Maurer School of Law: Indiana University Digital Repository @ Maurer Law Articles by Maurer Faculty Faculty Scholarship 1881 A Historical Sketch of Johnson County Indiana David Demaree Banta Follow this and additional works at: https://www.repository.law.indiana.edu/facpub Part of the United States History Commons Recommended Citation Banta, David Demaree, "A Historical Sketch of Johnson County Indiana" (1881). Articles by Maurer Faculty. 1078. https://www.repository.law.indiana.edu/facpub/1078 This Brochure is brought to you for free and open access by the Faculty Scholarship at Digital Repository @ Maurer Law. It has been accepted for inclusion in Articles by Maurer Faculty by an authorized administrator of Digital Repository @ Maurer Law. For more information, please contact [email protected]. NYPL RESEARCH LIBRARIES I 3 3433 08181593 2 IVO (ToMSo/VCo.) A HISTORICAL SKETCH OF u w INDIANA. BY D. D. BANTA "This is the place, this is the time. Let mc review the scene, And summon from the shadowy past The forms that once have been." CHICAGO: J. H. BEZELS & CO. 1881. ^00389 Til'- R Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1881, by D. D. BANTA, in (he office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington, D. C. LNTRODUOTOIiY. Every reader of this historical sketch, will, doubtless, think that it ought to have been better than it is. Well, I think so, too if one he can write a let him ; but, any imagines better, try it. Then he will begin to learn in what a chaos everything is that rests in memory, and how eluding important facts are. I might have dwelt somewhat upon the more recent times, but, for obvious reasons, I preferred to occupy the space allotted me in rescuing, as far as possible, the beginning from oblivion. In this, I have gone beyond the limit set by the publishers, and yet have omitted much that ought to be preserved. I intend ii^he future, as in the past, to keep memoranda of events appertain- ing to the county's early history, as well as to its later, and, if this sketch will serve to revive recollections and bring their sub- stance to my memorandum book, I will not think my work done in vain. To all the old men and women who have now and then, during the past few years, given me the benefit of their reminiscences, I make my acknowledgments, and to Judge Hardin, who has ren- dered such signal service, I am under peculiarly strong obli- gations. The time of the arrival of many of the pioneer settlers of the county, often rests in uncertainty. The dates given, if wrong, may be corrected at some future time, if those charged with the knowledge will give it. And, more serious than that, was the inability to learn the names of all who came in during the first few years. That information can be given, and it is invited. D. D. BANTA. CONTENTS. INTRODUCTION 3 CHAPTER I—In the Beginning 7 CHAPTER II—The Wilderness Invaded 9 CHAPTER III—The new Purchase and its Grantors 15 CHAPTER IV—The First Settlements 19 CHAPTER V—Organization of the County 24 CHAPTER VI—County Government Organized 29 CHAPTER VII—Progress of Settlement 35 42 CHAPTER VIII—Through Johnson County fifty-five years ago CHAPTER IX—Contending forces : Topographical and Physical Condition; the Land Insect Life, Wild Snakes, Sickness, 49 Clearing ; Squirrels, Animals, ; The Chase Turbulence Re- CHAPTER X—Life in the Woods ; Toiling ; ; Markets 60 ligious ; Educational; CHAPTER XI—Conduct of County Business 70 CHAPTER XII—Incidents 76 CHAPTER XIII—The Early Bar of Johnson County 82 CHAPTER XIV—Official Register: Governors of Indiana, Lieutenant Governors, Secretaries, Auditors of State, Treasurers of State, Attorneys General, Representatives in Congress, Members of Indiana House of Representatives, Prosecuting Attorneys, Judges of the Circuit Court, Associate Judges of the Circuit Court, Probate Judges, Common Pleas Judges, District Attorneys, County Commissioners, Circuit Court Clerks, Appraisers Real Estate, County Treasurers, Sheriffs, County Auditors, County Assessors, Collectors of County Revenue, Recorders, County * Surveyors — 100 CHAPTER XV—Blue River Township 108 CHAPTER XVI—Nineveh Township 113 Franklin Franklin 116 CHAPTER XVII— Township ; College CHAPTER XVIII—White River Township 122 CHAPTER XIX— Pleasant Township 151 CHAPTER XX—Hensley Township 155 CHAPTER XXI—Union Township 159 CHAPTER XXII—Clark Township 163 CHAPTER XXIII—Needham Township 167 168 Population of Johnson County by Townships - — ft) AoQ>„ eA^-« HISTORICAL SKETCH OF Johnson County. BY I>. D. BA1VTA. CHAPTER I. IN THE BEGINNING. In all that vast region of country lying between the Ohio and the lakes, France, at one time, claimed a nominal ownership. This claim, set up in the latter half of the seventeenth century, was founded on the right of