Paris and Dupont Railroad 1849

The 1840s drew a flurry of proposals for new railroads as towns began to understand the power of the new form of transportation. The Madison & Indianapolis Railroad brought prosperity to Madison, which was lost when the big cities were connected by tracks, is extremely well known.. But there was interested by smaller towns throughout the 1800s. And few probably involved a shorter line than the one discussed by the Indiana House of Representatives on Jan.11, 1849 The record shows that the house approved a petition by residents of Jefferson and Jennings County for a charter from Paris to Dupont. This is a distance of less than 15 miles and yet it was seriously considered by the legislature. What is shows, and what petitions continued to show throughout the 1800s, was how little was understand about the economics of the developing railroad industry. The House passed the bill on three readings and sent it to the state Senate, where it must have died quietly. Railroads were a hot topic. During the same sessions, the assembly considered the Munsie [sic], Jonesboro, Marion and Peru Railroad and to authorize the Shelbyville Lateral Branch to dispose of property. On Feb. 28, 1848, there was a bill to amend the incorporation of the Mount Vernon and New Harmony Railroad, which was originally passed on Feb. 16, 1848. The assembly defeated a bill to incorporate the Evansville and Terra Haute Railroad on Feb. 29, 1848. There must have been a political element involved. This line was defeated by a vote of 29 to 50, yet the much smaller Paris and Dupont line was approved the next year.

Jefferson County's Battles

In terms of what is generally accepted about history, this title makes no sense. There weren't any battles in Jefferson County, unless you want to count the Pigeon Roost Massacre. And although that took place in Jefferson County as it existed at the time, its locale is modern Scott County. And while Morgan's raiders liberated a lot of hams at Dupont, there were no battles in the Jefferson County segment of that incursion.

But there are indications that there were at least two battles in the county, perhaps three. So given the lack of records for the area before 1810, why not more?

The first battle was Creek versus Shawnee, a confrontation that took place George Ash, always recounted as Indian George, returned to European civilization in Kentucky about 1796 and before he relocated to the area between Lamb, Ind., in Switzerland County, and the border with Milton Township, Jefferson County.

There are several versions of the story of Ash, captured as a boy in Nelson  County, Ky., in 1780, and raised among the Shawnee in Ohio. Most dismiss his active involvement with the Indians in ambushing settlers or fighting against them. The least sanitized version was published in the Madison Progress [which I have not found] and reprinted in the Vevay Reveille of  March 24 and 31, 1874. In it, Ash recounts two seasons of his dressing in European garb and standing on the northern Ohio shore pretending to be in distress in order to lure passing boats to their occupants' doom. They were successful in at least one of these in which Ash specifies that the Indians hid their canoes on the Indian-Kentucky near "Uncle Dick Bundren's [a spelling pronunciation of Bondurant] farm, which is probably around the location of modern Brooksburg Cemetery.

The exact location of the confrontation is not clear nor its example time. It was in September and it occurred the year after the camp out near the Bondurant farm.  Ash said that the Shawnee had returned from a raid in Nelson County, his former home, near where Bethlehem, Ind., is located. They "built a temporary craft in the low grounds, north of where the city of Madison now stands ... " camped there for some time with no luck in their attempts to prey on boats and then moved upstream to a location opposite the mouth of the Kentucky River. This all occurred sometime before the signing of the Greenville Treaty in 1795 since most Indian fighting ceased at that point.

Whenever this occurred, the Shawnee had been fighting with the Creek sometime the year before. During their stay in this episode, they received word of a Creek troop advancing. They moved upriver and decided to form a line between the hill and the river bank. Unfortunately, the exact location of the original camp or the amount distance they moved upriver is not given. However, it would seem that if they moved up river into Switzerland County, the bottoms grow wide enough that covering the ground from hill to river would have taken many more men.

The battle lasted about three hours into the afternoon when the Shawnee attacked and drove the Creeks in a running fight for two or three miles. Unfortunately, Ash did not state the direction. He did report the Creek lost 20 braves and the Shawnee about 10 men out of 110 with 32 more wounded and six of those died later. Ambushes involving the Creeks continue through the next winter and the Shawnee stayed on the north side of the Ohio to avoid a fight.

