Transcription contributed by Martie Callihan 28 Oct 2004

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243

For some years after the whites made their homes in this county, small parties of friendly Indians encamped occasionally near the settlements. They came in the fall for their annual hunt to a favorite hunting-ground on Todd's Fork, now in Clinton, then in Warren County, until as late as the battle of Tippecanoe, encamping sometimes in parties of fifty, with their squaws, papooses, ponies and dogs. A considerable party of Shawnees, Wyandots and Pottawatomies visited the Shakers at Union Village in the summer of 1807. representing themselves in great distress for want of food, and were relieved by the Shakers. The numbers of the tribes which roamed over this region had long before been greatly reduced by the wars with the whites, and still more by the ravages of the small-pox.

The Indians encamped frequently, in the spring, in some of the sugar camps, for the purpose of making sugar—a matter they always attended to. They also visited Salt Run, in Hamilton Township, for the purpose of making salt, although the salt there obtained was of an inferior quality, and manufactured with difficulty. These savage parties were generally few in numbers. They were considered friendly, but sometimes stole horses from the settlers.

Rev. John Kobbler, the pioneer Methodist preacher, gives the following account of a visit from a party of Indians while he was preaching at Franklin, in March, 1799: "In the time of the first prayer, a company of Indians, to the number of fifteen, came to the door. When we rose from prayer, the old chief fixed his eyes on me and pushed through the company to give me his hand. He was much strung out with jewels in his ears, nose and breast, and the round tire about his head was indeed like the moon. His men all behaved well."