discovery, settlement and military the occupation, and it was maintained until the defeat of French by Gen. Wolfe, at Quebec, in 1759. In the treaty that followed, France forever relinquished her pretensions to this region, and it passed into the possession of the British crown. When the war for independence came on, British agents, scat- tered here and there in the wilderness, were active in stirring up the Indians to make war on the frontiers. The Kentuckians of were among the principal sufferers, and, as a measure protec- of the tion, it was thought to be necessary to rid the country mischievous agents. Gen. George Rogers Clarke, accordingly, author- applied to Patrick Henry, then Governor of Virginia, for attack the British in the ity to raise an army with which to posts to the West. The authority being given, Gen. Clarke repaired Falls of the Ohio in the spring of 1778, when two hundred frontiersmen at once rallied to his standard. Floating down the Ohio in rude boats to a point a short distance below the mouth of the Wabash, the little army disembarked, and at once set out for the British posts on the Illinois River. Providence favored the enterprise. The English were expelled from the Illinois taken country, and the oath of allegiance to Virginia was willingly 8 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF JOHNSON COUNTY. by the French inhabitants. News of the event reaching the post at Vincennes ahead of the invaders, the French residents of that and British place rose successfully against the British garrison, rule was at an end in the West. The country now belonged to Virginia. Steps were taken by this commonwealth to organize a government suitable to the wants of the region, and Col. John Todd, of Kentucky, was commis- sioned as the Lieutenant Colonel and Commandant of the coun- try on the "Western side of the Ohio." The dominion exercised bv Virginia was of short duration. In 1784, this State ceded to the United States all her claim to the country "northwest of the Ohio," and from that time on the en- tire region has been under the jurisdiction of the United States. Various changes in the Territorial government were, from time to time, made, and State after State was carved out and ad- mitted into the Union, until the whole has long since been ab- sorbed. On the 19th day of April, 1816, Indiana was admitted as one of these States. During all of the time from 1769, when La Salle, a French explorer, with thirty companions, descended the Kankakee and was the first of Europeans certainly known to have set foot on the soil of our State, down to within a few years before the admission of the State into the L^nion, it is not surely known that any white man ever set foot within the borders of the territory now com- prised within the boundaries of Johnson County. The probabil- that ity is, white men were here during that time. An Indian the falls at trail, connecting Louisville with the Wabash villages, passed through this county. This Indian highway, leading to and from the "dark and bloody ground," was, doubtless, trav- eled by many a war party going to and returning from the Ken- tucky settlements. These returning parties not infrequently were accompanied by prisoners, and there is a strong probability that white captives have been led by dusky warriors through the primitive woods of this county, long before the white hunters were venturing beyond the northern hill ranges of the Ohio. And then, again, it is known that the French Jesuits and traders, during the century of French ascendency in the West, all the navigated principal streams, established trading-posts and missionary stations wherever Indians could be found in numbers to : as the White justify and, River country was prolific of all kinds of game and fur-bearing animals common to its latitude, a reasonable hypothesis, supported by tradition, warrants the con- that jecture Frenchmen were, long ago, voyageurs on White and thus came within River, the borders of our county. HISTORICAL SKETCH OF JOHNSON COUNTY. 9 CHAPTER II. THE WILDERNESS INVADED. Some time during the latter part of 1817, Jacob Whetzel, then in Franklin County, in this State, bought a tract of land living" in Harrison's Purchase," near the mouth of Eel River, in Greene County. The usually traveled route from the White Water country, where Whetzel lived, to the "Purchase," was by the way of the Ohio and the Wabash Rivers, or from the Falls at Louisville, overland to that place. Jacob Whetzel was a born and trained woodsman. He had been hunting wild beasts and all life. served as fighting Indians his He had a spy and scout with the armies of St. Clair and Harrison, and, now that a path- less woods lay between him and his purchase, he determined to cut through rather than go around.