There is less clear evidence for a battle by George Rogers Clark's troops that may have occurred in Milton Township. The possibility is implicit in the original name of Locust Creek - Battle Creek - which is just downstream from the mouth of the Little Kentucky River. Gen. Charles Scott's 791 mounted troops crossed at the mouth of the Kentucky River or at Battle Creek in 1791, depending on which contemporary account you believe. 

There's no indication his troops fought anyone in southeastern Indiana as did they in the north.  What we do know is the name Battle Creek is on a 1793 map that covers the area. What is not certain is why the creek bears that name but it is clearly labeled on Barker's 1793 map, along with the equally clearly labeled Indian-Kentuck.

One report has Clark fighting a battle on the Indiana side opposite Battle Creek about 1793, but I have not been able to substantiate that. It is also not clear if it were the same or a different battle from one that occurred in 1779 or 1780 that was described by Henry Wilson, who served in one of Clark's units.

Wilson said that McGary and Ellison's companies cross the Ohio at the mouth of the Kentucky River and about for or five miles, came upon a large Indian Camp on the bank of the river. Nine men in McGary's company were killed or wounded in the ensuing skirmish. He noted that "this little check put a stop to hunting on the shore." 

Unfortunately, nothing in Wilson's account suggests whether troops had gone upriver, deeper into Switzerland County, or down river into Jefferson, before the fighting broke out.

Disciples Vs. Baptists in Jefferson County

When the Disciples of Christ burst upon the scene in the Midwest in the early 1800s, churches divide and old friends turned against each other. In fact, this seems hardly an overstatement giving some of the evidence that emerges about this doctrinal battle.

The friction was shown in the attitudes of the Coffee Creek Baptist church in Jennings County, not far from the Jefferson County border. On the First day of Saturday December 1835, the church minutes show: “On motion is it decided by this church that John B. New and all that hold with him shall not be permitted to preach in our meetinghouse.” And the next action it took was to approve purchase of a lock for the meetinghouse.

New had been a Baptist minister. But he was one of the many who turned to the Christians, who were variously known as Campbellites, after their founder Alexander Campbell, Christian Baptist and Reformers, related to the Reformed Church, which is how the denomination thought of itself as reforming a religion that had strayed from the rules of the Bible.

New arrived in Madison in 1815 and over the next two to three years, he was clerk for the Mt. Pleasant Baptist Church on the Madison Hilltop, the first church (counting it as a successor of the Crooked Creek Baptist Church), founded in Jefferson County.

After attending some of the meetings in Kentucky, he returned to Mt. Pleasant filled with the message and decided to become a minister in 1818. That same year he married and was also on a committee to rewrite Mt. Pleasant’s rules. In the words of an author committed to the truth of the Christian message, New convinced the committee that the only rules it needed were those of the New Testament. The biographical sketch in the book Biographical Sketches of the Pioneer Preaches of Indiana also makes it clear that the Christians saw themselves as in revolt against the Calvinist doctrine of predestination.

The lock at Coffee Creek was just one evidence of conflict. Among the members of the Church of Christ, organized by New and Carey Smith in Madison in 1832, was another elder, Jesse Mavity, who had taught school in the basement of the Masonic Hall along with his brother Henry. “Prior to the organization of the church, who had preached with great acceptance for the several denominations of the city, all of whom were liberal patrons of his school,” But because of Mavity affiliated with the Christians, when he changed his school to a high school, the subscribers withdrew. This account makes it sounds as if the Mavitys were set up for failure by those who urged the change in schools; another that the school was simply abandoned by opponents the new denomination.

Churches changed affiliations. The first Baptist Church in Indiana, the Silver Creek Baptist Church in Clark County, joined the Christians. Two New Light Churches (a dissident form of Presbyterianism), a church named Liberty near Kent and another another Liberty Church at Mud Lick (later called Bellview) became Christian bodies in the 1830s.

But one of the bitterest fights took place in Milton Township, where the newly founded Milton Church found itself subject to the divisive forces. It may not have been more bitter than elsewhere; but three accounts show that it must have been a heated discussion.

All of the accounts have some errors and they gloss over some of the pertinent points, partly because two were written from the viewpoint of the Christians and the other because it was a local history, whose main purpose wasn’t defining religious movements.

