This is a Message Board Post that is gatewayed to this mailing list.
Surnames: Glasscock, Joseph Glasscock, John Blair, Patton, White, Bryant, Forbe, Medseker,
Loppe, Helmes, Jonathan Birch, Snow, McCafferty,Simpson, Emmett, Osborn, Thomas, Cochran,
Jones, Kepner, The Browns, Hester, Mendenhall, Wade, Peter Eastwood, Ball, Gardner,
Classification: Biography
Message Board URL:
http://boards.ancestry.com/mbexec/msg/rw/4h.2ADE/158
Message Board Post:
Old Settlers
By Sanford Cox
1860
Surnames in this little story are: Simpson, Emmett, Osborn, Thomas, Cochran, Jones,
Kepner, The Browns, Hester, Mendenhall, Wade, Peter Eastwood, Ball, Gardner, Abner Rush,
Samuel Rush, John Simpson, John Fugate, Jacob Strayer, Bond, Wm. Robe, Barney Ristine,
Evans, Leonard Lloyd, Dempsey Glasscock, Joseph Glasscock, John Blair, Patton, White,
Bryant, Forbe, Medseker, Loppe, Helmes, Jonathan Birch, Snow, McCafferty,
CHAPTER IX.
EARLY SETTLERS OF FOUNTAIN COUNTY BLACK CREEK SCHOOL MASTER’S LETTER TO
HIS COUSIN BOB, DATED APRIL, 1826-CABIN WALLS COVERED WITH STRETCHED COON SKINS, MUSKRAT
AND MINK SKINS-JOHN SIMPSON-HIS SUCCESS IN HUNTING-PHIN. THOMAS AND HIS YAUGER-FORKS OF
COAL CREEK-OLD SETTLERS OF FOUNTAIN AND THEIR LOCALITIES-COVINGTON-JOHN EMMETT, THE
PREACHER-HIS PREACHING PLACES-PARROQUETS AND SAND HILL CRANES-DEATH OF A GOOD HUNTING
DOG-RUMOR OF INDIAN HOSTILITIES-GENERAL ALARM-SCOUTS SENT TO OSBORN’S PRAIRIE-PEOPLE IN
FORTS-PROWESS OF MRS. R. -GUN FIRED AT THE WATERMELON PATCH-RETURN OF THE SCOUTS-FALSE
ALARM-LAND HUNTER’S SCARED AT PRETTY PRAIRIE, WEAR THE MOUTH OF TIPPECANOE
RIVER-SQUATTER’S RUSE-YANKEE TRICK PERPETRATED BY A HOOSIER.
In compliance with my promise made in a former chapter, that I would give a
sketch of the early settlement of Fountain county, I now proceed to the task, with such
data, as I have been able to procure. The most authentic and reliable information I have
yet found on the subject, is contained in an original letter, written by the Black creek
school master to his cousin Bob, who resided in Wayne county, near Richmond, at the time
he received the friendly epistle, which reads thus:
FORKS OF COAL CREEK, FOUNTAIN Co.,
April 18, 1826.
Dear Cousin Bob: In my last letter from Crawfordsville, I promised to give you a
description of this region of country shortly after our arrival here. I shall now attempt
to redeem my promise, though I confess there is but little to write about here, except the
country, which is in general in a wild, unreclaimed state, just as it came from the hands
of God, and the Indians. You recollect seeing, while on your visit to our house in
Montgomery County last spring, how the outside walls of the settlers’ cabins were covered
with stretched coonskins, muskrat, and mink skins, and the caves of the houses were
surmounted with buckhorns, anti other trophies of the chase. The same can be seen here on
a more extended scale, and as fast as they become dry, the skins are taken down to make
room for more. We have in this neighborhood a blacksmith named John Simpson, a most
excellent man, who is a perfect Nimrod in the hunting line, he kills more deer and turkies
in one !
week with his old gun “Betty,” than your favorite hunter, Phin Thomas, would in a month
with his yager. But it may be because game is more plenty here than in Montgomery county,
where Phin did his hunting. It is a heavy timbered country here, and some of the settlers
have a few acres apiece cleared, and under cultivation. I want father to move to the Wea
prairie, on the Wabash river, where he owns prairie lands, which are much the easiest
improved, but he thinks the country there entirely too new to move to, for a year or two
to come. I don’t see for my part how it could be much harder to get along any place than
it is here; for after we are through with our day’s work—clearing, making rails, or
grubbing—we have to put in a good part of our evenings pounding hominy, or turning the
hand mill. But it gives us a relish for our hoecake, and there is no dyspepsia amongst us.
