Indiana State History A project of Genealogy Trails

         The close of the Revolutionary War in 1783 was an epoch in this country's forward march to the great destiny laid out for it by the Maker and Ruler of the Universe. The old heroic soldiers came out of that protracted struggle, buoyant and hopeful exultantly proud of the achievements that they had been instrumental in bringing about. They were rich in deeds of valor and patriotism but very poor in stores of wealth. The country for seven long years had been over-run by contending armies almost from end to end and had been devastated by fire and sword of a ruthless and cruel enemy. Neither age nor sect was exempt from their merciless brutality. The gloating and boasting English were cruel and their two allies, the detested Tories and the barbarous, savage Indians, committed every atrocious act of cruelty that a brutal foe could invent. In many cases the families, homes, towns and neighborhoods were broken up, the property destroyed and the people murdered or scattered to the four winds.
        When the excitement attending the momentous events had, in a measure, subsided, there were hundreds of the old heroes who had fought with Washington, Lafayette, Putnam, Green, Sumpter, Servier and Marion who found themselves without any property or occupation and no prospect of bettering their conditions. There was no money but the worthless continental script. The gold and silver had all been sent to France and Spain for arms and munitions of war. Many of these old heroes were maimed by wounds, still more of them broken down by diseases that came to them by the severe trials and privations of the long struggle for liberty.
        Most of the above two classes were unable lode anything and could but remain in the section of their former homes; but the strong and hardy veterans, by hundreds determined to better their condition if possible. The fame of Daniel Boone was known to them and glowing descriptions of the rich country west of the mountains on both sides of the Ohio river were told them by hunters and trappers and by the returning soldiers who had been in the campaign of General George Rogers Clark when he saved, to the then enfeebled American republic, the princely heritage of the Northwest Territory.
        There was a great uprising of the people on the borders the colonies nearest the much talked of country west of the mountains, preparing to emigrate to new homes. They started in every conceivable manner; some on horseback; others in two wheeled carts and still others in wooden wheeled wagons drawn by oxen, probably one half of them with their rifles and axes, a small bundle of clothing and with their young wives, on foot. These emigrants settled and made their homes in Tennessee and Kentucky, many of them around the Ohio Falls and up the Ohio from there.
        The Indians were at war with any who attempted to invade what they termed their country which meant all the region west of the Alleghany Mountains. From the time of Daniel Boone s first advent into the wilds of Kentucky in 1769 the Indians waged a relentless war to drive him and his followers back from their favorite hunting grounds. During the next fifteen years many of these adventurers were killed but the Indians suffered as well.
        About 1785 the old heroes of the Revolution commenced to arrive in large numbers and made extensive settlements in many sections of the country south of the Ohio and north of the Tennessee rivers. The Indians became still more determined to stop this advance and during the next twenty years many of the old pioneers were killed, but the Indians suffered more and finally were driven north of the Ohio river. After that raiding bands of Indians occasionally crossed the Ohio and murdered people in the outlying settlements of Kentucky. The whites would organize counter raids and invade the wilderness of the Northwest Territory and punish the Indians, at times killing large numbers of them and destroying their towns and cornfields.
        As the Kentuckians settled up near the south bank of the Ohio river, the Indians moved back farther north, the White river becoming the southern line of their principal settlements, leaving a territory from thirty to forty miles between the Indians and the whites from the Wabash on the west to the Miami on the east. There were a few small scattering Indian towns in the wilderness between the two main lines. The men who had fought at Kings Mountain and all over the thirteen colonies to wrest this country from the tyrannical yoke of England were not made out of the sort of material that would tamely sit down and let a race of half naked Indians say that they might come thus far and no farther. Boldly they crossed the Ohio or floated down its waters in boats to locate in the fertile wilderness of Indiana.
        The pioneers met with a determined opposition from the dusky denizens of the forest in their attempts to locate in new homes. This was about one or two years before Harrison had succeeded in making treaties with the Indians whereby he secured all southern Indiana as far as Louisville and many of these emigrants were killed and others had to cross the river. Those that remained were besieged almost every day by the Indians that were lying in ambush, watching for an opportunity to shoot the trespassers as they considered the emigrants. They had to build strong forts in every section where they attempted to form settlements and were compelled most of the time to remain within the walls of these stockades that surrounded the blockhouses, all the time keeping a lookout for their sly enemy. In many cases they suffered for the want of food, not daring to go into the forest for game when there was such an abundance on every hand. In some sections the only respite the people had from their forced imprisonment was when cold weather came in early winter. The Indians dreaded the cold and the snow and during such seasons they were mostly in their towns and in their wigwams.
        When the pioneers found that the Indians were gone they would kill buffalo, bear, deer- and turkeys, curing the buffalo and venison meat by drying it and making bacon out of the bear meat, storing away large quantities of it in the blockhouses to have when the weather became warm and the Indians were again on the watch for an opportunity to destroy them. These men had come with a determination to stay and make a home for themselves and families. They took every precaution for protection against the Indians and they endured the most trying privations to succeed. More people came, thus making the settlement stronger and soon small patches were cleared. Often one man was concealed and on the watch with his rifle while another cleared a small field that was put in corn and vegetables and this was cultivated in the best way they could. There was great privation endured by these brave people who for weeks at a time had nothing to eat but lean, jerked meat of the deer and buffalo and a few kernels of nuts and acorns. When the corn was ripe enough to be used for food there was great comfort in store for those who had become surfeited by eating nothing but meat.