The Milton Baptist Church was founded in 1829 in Milton Township about two miles east of modern Manville. It was the first church that organized in and met in Milton Township.
It must have been subject to tension from the beginning for a History of Milton Township written sometime before 1908, probably by William Ryker, then president of the Jefferson County Historical Society, refers to the Manville Christian as growing out of a Manville Baptist Church. No such body every existed—it clearly grew out of Milton.

This account says the church had two ministers, Benjamin Levitt and Joseph Hankins, who were divided on practice, one for open communion, one for closed communion. Then Jacob Short, who had been one of the founders of the Indian-Kentuck Baptist Church, included Beverly Vawter to speak. Son of Baptist minister Philemon Vawter and nephew of Baptist minister Jesse Vawter, Beverly had gone over to the reformers and was a major force in Jefferson and Switzerland County. Hankins, who was the minister at Milton Baptist Church in the early 1830s gets no more mention in his role in the events. But Levitt was an important player.

A biographical sketch of Beverly Vawter, in the same volume that profiled New, said that in the summer of 1830 “he was invited to attend the monthly meeting of a Separate Baptist church near the forks of Indian Kentucky. Their preacher and elder was a man by the name of Levitt, who was bitterly opposed to what he was pleased to denominate Campbellism.”

After Vawter preached and four members confessed and were to be baptized, Levitt was requested to attend their immersion and refused with "No, sir, they are your converts—I will have nothing to do with them." At the next church meeting, it was clear Vawter had won. (The formality of the quotes attributed to Levitt sound like they were constructed in later years, fairly typical for writings of the era.)

The story concludes with “This was the origin of the Church of Christ, now* known as Milton
Church, which still yields the peaceable fruits of righteousness under the pastoral care of Charles Lanham.” This time, the error in church names goes the other way. Because Lanham was known to be a minister at Manville Christian Church, and given the location at the forks of the Indian-Kentuck, the new body was clearly Manville.

Important points are lost here. Levitt, a native of Rhode Island, represented a more liberal Baptist view in which the ministers were sometimes affiliated with the Free Will Baptists, sometimes with the Separate Baptists. The Free Wills formed several congregations in Ripley and Switzerland County, but none in Jefferson County (unless the Milton Church was temporarily a free will). The Separate Baptists had only the church at Center Grove in Shelby Township, which became the regular Hicks Baptist Church in 1894, while there were more in Switzerland and Ripley Counties. Both bodies were non-Calvinist and most congregations were decidedly anti-slavery. There may have been a regional split—a more educated Northeasterner against the home grown ministers. It’s likely there was a whole mix of issues.

In any event, important members of the Milton Church show up in records of the Manville church from its founding. John Lanham and William Yates, who were messengers from the Milton Church to the Coffee Creek Baptist Association in 1829, were members No 2. And No. 4 respectively on the Manville membership list and Jacob Short was No. 21. There are no dates on this list before member No. 36, but it’s possible these were all charter members. And they brought their families within them. The final word on the Hankins role was that they stayed with Milton. Joseph Hankins died in 1836 and the church disbanded, but it reformed with his children playing a major role.

The third account, again from the Christian side, was a letter written on April 7, 1834 and printed in the Christian Evangelist. Its language is pious, bordering on haughtiness.

Not naming the church, but noting its location on the Indian-Kentuck Creek, the writer reported, “We esteem the word of God as living and effective and since we got rid of the Babylonians, thirteen of fourteen have been added to our number. Seven of the old folks remain obdurate, two of them were elders and one a Rabbi.”

A Mississippi Fight Over Free Jefferson County Blacks

At the first glance, it's easy to miss that there was anything unusual about James Brown, a 64-year old man who was born in South Carolina and whose household was shown in Lancaster Township, Jefferson County, in the 1850 census as enumerated on October 25 that year. But a closer look hints that there was something very different.

The census shows Brown, indicated as white since no race was listed, with five other individuals in the household, all mulattoes. They were Harriet Brown, age 34, Francis Brown, age 18, Louisa Brown, age 11, Jerome B. Brown, age 7, and Theresa V. Brown, age 2, all born in Mississippi. The 1850 census did not record relationships so it could not show that Harriet was Brown's slave and mother of the four younger Browns who were also James' children, and under the laws of Mississippi were his slaves when they were born.

