thev must be "driven into the wilderness" of banishment. Governor Harrison was instructed to effect the extinction of Indian titles of lands as rapidly as possible ; accordingly he obtained in a comparatively short time the following cessions :

In September, 1802, the Miamis, Pottawatomies, Eel River, Piankeshaw, Wea, Kaskaskia and Kickapoo tribes, through the Miami chiefs, Little Turtle and Richardville, and the Pottawatomie chiefs, Winamac and Topinepic, elected for that purpose, negotiated with Governor Harrison a treaty by which lands in the vicinity of Vincennes were ceded to the United States. At Fort Wayne, June 7, 1803, from chiefs and head men of the Delaware, Shawnee, Pottawatomie, Eel River, Kickapoo, Piankeshaw and Kaskaskia tribes, one million acres. At Yincennes, August 13, 1803, from the Kaskaskias about eight million acres on the Mississippi and Illinois rivers*. At Vincennes, August 18, 1804. from the Delawares their claims to the lands between the Wabash and Ohio rivers south of the road from Vincennes to the Ohio river. August 17, 1804, the Piankeshaws relinquished their claims to the same lands. By reference to the map of Indiana it will be seen that this relinquishment included nine counties - Pike, Gibson, Posey, Vanderburg, Warrick, Spencer, Perry, Harrison, Crawford and parts of Dubois, Knox, Orange and Floyd, as now marked, containing about 2,167,200 acres. At St. Louis, November 3, 1804, i from several chiefs of the Sacs and Foxes, a vast tract, principally on the east side of the Mississippi, between the Illinois and Wisconsin rivers. This included the Sac village at Rock Island. The celebrated chief Blackhawk disputed the right of the chief to cede this territory, and the agitation of the question led to the Blackhawk war of 1832. At Groveland, near Vincennes. August 21, 1805, from chiefs and warriors of the Delaware, Pottawatomie, Miami, Eel River and Wea tribes, their territory lying southeast of a line commencing at a point fifty-seven miles due east from Vincennes and running northeasterly to' a point on the boundary of Ohio fifty miles north of the Ohio, opposite the mouth of the Kentucky river. This included the territory of the present counties of Washington, Scott, Jefferson, Jennings, Ripley, Dearborn, Ohio and Switzerland and parts of Orange Jackson, Clark and Franklin - about 1,500,000 acres, - six times as much as Noble county. December 30, 1805, at Vincennes, from chiefs of the Piankeshaw tribe two million acres west of the Wabash river. September 30. 1809, at Fort Wayne, chiefs of the Delaware. Eel River, Pottawatomie and Miamia tribes, 2,900,000 acres, mostly on the southeastern side of the Wabash below Raccoon creek. October 30 the chiefs of the Weas formally acknowledged the validity of said cession; the sachems and chiefs of the Kickapoos confirmed it in December, 1809, and also ceded an additional tract of their own of 1 13,000 acres.

Thus, in less than nine years, through Governor Harrison's treaties, the Indian titles to about thirty million acres were extinguished. About ten million acres of this was east and south of the Wabash, in Indiana. Thus far the lands occupied by the Pottawatomies, Miamis and other Indians seem to have remained unceded, recognized as Indian lands without dispute. Northern Indiana, at least the region of which the territory of Noble was the central part, was covered by unextinguished Indian titles. The Noble county district was so situated as to be among the last to receive attention from the government in the way of opening it for settlement. Some of the reasons have been mentioned and others will readily suggest themselves. The Miamis were the original proprietors. With their kindred and subordinate tribes they had occupied large domains east and south and west, from which, by treaties already established they had been pushed or moved, and were crowded around their ancient capital, Kekionga. The demands of the earlier pioneers of civilization in the closing years of the eighteenth and first decade of the nineteenth century were satisfied by the millions of acres south and east of the Wabash, and a long time must elapse before the suspended invasion should so revive as to demand the disturbance of the .Miamis and their expulsion from their resting place on their native soil - the last. For all the empire northwest, from township 32 north to the site of Chicago and including the valleys of the St. Joseph in Michigan (once theirs), was already in possession of the alien Pottawatomies. whose title was the invaders' title - wanton conquest.

