Elkhart County, Indiana
The Early Inhabitants
A history of Elkhart county should
certainly make some reference to its former inhabitants. Oh. that the
past might speak and that we might reproduce the echoes of these
forests and understand something of the hopes, fears and life struggles
of the people who preceded us! But after studying all the data at our
command we feel that our knowledge is very incomplete. As another
writer has said, "The lands which we now till, the country dotted over
with our comfortable dwellings, the localities now occupied by our
populous towns and villages were once the home of people of a different
genius, with different dwellings, different arts, different burial
customs and different ideas: but they were human beings, and the manner
in which our interest goes out to them, and the peculiar inexpressible
feelings which come to our hearts as we look back over the vista of
ages and study the few relics they have left, are proof of the
universal brotherhood of man and the universal fatherhood of God."
The original possessors of northern
Indiana were the Pottawatomie and Miamis. The ascending smoke from the
wigwam fires, the human voices by wood and stream, were theirs. For how
many ages we know not, these people were the principal occupants of the
country which is now Elkhart county. They were children of nature. The
men were hunters, fishers, trappers and warriors. Their braves were
trained to the chase and to the battle. The women cultivated the corn,
tended the papooses and prepared the food.
And yet these people had attained to
a degree of civilization. Though they wrote no history and published no
poems, there certainly were traditions among them, especially
concerning the creation of the world. Though they erected no monuments,
they had their dwellings, wigwams though they were. Their civilization
was not complicated and yet they lived in villages, graphic accounts of
which have been given. They had their own proper laws, manners and
customs. In place of roads they had trails, some of them noted ones.
They communicated with each other in writing by means of rude
hieroglyphics. They had no schools, but their young were thoroughly
trained and hardened to perform the duties expected of them.
With the Indians there were no
uncles, all were fathers; no aunts, all were mothers; no nephews and
nieces, all were brothers and sisters, livery child was the son or
daughter of the whole tribe, and the line of descent was reckoned
through the mother instead of through the father. This made the lines
of descent all converge to and center in each daughter, and insured the
integrity of the tribe to a remarkable degree.
The Indians had not carried
agriculture to a high degree of perfection, but they turned up the sod
and planted garden vegetables and corn, of which latter they raised
more than is generally supposed, though the women did most of the farm
work. They were not given to commerce, but they bartered goods with
settlers and took their furs to the trading posts where they exchanged
them for the white man's products. They made their own clothes, their
canoes, their paddles, their bows and arrows, and other weapons of war,
and wove bark baskets of sufficient fineness to hold shelled corn. They
also understood how to make maple sugar. They used it to sweeten their
crabapple and cranberry sauce.
The Indians with whom the settlers of
Elkhart county had to deal were not so savage as others. They had been
influenced more or less by coming in contact with Christianity. Before
the year 1763 the French had trading posts at Vincennes, and Indiana
formed a part of what was called New France. The Jesuit fathers
established missions among the Indians. Even before the year 1749 those
Jesuit missionaries were at work in Indiana, though there is not much
certainty as to their labors at that early time. Father Marest is one
of the first known as having worked in this field. Father Marquette is
another. It is remarkable that the missions to the Indians were the
most successful among the Pottawatomie. who occupied the region which
is now known as northern Indiana. Their chief village, and the chief
mission, was at Chitchakos, near the Tippecanoe river. They were
converted, some say, before the middle of the seventeenth century. The
Catholic priests penetrated alone everywhere, preceding even the
traders, and announced to the wild Indians the teachings of
Christianity. In the spirit of self-sacrifice they shared in the toils
and hardships of the ferocious savage and thereby gained his
friendship. At first the efforts to convert the Indians were almost
always at the expense of the lives of the priests. But when the
Pottawatomie yielded to conviction, as was usually the case with
Indians, they were very firm and devoted. When the priests left them
and they remained for many years destitute of spiritual instruction,
they taught each other and attempted to preserve the religious
influences they had enjoyed. On one occasion a priest, who afterward
became a bishop, met one of their chiefs, who entreated him to visit
them, or at least pass through their woods; for the very thought of
"the man of prayer" having been through their country would, he said,
be sufficient to remind them of their duties and make them better. Even
those who remained in their heathenism retained for the black gown a
reverence which is almost beyond description.
