The First Actual Settlers of Dearborn County Indiana

Accounts differ as to who was the first actual settler in the county. It will possibly never be determined; neither is it at all material who he was. The fact may be that a number of people came into the county at practically the same time and, the means of travel being bad, they were unknown. Few records were kept in those days by the pioneers who were actual settlers. It was generally a mere matter of memory. It has been claimed, variously, that Adam Flake and family were the first settlers locating on South Hogan. It is claimed elsewhere that he did not arrive until 1796. Samuel Morrison, who devoted much time to such matters, says: “Early in January, 1796, Adam Flake and family settled on South Hogan creek. In February, 1796, Ephraim Morrison, a soldier of the Revolution, built the first log cabin and cut away the first trees on the bank of the Ohio, just above the mouth of Hogan creek, where the city of Aurora now stands. Early in May, 1796, Capt. Joseph Hayes and family and Thomas Miller and family settled in the big bottoms, three and one-half miles north of Lawrenceburg.” Samuel Morrison was a son of Ephraim Morrison and no better authority could be obtained than he.

Shortly after Captain Hayes arrived, Henry Hardin and family settled on the site of Hardinsburg. William Gerard and family and George Crist and family were also settlers in the same vicinity in the year 1796. On Laughery creek, it is claimed that George Groves settled at its mouth in 1794 and built the first cabin in the county. It is also claimed that Nicholas Cheek settled on Wilson creek in 1794, about the same time that George Groves was building his cabin on Laughery. Other authorities claim that Groves did not arrive until 1798. The treaty of Greenville was not signed until August 3, 1795, and it is not very probable that any of these men would undertake to establish permanent homes until the full terms of the treaty were well known. It is more possible that these settlers were busy in 1795 raising crops for the coming winter, and that by the beginning of the winter they would be aware of that portion of the treaty ceding all the lands east of the line drawn from the mouth of the Kentucky river to Ft. Recovery, to the United States. This would naturally stimulate their desires to acquire some of this new country. All who came into this county before the land office was opened at Cincinnati, April 9, 1801, were just “squatters” and were locating desirable ground to enter. None of them could possibly have established permanent homes. When the land office did open, many of these families were doomed to bitter disappointment, because others, more alert or blessed with more ready money, secured the very lands they had selected. The year 1796 was five years before the land office was opened and that was a long time to wait for a chance, only, to secure the rewards for their patience and endurance. These “squatters” erected just an abiding place, made generally out of unhewn logs, with one or two rooms. The Indian had been so badly punished that it was anticipated, and correctly, that it would be several years before he could recover enough self-confidence to make any more attempts against the settlements. The desire for securing the pick of the land brought these families into the county before the land could be purchased at the land office. It was natural, for several reasons, that they keep close to the streams that enter the Ohio river and that, for the time, they remain near to navigation. At that time there was no outlet down the Mississippi that could be depended upon. The Spanish were in possession of the mouth of the river and much difficulty was encountered in entering the domain of Spain, a short distance below Natchez. The nearest protection was the stockade at North Bend, or just across the river at Tanner’s Station, now the thrifty little hamlet of Petersburg, Kentucky.

