EARLY JENNINGS COUNTY SETTLERS
from various Histories of Jennings County
The first records show that Paris,
Graham. Coffee Creek amd Vernon were the earliest settlements in the
area.
In 1810 Solomon Deputy and his wife
Sarah were the first to settle in what would become Jennings County but was at
that time Clark County. Tradition says that their son Joshua Deputy was the
first white child born in what is now Jennings County. Thomas Pool and his wife
came to Indiana Territory in 1811 and moved into Jennings County in 1827 near Butlerville.
At 26 years of age he enlisted under General Hopkins in the War
of 1812, he also served under Captain John Pittman.
In 1814 John
Latten built a cabin on Graham Creek four miles north of the present site of
Paris. Colonel John Vawter was a surveyor who first came to where Vernon now
stands in 1813 and by 1815 he and William McClure bought a tract of land at the
junction of the North and South Forks of the Musctatuck River. John Vawter,
Achilles Vawter, John Branham, Henry StClair and James Williams occupied
the first lots in Vernon. William T. Stott arrived in Jennings County in 1816
and was the first pastor of the Vernon Baptist Church. Original members were
John Vawter, Nancy Lewis, William Padgett and Padgett's
wife.
William Read, built a mill on the Muscatatuck for converting stones into building
material. The locals called it Vinegar Mill because it
looked like a cider press.
William Pool, Samuel
Campbell, William Prather, Joseph Pool and Miles Bundy built their cabins on the
South Fork of the Muscatatuck. One or two miles East of Vernon on the North Fork
of the Muscatatuck William Pagett, Morris Baker, Alexander Lewis and George
Stribbling settled. In 1816-1817 a settlement was formed along Sand Creek by
Adam Kellar, James Shields, Chauncy Butler, Leonard Butler, Justis Rich, the
VanKoehlers, William Clapp, Allan Cheaver and Nicholas Amick.
Five or
six miles Southwest of Vernon on the Muskatatuck Basil Meek settled and joining
him were James Kellam, Noah Sullivan, Jacob McMurry, John Bonor, R. Marvin,
James Green and Thomas Richey. Six miles West of Vernon on Six Mile
Creek settled Peleg Baker, Jonathan Davis, also the
Eastmans whose family included Nathaniel Eastman his son Solomon and
Solomons wife. Near them settled the Barretts, Sarah Barrett who married
and moved to Indianapolis and who became an author of poetry was a member
of this family.
Darius Robinson came from
Kentucky at the age of 11 with his parents, they lived for two years near
John Works' Mill, then they moved for about a year on the farm of
Jacob Trumbo. The Robinsons then moved to Coffee Creek and entered 160
acres of Land. Darius' brother joined Captain Norris' Rangers during that
time he did duty for about a year at Solomon Deputy's blockhouse at Coffee
Creek. He married Nellie Wilson then moved on to Cana in Marion Township. William
Sage moved to Cana after living for a time near Lewis Creek,
he told many stories of living in the frontier including encounters with Indians and
large dens of Copperheads in the area.
Robert, David, John and Joseph Elliott,
William Patterson, Nathanial and Thomas Davis, Ephraim Glasco, George Stribbling
and Jacob Brown settled in the Eastern part of the County on the Muscatatuck.
James Needam settled near where Little and Big Graham Creeks meet. A few miles
below the forks of the Graham, James Hughes and William Calicott built their
cabins.
William Johnson and his wife lived on the banks of
Graham Creek in 1824, they came through Kentucky from Virginia in 1822. Later they lived
in Bigger Township, two miles from San Jacinto.
Soon more
early settlers joined those who arrived first in Vernon including Andrew Young,
John Davis, Maurice Baker, James Hilton, Joseph Cowell, Josiah Andrews, William
T. Stott, F.K. Fulton and William Sanford.
Alexander Lewis,
William Lewis, James Stott, James Lattimore, Walter Carson, the Grahams, the
Arbuckles, Elder Thomas Hill, Zack Tannehill, Thomas Shepherd and Henry Shepherd
built homes in the vicinity of Paris.
In 1830 a group of
settlers from New England came to the area around the present site of the
community of Hayden: Heatons, Wilders, Whitcombs, Days and
Swarthouts.
In 1840 a number of Irish families settled in
Spencer Township, but stayed only a short time leaving in
1850.
In the early 1850's a group of Quakers purchased
property in the area of the present site of Butlerville including the following
families: Stanley, Little, Hole, Armstrong, Starkey, Surdge, Haycock,
Walton, Malmsberry, Bewley, Heidt, Cope, Ware, Murphy, Cook, Hinchman, Hudson,
Neil, Winnery, Shreve, Owen, Engle and
Woolman.
German settlers came directly to the
southwestern part of the County in the late forties and early fifties many from
Hesse-Cassle and Hesse Danistard. They were the Hoffmans, Utsingers, Arts,
Heines, Doers, Wetzels, Wagners, Trapps, Mathers, Rotgens, Beiderts,
Hargesheimers, Wrapps and Riss. Buena Vista was the center of the flourishing
German community that reached over half of Spencer Township.
The Indiana
Constitution framed at Corydon, June 10-19, 1816 prohibited the
establishment of slavery in Indiana. Jennings County being in free territory
attracted the non-slaveholding element of the westward movement among those
families were the Calicotts, Shorts, Edwardses, Hicklins, Jacksons and
Andersons.
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