ordered to hold this post; I shall do so; and as for you, deserter and coward, my men will put you upon the ridge-pole of the stockade, and tie your feet together. If the Indians come you will catch the first bullet and shall be the first to die. We will die at our post of duty."
The army marched through the prairie regions west of Perrysville to where State Line City now stands, and near which place they pass the north boundary of the county.
Major James Blair and Judge J. M. Coleman settled on section 16, township 17 north, 9 west, between Eugene and Newport, before the land in that region was offered for sale by the Government. The prairie was known as Little Vermillion, or Coleman's Prairie. These two men had always been pioneers. Blair had been one of the heroes of Perry's victories on Lake Erie, and afterward held conspicuous positions of honor and trust in the community and State; but a this time he and Coleman were peacemakers between the Indians, whose confidence they had; and they knew that Indians, if properly treated, could be trusted.
Se-Seep, or She-Sheep, a small bow-legged, stoop-shouldered, white-haired man, 110 years old, was chief of the Pottawatomies and their allied Kickapoos. Their territory ranged from the Little Vermillion to Pine Creek, including the north-half of Vermillion County, all of Warren, and the west-half of Fountain. Se-Seep had been a gallant fighter in the defense of his people and country at the battle of Fallen Timbers (Wayne's Victory), and afterward in the terrible defeat of his people at Tippecanoe. Brave and heroic in battle, after signing the treaties of peace with the American authorities, he was faithful and trustworthy, and finally became a reliable friend of the white people. He became the hero of a serio-comic incident wherein Noah Hubbard, who settled on Indian land where Cayuga now stands, became the butt of ridicule. Hubbard was cultivating a portion of a ten acre tract. One day the Indians crossed at the army ford and "stole" roasting ears and squashes as rental. Hubbard found Se-Seep with some ears of corn and two squashes within the folds of his blanket, and he undertook to castigate the chief with a cane. Se-Seep did "not scare worth a cent," but, dropping the squashes and corn, chased Hubbard out of the field with a stick. Then Hubbard went to Blair and Coleman and demanded that they should call out the rangers and the mounted riflemen, declaring that the Indians were destroying his property and that they should be dealt with and punished. They refused to call out the rangers, but said he might notify them to assemble at their house the next morning. He did so, and the next morning some of the riflemen also assembled and commenced practice, shooting at a mark. The Indians had camped for the night a mile north, at the famous Buffalo spring near the residence of the late John W. Porter. Blair introduced to the Indians the matters of difference, and concluded to have an imitation Indian pow-wow. Accordingly, he and Coleman, who had been chosen as arbitrators, repaired to a plum thicket with a well worn testament, a wooden-covered spelling-book, a dilapidated almanac, and a remnant of an old law book, as authorities. Here they held a sham court, chattering gibberish, and gesticulating like Indians, and finally rendered the following verdict: That the two litigants settle the whole matter by a fist fight. The decision was no sooner announced than the little old Indian chief, who was dressed only with a blanket belt, threw it off and made rapidly for Hubbard. Of course the latter ran, and ran as fast as he could, mounted his pony and was soon out of sight. The
Indians, who were scarcely ever known to laugh, indulged heartily on this occasion.
Se-Seep was finally murdered, in a foul manner, at Nebuker's Springs, Fountain County, at the age of 110 years, by a lazy, vicious renegade Indian named Namqua. He had a splendid son, who at the [age] of seventeen years was killed by falling fifty feet from a tree while fighting a bear, near the residence of John Collett.
Although no battles nor skirmishes in connection with the war of 1812 took place in this county, the "Vermillion country" was two or three times crossed by belligerents. From a copy of General John Tipton's journal, kindly lent us by Stephen S. Collett, Esq., of Newport, we extract the following paragraphs.