These details emerge via a court case, Shaw vs. Brown, decided by the Mississippi High Court of Errors and Appeals in April 1858, which shows that this family became the subject of a court fight pitting James' brother John and some nieces and nephews against their mulatto cousins as the former tried to claim the children who remained slaves when James died. For reasons not stated, the case revolved around Francis and Jerome only, with the two daughters not mentioned—perhaps they lacked the market value of healthy young male slaves, or they were not listed by name in the will.

The court's decision spanned about 34,000 words, but taking out the legal arguments, the facts were that James took the children to Indiana to receive an education and that he also intended to set them free, which he did via a will dated Oct. 9, 1853, and  then died in 1856. Their status was also the subject of freedom papers filed for Francis and Jerome in Jefferson County and recorded in a mortgage book, unfortunately part of the records awaiting possible restoration following the 2009 courthouse fire.

The family's stay in Jefferson County was brief. Brown moved to Greene County, Indiana, in 1855, and died there. Harriett and the three youngest children were shown in Fairplay in Greene County, in the 1860 census. Francis, apparently married, headed his own household there. However, the reasons for their presence in Lancaster was very important.

Although it's not spelled out in the court papers concerning where Brown intended to obtain the education for his children, it seems obvious he came to Lancaster Township so they could attend the Eleutherian College. I do not know if college recorded their enrollment, but the 1850 census shows Brown and his family two households before John Craven, that institution's founder.

A variety of legal arguments went into the effort by Brown's relatives to re-enslave his children. They argued he couldn't legally take them out of state to free them and also cited some visits in which the older children visited Mississippi as  a return to residency in the state. And the plaintiffs cited the 1850 constitution of Indiana, which barred the entry of free blacks into Indiana after 1852, another issue in their claim that the will should have been voided. They wanted Brown declared intestate, in which case the children could be sold and proceeds distributed to the other heirs.

They disputed facts that James claimed paternity of the children, some witnesses claiming he never said he intended to free them, while the plaintiff claimed he took Francis and Jerome to Cincinnati in 1849, intending to free them, and executing an emancipation deed, but then returning with them to Amite County, Miss. to live and that they spoke of that state as their legal residence. The plaintiff also claimed James Brown said he was going to sell the children, while at the same time alleging he fraudulently took them North to free them with the intention of returning to the South.

Richard Shaw, one of the executors, said Brown didn't make it to Cincinnati because of low water in 1849, but did reach that city and freed them and their mother on May 11, 1850 and that they settled in Indiana and lived in the state from that time on.

The list of witnesses included James' Brown, John Brown, and John's son, William, and E.A. Haygood, a son of a deceased sister of James, along with Joseph Richardson, one of James' Brown's plantation overseers, whose testimony was designed to show James didn't intend to free his children and that they had maintained their Mississippi residence. Statements were made on both sides by what appear to have friends and neighbors, including some that said the children called Brown "father" and he treated them as such.

Strong testimony in favor of the Browns' having become Hoosiers came from nine Jefferson County residents, including James Nelson, who was active in the Underground Railroad. All lived in the Lancaster area. While another executor, Lemuel Hanks had resigned his position, Richard Shaw took an active and sympathetic role and had warned Francis Brown not to return to Mississippi. Unfortunately, the group didn’t spell out the educational plans. However, Nelson had served as an officer of the Eleutherian College.

The court held it didn't matter in Mississippi what the Indiana law said--the Browns had been allowed to live there and it was Indiana’s business if it didn’t enforce its own laws. It also found there was nothing illegal in Brown's taking the children to Indiana for an education, which, as slaves, they could not get in Mississippi.

The Mississippi court, however, appears to have made a major legal blunder. It said that the Brown children's residence in the Hoosier state because during that time, "the relation of master and slave was of necessity dissolved." However, my reading of the Dred Scott decision, issued in 1857 by the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that moving to a free state did not remove slaves from their position, which made the decision highly unpopular in the north. While the court's statement was in error, the fact that Brown executed deeds to free his children, made it a moot point. (As a non-lawyer, I believe Dred Scott meant Brown had to utilize a legal document to free the children, not simply move them north).

