The close of the War of the Revolution found many of those who had borne a part in that struggle in straitened circumstances. The struggle had impoverished the states to such an extent that they were unable to reward those who had lost health or been wounded in the service with a pension such as the general government now gives to its defenders. During the long contest the Continental Congress found it a difficult task to raise funds to pay the men, often resorting to scrip that proved to be of little or no value when the struggle closed. The cord that bound the states together was for several years only a thing easily broken if one of the states had chosen so to do. The government credit was gone and the veterans who had fought through storm and stress, enduring privations of every character, turned their faces toward where their homes had been, to find in many cases their houses destroyed and their lands grown up in weeds. To such as these the lure of the Ohio valley appealed temptingly. True, the Indian was to be fought and conquered; the forest overcome, and the land subdued, but ground was cheap and game was plentiful. The necessaries of life as then viewed were to be found on every hand and many of those who had taken part in the struggle cast about for some way by which they might be able to locate themselves in this valley which had so much to offer for their future comfort. So when Congress, some five years after the treaty with Great Britain, took over all the rights of Virginia and the other colonies to the lands north of the Ohio River and passed the Ordinance of 1787, making it a country in which no slavery could come and creating the possibilities for five new states, those who could do so prepared to emigrate to this new Utopia, and companies were formed to colonize on a large scale. John Cleves Symmes purchased a great tract of land between the two Miamis and brought a colony to North Bend. Benjamin Stites, with some twenty or more brave pioneers, in 1788, purchased part of the Symmes land and founded a settlement at the mouth of the Little Miami. A few men, led by Mathias Denman and Robert Patterson, landed where Cincinnati now stands and founded the settlement there first called Losantiville, which name, in a few months, was changed to Cincinnati.
INTREPID REVOLUTIONARY SOLDIERS
The Indians proved to be so warlike that the infant settlements sickened and almost died; but after General Wayne’s treaty with the Indians in 1795, they rallied and grew fast and strong. This treaty gave encouragement to others and soon the Ohio was covered with voyagers seeking this new land of promise. Most of these settlers were men who had taken part in the War of the Revolution, or their children, a brave and independent class of people. They had suffered and fought for what they deemed just and were ready again to suffer and to fight. They brought with them their household goods and the desire to build society on a foundation that would be sound and enduring. They were ready to conquer the forest, the savage beast and the more savage race of red men that opposed their coming and were justly jealous of their occupancy of what to them was a hunting ground where meat and bread could always be obtained easily.
Dearborn County, on account of its geographical situation, received more of these desirable citizens than perhaps any other county in the state. It was in closer proximity to the stronger settlements and the land office where they would have to go to enter their farms was in Cincinnati. The broad valley of the Big Miami and the fertile soils of the pleasant valleys of Laughery Creek, the two Hogan Creeks, and Tanner’s Creek offered tempting inducements for the weary veteran of the seven long years of war to stop, locate and find a place where he could make a home, with all its comforts and conveniences.
Nearly all of those who bore a prominent part in the settlement of this county were of this type and the county was indeed fortunate in securing them. The act of securing the roster of these men who took part in the War of the Revolution and who were citizens of Dearborn County has been put off too long for it ever to be obtained accurately. Many lie in what are unknown graves. It was the custom in pioneer days for nearly every landowner to set apart a corner somewhere on his land for a burying place and most of these were unmarked. No record was taken in those days, when men were busy making homes, of those who died. The neighbors rallied to the assistance of those in trouble, and helped them nurse their sick and bury their dead, but had no time for caring for the graves of the departed. They were laid away just as reverently as now, but the money for erecting costly monuments or even plain slabs, telling the story of the one buried, was oftentimes not to be had.
DEARBORN’S REVOLUTIONARY HONOR LIST
In 1828 Congress made arrangements for paying the soldiers of the Revolution a pension, and it was then found that in Indiana Dearborn County led the list. Many, however, had paid the debt of nature long before 1828, and there is no way to determine the number that had resided in the county before that period. In 1835 there were forty-eight Revolutionary soldiers on the pension roll in the county, as follows: John Able, John Baker, Charles Cook, John Cooper, John Campbell, John Dixon, John De Moss, John O. Gullion, David Haney, Thomas Johnston, Moses Lindley, Noah Miller, William Meserve, Zebulon Pike, David Porter, Samuel Stone, Daniel Shed, Peter Lawrence, John Six, John Shaver, Daniel Welch, Robert Wright, David Hall, Charles Bisbee, Peter Carbell, Michael Euler, John Elliott, Jacob Ellsbury, William Henderson, Moses Hendrickson, Job Judd, Moses Lacy, Daniel Loder, James Leeds, Samuel Marsh, John Mead, George Mason, Daniel Riddington, David Reambe, Robert Ricket, Henry Rander, Elijah Rich, Ezra Stanson, William Smithers, Gideon Towers, Timothy Ward, Benjamin Walker, Samuel Whetstone and William White.
Others who were known to have been soldiers of the Revolution and who died before 1835 are Capt. Isaac Cannon, Maj. John Calhoun, Capt. Joseph Hayes, Eli Hill, Zebulon Dickinson, Ephraim Morrison, Joseph Barlow, William Kerr, James Skeets, James Dykman, Henry Rayner, John Sacket, Baylis Cloud, Jonas Frazier, John Day, Isaac Way, Capt. Hugh Dunn, Capt. John Crandon, Jabez Percival, James Scott, Jacob Toothman, Enoch Sacket, Winthrop Robinson, Jacob Taylor, Joseph Hannegan and Samuel Richardson.
Major Calhoun was a near relative of John C. Calhoun, and was active in the Revolutionary War and afterwards served against the Cherokees and Creeks. He spent his last days with the family of his kinsman, Abram Roland. Zebulon Pike was the father of the discoverer of Pike’s Peak. Capt. Hugh Dunn was a forbear of Jacob P. Dunn, of Indianapolis, and of Harry R. and Cassius McMullen, their father, recently deceased, having been named for the pioneer ancestor, Hugh Dunn McMullen. It may occur to some that others on this list have descendants in the county. The Dickinsons are represented in the county by Samuel Griffith and John N. Griffith, whose mother was a great-granddaughter. The Hayes family here are descended from Capt. Joseph Hayes, who was one of the first to settle in Dearborn County.
It has been estimated that at one time in the history of the county there were as many as two hundred men who had taken part in the War of the Revolution as soldiers. They kept no records in those days, and they sleep mostly in unknown graves. Here and there the word is handed down and the spot is pointed out where one of these men is buried, but in this fast-moving age of commercialism we are looking forward to the future too intently to have much time for sentiment and for the history of times so remote. It is not yet too late to locate many of the last resting places of these men, and an organized effort should be made to find these ancient graves and see that they are properly marked.
Back to: Indiana History & Genealogy Project
Source
Shaw, Archibald, History of Dearborn County, Indiana : her people, industries and institutions, with biographical sketches of representative citizens and genealogical records of old families, Indianapolis : B.F. Bowen, 1915.