The exact dates of the treaties by which the final extinction of the Indian titles of the Miamis and Pottawatomies was effected are somewhat uncertain. A treat}- was made with the Pottawatomies at St. Joseph's Mission, near South Bend, September 28, [828, by which the United States granted in severalty to Kich-wa-qua, Indian wife of (tie Pierre Navarre, a section of land, to one Pierre LeClere a section adjoining Kich-waqua' S on the west. These were sections jo and 21, in the territory of Perry township. It would seem that up to that time the Pottawatomies had not relinquished their claims to Noble county territory: and further, that they ceded their Noble county lands, reserving to the tribe the six miles square in Noble and Kosciusko counties, with a stipulation for these grants to Kich-wa-qua ami Le- Clere. What the particular reas> in fi r chi « is- ing these sections for the grant in severalty were, is probably now unknown to any livingperson, so far as ascertained. Contemporary local knowledge probably died with Isaac Tibbott and David P. Bourei, the last livingpersons who were here as early as 1828, who were old enough to take cognizance of the interests and relations that led to the choice. The suggestion occurs that perhaps these persons were already, by tribal action, the owners of these sections in severalty. If so, it was natural that they should be excepted in the sale to the United States and the title quieted by special grant. Prospective buyers would prefer it so.

Another question arises in connection with the treaty of 1828: Was it the one in which the Sparta township ( Indian village) reservation was made? And was it the one in which a condition was made that the government should build a brick house for "Flat Belly," the Indian chief, for use as a council house? Every unchallenged probability would point to that conclusion, were it not that there was a saying- of Joel Bristol, the first settler (1827), that there was no house or ruin of a house when he settled twelve miles east of that site. If built in 1829 or 1830, under the treaty, of course, it would not have been there in 1827; but his statement, if be made it, has been taken to include the denial of the existence of such a bouse while be was here. The tradition is that the chief bad occupied the house but a short time (how long is not stated) before if was wrecked by a terrible tornado, or wind storm, and was never rebuilt. All that is possible, consistent with the further possibility that the house was erected and destroyed and that Bristol never saw it. The Flat Bellv house was unquestionablv the first brick house in the Noble county district. The writer has a whole brick, which he found in 1895, buried in the soil on the site of the old Indian palace.

The First Settlers, April 4, 1827

The first family of real settlers in the territory afterward organized as Noble county was that of Joel Bristol, consisting of himself and wife, Susan, and six nephews and nieces, orphan children of Mrs. Tibbott, a widowed sister of Mrs. Bristol, who had died a short time before at Fort Wayne. The father of the Tibbott children had died in Marion county Ohio, according to the statement of Isaac Tibbott, one of the orphans, who said his father died when he ( Isaac) was four years old, in 1814. These facts and dates I find in a sketch of Isaac Tibbott by the late Nelson Prentiss, founded upon an interview in 1873, in which the author, Mr. Prentiss, obtained from Tibbott his recollections of Noble county pioneer history - published in the New Era, under the title: "Isaac Tibbott's Narrative." The father's Christian name was not given, nor the place of his nativity, nor the time of immigration to Marion county, where Isaac was born - in 1810, he says - and that bis father's death occurred when he was f< >ur years old, which makes the time of the parent's death 1814. No month or day given. The widow and children, it would seem from the narrative, lived for a time at Defiance, Ohio, and finally came to Fort Wayne, when, it is not stated. The widow Tibbott died in Fort Wavne, leaving- her orphan children with her sister, Mrs. Bristol, probably under the care of her elder sons - about twenty-one and nineteen years old, respectively, and