The Indians of Elkhart county had
been subject not only to the influences of Catholicism but to those of
Protestantism. As early as 1817 a Protestant mission called the Carey
Mission had been established at Niles, Michigan, the influence of which
was felt over a wide region of country. But French Catholicism had a
more powerful influence than Protestantism over the Indians. One reason
for this was that the Protestants had not been at work as long as the
Catholics. The beginning of their missionary efforts did not date back
to the first half of the seventeenth century. And their labors did not
cover so wide a territory, their ministers did not penetrate everywhere
with ,'i spirit of self-sacrifice, like the priests. But the main
reason for the more potent influence of the Catholics over the Indians
is to be found in their ritual. The ritualism of the English Episcopal
church at that time was at a low ebb, even if the Indians ever saw it,
and the other churches were not ritualistic at all. The Catholic
church, on the other hand, preserved her ritual in all its
elaborateness. It was a system of symbolic teaching: every particular
of it meant something. And to symbolic teaching the Indian mind is
peculiarly susceptible. The Indian thinks by means of the objects which
are before him. He speaks by the use of things. He is of a sensuous
nature, incapable of abstract speculation and interior thought. The
ceremonies of the Roman Catholic church are well adapted to occasion
certain mental states in those who witness them, and the Indian mind in
its simplicity was good ground for this. This was probably the main
reason why Catholicism exerted a more powerful influence than
Protestantism over the Indians.
In treating of the Indian. history of
Elkhart county in particular little of real moment is found save those
ever interesting reminiscences of the pioneers' relations with the red
men of the forest. Of that perennial enigma of aboriginal American
history—the mound builders, or however else may be designated that race
of men who, before the Indian of historic times, and of greater degree
of culture and less barbaric than their successor, inhabited the
Mississippi valley—little can be said as bearing directly upon the
history of this county. In various portions of northern Indiana are
found remains which would indicate a prehistoric race, but in Elkhart
county no mounds or other evidence of mound builders have been
reported. The stone spear points and arrow heads picked up from surface
were as probably lost there by American Indians during hunting or
hostile excursions as by mound builders at an earlier period.
But of the historic Indian some of
the oldest residents of Elkhart county, when children, had knowledge
and no doubt lived in mortal dread of them. Some can recall the more
important of the Indian trails which, during the twenties and thirties,
before highways were opened, formed the easiest routes of communication
from one. part of the country to another. The best known of these was
the old trail from Fort Wayne to St. Joseph, which ran across the
bottom lands of the Elkhart river, skirting the eastern side of the
prairie and passing through the present site of Goshen. It was along
this route that the mail carrier made his occasional trips, so eagerly
anticipated by the "hard-working settlers, and which were almost the
only source of information they had concerning the notable occurrences
of the outside world. On the edge of Elkhart prairie some of those
living to-day can remember the Indian corn fields which afforded the
rough sustenance to the red men, and within the past years many Indian
relics are dug up in the plowing and during excavations for buildings.
Too often the views of the present
generation concerning the "noble red man" are obtained from the
romantic and esthetic pen pictures of a Cooper or a Longfellow. But
unhappily a true acquaintance with the actual life and character of the
Indian not only quenches the ardent sympathy with an unfortunate race
but makes us believe that the Indian was essentially and usually a
sordid, shiftless, unimaginative, vulgar and brutish creature, living
from hand to mouth, with no ambitions beyond a satisfaction of bestial
desires, and with few of the moral virtues which civilized man
observes. The Indians in this vicinity frequently came and camped
around the settlers, begging corn and squashes and giving venison in
return. They were notorious thieves, and would steal anything that
their hands touched, so a sharp watch was kept on their movements when
they were in the neighborhood.