During Wayne’s campaign, that general had detached a battalion of his men, under the command of Major Byrd, to occupy the high ground on the west bank of the Miami just above its mouth. Here the major erected a stockade and remained until the treaty of Greenville. The purpose of the occupancy of this place was to protect the keel boats that were carrying supplies from Cincinnati and Pittsburgh to Ft. Hamilton. While the Ohio and Miami were at a good stage, especially in the winter season, when the trail from Ft. Washington to Hamilton was almost impassable, the river route was found to be most convenient and the supplies for Wayne’s army were taken by that route. The regiment from which the detail was made was called the “Rowdy Regiment.” Wayne’s army was nearly two years preparing for the final and decisive campaign against the Indians and the camp was occupied during that time. The name “Rowdy Camp” is to this day applied to the spot where the stockade stood. It is a narrow point of land just above the Baltimore & Ohio railway, where it crosses the old bed of the Miami, between the city of Lawrenceburg and the bridge over the Great Miami. The place is covered with forest to this day. The Dearborn county history, published in 1885, says, “In the summer of 1794 John Tanner, who had built the station where Petersburg now stands, ran a keel-boat from his station to Ft. Hamilton for the purpose of supplying the troops at that place with provisions. While rounding the island in the Great Miami, near the mouth of the Whitewater, the Indians in ambush fired on his boat, killing a colored man, his bowsman. That island ever since goes by the name of ‘Negro Island.’ Not long after the above occurrence Eli Gerard, of the Hayes Station (now known as the Goose Pond), was sent over west of the Miami river to hunt horses which had strayed off. Three Indians gave chase to him and pursued him to the Miami river. Gerard plunged into the river and swam across; when the Indians came upon the bank he was two-thirds of the way across and a tomahawk was thrown at him.” This “Rowdy Camp” is not above extreme high water but moderate floods do not reach it. From the best information obtained the settlements established at the mouth of Laughery creek; at the mouth of the two Hogan creeks, and the families who settled at Hardinsburg and at the state line were made at near the same time. Just which of the places was first cannot at this day be well determined. Captain Hayes had been at North Bend and at the station erected by himself and Alexander Guard, about one mile above the mouth of the Miami, on the east bank, ever since the spring of 1791, and was familiar with every foot of ground on the west side; knew the height of the floods during those years, and where the best locations were to be found. It is very probable that just as soon as he learned of the terms of the treaty, he moved over to occupy the land he had selected.

EARLY AUTHORITIES QUOTED

The first families to select locations in the broad bottoms at the mouth of the Big Miami are given in the Dearborn county history published in 1885, quoting from the writings of Samuel Morrison, as follows: “Early in the spring of 1796, Captain Hayes and family and the families of Joseph Hayes, Jr., and Thomas Miller, Sr., removed west of the Great Miami river, and settled in this county (then Knox county, Northwestern Territory).” The same authority says that “Alexander Guard, who had occupied the same station on the Miami one mile above its mouth with Hayes, settled on the west side of the Miami near where the town of Elizabethtown, Ohio, now stands.” From the same source, the following is taken: “Among others living at the (Hayes) station referred to, who moved into the county in 1796 and settled in the township, were William Girard and wife and two sons, Eli and Elias, and daughter, Mrs. Crist, and husband, George Crist, and three step-children, Rees, Rachel and William. They settled one mile above Hardinsburg. The same year Henry Hardin and family, consisting of William, Mary, James, Catherine, John and Philip, settled on the site of the hamlet of Hardinsburg. Other families settling in the vicinity in the same year were those of William Allensworth and Isaac Allen, who occupied the land subsequently known as the Samuel Morrison farm.”

The settlers at the mouth of the two Hogan creeks were on the ground about the same time as those farther up the valley. When the cornerstone of the present courthouse was laid the following historical item was deposited: “Early in January, 1796, Adam Flake and family settled on South Hogan creek. In February, 1796, Ephraim Morrison, a soldier of the Revolutionary War, built the first log cabin and cut away the forest trees on the bank of the Ohio just below the mouth of Hogan creek, where Aurora now stands.” Quoting from Samuel Morrison in the Dearborn county history of 1885: “When Ephraim Morrison arrived at the mouth of Hogan creek to make his settlement, there was already some cleared land both above and below the creek. Ephraim Morrison found at this place an Indian hut about sixteen feet square, without floor or roof, which he repaired and occupied until he could build a better house. Here on the site of the city of Aurora, March 1, 1798, was born Samuel Morrison, who, so far as is known, was the first white child born in this part of the territory of Indiana. After a residence of four years at the mouth of Hogan creek, Ephraim Morrison removed to a place he had selected on Laughery creek, three-fourths of a mile from its mouth.”