Isaac, about seventeen. The other orphans were three girls, the age of the youngest being" stated as three years. Whether the sister of the widow was married to Bristol before the widow died or immediately after is not stated. The narrative subsequently says: "He (Joel Bristol) married my mother's sister -and removed to the Noble county district with the children." The Bristol family, as above indicated, removed from Fort Wayne by way of the Indian trail, known as the Fort Wayne and Goshen road, and settled on the east half of the southeast quarter of section J3. congressional township 33, north of range 9 east ; by subsequent subdivision and organization, in Noble township, Noble count}-, Indiana. The date of the settlement was April 4, 1827. at which time the territory including it was under the jurisdiction of Allen county - Fort Wayne, county seat. The location is now identified as two miles north of the Whitley county line, and one mile west of the present Green township line; half a mile northeast trim the village of Noblesville. A brick church (Christian chapel) and a school-house are nearly directly north, across the road. At the time of the settlement the inhabitants were Indian savages, of the Pottawatomie tribe, whose capital ( Indian village) was on Turkey creek, eleven miles westward and north. They had occasional temporary encampments in the near vicinity, on the lakes, -with which the county abounded, and visiting or sojourning savage guests - the Miami, Ottawa, Huron, Delaware and Shawnee tribes. Bristol erected a large cabin on south side of the Goshen road and made it a house of entertainment, a road-house or tavern, where immigrants going further or traders or travelers, could find temporary rest and refreshments and if necessary, lodging for teams and families. The place was about twenty-five miles northwest from Fort Wayne, and about the same distance southeast of Elkhart Prairie and adjacent neighborhoods in Elkhart county, toward which beautiful and fertile country the tide of settlers was strongly tending from 1825 to 1830. Bristol's was the "half-way" house. For more than four years there was no other white man's dwelling between it and the prairie, twenty-five miles distant, northwest. Southwest, to Fort Wayne, there was a solitary cabin, six miles distant from Bristol's. Of the life, environments and incidents of the five years, from April, 1827, to April, 1831, there is no recorded local history and but few and faint traditions.

Yet occasionally the thickening mists of seventy years are pierced by flashes of tradition, and we can catch mental views of the Bristol cabin, its occupants and their environments during 1 827-8-9-30-3 1. The surface of the county was undulating, and generally described as "burr-oak openings." While the groves of majestic trees remained, their outlines showed a "rise" in the ground, conspicuous above the lands north and south. and over which passes the Goshen mad. It was for many years afterward known as "Rowdy Ridge." On this ridge stood Bristol's road-house, on what now appears as a level plateau. This ridge is said to have been named from the doings of Bristol's early times. Across the road, where now stands the chapel, there was an oak grove, through the branches of which, in the valley north, gleamed the waters of Bristol's (nowcalled River's) lake, distant about a mile. Another pretty little lake lay east, in Green t( i\\ nship. about the same distance. The gentle undulations, dotted with groves ; the little vales, carpeted with green ; the lakes shining in the distance, and often bearing light canoes with dusky forms - altogether made a charming landscape, through which wound the old historic road, trodden by iron hoofs and measured steps of armed men in the older days, when squadrons of horse and infantry companies moved at command of Wayne or Harrison against the villages of the Indians on the Elkhart river.

An immigrant family, starting from Fort Wayne in the early morning, could reach Bristol's before sunset. Stopping there for rest and refreshments for tired children and weary women, the covered wagon would be drawn into the grove across the road, sometimes into the grove west of the house, on the south side of the road, and preparations made for passing the night. This south grove, however, became a resort for bacchanals and gamblers, witli whom Bristol was a leading spirit, and big carousals were held in fair weather; a cask of whisky, with an occasional flask of French brandy, furnishing the zest of the revels. There were i ccasions were scenes at Bristol's were both picturesque and dramatic. Groups of savages standing silently observant, or chattering and gesticulating around the host or some traveling fur-buyer; squaws squatting in front of the bark tent of a temporary camp; papooses sporting in the grove; pioneers' wagons standing in the groves under leafy canopies, crimsoning the sunset rays: tired women with pallid babies, gazing from the wagons with sad faces and wistful eyes toward the bower in the cherry-tree grove, where husbands and fathers were participating in bacchanalian revel, possibly risking their little hoards of coin at cards, while angry shouts and curses and ugly menaces issued from the thicket, and reeling savages, with maudlin whoops and random gunshots, attested the anarchic reign of the fiend of firewater ; the female inmates of the cabin grouped outside with distressed faces and evident anxiety - all was confusing and terrifying to the half-sick women and children in the wagons. "What was the night to be? What the morrow ? What the future of their wilderness life?"

