N.B. Two Nancys doing research on two Scott families. :-)
nancy
--- On Wed, 12/22/10, Jo Cluck <djcluck(a)yahoo.com> wrote:
From: Jo Cluck <djcluck(a)yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: [INOWEN] roads, rivers, narrows etc. (continued)
To: inowen(a)rootsweb.com
Date: Wednesday, December 22, 2010, 6:32 AM
I have to put in my two cents worth as well, Nancy and your quote from Deut. is
on-target as well. We can only imagine these journeys our ancestors took and
the courage it took them to achieve what they did. Thank you for the research.
Jo Cluck
PS.. My great grandmother was Julia Ann White; her father was William B. White
b. Barren Co. KY and his father was William W.H. White, b.1764 in Charleston
SC.. any relation?
________________________________
From: N.J.SkinnerWhite <vwhite0901(a)aol.com>
To: inowen(a)rootsweb.com
Sent: Tue, December 21, 2010 8:22:29 PM
Subject: Re: [INOWEN] roads, rivers, narrows etc. (continued)
Nancy, thanks so much for putting this all together.....very interesting ready
that is for sure, it gives us all something to ponder over concerning our
ancestors journey to Owen Co and some traveling for the sake of business as
well. Thanks again
N.J.SkinnerWhite
vwhite0901(a)aol.com
"Remember the days of old; consider the generations long past."(Deuteronomy
32:7a)
-----Original Message-----
From: Nancy Scott <nrscott30(a)yahoo.com>
To: Indiana Owen Rootsweb <inowen(a)rootsweb.com>
Cc: Vivian Zollinger <jackzollinger(a)att.net>
Sent: Tue, Dec 21, 2010 9:12 pm
Subject: [INOWEN] roads, rivers, narrows etc. (continued)
On Indiana Owen Rootsweb we have been ranging about through
many years of travel to and from and within Owen County. We have spoken of
crossing rivers during immigration, taking production to Mississippi by
flatboats, coming upriver by steamboat or walking, and moving in on foot, on
horseback, and by covered wagon. We have covered about fifty years of history,
more or less, and a lot of geography. We have learned about every bit of
lateral water in the county. We have named many familiar names with their Owen
County intersections.
Here are three things that have come to the surface: 1.) where the earliest
immigrants entered Indiana from Kentucky; 2.) whether they came by road or by
river, and 3.) a description of the narrows; 4.) flatboat commerce.
1. "As early as 1808 Frederick
Mauck had begun to operate a ferry across the Ohio, between Mauckport and
Brandenbug, Kentucky, and at this point settlers poured into Indiana from
Kentucky and the Carolinas for the next fifteen years [1808-1825]....Downriver,
other immigrants from the South were crossing into Warrick County at or near
Rockport, which is now in Spencer County, or dropping still farther downstream
to McFadden's Landing (now Mount Vernon)...."
INDIANA: A HISTORY by William E. Wilson, Indiana University Press, Bloomington
1966.
2.) Road or river or both? On the road map start at Louisville and follow the
Ohio River southwest. Brandenburg is in Harrison County [where the Light family
lived before moving to Owen Co.] and Mauckport is not far downriver (south of
Wyandott Woods). From Mauckport follow the river, which goes north at that
point, up to Leavenworth, where other immigrants disembarked. Continue quite
aways downriver and come to Rockport just before you reach Owensboro, KY. From
there go on past Evansville and Henderson.
Way out to the SW tip of Indiana you will find Mount Vernon,the site of
McFadden's Landing.