Tipton was an illiterate man but a daring fighter, and in the autumn of 1811, he, as a private in Captain Spencer's Harrison County Riflemen, journeyed from Corydon, that county, down the Wabash to Fort Harrison, four miles north of Terre Haute, and up the same stream again, in the Indian campaign which ended in the bloody battle of Tippecanoe. The company comprised forty-seven men, besides officers, and these were joined by Captain Heath and twenty-two men. In going down the river they guarded a keel-boat of provisions for Camp Harrison, and concerning this trip we quote:
"October 6. -- We moved early; one mile, came to the river at the coal bank; found it was below the Vermillion half a mile; we took coffee; moved after the boat started down. The coal bank is on the east side of the Wabash. We went through a small prairie; crossed the river to the west side; went in on the head of a bar and came out on the lower end of another on the west side; went through a small prairie, then came to a big prairie, where the old Vermillion town was. We crossed the Wabash half a mile above the mouth of the Vermillion River before we came to the above town. Crossed the Vermillion River, took a south course through timbered land, and then through a prairie with a good spring and an old Indian hut; then through a beautiful timbered ground to a small creek, and stopped to let our horses graze; then went through a good land with a ridge on our right out of which came four springs, and for two miles nothing but large sugar and walnut. The hill and the river came close together. We found a good coal bank fourteen miles below Vermillion. We then crossed to the east side, went three miles and camped with the boat; after coming twenty miles and finding two bee trees, left them."
On the 31st coming northward, the following entry is made:
"We moved early. Two of the oxen missing. Three of our men sent to hunt them. We crossed Raccoon Creek. Saw our men who went to guard the boats on the 29th; they left us. We came to the river where we camped on our return from Vermillion on the night of the sixth; thence up to the ford. Saw our boat guard just crossing the river. We halted until the army came up, then rode the river, which was very deep, then camped. Our boat guard and the men who went to hunt the oxen came up, when we left the guards. We took a north course up the east side of the Wabash and crossed to the west, with orders to kill all the Indians we saw. Fine news. The Governor's wagon was left this morning in consequence of the oxen being lost. All the army crossed in three hours. We drew corn.
"Friday, November 1. -- I was sent with eighteen men to look for a way for the army to cross the Little Vermillion. Marched at daybreak; came to the creek; found and marked
the road; waited till the army came up; went on and camped on the river two miles below the Big Vermillion. Captain Spencer, myself and three others went up to the Big Vermillion; returned to camp. General Wells, with forty men, and Captain Berry with nine men had come up. Our camp marched in front to-day, as usual, which now consisted of thirty-seven men, in consequence of Captain Berry and Lindley being attached to it.
"Saturday, November 2. -- A fine day. Captain Spencer, with ten men went out on a scout. Our company not parading as usual, the Governor threatened to brake the officers. I staid in camp. The army staid here to build a block house on the bank of the Wabash three miles below Vermillion, in a small prairie. The house, twenty-five feet square, and a breast-work from each corner next the river down to the water. Took horses and drew brush over the prairie to break down the weeds. This evening a man came from the garrison: said last night his boat was fired upon. One man who was asleep, was killed. Three boats came up, unloaded; went back taking a sick man with them. One of Captain Robb's men died to-night."
"Sunday, the 3d. -- A cloudy day. We moved early. Our company marched on the right wing to-day. Crossed the Big Vermillion, through a prairie six miles, through timber then through a wet prairie with groves of timber in it," etc.
Thus we have quoted all of General Tipton's journal that pertains to Vermillion County. Under date of November 7, 1811, he gives an account of the battle of Tippecanoe, in a paragraph scarcely longer than the average in his journal, as if unaware that the action was of any greater importance than an insignificant skirmish. Tipton was promoted from rank to rank until he was finally made General. His orthography punctuation, etc., were so bad that we concluded not to follow it in the above extracts. Nearly every entry in his journal not quoted above opens with the statement that the weather was very cold. He also makes occasional mentions of the soldiers' drawing their rations of whisky, -- from one to three or four quarts at a time.