The fact seems to be well attested that John Knight, who settled with his family in the York township territory, section 29, township 34. north of range 9 east, was first after the Bristols and Tibbotts. The marriage of his daughter Eunice and Samuel Tibbott was the first in this district. That of Lewis Murphy and Jane Tibbott (Isaac's sister) was the second, eight months afterward. There is no account, beyond mere mention, of the second sister, nor of the brother William.

Samuel Tibbott entered land August, 1832. in what is now Elkhart township, the northwest quarter of the southeast quarter of section 20. township 3$, north of range 9, east. He erected a cabin, lived there for some time and then went further west. In March, 1833. Lewis Murphy. Jane Tibbott's husband, entered eighty acres, the west half of the southeast quarter of section 23, township 33. north of range 9, east, adjoining Bristol's on the west. He afterward entered two eighties in section 22, same township, Noble, and resided there or in that vicinity for several years, at least until 1836. He was the victim of an assault and battery, out of which grew a trial before James Knowles, justice of peace, on the 27th of

October. 1836. Thomas Sheparcl was the complaining witness. Murphy, the beaten man, not complaining, and so far as appears not being at the trial ; Joseph Galloway was the defendant. In response to the warrant he went before 'Squire KnoAvles, owned up that be assaulted and battered Murphy without legal justification, and was fined cue dollar and costs. This was more than seven months after tbe act was committed, which was on the 19th day of March. 1836, at the house of Andrew Stewart. The particular origin of tbe trouble does not appear, but from the dates and Murphy's failure to complain it might be inferred that tbe real animus of Shepard's ( complaining witness ) revival of the matter was some subsequent difficult)- between Sbepard and Galloway, for which Sbepard was bitting Galloway over Murphy's shoulder.

Mysterious Disappearance

In Isaac Tibbott's "Narrative" to Nelson Prentiss, in 1872, he strongly implies that life at Bristol's, from 1827 to 1X31. was varied by many exciting and some "thrilling" events, but does not give the events nor their nature, except the incident of theft !of his china pig by an Indian, and his threat to shoot every member of the Indian's famil-v if such offense occurred again. Nevertheless, from the silence that broods over those years there have now and then escaped into the realm of tradition stories that confirm the impression created by Mr. Tibln tt's "thrilling" intimation. I take space enough to give the outline of one that has survived in the memory of one individual, who received it in a confidential way from a contemporary witness: In the autumn of the year 1828, a well-mounted traveler came leisurely along the trail, noting the features of the landscape and apparently enjoying the scene. He had stopped his horse, and was observing the sports of some Pottawatomie children around a tent, eighty rods east of Bristol's, when one of the "hands" employed by Bristol emerged from a thicket south of the road, carrying an ax and a lunch pail. He had been chopping fire-wood, and was returning to the cabin from a "piece of choice woods" on an entered tract. The traveler accosted him. inquired about the Bristol house and rode leisurely along by 1 his side, chatting on subjects appropriate to the time; and observing that it was late in the afternoon expressed a determination t<> stop "over night" at the tavern. He was unusually well dressed, though in the fashion of hunters, fur traders and land buyers of the time, had a good horse, and apparently well filled leather saddle-bag strapped behind the saddle. He was under middle age, had a frank, open countenance, and was affable and talkative. Everything about him and his furnishings indicated prosperity and a cheerful, optimistic outlook upon life, undarkened by acquaintance with its evil phases. In a camp of the worst sort of cowboys or gold-seekers, or the rough resi rts - 1 cities, he would have been called a "tenderi'i 1 t" or greenhorn, according to the style of the associations into which he was introduced, and undoubtedly some such estimate was made by several other "guests" of a certain character, who had arrived before him. Probably the landlord himself formed tbe same opinion and was gratified. It somehow happened on that evening, in an adjacent grove, where Bristol bad a "bower" or tent, a party of the other guests mentioned had assembled, with Landlord Bristol, and soon a full-fledged carousal was in progress. Liquor flowed freely, ribald songs rose through the trees at intervals, and games at cards with high betting was going on. From an Indian camp near by several savages were allured by the fascinations of whiskey and gambling, for both of which the red men had an irresistible penchant. The scene attracted our young traveler, and it was not long before he had accepted and imbibed copious draughts of "mixed" liquors and was eagerly participating in the gambling. Instead of departing early the next morning, as he had intended, he remained several days, freely spending money, with which he seemed to be well supplied, and indulging in drink and gambling without stint. One of the other guests also kindly stayed and "looked after" the reckless young man. with the landlord.

