EARLY JENNINGS COUNTY SETTLERS
from various
Histories of Jennings County
The first records show that Paris,
Graham. Coffee Creek and 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 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, Artz,
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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