Since a slaveowner could not utilize a will to devise property to a slave, the court's pivotal question was whether Francis and Jerome were free blacks when the will was made, largely proved by the testimony of an Ohio notary who witnessed the emancipation deeds. Whatever the judge's personal opinions, they rejected a lower court ruling which they said was partly based on prejudice against Negroes, not only the law.

After all the arguments, the court ruled the Browns were free, reversing the lower court.

Six Feet Under: A Brief Review of Cemetery Histories

Cemeteries have histories. And as a meeting place of East, Mid-Atlantic and South, Jefferson County was a mixed of the different kinds of cemeteries, which developed in different ways.

The rural South tended heavily to family cemeteries in the early years, as did much of Jefferson County with its strong southern contingent. The more urbanized East had more town cemeteries, and perhaps because early Madison's leadership included a number of New Yorkers, the town had a cemetery at the site of John Paul Park, which was removed to Fairmount late in the 1800s. Meanwhile, Madison founded Springdale Cemetery, a municipal cemetery, the only one of its kind if Jefferson County, but by far the largest.

Church cemeteries were often connected to the family cemeteries, particularly in the Indian-Kentuck basin that drains must the eastern section where several family burying grounds became the official church graveyards. Why is not known, but perhaps there were simply fewer good locations because of the hilly landscape.

The Milton Baptist Church, which existed from 1829 through 1836, and then from 1840 through 1883, was deeded its church cemetery in 1871 by Aaron and Sarah Hankins and it had previously been the Hankins family cemetery.

The origins of other church cemeteries are not so clear. But those with burials before the churches' founding include the cemetery of the former St. Anthony's Catholic Church at China, where the earliest burial, that of James Hamilton in 1847, preceded the church's founding. The Hamiltons were likely not Catholic and local families had an oral traditional about non-Catholic burials there.

Similarly, although the former Olive Branch Methodist Church in Madison Township was founded in its first burial was for Susan Hamilton, wife of James (the same James?), who died in 1820.

At Canaan, the burial of a Littlejohn came before the organization of the defunct Canaan Methodist church in 1834. The same is true for the Brooksburg Cemetery where are marked graves for 15 Bondurants who died before the founding of the Methodist Church there in 1891. Likewise, at Manville, where the church's founding preceded the establishment of the cemetery, several members of the Manville family were buried whose names appear nowhere on the church membership record.

The cemetery of Ryker's Ridge Baptist Church presents a more confusing case. There were at least three burials there (one Hillis, one Van Cleave, one Ryker), before a non-denominational church reportedly was founded in 1818, although there is no proof the cemetery was associated with that body. And while the Baptist Church was founded in 1840, there are other marked graves, 13 Hillis stones and 4 Ryker stones (not including the unmarked grave of John Ryker), which have dates for those who died before 1840. Complicating this is the fact there was a Presbyterian Church at Ryker's Ridge, possibly from the early 1820s through the mid 1830s. Both Ryker and Hillis families were largely Presbyterian at this point.

In the western part of the county what is now called the Wiggam Cemetery in Graham Township was originally known as Deputy's graveyard. That was the name it had when John and Elizabeth Wiggam deeded it to the trustees of the United Methodist Church on May 4, 1881. It's the only such transfer of a private graveyard to a church I have yet found in the western part of the county.

Community cemeteries also started early in the county's history. The cemetery now associated with the Hebron Baptist Church was founded as a private burying ground with the earliest burial in 1814 or 1815. It had its own trustees as late as 1830 and the land was later deed to the church, which was founded in 1828.

Also in Monroe Township was the Craig Cemetery, whose first known burial was in 1819. Then on Feb. 26, 1831, William, and his wife Mary Richie, and William Wallace, and his wife Sarah, deed land to the trustees of the burying ground. It was moved to Madison Township with the formation the former Jefferson Proving Ground in 1941.

The only community cemetery in Milton Township, the Joyce Cemetery, has obscure origins. Its first burials are from two families, the McKays and Brooks, and it may have taken shape because the nearby Home Methodist Church (ca. 1830-ca. 1970), had a location that regularly flooded. Certainly, the Brooks were largely Methodist. The earliest known burial was of Ann, wife of Humphrey Brooks, who died in 1832 and the second was for Nancy Brooks Neal, their daughter. The cemetery reportedly took its name from Pliny Joyce who had owned the land.