The fourth evening after his arrival, at twilight he went forth alone upon the darkening trail, hatless and coatless, without horse or saddlebags. He was seen to swerve from the trail and stagger into the shadows of the forest and was never seen again. So far as the contemporary relator knew, he then and there disappeared entirely. He had staked and lost everything - money, horse, coat and hat. The supposed winners were adventurers, whose residences were -unknown to the person who confided the facts to an intimate friend many years afterward. The natural questions. "Did he ever get out of the woods alive ?" If not, "now did all traces disappear, and by whose agency?" - have not been answered; almost certainly they never will be answered on earth. The probability is that he was missed, searched for in vain and mourned for as lost, vears ago; and the mourners are all dead. It may be stated that the person who- communicated the story, after many years of reticence, was in a position to know all about the event, and also in a position of enforced silence at the time. That witness has been

That period, during which only one cabin stood in this territory, and only one settler and his family existed on the soil, all of whom have died without leaving any definite record or tradition, must be dismissed from consideration in a historical review, except the few faintly illuminated traditions like the one just noted, that serve as guides in forming correct estimates of what the real history must have been ; feeling sure that its

Entries Of Lands

Joel Bristol's was among the earliest entries of land in the district now constituting Noble county, and the first in the township of Noble, although it was not made until June II, 1 83 1, more than four years after he settled. On the same day Levi Perry and Isaiah Dungan entered lands in what is now Perry township: but Perry had "settled" before Dungan, and the prairie where he located was named for him "Perry's Prairie." 1 am informed that the township also- took its name from him, on account of his being its first settler. During the same year, but later, twelve different settlers made eighteen entries, namely : Jacob Shobe, Susanna Hagan, Adam Engle, Jacob Wolf, Henry Engle, John lies. William Engler, Daniel Harsh, Joseph Smalley, Henry Hostetter, Leonard Danner and Henry Miller.

Shobe, Harsh and Smalley made entries in the same section with Perry and Dungan, section 33. Three-quarters of this section were thus taken up by five settlers in the year 1831. The entire amount of land entered in 1831 in Perry township, by the fourteen persons above named, was twentytwo hundred acres, and all except Leonard Danner's (section 18) was in the southern third of the township. The History of Lagrange and Noble counties, published by F. A. Beatty & Company, of Chicago, in 188.2, after giving a tabular list embracing the same names and entries above given, adds :

"The foregoing entries embrace all the land entered in Noble county in 1831, and amount to twenty-one hundred and twenty acres; all of said land being in townshhip 35, north of range 8, east."