        The emigrants who settled in Indiana at an early date came over the traces made by the Indians. One of these routes was by the way of Red Banks, where Henderson, Kentucky, now is; thence to the north through Vanderburgh county, on through Gibson county to Vincennes. Most of these emigrants who made their homes in northern Vanderburgh county and Western-Gibson county, came over that route. There was another crossing of the Ohio at the Yellow Banks, where Rockport, in Spencer county, stands. This route ran to the north through Spencer, Warrick and Pike counties to the old Delaware town at the forks of the White river and there was another crossing at the mouth of Blue river. The emigrants who came over this route settled mostly in Harrison and Washington counties.
        The old trace that crossed the Ohio river at Louisville, Ky., known to the white people as the Clarksville and Yincennes trace, that had been a main traveled way from time immemorial, was the most favored route and two thirds of all the early settlers who came to southern Indiana, west of Louisville, came over that route. The settlers east of Louisville on the Ohio river or in the country adjacent to it, came down the Ohio in boats from Pennsylvania and Virginia. At the treaty of Greenville made with the Indians in 1795 by General Wayne a small strip was ceded in which parts of several of the eastern counties of Indiana were situated. Many of the soldiers who were stationed at Ft. Washington (Cincinnati) as their terms of enlistment expired settled around that fort, out to the Miami river and up that river on both sides.
        There was a settlement made in 1805 near the spot where the city of Richmond now stands. Richard Rue and George Holeman were captured south of Louisville, Kentucky, by the infamous Simon Girty, who was in command of a small band of Indians. During a time of their imprisonment they had seen the rich, fertile regions ot the White Warer country and as soon as they were released they went home and in a short time, with some of their neighbor made the first settlement in that section of the state. At an early date there was a settlement at Armstrong Station on the Ohio river in Clark county.
        The pioneers who first came to Indiana could not have remained for any length of time had it not been for the game which was so abundant on every hand. They often, for weeks at a time, had no other food than the bear, deer and turkey meat. They used every sort of substitute for bread, often roasting the white-oak acorns and eating them in the place of bread with their meat. They would gather the seeds of the wild rice and wild barley and mix it with the roasted acorn, pounding it all up together, making ash cakes of the meal thus obtained. On such food as this with a bountiful supply of meat, the old pioneers and their families subsisted, but

as soon as they could raise a patch of corn all this was done away with and the meal made from the corn with beetles, seasoned with the rich bear grease and made into bread was used, and these hardy people prospered and grew fat on it. They were perfectly healthy and the children raised in this way made the strongest men and women. Dyspepsia and kindred stomach troubles were not known. There was but little opportunity of obtaining an education yet they were students of nature and every day learned useful lessons that stood them in need for self protection and the protection of their families.
        In a few years after the first settlers came there were, in most cases, those about the forts or blockhouses who could teach the young people the first principles of education and in after years these people improved the information thus gained by reading the few books that were in the country and many of them became learned in all things needed at that time. The young people were married at a much earlier period in life than the young people of this day. A boy at that time, sixteen or seventeen years old was counted on to do a man's work and to do his part in hunting or in scouting for Indians. The six or eight years now taken to secure an education by our young people to prepare them to be competent to do their part in the great battle of life was spent by our grand and great grandfathers and mothers preparing this country so that such great attainments could be secured by the present generation. The difficulties in commencing housekeeping then were not so great as now. They did not have to wait until they had saved money enough to build a fine house and furnish it with the luxuries of life before they got married, thus spending eight or ten years of the best period of their lives and often failing in their expectations. They were contented to commence life as their mothers and fathers had before them with nothing but what they could manufacture and devise from the cabin down to all their furniture and dress.
Instead of spending their time lamenting their sad fortune, they were happy in their love for each other and for the great blessing of perfect health which they enjoyed,
        The possessions of these people worried them not at all for neither of them had anything but a small wardrobe of common, warm clothes. They had the great book of nature before them and were happy studying its changing scenes. Neither did they worry about dress makers for they all make their own clothing from shoe pacs and moccasins to the hats or bonnets which they wore. There was no change of fashion to keep up with and they did not worry about what this or that one had for they all dressed alike and employed their time about more useful things than learning the different styles of making dresses and clothing. They enjoyed life as they found it and loved the simple amusements that all engaged in at that date. Many could go on the puncheon floor and dance for hours without fatigue. They had free use of their bodies. not being encumbered with tight belts that hindered them from breathing and did not know what a corset was, that garment which at this date holds the body of its victims as if in the grip of a vise. Thus they could use every part of their body as freely as nature intended it to be used. In raising their children these hardy women furnished all the food they needed in infancy from their own breasts. thus laying the
foundations for strong men and women to take their places.
