Lafayette Daily Courier
Friday, November 11, 1859
OLD SETTLERS
"Resuming the order of my division of Tippecanoe county, I will begin at
Columbia (now Romney), a little village laid off in August, 1832, by
JOSIAH P. HALSTEAD and HENRY RISTINE, on the Crawfordsville road near
the Montgomery county line. This will be the southwest corner of
subdivision No. 3. In this vicinity lived ENOS PARK, JOHN FRALEY, the
TALBOTS, JOHN KENNEDY, MARTTN MILLER, DAVID MARTIN, and others. A few
miles east of Romney JAMES B. JOHNSON laid off a village in the summer
of 1832 which he named Concord. In this neighborhood resided WILLIAM
BRADEY, DANIEL TRAVIS, DANIEL STONER, RECERS, KIRKINDALL, JOHNSONS, ELI
PERKINS, and a few others. Southeast of Concord, near Yorktown, lived
the CAULKINS, WELLS, COLES, TRINDLE, BAKERS, PARVISES, and WESTLAKE.
On Lauramie creek, near the village of Cleveland, laid off by HEZEKIAH
HUNTER in February, 1832, lived ALVIN PIPPIN, JAMES CARR, ISAAC
WICKERSHAM, STINGLEYS, ELLIOTTS, BARNE, KEELER, MARTIN ROADS, and JAMES
COWLEY.
One or two miles southeast of Cleveland, on the road leading to
Jefferson, was another village called Monroe, laid out by WM. MAJOR, in
1832. Here was a cluster of families, consisting of WILLIAM and JAMES
H. MAJOR, JOHN KILLGORE, MARTIN LUCAS, JAMES B. HARTPENSE, MICHAEL
CULVER, and a few others. I may not be entirely correct in the
adjustment of these names to their exact neighborhoods, as many years
have elapsed since these settlements were formed, and as they widened
and extended every year, they coon became merged into one, and all the
original lines of demarkation were completely effaced.
Northwest of Cleveland, in the direction of Lafayette, lived JAMES
CAWLEY, the WHETSTONES, WILLIAM HEATON, the KIRKPATRICKS, DANIEL CLARK,
MORGAN SHORTRIDGE, BILLINGS BABCOCK, SAMUEL BLACK, JAMES EARL, LEVI
THORNTON, JOHN HOOVER, ALEM BREESE, JAMES COCHRAN, DAVID H. COCHRAN,
SAMUEL PARSONS, MATTHEW ORBISON, MATTHEWS, PHILIP HARTER, DAVID PATTON,
MICHAEL BUSH, and a few others.
In naming the old settlers in Division No. 4 we will begin at Lafayette,
or in its immediate vicinity, with the GRAHAMS, L.B. STOCKTON, HILT,
KNAPPER, AARON T. CLASPILL, JAMES THORNTON, JONATHAN WOLF, GUSHWAS,
GUNKLE, JOHN DOYLE, JAMES KEENE, FORESMANS, JOHN COCKRELL, CRESSES,
WALTER FREEMAN, SILAS SIMPKINS, PETER LONGLOIS, JOHN ALLEN, GARRET
SEYMOUR and JOHN W. SMITH.
In the vicinity of Fairfield (now Dayton), laid off by TIMOTHY HORRAM as
early as 1829, was TIMOTHY HORRAM, WILLIAM BUSH, SAMUEL FAVORITE, JOSEPH
BARTON, DAVID PADEN, PAIGES, RIZERS, TOOLES, SAMUEL McGEORGE, BARTIMIS,
STROTHERS, STEENS, STALEYS, JOHN ROBINSON, JESSE EVANS, CLEAVERS,
McCURDY, VINCENT and WILLIAM DYE, JAMES WYLIE, CHRISTIAN BARR, WARD and
BURKHALTERS.
In and about Americus, a town laid off many years ago by WILLIAM DIGBY,
on the east bank of the Wabash River, on the road leading from
Lafayette to Delphi, was another neighborhood, composed of several
families of the STAIRS, JOHN CUNNINGHAM, RICHARDSON, SCHOOLCRAFTS,
STEVENSON, STANFIELD, GISH, BENJAMIN DOTY, and EDWARD BROWN.
Americus was laid out on the nearest eligible ground for a town to the
mouth of the Tippecanoe river, where the Wabash and Erie Canal was to
terminate, according to the original grant of land from Congress which
induced the proprietor and many others to suppose that it was soon
destined to become a great commercial town, that would throw Lafayette,
Delphi, and Logansport into the shade; and the lots sold at extremely
high prices. But the subsequent extension of the canal and the hard
times, combined with other circumstances, caused the growth and duration
of Americus to be much after the fashion of Jonah's gourd.
I have now given you, reader, the meagre skeleton of Tippecanoe county
as it existed some twenty-eight or twenty-nine years ago, when the
settlements were chiefly confined to the timber and borders of our many
beautiful and fertile prairies; and along the banks of the Wabash,
Wild-Cat, Wea, Lauramie, Sugar Creek, Buck Creek, and other streams that
checker and fertilize our county.
I will now leave it for you to draw the contrast between now and then.
After looking through the reversed telescope as I placed it in your
hands to enable you to get a good view of "the day of small things,"
then change the instrument, and look at things as they now are, and
anticipate what they will be when the resources of our county are fully
developed.
I can will recollect when we used to wonder if the youngest of us would
ever live to see the day when the whole of the Wea Plain would be
purchased and cultivated; and our neighbors on the Shawnee, Wild-Cat,
and Nine Mile prairies were as short-sighted as we were, for they talked
of the everlasting range they would have for their cattle and horses on
those prairies--of the wild game and fish that would be sufficient for
them, and their sons, and their sons' sons. But those prairies for more
than fifteen years past, have been like so many cultivated gardens, and
as for venison, wild turkies and fish, they are now mostly brought from
the Kankakee and the Lakes." INCOG