The life of the Indians was
monotonous, varied principally by their feasts and dancing and
enlivened by the fire-water which the white man had introduced, among
other marks of civilization. An early settler thus describes the first
view he had of an Indian camp upon arriving at Boyd's landing in this
county: "The Indians and squaws, with their papooses, having had a
plentifully supply of whiskey. were dancing around the fires in high
glee. It was toward evening and the snow was on the ground nearly two
feet deep. I saw them scrape away the snow near the logs and build
fires against them, and then, spreading down their blankets, they would
sleep with their papooses during the night."
The Indian tribes were not
permanently removed from northern Indiana for some years after the
organization of the county, and as a consequence nearly every person
who lived in the county during the thirties saw more or less of this
wandering people. One interesting incident is related by Dr. W. H.
Thomas, of Elkhart. It was in 1829 that his father. Thomas Thomas,
settled in a log cabin on Two Mile Plain. The family was composed of
his mother and three small children. One day in the spring of 1830 Mr.
Thomas had started for the grist mill at Carey's Mission, twenty-two
miles away, and Mrs. Thomas was left alone with the children with no
neighbors within a mile. While she was doing the morning work about the
cabin, a big Pottawatomie Indian rode up to the door on his pony, and
as he was a little the worse for wear owing to notions of fire water,
he demanded admittance and wanted to ride his pony right into the
cabin. Mrs. Thomas shut the door of the cabin in his face. The Indian,
then rode up and kicked the door open. Three times this was repeated.
Finally the frightened woman slipped out of the rear door and secured a
large broad hoe that stood there. When the Indian for the fourth time
kicked open the door the brave woman rushed out and struck him full in
the face with the blade of the hoe. Stunned by the blow the red skin
rolled from his pony and lay upon the ground in an unconscious
condition. Within a short time a band of Indians rode up to the cabin
and Mrs. Thomas thought that she would surely be murdered, but the
Indians took the matter as a joke and began to jibe the prostrate
Indian for allowing a white-faced squaw to knock him down. They then
rode away and never after molested the brave woman, who had displayed
courage in the face of such odds.
The horrors of Indian war, massacre
and pillage were never visited upon Elkhart county. For that reason the
early inhabitants had every cause to be grateful, and progress along
all lines was never checked by Indian strife but went' on naturally and
substantially to the permanent welfare of the whole county. What this
freedom from early wars meant to the growth and prosperity of all this
part of the state can be fully realized only in contrast with the
conditions which prevailed in the founding of the colonies along the
Atlantic coast or in the settlement of many parts of the far west. The
hardships incidental to the clearing of the primeval forests and the
making of fertile fields where for centuries before had lain the
prairies under the alternate bloom of summer and the sere of winter,
were not the only obstacles confronting the American pioneer in many
portions of this great country. In many regions, otherwise fertile and
a very Eden for the agriculturist and enterprising business men,
civilization has been retarded even to the late years of the past
century because the Indians contested every step of advance made by-the
white man.
To prove the disastrous effects
wrought upon the rapid settlement of a country through the presence of
hostile Indians, we may cite the incidents of the Black Hawk, or, as it
is also known, the Sac war, as far as they concerned the people of this
part of the state. The state of affairs was well described in a paper
read by Hon. Joseph H. Defrees at an old settlers' meeting many years
ago. "In the spring of 1832 what is commonly called the ' Sac war '
took place. The inhabitants of the whole country were alarmed; in
imagination the tomahawk and scalping knife gleamed before us, red with
gore; scouting parties were sent out in every direction: people left
their farms and homes: some went back to the ' settlements,' and others
congregated at Niles. South Bend and Goslien, these being the principal
villages in the country. Forts were erected. Fort Beane, as it was
called, in honor of Captain Henry Beane, stood out prominent to view on
Elkhart Prairie, on the land of Oliver Crane, for some time after the
war.