A CONTESTED HONOR

George W. Lane, writing during the centennial period in 1876, says: “In 1796 Adam Flake and family settled on South Hogan creek, about one mile from the Ohio river. In the same year Ephraim Morrison landed just below the mouth of Hogan creek—where the city of Aurora now stands—with his family of one daughter and three sons, Agnes, Ephraim, Jr., William and Thomas. Samuel Morrison was born after their arrival, and he has often been spoken of as the first male child born in the county. But this honor was contested by the friends of William V. Cheek. During this same year the Cheeks settled above where the city of Aurora now stands, near Wilson creek, with their families. Soon after their arrival, William V. Cheek was born and, if not the first, was certainly the second male child born in the county.”

On Laughery creek, Benjamin Walker settled in 1796. He came from Pennsylvania, and later moved to the south side of the creek, where he built a grist-mill and laid out the town of Hartford. William Maroney, Daniel Lynn, William Blue and David Blue all came to the Laughery valley in this same year and located. William Ross likewise came to the Laughery valley, settling at its mouth, but afterwards moved farther up the creek.

The first colony to settle at Columbia, near the mouth of the Little Miami river, comprised the names of persons afterwards somewhat familiar in the early settlement of Dearborn county. On the list of names given for that settlement are found that of Hugh Dunn, Elijah Mills, Abram Ferris, John Ferris and Ezra Ferris. Among those who settled at Ft. Washington were the Ludlows—Israel and John, both of whom were well known by the first settlers in Dearborn county. Their nephew, Stephen Ludlow, in 1808, came to Dearborn county and became one of the county’s most prominent business men. Hugh Dunn afterwards moved to Ft. Hill, just above the mouth of the Miami, where he built a stockade and resided several years before coming to this county.

MURDERED BY INDIANS

It is related that his son, Isaac Dunn, afterwards one of Lawrenceburg’s most prominent citizens, along with Isaac Mills, Benjamin Cox, Thomas Walters, Joseph Randolph, Joseph Kitchel and Isaac Vanness came over to the bottoms late in the fall of 1794 to hunt for hogs to use for the winter’s meat. After hunting pretty much all day it was proposed by some of them that they return across the Miami to the stockade for the night and renew the hunt the next morning. All agreed to the proposition but Benjamin Cox and Thomas Walters, who thought it best to go into camp where they were, so as to have the advantage of an early start in the morning. The rest of the party not favoring the idea of risking a camp in such an unprotected place returned to the stockade above the mouth of the river. Towards midnight people at the stockade were much alarmed at hearing the reports of several guns in the direction of the camp that Cox and Walters were supposed to have made, and the little settlement, knowing the ways of the savages, feared for the safety of the two men. Early the next morning a party of men started to learn the fate of their comrades. Searching near where they were left the evening previous, Isaac Dunn and Garrett Vanness came upon the body of Benjamin Cox, scalped, and a bullet hole told the tale of how he met his fate.

Searching further, some seventy-five or eighty yards from the former, they found the body of Walters. From appearances it was thought he had been shot in the camp, but attempting to escape had been followed, tomahawked and scalped. It is claimed that these two men were the last to suffer such a fate in Dearborn county. The scene is described by a former writer as follows: “These bodies presented a horrible appearance and they were the last killed in the Miami country. The barbarity the savages exercised on them gave little evidence of a disposition on their part to make peace. The traveler passing from Lawrenceburg to Elizabethtown, as he crosses the creek near the stone house, lately the residence of Thomas Miller, may at any time, by turning his head to the right, glance his eye over the spot where Benjamin Cox and Thomas Walters, the last victims of savage barbarity in the war closing with Wayne’s treaty, were cruelly murdered.”

Dr. Ezra Ferris, a prominent man of pioneer days, and a writer on local history, as well as a noted Baptist divine, was the authority for the foregoing. A file of the Sentinel of the Northwest Territory to which another writer had access says that, in its issue of February 7, 1795, the following item may be found: “Arrived here yesterday from the mouth of the Great Miami, Mr. Isaac Mills who informs us that on Monday evening last the Indians killed two men by the name of Benjamin Cox and Thomas Walters, about one mile and a half from that place.”