It is very thinly settled around the Forks of Coal Creek!
, and, indeed, throughout this new county of Fountain. I believe I know family around us,
and as it will take but three or four lines of my letter, I will give you their names and
localities: East of the Forks live Win. Cochran, Hiram Jones, Benjamin Kepner, and the
Browns. Further up the south Fork of Coal, live Hester, Esq. Mendenhall, Wade, Peter
Eastwood, Ball and Gardner. Below the Forks, in our neighborhood, live Abner Rush, Samuel
Rush, John Simpson, John Fugate, Jacob Strayer, Bond, Win. Robe, Barney Ristine, Evans,
and Leonard Lloyd, a bachelor, who lives in his cabin alone, “monarch of all he surveys,
and lord of the fowl and the brute,” on his own premises, at least. On the south side of
the creek there are four families, namely: Dempsey Glasscock, Joseph Glasscock, John
Blair, and Patton. Down the creek is another settlement, composed of Whites, Bryant’s,
Forbes, Medsekers, and a few more families. Up the north Fork of Coal Creek, in the!
vicinity of the Dotyite Mills, live Osborn, Loppe, Helmes, Jonathan Birch, and Snow.
There is quite an excitement about the location of the county seat. The lower end of the
county is in favor of Covington; but folks around hero prefer a more central
point. The Forks here are near the geographical centre of the county, but the arguments in
favor of a county scat on a navigable river, may prevent our getting the county seat
located at this place. Lest you might think there was danger of us becoming semi
barbarous in this wild region. I will here state that we have circuit preaching every four
weeks, by old Father Emmett, a veteran minister of the Methodist denomination, who has
been a faithful watchman on the walls of Zion for more than forty years. He is beloved by
all who know him—old and young, saint and sinner. His preaching is of the plain,
practical, but effective kind, that reaches the hearts of his hearers. He has three
preaching places within r!
oach of us, viz: at John Simpson’s, Kepner’s school house above the Forks of Coal creek,
and in White’s neighborhood in the direction of Covington. I have found two
species of birds here, different from any I ever saw on White Water—the sand
hill crane and parroquet. This new species of crane is quite different from the common
blue crane, being much larger, and of a sandy, gray color. They go in large flocks like
wild geese, but fly much higher, and their croaking notes can be distinctly heard when
they are so high in the air that they cannot be seen. Parroquets are beautiful birds, and
fly in flocks of from twenty to fifty in a flight. In size they are some larger than a
common quail, and resemble small parrots, from which they derive their name. When full
grown their plumage is green, except the neck, which is yellow, and the head red the heads
of the young ones continue yellow until they are a year old. When!
flying, this bird utters a shrill, but cheerful and pleasant note, and the flash of their
golden and green plumage in the sunlight, has a most bewitching effect upon the beholder;
who, for a moment, deems he is on the verge of a brighter sphere where the birds wear
richer plumage, and utter a sweeter song. It is with regret that I announce to you the
death of our excellent coon dog—old Bose—(the same that Sandford Catterlin and me had the
fuss about, the night we cut the coon tree that fell across McCafferty’s fence, above
Crawfordsville.) His death, which was a violent one, was brought about in the following
manner: A gang of cattle came into the sugar camp, and commenced drinking water out of the
troughs. Bose was sent to drive them off. Eager as he always was to do his duty, he
seized a large ox by the nose. The ox ran and jumped over a large log, dragging the dog
over with it, and striking the point of the hoof of one of its fore feet on the p!
oor dog’s side, and crushing in his ribs, lie lingered a few hours and died. We buried him
with the honors of war, by the side of a large log. Byron’s dog, that he thought so much
of, and wrote such a pathetic epitaph upon, was not a better, truer dog, than poor old
Bose. I did not get the school I expected, when I wrote to you last. (Col. L— got in
ahead of me. The next summer after writing the above letter, we find the following entry,
made by our journalist.
