Huntingburg Town Hall and Fire Engine House

In Patoka township is the (Hl^son scctio)i, technically known as section twenty-one. It was acquired by William Gibson, November 17, 1818. Old pioneers say he received the land for services rendered in the surveying corps, doing government work. Up to 1900, it was the finest stretch of primeval forest in the county. On this land is the Bricrjie/d bridge across Patoka, on the road leading from Jasper to Huntingburg. Where the bridge now stands was an old Indian ford, and upon the high land southwest of the bridge the Indians had a small field in which they made rude attempts to raise corn. They frequently camped there, and many Indian relics have been found there. Turtles and other Indian totems were cut upon some of the forest trees. Though they were as silent as the foot of time, they conveyed a message. After the Indians went away, their truck patch became covered with wild briers, hence the name bricrficld. Topographically considered, it is just the kind of a place the Piankishaw Indians selected throughout Dubois county for village sites. Patoka river. Duck pond, and a high point of land would certainly prove attractive to the local Indians. It is quite likely that an Indian burying ground is somewhere near, and that some day an archaeologist ma}' make the discovery. It is known that Dr. Isaac Beeler, a successful pioneer physician of Huntingburg, gathered many of his roots and herbs near this Indian camping ground. It is a tradition that roots and herbs were plentiful there because the Indians always made it a point to protect the roots and herbs they did not immediately need. Thus the plants had a chance to multiply freely b}' the time Dr. Beeler needed them. Practically all pioneers had read their Psalms and knew that herbs grew for the services of man. (Ps. 104:14.)

Passage source: History of Dubois County from Its Primitive Days to 1910, published 1910.

Huntingburg was laid out and platted in 1837. It is said to be so named because Col. Geiger was fond of hunting there. A re-survey of the town was made November 26, 1854, by Jacob Marendt, county surveyor; in August, 1866, by Surveyor Sandusky Williams ; and in 1874, by August

Passage source: History of Dubois County from Its Primitive Days to 1910, published 1910.

Machine-read from a century-old scan, so expect the errors a machine makes: misspelled names, dropped words, stray characters.

Read the whole chapter on Patoka Township - 1,143 words on its settlement, mills, schools and churches.