Colonel Jackson was dispatched
to Indianapolis to solicit aid from the government, and the citizens
generally manifested a courage and bravery worthy of their sires. A few
weeks, however, dissipated all fears; it was soon ascertained that no
hostile Indians had been nearer than one hundred miles west of the then
village of Chicago. The whole circumstance was that Black Hawk with a
portion of his tribe and a few of the Fox Indians were in the habit
annually of passing around the southern bend of Lake Michigan on their
way to Maiden, Canada, where presents were distributed to them by the
British government ; and upon their trip this spring they had some
difficulty with a few pioneers in the territory that now comprises the
state of Iowa, the Indians having made their reprisals on the
provisions of the settlers. Their march north, however, was soon
checked by a few volunteers sent out by the government of Illinois.
Notwithstanding that the Northwestern Pioneer was sending out its
weekly issue to the people in the country, and advising them not to be
alarmed, and to those who contemplated removing here not to stay back
or direct their steps elsewhere—still the 'Sac war' retarded, to a
great degree, the improvement of and immigration into the country that
year." So potent a factor is fear and rumors of war in the settlement
of a new country.
A reminiscent story, concerned with
the events of the Black Hawk war, and which has already been read by
many in this county, nevertheless contains so many glimpses of pioneer
life and custom and of familiar men who figured so prominently in that
early day that it may most appropriately be repeated here and form a
part of this permanent record of Elkhart county.
It was a warm July afternoon—so runs
the narrative. From the door-yard of a country house, situated upon a
little eminence, where prairie and timber land intersect, could lie
seen the finely cultivated farms of perhaps twenty lords of the soil,
while scattered over the broad plain before me could be seen the
adjoining proprietors, with laborers and teams, actively storing away
the fruit of a summer's labor, while just to the left, nestling amid
shrubs and trees, was a quiet, and from my point of observation, pretty
little village. An occasional flash of lightning and the muttering of
distant thunder gave evidence of an approaching storm: just before me,
looking out upon the beautiful scene, with memories of the past
evidently flitting across his mind, sat an old gentleman, full of years
and in the enjoyment of those high qualities of mind and soul that come
from a well spent life. Intending to obtain a recital of early
incidents, I observed: "You were here very early in the history of this
locality were you not ?" He replied: "Yes, before the county was
organized or a single white settler was in all this region, I visited
this prairie for the first time. I was an early settler of Elkhart
Prairie and lived near the river of that name, upon the farm now owned
by Matthew Rippey and occupied by Mr. Graham, formerly a Methodist
minister near here. One morning very early—for we did not sleep late in
those clays; muscle, pluck and patience were all we had then out of
which to make a living for those dependent on us—Colonel J. Jackson, my
nearest neighbor, greatly excited and in haste, came to my house. As he
approached he cried out: 'Get your gun and ammunition and provisions,
and meet us at Goshen at eleven o'clock; the Indians are near Niles,
murdering the whites, and they want our aid.' I wanted him to stop and
give me more particulars, but he would not even pause for a moment;
replying that he must hurry and notify the neighbors, he passed out of
view. It seemed to me the Colonel was unnecessarily alarmed, but
concluding to meet them at Goshen we set about getting ready.
"While I half-soled my shoes for the
trip my wife prepared some provisions and molded bullets to enable me
to do service. While so engaged John Elsea, my nearest neighbor, came
over and proposed to stay and look after both families while I went. My
shoes now being repaired, we got out my old knapsack, which had been in
service in the border Indian wars, and with ammunition, provisions and
my rifle I started on foot for Goshen. We had no roads then. It was
across the country or upon the Indian trails, just as you chose to go.