JULY 14, 1827.
A report reached here yesterday by a messenger dispatched from Osborn’s prairie,
that the Pottawatomie, Miami and Kickapoo Indians were massacring the white population on
Tippecanoe river near the Pretty prairie, and on Wild Cat and Wea creeks, and that they
were hourly expected at Shawnee prairie, where the inhabitants were gathering into forts,
and making preparations to repel their murderous attack. We were advised that prudence
dictated that our neighborhood should also fortify forthwith. A general panic seized the
people hereabouts, a majority of whom were in favor of gathering into a fort as quick as
possible; but others, more used to frontier life and Indian alarms, and among them my
father, thought it best to first send out a few scouts to reconnoiter and report the
actual state of things. Accordingly my father, eldest brother, and Mr. R————— accompanied
the messenger on his return to Osborn’s neighbo!
rhood. Without assembling together, the neighborhood awaited their return. Mother,
thinking that Mrs. R—, (who was left at home with two little children during her husband’s
absence,) would be alarmed for her and her children’s’ safety, sent her word to came down
and bring her two little boys, and stay with us until her husband returned. But Mrs. R
returned in answer to mother’s kind invitation, that “she had made up her mind to
stay at home and defend her house to the last extremity—that she would fight in blood
shoe-mouth deep, before she would leave her cabin to be burned by the red-skins.” I
thought if Mrs. R— possessed such true grit, that I certainly had pluck enough to go into
the watermelon patch and get some melons. So 1 told the family that I would slip out
through the cornfield and bring in a few melons for us to eat. Mother at first
remonstrated against my going, but finally consent!
ed, on condition that I would be prudent, and keep among the growing corn, going and
returning. Just as I reached the patch and was stooping to pull a melon, bang went a rifle
about thirty yards distant in the corn. I straightened up—clear miss, thought I a stupid,
bewildered sensation crept over me for a moment. But the thought that the enemy would soon
be upon me with tomahawk and scalping-knife, dispelled the stupor that momentarily bound
me, and I instantly sprang out into the growing corn and made for home with all possible
speed, meeting mother about half way; she had heard the rifle, and run to the rescue
without any weapon to screen me except a mother’s impulsive heart. Mrs. R— also heard the
gun, and supposed that the work of death had already commenced in the neighborhood. But
her intrepid spirit was rather intensified than depressed by the proximity of danger; and
her husband’s axe, which she had brought in from the woodpile, looke!
d as though it was ready and willing to be sunk to the helve in the skulls of half a dozen
Indians. During the afternoon it was ascertained that one of our neighbors had discharged
his gun at a squirrel in the field, and that he knew nothing of my being in the melon
patch at the time, nor of the panic produced by the sound of his gun. This morning our
scouts returned, and brought the news that it was a false alarm; that the Indians were
peaceable; that no depredations had been committed, and that the story and alarm
originated in the following manner: A man who owned a claim on Tippecanoe river, near
Pretty prairie, fearing that some one of the numerous land hunters that were constantly
scouring the country, might enter the land he had settled upon before he could raise the
money to buy it, seeing one day a cavalcade of land hunters riding in the direction of his
claim, mounted his horse and darted off at full speed to meet them, swinging his hat and
shouting at the top of!
his voice, “Indians Indians ! The woods are full of Indians, murdering and scalping all
before them!“—They paused a moment, but as the terrified horseman still urged his jaded
animal and cried, “Help, Longlois—Cicots, help!“ they turned and fled like a troop of
retreating cavalry, hastening to the thickest settlements and giving the alarm, which
spread like the among stubble, until the whole frontier region was shocked with the
startling cry. The squatter, who fabricated the story and perpetrated the false alarm,
took a circuitous route and returned home that evening; and while others were busy
building temporary block houses, and rubbing up their gnus to meet the Indians, he was
quietly gathering up money, and slipped down to Crawfordsville and entered his land, to
which he returned again, chuckling in his sleeve and mentally soliloquizing—There is a
Yankee trick for you –done up by a Hoosier.