In Harrison's march to Tippecanoe his boats (pirogues) could not pass Coal Creek bar, spoken of under date of October 31 above and for their protection he built a stockade fort at the head of Porter's eddy, the precise locality being the northeast quarter of section 9, 17 north, 9 west. Here he left the sergeant and ten men to guard them. The remains of the heavy timbers were still to be seen in 1838. Corduroy or pole bridges buried in mud may yet be seen on the spring branches on the farms of Hon. John Collett, S. S. Collett and the Head family, -- sections 9, and 15, 17 north, 9 west.
General Harrison also had caches in this county along the Wabash.
According to one of the treaties, General Harrison made a purchase for the Government, the northern line of which, west of the Wabash, extended from a point directly opposite the mouth of the Big Raccoon Creek northwesterly. This tract was opened for white settlement long before the northern portion of the county was, which remained in the possession of the Kickapoos and Pottawatomies for a few years longer.
In the year 1816, John Vannest, a man who was not afraid of the Indians, in company with a man named Hunter, who was also a hunter by occupation, ventured west of the Wabash to select land for a permanent home. Arriving at a point about a mile north of where Clinton now stands, -- the exact spot being the southeast corner of sec-
tion 9, township 14 north, range 9 west, they halted for the night. Hunter soon scared up a deer, which was killed, and thus they had a choice supper of fresh venison. After the night's rest Mr. Vannest looked about a little, and without tramping around further concluded that that spot was about as good as any he would likely find. Returning to his temporary home at Fort Harrison, about four miles this side of Terre Haute, he waited a short time for the day of the Government land sales to arrive at Vincennes. Repairing thither, he entered three quarters of section 9. Subsequently he bought the remaining quarter of William Bales. This land is on the second batton, very high and beautifully undulating, but originally covered with timber. Had he proceeded a little further north he would have found a beautiful little prairie, which would be land already cleared for him; but that point was either unknown to him, or it was too near or over the line between Government land and the Indians. Besides, at the stage of the country's development existing at that time it was not believed that the prairies could be cultivated, or dwelt upon with comfort, on account of the greater and more constant cold winds.
On the beautiful timbered land above described, Mr. Vannest, settled bringing with him his wife and several children. Erecting first a log cabin on the west side of his land, he occupied it for a long period, when he built a large brick residence, from bricks he had made near by. It was the first brick building in the county. The mason employed upon it was a Mr. Jones, residing toward Newport. This house finally became unsafe and was torn away.
The land which Mr. Vannest obtained remains mostly in the possession of his descendants to this day; and it is a remarkable fact that from this tract no less than forty-five men entered the service of their country during the late war.
John Vannest, Jr., son of the preceding, was the first white child born in Vermillion County, though this honor has also been claimed for the late Hon. William Skidmore, of Helt Township.
John Vannest, Sr., died September 28, 1842, at age of sixty-two years, and his wife Mary, August 29, 1824, aged forty years, and they lie buried in the Clinton cemetery, north of the village. A daughter, Mrs. Sarah, widow of Scott Malone, still occupies the old homestead, being the oldest female resident of Clinton County. She well remembers the time when the girls, as well as the boys, had to "go to meeting" and to school barefoot, sometimes walking and sometimes on horseback. The school and the meeting were held in the characteristic pioneer log school-house, with puncheon floor, mud-and-stick chimney, flat rails for benches, a slab pinned up for a writing desk, and greased-paper windows. These and other pioneer customs are described in detail elsewhere in this volume.
Mrs. Malone and her twin sister, Jane, were born August 6, 1812, and were consequently about four years old when their parents moved with them to this county. It was a remarkable fact that these sisters, as long as the latter was living, -- who died in old age, -- always resembled each other so closely in their personal appearance that even their children often mistook one for the other. Jane married Thomas Kibby, and died in March, 1880. [It is from Mr. Kibby and Mrs. Malone that we have learned many facts of this early history.]
Mrs. Vannest had two narrow escapes from death at the hands of the Indians. The origin of this vengeance on the part of the red savages was as follows; Two white