Arriving at Goshen, the first man I met was Colonel Jackson. 'If you
want any Indians killed, just bring them along now. Colonel,' was my
salutation. With a hearty laugh and strong old-fashioned shake- hands,
which made one feel better for it, the Colonel greeted me. By this time
many had arrived, armed with shot-guns, muskets, rifles, a few
old-fashioned horse-pistols, butcher-knives, etc., ready to inarch out
to the aid of the pioneers, who. like ourselves, had left the comforts
of civilization to hew out homes for their wives and little ones from
the wilds of a new country. We met together, and then details of
various reports were given. Colonel Jackson produced a letter which had
been written to him from Niles and sent in haste by an express rider,
asking him to call out the militia and come to their rescue, as the
Indians were near them, coming from the west, murdering the people. We
concluded to send two messengers at once to Niles to get more specific
information. They were to return the next day. We did so, and the town
was full. Men, women and children had heard the reports and came
nocking into town in every conceivable way— some crying, others
swearing. To add to the confusion, it wras said at the meeting that the
Indians on and around this prairie were preparing for war; that they
were having war dances every night, and had bushels of bullets already
molded. It was determined for safety to build a fort at Goshen, into
which the women and children could be gathered, and a day was fixed for
its commencement.
"In the meantime the men sent out to
Niles returned with the information that it was a false alarm, that
there were no hostile Indians east of Chicago; but at that place they
were perpetrating outrages, and it was expected hostilities would open
over the whole frontier. There were no contradictions, however, of the
rumors of hostile demonstrations among the Indians in what is now
Kosciusko county; so it was determined to go on with the fort. I had
made up my mind that the whole story was a fabrication, and determined
to visit the Indians on this prairie, in person, and ascertain the
truth. 1 was wholly unacquainted with the country. There were no roads,
no settlers that I knew of, no white men with them of my knowledge, the
reports were alarming in the extreme, yet T did not believe them. If
they were true it was important to know the worst at once, and prepare
to meet the enemy. If untrue it was important to allay the excitement
and alarm so that people could again go quietly to their work. John
Elsea promised to accompany me, but he too was ignorant of the country,
of the tribes we were about to visit, of their language, and what to us
was more important than all, of their intentions. Whether we were to
come upon these barbarians in their haunts, painted for the war dance,
with murder in their hearts, was to us a very serious question.
"We determined, however, to go, and
bidding farewell to those nearest and dearest to us, we crossed the
river and started out alone into the wilderness. There was no road, no
improvement, no human habitation between Elkhart river and the east
side of Big Turkey Creek Prairie. With nothing to guide us but an
Indian trail, which we finally came upon, we moved forward. As we
approached the prairie the trail became more and more beaten, until at
last we arrived in sight of an Indian village. It was located on what
was for a long time known as the Rosseau farm, subsequently owned by
Charles Rippey; farther south was another village called Waubee
Papoose. Waubee was the chief of this tribe and lived at the village
first mentioned. We were a little way off when the savages first saw
us; they became greatly excited at our approach: immediate confusion
was the result. Hurriedly they commenced to assemble. Being satisfied I
could pacify them if I was able to reach them before hostile
demonstrations commenced, we both put spurs to our horses, and at full
gallop dashed into their camp, thus placing ourselves in their power.
The whole population, squaws, clogs and all. were in a tumult of
excitement, and gathering around us demanded to know our business. We
told them we were after seed corn to plant. The old chief Waubee
informed us they had none; but we could get it at another village some
six miles away to the southeast, and directed us on our trail. Spending
an hour or two with the barbarians, looking for war paint, clubs and
bullets, we took our departure.
"Traveling up another trail, we now
came to a second village, where the town of Oswego now stands. Squabach
was the head of this village. The noble savages here formed a
semi-circle, squatted down on their haunches and remained perplexingly
silent for over an hour. Their toilet was not very elaborate. The young
ladies now-a-days who go into ecstasies over the latest novel and think
it so romantic and who faint at the sight of a rat would not have
followed theirs as the most becoming fashion. We could neither please
nor anger them. Perfectly motionless and expressionless, they sat for
over an hour. Disgusted, we were about to depart, when the chief spoke
to a little Indian, who suddenly darted off into the woods. We
concluded to await the result of this movement. Presently an Indian
came forward and in fair English gruffly said: 'What you want here?'
