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Surnames: Weaver, Henry, Croker, Kennedy, Thomas, McFarland, Coran, Rollins, Curren,
Schoonovers, Huff, Haines, Clark, Christman, Taylor, Vanzandt, Morgan, Odell, Rankin,
Dutton, crouse, Evans, Kisers, Hollingsworth, Huffs, Ewrys, Ellises, Dimmitt, Bradfield,
Hocke
Classification: Biography
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Weaver, Henry, Croker, Kennedy, Thomas, McFarland, Coran, Rollins, Curren, Schoonovers,
Huff, Haines, Clark, Christman, Taylor, Vanzandt, Morgan, Odell, Rankin, Dutton, crouse,
Evans, Kisers, Hollingsworth, Huffs, Ewrys, Ellises, Dimmitt, Bradfield, Hockett, Ellis,
Durkee, Hoover, Sherry's, Patty, Sheridan, Croses, Willies, Wylies, Crouches,
Brunson's, Allen, Fox, Smiley, Seymours, Hawkins, Guest, Provault, Jones, Fell, West,
Hughes, Bear, Magill, Galbraith, Sterrett, Kinser, Cox, Janney, Newberry, Stockton,
McLaughlin, Travis.
Recollections Of The Early
Settlement Of The Wabash
Valley.
By Sandford C. Cox
1860
Page 31 to 36
CHAPTER VI.
NAMES AND LOCALITIES OF MANY OF THE FIRST SETTLERS OF TIPPECANOE COUNTY—THE
THINLY SETTLED NEIGHBORHOODS—PETER WEAVER—HIS SUCCESS AS A HUNTER, TRAPPER,
&C. —HIS HOSPITALITY—LAND HUNTERS, TRAPPERS, AND INDIAN TRADERS—TWO NEGRO BOYS—THEIR
NARROW ESCAPE FROM BEING KIDNAPPED—WEST POINT—PINHOOK----HIGH GAP NEIGHBORHOOD—INDIAN TOWN
ON NORTH SIDE OF WEA PLAIN—KNIVES, TOMAHAWKS, GUN BARRELS, BEADS, AND OTHER RELICS FOUND
IN LARGE QUANTITIES IN 1827—28—MILITIA MUSTER—CAPTAIN W.’ S ENERGETIC SPECIMEN OF DRILLING
HIS COMPANY.
To give a full list of the old settlers of Tippecanoe county, in chronological
order, Would require more time, research and space than this brief sketch will allow. We
propose to mention the names and localities of a few of the prominent inhabitants of the
several neighborhoods, or settlements, as those neighborhoods existed shortly after
the organization of the county. Many persons, equally as ancient in point of settlement,
and as worthy a place in these sketches as those whose names we chronicle, must
necessarily, according to the plan we have adopted, be omitted. For the sake of system we
will divide the county into four parts, thus: by running a line from Lafayette south,
along the old Crawfordsville road, to the Montgomery county line, and will call
the portion lying west of said line, and south of the Wabash river, division No. 1; that
part of the county lying west of the Wabash river, No. 2; that part lying between the
Crawfordsville road a!
nd the Lafayette and Indianapolis State toad, No. 3; and the remaining portion, lying
between the Lafayette and Indianapolis road, aforesaid, and Carroll county, as the line
now runs, No.4
The residents of Peter Weaver, at the lower end of the Wea plain, shall be the beginning
point. That worthy old pioneer was as extensively and as favorably known to the early
inhabitants as any man on the upper Wabash. He killed more deer, wolves and rattlesnakes;
caught more fish, found more bee trees, and entertained in a hospitable manner more land
hunters, trappers and traders, than any other private citizen between Vincennca and the
mouth of the Salimony. He is still living, in Missouri, near Keokuk, Iowa, and, although
he is near one hundred years old, lie still delights to hunt, fish and trap—with a success
that astonishes the later generations of his sons and grandsons. When he moved
from the eastern portion of Indiana to the Wabash, he brought with him two small Negro
boys, named-Ben and Ran, whom he had taken to raise—children of a Negro woman who had been
brought as a slave from North Carolina into Indiana territory, and afterw!
