Tipton County, Indiana
John Tipton
( From Wikipedia )
John Shields Tipton
(August 14, 1786 - April 5, 1839) was an American politician.
Tipton was born in what
is now Sevier County, Tennessee. His father was killed by the Indians.
His great uncle, also named John, was a prominent man in the area. When
he was an infant, his uncle's house was besieged by supporters of an
attempt to create the 14th state in Northeastern Tennessee called the
State of Franklin.
At the age of 17, Tipton
moved to Harrison County, Indiana. He became a farmer, and joined a
militia which protected himself and other settlers from Native American
tribes. He commanded a militia unit in the Battle of Tippecanoe
campaign in 1811.
Tipton eventually entered
politics. He served as a member of the Indiana State House of
Representatives from 1819 to 1823. During this time, he founded the
town of Columbus, Indiana originally known as Tiptonia, he participated
in commissions to establish a new state capital for Indiana and to set
the boundaries between Indiana and Illinois. In 1823, he became the
United States Indian agent for the Potawatomi and Miami tribes. Also a
captain in the militia, Tipton was responsible for rounding up the
uncooperative Potawatomi and forcibly moving them to Kansas in what
became known as the Potawatomi Trail of Death.
In 1831, Tipton was
elected by the state legislature to a seat in the United States Senate
from Indiana to fill the unexpired term of James Noble who had died. He
was reelected to a full term in 1832. He was a member of the United
States Democratic Party and a strong supporter of Andrew Jackson. He
served as chairman of the committees on roads and canals and Native
American affairs from 1837 to 1839. In 1838, at the behest of Governor
David Wallace, Tipton organized the forced removal of 859 Potawatomi
from the vicinity of Plymouth and started them on the two-month-long
"Trail of Death" to Kansas, which resulted in the deaths of more than
40 of them. He declined to run for reelection due to poor health, and
his term expired a month before his death. He died in Logansport,
Indiana, a town that he helped to found. The town of Tipton, Indiana
and Tipton County, Indiana are named after him.