        The clothing of the men and boys was in keeping with their daily life and made for the most part of deer skins. When this was well dressed it made comfortable and serviceable shirts. leggings and coats. Sometimes the women made their petticoats of this very useful and serviceable material. The deer, elk and buffalo skins furnished the
material from which all footwear was made.   
        In an early day there were many scattered herds of buffalo in  all sections of Indiana but no such innumerable droves as the later hunters were used to see on the great western prairies. The buffalo skin was covered with a shaggy coat of kinky wool. Sometimes this was sheared and when mixed with a small portion of the wild nettle fiber, to give it strength, it was carded and spun the same as sheep's wool wits. Later on, from this coarse thread they wove a cloth using the nettle thread for chain that made strong and comfortable clothing. The buffalo hair was mixed with the fur and hair of other animals, usually the long hair of the bear; then was carded and spun. They knit this into warm, serviceable stockings but without the fiber of the nettle as it was too short to have the needed strength to hold together.
        In most cases the first settlers were young men just married, who, with their young wives, their axes and their rifles and such other property as they possessed, came boldly into this then dense wilderness. If they were so fortunate as to find any before them, they would stop a few days and select a place to make their home. They then cut the logs for their cabin and with the help of their new found friends would carry the logs and put them up, covering the cabin with boards made with their axes for frows and putting weight poles on to hold the boards in place. Cracks between the logs were stopped by wedging in pieces of timber and then filling it all full of mud. A hole of the proper size was cut in the side for a door and often the only door shutter was a bear skin. For a fire place and chimney they cut out three or four logs the width wanted, at the end of the cabin and built a three sided crib on the outside, joining it to the building. Layer upon layer of mud were then put on the inside of the crib making the jambs and back wall as high as needed to be out of danger of the fire, letting the smoke take care of itself
        The floor and carpet were of mother earth. For a bedstead they would drive a fork into the ground far enough from the side and end of the cabin, then put a pole in the fork and into a crack between the logs and another pole the other way from the fork and to a crack in the logs, thus making the end and side rails of the bedstead. After this they put other poles length ways as close as they wanted and piled fine brush over this, covering the brush with skins of animals. At this time the proverbial blue figured cover lid made by their good mothers in their old North or South Carolina, Tennessee or Kentucky homes would come into use with such other bed clothing as they were fortunate enough to have brought with them. The deficiency, if any, was supplied by bear and deer skins.
        They made a table in the corner in the same way as the bed was made only it had for a top thick boards made level with an ax. For seats the back log was used until it was wanted for its place to form the back of the fire, when its mate was put in and used for a seat until it was wanted. If they were fortunate enough to own an auger, three legged stools were made.
        Many of the first settlers for a few years lived in what was called in that day, a half faced camp, made by putting two large forks in the ground the proper distance from a large fallen tree to make a twelve or fourteen foot pen then putting a pole from fork to fork and other poles from that one to the log as closely as they were wanted and then piling brush on this. They then rolled logs up to the two sides as high as they wanted them leaving the outer end open usually facing the south. Large fires were made at this open end during cold weather, the occupants lying with their feet to it and their heads toward the large log. Usually these camps were made in the dry season and by the time the rainy season cane on they would have plenty of skins to cover them and line the sides, thus keeping the rain and cold out and drying the skins at the same time.
        These brave people did the best they could to have the comforts of life but they had very little to do with. There was not a nail in a hundred miles of them. The settlers young wife, his cabin, rifle, ax and possibly a horse were all his earthly possessions, but he was rich in good health, determination and pluck. With his ax he cleared a few acres for corn and vegetables, with his rifle he could have plenty of the choicest meats and skins of bear, deer, beaver, otter and rae on to exchange for salt, ammunition and a few necessities of life, when he could get his furs to market probably seventy five miles away.
        About what was going on in the outside world he knew nothing and cared less for he had a world of his own around him, fresh and crude as nature could make it. Probably he had not more than two neighbors and they three to five miles away, the only means of communication between them being made on foot over a path running around fallen tree tops and over logs, a blaze made on a tree or sapling now and then keeping them in the right direction. He had severed all connection with his old home and the outside world bidding adieu to mother and friends and to the early associations that are so dear to all. With all this sacrifice he was. happy and contented and determined to face the great battle of life and to win. Nature's volumes were ever open before him and he studied well. learning the things needful for his protection. He was threatened with danger from the lurking savages who ever watched for an opportunity to destroy him and his home and in many cases did kill and capture the whole family, but still others came to fill their places.
        When two or three had settled in the same place they built forts and in dangerous times moved their families into them remaining there much of the time during the summer and fall months. While the women were there their husbands and fathers were in the wilderness watching the slipping enemy, sometimes killing one and again several of them, It got so that the Indians dreaded them and came less frequently. The pioneers determined to drive them away so that the danger to their families would cease. Finally they hunted the Indians in bands and in many battles defeated them. They met them on their own grounds, defeating and driving them out of this region and on the ruins of their savage wigwams this beautiful country has been made.

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