ards became free by the adoption of the constitution of the State. Slavery, even
at that early day, showed symptoms of its irrepressible tendency, by unblushingly invading
free territory, and putting the people to the trouble of killing it twice before it would
acknowledge that it was dead. In the Spring of 1823, while Ben and Ran were at work in a
corn field at the lower end of the Wea plain, Mr. Weaver’s family was startled by their
cries as they made for the house, at full speed, yelling as they ran. Supposing that one
of them had been bitten by a snake, a portion of the family made haste to meet them,
enquiring, “What’s the matter? What’s the matter?” They said that two men had attempted to
capture them—that one of the men first tried to decoy them over the fence into the brush,
to show them the road to a neighbor’s house, but that before they arrived at the
fence, the sight of the other man on th!
e outside of the field, and the manner of their interlocutor, excited their suspicions,
and caused them to turn and fly to the house. Such a bold attempt to kidnap the little
Negroes aroused the honest indignation of the old soldier, who had marched under
Washington, amid he immediately repaired, with his son Patrick Henry, to the back of the
field, armed in backwoods style, to reconnoiter, and, if possible, to arrest and bring to
justice those who had made so flagrant an attempt upon the liberty of the unoffending
boys, who were free born, and over whom lie was determined the lash of the slave-driver
should never fall, if he could prevent it. Their reconnaissance convinced them that the
fears of the little Negroes were well founded. Signs of two men and their horses were
quite plain, and portions of the ropes with which they had intended to have tied their
captives, were dropped in their hasty flight; besides the neighbors had seen two
suspicious looking men, answering !
the description of those seen by the boys, skulking through the woods near Weaver’s field
for several days previous.
Suspicion at once attached to an old acquaintance remaining on White Water, who at one
time had an indirect claim upon the mother of the Negro boys; and who, it was suspected,
was concerned in spiriting away Jefferson Croker, a free Negro man, whom the law had
manumitted, but from his mysterious disappearance from the White Water country, it was
supposed he was drawn back into slavery by the surreptitious hand of the kidnapper, when
the greater portion of the freight and business of the Under-Ground railroad ran the other
way. “Jeff.” as he was generally called, was a tall, well-made Negro man, but not very
remarkable for his intelligence. He generally made his home with Col. David Kennedy. One
day when the Colonel and his family were from home, Jeff took it into his head
that he would like to see how he would look dressed in the Colonel’s military uniform. So
he went to the chest, took out the full suit, from the boots to the tall an whit!
e plume that nodded in the cocked hat, and put them on himself, sash, sword, and all, and
commenced promenading back and forth over the floor, contemplating himself before, a large
mirror, admiring his greatly improved appearance, and the figure he cut in a military
suit. At times he would draw the sword out of its scabbard, and give the word of command
with a truly napoleonic air, soliloquizing as he strutted pompously across the parlor as
though it was a very Campus Martius. Col. Kennedy had approached the house unobserved by
the military darkie, whose maneuvers he narrowly watched through a window. Without saying
a word, he suddenly opened the door and stepped into the parlor exclaiming, “What are you
doing, you black rascal, with my suit on you? The ebony gentleman for the instant stood
in silent dread—then lifting up both hands towards the Colonel, imploringly said: “‘Seuse
me, Massa Davy, —’scuse me—I didn�99t go to do it!” Near Weaver lived !
Lewis Thomas, John McFarland, John Coran, Truman Rollins, Daniel Curren, Schoonovers,
Huff, and old man Haines. They all owned or worked land on the lower end of the beautiful
and fertile Won plain—which for many years was regarded as the Egypt to which the people
came to buy corn for fifty miles around. Southwest of this neighborhood near Clark’s Point
(now Pinhook), resided Samuel O. Clark, Peter Christman, Nimrod and William Taylor,
Vanzandt and Abraham Morgan, John Kennedy, John XV. Odell, Samuel Rankin, John Dutton,
John XV and Simon Crouse, Abraham Evans, and others, in a rich, fertile, and now
well-improved portion of the county. Further east and north, near Middleton (now West
Point), was the Kisers, Hollingsworths, Huffs, Ewrys, Ellises, and others. The High Gap
neighborhood consisted of William Dimmitt, John Bradfield, Moses Hockett, James P. Ellis,
Dr. Durkee, Andrew Hoover, Sherrys, Eli Patty, a!