Instantly we spoke the magic word ' seed-corn,' and then the dusky
savages all arose, talked and gave us a cordial welcome. Their squaws
had been planting, and after an hour or two of loitering around their
wigwams we departed. Everything gave evidence of quiet. We camped near
what is now Leesburg. Mr. Elsea got four logs together in the shape of
a foundation for a house, near where the old Metcalf Beck store-house
stands, and formally made his claim to the land, intending next fall to
move his family to that spot of mother earth. Before he returned others
jumped his claim and became owners of the land. We went hack to our
homes, reported the Indians all peaceful, and this allayed the
excitement. They settled at Goshen, however, to build a fort, got the
foundation laid and disagreed as to its name, and so the work was
abandoned. Now all those who were then young men in the prime of
manhood, full of energy and activity, are either gathered to their
fathers or are in the decline of life. The mothers of the daughters who
now live in ease, and many of whom pride themselves on white hands and
pretty feet, rather than clear heads and brave hearts, are now gone or
broken in health.. We shall all pass away soon to some other land, but
it is a happy thought that we have set a good example for our children.
We have laid the foundation of future prosperity strong and deep, and
those now in the prime of life need only to build upon it."
Before the close of the thirties was
witnessed the last exodus of the red men from the forests and prairies
of northern Indiana which had so long been their home. In 1837 Colonel
Pepper convened the Pottawottomie nation at Lake Ke-waw-nay for the
purpose of removing them west of the Mississippi. In that fall a small
party of about a hundred were conducted to their future home, and the
regular emigration of the tribe, to the number of about a thousand,
took place in the summer of 1838, under the command of General Tipton
and Colonel Pepper.
As a former historian has said, it
was a sad and mournful spectacle to witness these children of the
forest slowly retiring from the home of their childhood, that contained
not only the graves of their revered ancestors, but also many endearing
scenes to which their memories would ever recur as sunny spots along
their pathway through the wilderness. They felt that they were bidding
farewell to the hills, valleys and streams of their infancy; to the
more exciting hunting grounds of their advanced youth, as well as the
stern and bloody battlefields where they had contended in their riper
manhood. All these they were leaving behind them to be desecrated by
the plowshare of the white man. As they cast mournful glances back
toward these loved scenes that were fading in the distance, tears fell
upon the cheek of the downcast warrior, old men trembled, matrons wept,
and sighs and half-suppressed sobs escaped from the motley groups as
they passed along, some on horseback and others in wagons. Ever and
again one of the party would break out of the train and flee back to
their old encampments on Eel river and on the Tippecanoe, declaring
death to be preferable to banishment from their old homes. An enforced
removal of a people from their ancestral abodes is always a pitiable
spectacle, and the pages of history contain no sadder chapters than the
descriptions of such a scene, as witness the expulsion of the happy
Acadians and the events described in the mournful pages of "
Evangeline." But generally the wise statesmanship of the times has
justified such removals, and perhaps it is a part of human destiny that
the weaker nation must give way to the stronger in order that " the
fittest may survive". But nevertheless it cannot be too strongly
insisted upon that there should be a rigorous self-searching as to
motives in such matters, whether on the part of the government or the
individual.
Several years after the removal of
the Pottawottomies, the Miamis, having ceded their lands to the United
States, were also removed to their western homes under escort of United
States troops. Thus departed the last of the red men, the land they had
once roamed over at will was free for the use and occupation of the
white settlers, and though the dispossession of the Indian from his
ancient home seems regrettable, yet it is justified by the wonderful
civilization which now flourishes where once the savage and the wild
animal held complete sway.
Source: A Twentieth Century History and Biographical Record of
Elkhart County, Indiana By Anthony Deahl Published by Lewis Publ. Co.,
1905