The above quoted paragraph is incorrect in several respects. The foregoing entries do not "embrace all the land entered in Noble county in 1831 ;*' and twenty-one hundred and twenty acres is not the correct amount of land entered in that year. Another statement of that history, that "the first land purchased of the government was in Perry" is also incorrect, as the following table, carefully compiled from the official records, will show :

3. The amount of land entered in 1831, instead of being only twenty-one hundred and twenty acres, was twenty-six hundred and eighty acres, four hundred in Allen, eighty in Noble, twenty-two hundred in Perry. Following is the list of lands entered in Noble county in the year 183] :

The errors are accounted for by the fact that the compilation of that history was too much hurried to give searchers and assistants reasonable time for careful and elaborate work.

tioned as the first. The}' were the first regular land office purchases, but the government had three years before conveyed twelve hundred and eighty acres in the Perry township district, sections 20 and 2\, to two persons by treaty and corresponding deeds. To Pierre LeClere, section 20; to Kich-wa-qua, Indian wife of Pierre F. Navarre, section 21-. These sections lie immediately west of Ligonier. The circumstances of the selections and the nature of the considerations for the grant are not found in any treaty accessible to the writer. It is evident that neither of the grantees wanted the land for settlement or permanent possession, for Kich-wa-qua sold section 21 to John Roher, in October, 1830, for the regular entry price, eight hundred dollars. LeClere sold section 20 to Alexis Coquillard ( colloquial pronunciation, "Cuttigaw"), of South Bend, for the regular government price, eight hundred dollars, on the 19th day of June, 1830. Each of the original sales was approved by John Tipton, Indian agent, and upon each is the following indorsement by President Jackson :

Roller's deed to the Teals, George and Joseph, is dated April 21, 1840. They conveyed to George Teal the northeast quarter and all those parts of the southeast and northwest quarters north of the Elkhart, river ; and to Joseph Teal the southwest quarter and all parts of the southeast and northwest quarters south of the river. Acknowledged before Albert Banta, justice of peace of Elkhart county.

concluded at St. Joseph's September 20, 1818, while Kich-wa-qua's is based on a treaty made and concluded at the same place September 20, 1828. Whether or not there is error in the figures of the year's date in one of the deeds, and if so, which one, can not now be conclusively ascertained, but the evidence points to 1828 as the true date of the Kich-wa-qua grant, at least. It could not have been 18 18, for the reason that she was not married to Pierre Navarre until 1820, or after, that being the year of Navarre's settlement as a young, unmarried man at Soiith Bend. The tract book puts the grants together, at one time, September 20, 1828. This, however, is not absolutely conclusive against the possibility that LeClere's grant was exactly to a day ten years prior to Kichwa-qua's.

Order Of Settlement

In 1830 (some say 1829) John L. Powers settled in southwestern Perry, on the Goshen road, and erected a small cabin or hut, in which for a short time he tried the experiment of accommodating travelers. Levi Perry, Isaiah Dungan and Richard Stone came in 1830. In 1831 the population of Perry district, the prairie, was further increased by Jacob Wolf, Henry Hostetter and family, Adam Engler, Henry Engler, William Engler, Jacob Shobe and family, Joseph Smalley and family, Henry Miller and family. Daniel Harsh. John lies, Leonard Danner (in section 18) and perhaps a few others. No settlers, so far as know, came into any other township in 1831.

The people named as settling in Perry, nearly all of them on the prairie, were firstclass pioneers - orderly, intelligent, industrious, hospitable and generous. Under their regime the rich prairie was rapidly converted into fertile fields, hearing in profusion the staple crops of grain. Educatii n and religion began with the settlement, growing with material prosperity, adorning and glorifying the beginnings of civilization and progression. The sentiments of "liberty, equality and fraternity" were practically enthroned in the minds and hearts of the community, and a large proportion of the earliest settlers were competent to lead and guide in the work of founding and building an "imperium in imperio," a state within a state, in harmony with the system of American self-government.