When you look at the map, it seems quite reasonable to suppose that Mary's
ancestors, coming up from McFadden's Landing would have made their way with
their covered wagons north to the Wabash River and followed it to the White
River, then along the White River to Owen County. Mary Orman Gardner writes,
"There must have been a trail that was used by many who were coming North into
Indiana across Kentucky! I find
myself looking at maps and wondering
just how my Cagle's, Comer's, and Orman's came
to Clay and Owen County around 1831. When I
drive across the County line south of Bowling Green, the area is still so
hilly and woodsy I can't imagine how long it took them to get enough vegetables
in the ground to feed themselves! I would not have made a good pioneer! Just
after the 1870 census, several Orman's and their cousins' families left Marion
Twp., Owen County, IN for the Independence, Montgomery County,
Kansas area. Around 1878/1879 before Andrew Orman b
1808 died, in 1879, some of his sons
families came back to Owen/Clay County! William, Jasper
and maybe one other, returned home. The
stories passed down thru Jasper Orman's family, was that they
walked behind a wagon all the way! William and his
family, wife was Patia Mishler, returned to Kansas and then on down to
Washington Co., Arkansas still walking and this return trip was made sometime
before the 1900 census."
From the time of the first move in 1831c to the later move back into
Owen
County 1878c, and then again in 1900, the roads must have been quite different
each time, the wagons rolling more smoothly and the walking easier, perhaps.
Janice Enk writes of the family whose young man went on a side trip over to the
Mississippi and on up to St. Louis, while the family waited at McFadden's
Landing. He never rejoined
them.
One of the branches of the White River runs
through Owen County. It flows into the Wabash River, which flows into the
Ohio.
Janice writes, "I can remember my Grandmother Florence Jones, who was Florence
Sloan, telling her family moved to Arkansas, where she was born, and they wanted
to come back to Indiana and they had to wait until the Mississippi River
froze over to get across. She said it was a few days before they could
cross and they had a wagon and built a fire. While they were waiting
to cross her uncle, who was a young lad of about 17, went back into St. Louis
and they never heard from him again. They waited several days for him.
He liked to gamble and they figure he was murdered by a group after his
money. This of course was all told to her after she was older, because
she was only a toddler when they came back.... My grandma
lived to be 103, in sound mind...."
Another family tells of coming to Owen County by pirogue, the large canoe-type
boat used by Lewis and Clark. The
pioneers who came north from Rockport or Mauckburg
may well have hacked their way overland.
Reports tell of families moving from Virginia and the Carolinas in the 1820s
walking with their belongings on horseback. Later
when roads had been cut through more would have come with covered wagons.
Where have I filed the map of early Indiana roads? By the way, we were reminded
that the whole of the river itself is in Kentucky, so they weren't in Indiana
until they hit dry land. Then they walked beside their laden horses or wagons,
or propelled pirogues up river, a long, long, long way to Owen County.
3.) The Narrows is a portion of the White River valley between Ramona and
Spencer. David Beam gave this reference to it. Proceedings of the annual
meeting of the Indiana Academy of Science, Volume 24, pages 418-419. "At this
point it is
deemed advisable to give some attention to White River near the lower end of
Flatwoods. Collet in his report on the geology of Owen County makes note of the
*extreme narrowness of the White River valley between Romona and Spencer. He
accounts for "*The Narrows*", as this very constricted portion of the
river valley is called, by asserting that this portion
of the valley is new, having been formed since the Illinois glaciation". The
"Narrows" north of Spencer are mentioned a number of times in the book COUNTIES
OF CLAY AND OWEN, INDIANA, which also includes a description of the narrows at
Cataract Falls.
4.) Flatboat commerce: I regret that I don't have a source for this. My copy
says only: "We clip the following from the Owen county Journal: Samuel Folson
was in Mississippi "until the spring of 1827, then took the steamboat at
Natchez, Mississippi, for the upper country....On the boat I fell in company
with Captain John Johnson, Daniel Harris and Stephen Bigger, of Owen county,
Indiana...[who] pictured the White river country
off so well that I concluded to come with him. We left the steamboat at
Leavenworth, on the Ohio River, and walked all the way from there to
White river, Owen County, crossing that river a little below where
Freedom now is. I located on the farm now owned by John Ritter, which I bought
from Captain John Johnson, one of my nearest neighbors...."
Water,
water, everywhere, but they walked all the way to Owen County. This
does document flatboats going down the
Mississippi to market and their return north to Owen County by steamboat or
walking back. It is surprising to note how early this steamboat trip was made.
Conclusion: The INOWEN rootsweb has a lively, helpful group of genealogists.
Thanks again, and happy hunting!
nancy
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