nd Paul and John Sheridan. On the Little Wea were the Croses, Willies, Wylies, Crouches,
Brunsons, Judge Allen, Foxes, Thomas Smiley, and the Seymours. At the upper end of the Wea
plain resided James and Joseph Hawkins, Baker Guest, John Provault, Wm. Jones, Joseph
Fell, Win. West, Peter Hughes, John Bear, Jno. Magill, Isaac Galbraith and Robert
Sterrett. On the north side of the Wea plain lived Adam Kinser, Joseph Cox and Abel
Janney; and below the town of Lafayette lived D. F. Durkee, Newberry Stockton, Edward
McLaughlin and Joseph Travis. On the north side of the Wea plain there was a large
Indian and French town, which extended from the head of the bluff below the mouth of the
Wea, to where the town of Granville now stands. I heard my grandfather, was with
General Clarke when he destroyed this town in the year of 1791, say that there were at the
time it was sacked, about forty shingle roof houses, occupied by French traders and
mechanics, besides tents and wi!
gwams in great numbers, which covered the ground for several miles along the prairie, on
the south bank of the Wabash river. My father’s farm was on the ground once covered with
this Indian town. In the fall, after the grass was burnt on the prairie, the boys of the
neighborhood used to amuse themselves with hunting up the blades of butcher knives,
tomahawks, brass kettles, gun barrels, &c., and the little girls in picking up beads,
which in many places were strewn over the face of the ground, and had been washed by the
rains into gulches along the hillside. I remember that one day my little sister and a
neighbor girl came running into the cabin, exclaiming, “Is not this a rich country, when
even the grass and weeds bear beads?” Each of them had a tuft of grass in their hands, on
the spires of which beads were glittering, which no doubt once graced the neck of some
Indian queen, or some of her maids of honor. It appeared that the blades of g!
rass in growing had shot up through the eye of the beads, and lifted them higher and
higher, in proportion to the strength and size of the weed or grass blades, which
protruded through the beads. I have myself found as high as six or eight Indian knives in
an hour’s search, soon after we moved on the farm. After the rust was taken off, these
knives proved to be of excellent metal, and had not lost their temper, notwithstanding
their long exposure to the prairie fires and the weather. We will conclude our remarks on
division No. 1, after alluding to the manner of conducting a militia muster, held
by Capt. P. H. W., on the south side of Wea prairie, in early times. The captain was a
stout built, muscular man, who stood six feet four in his boots, and weighed over two
hundred pounds. When dressed in his uniform—a blue hunting shirt, fastened with a wide red
sash, with epaulettes on each shoulder, his large sword fastened by his thigh, and tall
plume wav!
ing in the wind—he looked like another William Wallace, or Roderick Dhu,
unsheathing his claymore in defense of his country. His company consisted of about seventy
men who had reluctantly turned out to muster, to avoid paying a fine, some with guns, some
with sticks, and others carrying corn stalks. The captain, who had been but recently
elected, understood his business better than his men supposed he did. He intended to give
them a thorough drilling, and show them that he understood the maneuvers of the
military art as well as he did farming and fox hunting—the latter of which was one of his
favorite amusements. After forming a hollow square, marching and countermarching, and
putting them through several other evolutions, according to Scott’s tactics he commanded
his men to “form a line.” They partially complied, but the line was crooked. He took his
sword and passed it along in front of his men, straightening the line!
. By the time he passed from one end of the line to the other, on casting his eye back he
discovered the line presented a zig-zag and unmilitary appearance—some of the men were
leaning on their guns, some on their sticks, a yard in advance of the line, and
others as far in the rear. The captain’s dander rose. He threw his cocked hat, feather
and all, on the ground, took off his red sash and hunting shirt, and threw them with his
sword upon his hat. He then rolled up his sleeves, and shouted with the voice of a
stentor: “Gentlemen! Form a line, and keep it, or I will thrash the whole company!”
Instantly the whole line was as straight as an arrow. The captain was satisfied, put on
his clothes again, and never had any more trouble in drilling his company.