There are several cemeteries in the county that belong to vanished churches, and whose prior associations are not widely recognized. The Carmel and Old Bethel Cemeteries in Hanover Township are fairly well known as having been burying grounds for two extinct Presbyterian Churches.

Lesser known affiliations include the Valley Cemetery in Graham Township had been the graveyard for the Valley Methodist Church, but was transferred to a cemetery association. The McKay-Stites Cemetery in Smyrna Township may have been associated with the Upper Big Creek Presbyterian Church, later called the Mt. Pleasant Presbyterian Church and which faded into history after it moved to Dupont.

Interestingly, one trend in cemetery formation passed by Jefferson County, and that was the founding of burial grounds by fraternal groups. In Kentuckiana area, this meant primarily the Masons and the International Order of Odd Fellows.

Vevay's Cemetery was founded by the IOOF as were the Bedford and Carrollton, Ky., burying grounds and cemeteries in New Liberty and Owenton in Owen County. Ghent in Carroll County and Dallasburg and Monterey, Ky., in Owen County, have Masonic cemeteries.

There are probably two factors here. The fraternal cemeteries functioned essentially as town cemeteries and that role was already occupied by Springdale in Madison. Also, the other areas lacked Madison's Catholic population, which utilized St. Joseph's and St. Patrick's.

Jefferson County's Many Presbyterian Churches

Jefferson County was no different in the rest of the country in being affected by differences that arose in denominations. And in the case of the Presbyterians, it followed the same paths that saw the denomination split into the Old Schools and New School congregations during the 1830s.

But because of its high proportion of Scottish immigrants and Scotch-Irish and Dutch families that moved into the county before 1830, it ended up with an unusually large number of Presbyterians congregations that were divided four ways from the 1830s through the end of the Civil War.

The Scots themselves had two synods that reflected the mixture of Scottish politics and religion and were distinct from the Presbyterian Church USA before and often its split into the New School and Old School factions. And while these churches shared resources in the early days of settlement in the county that became less of a habit later.

The first Presbyterian congregation in the county, the former Carmel Church, was founded in what is now Hanover Township in 1812 by Scottish immigrants who left Kentucky because of their distaste for slavery. But in 1820, a group withdrew and formed the Bethel Presbyterian Church just west of Hanover.

While this split has been pictured as stemming from different opinions about a Scottish minister, it really reflected the division between groups more commonly known as Seceders and Covenanters, terms that arose in Scotland in the 1700s. Seceders gave up on reforming the established Presbyterian Church in Scotland and withdrew from the denomination. The term Covenanter was more politically loaded since they essentially became viewed as traitors in the eyes of the English, although that denotation had worn off before reaching America.. The divisions of the two were crystallized with the formation of the Associate Presbyterian Church (Seceders) and the Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church (Covenanters)

This made a world of difference for Carmel was an Associate church and Bethel, an Associate Reformed. And it became increasingly clear the divisions drained the Presbyterian movement. The Associate bodies in Jefferson County included Madison and Big Creek. The Associate Reformed churches were Bethel and Caledonia, on the Jefferson-Switzerland County border, whose heavily Scottish membership put the word “Covenanters” of the title page of the church record book in 1854 after the old records were destroyed by fire. The affiliation of the short-lived Ryker’s Ridge Church (ca. 1822-ca. 1836) is not known as there was preaching by both Carmel’s ministers and those from Madison’s “regular” Presbyterian body.

The Old School/New School divisions are equally obscure to most today. There were some political divisions, with the New School a little more anti-slavery and the Old School a bit less. Some authorities place more weight on differences over control of the regular Presbyterian Church between the Scottish element, Old School, and those who followed New England leaders, the New School.

Madison’s Presbyterian Church, the earliest in town, split into the Old School First Presbyterian and New School Second in 1833, with the second often bigger. The Lancaster Presbyterian Church in what was to become Monroe Township, split when Old School members pulled out in 1838. The New Schoolers took up the name Monroe Presbyterian Church and the Old School took the name Lancaster. The Smyrna Church split in the 1830s with the New Church becoming the short-lived Mizpah Presbyterian Church.

Among other Presbyterian bodies, Jefferson Church in Shelby Township was Old School as was one Dupont Presbyterian Church, the Popular Ridge church in Graham Township, Hanover Presbyterian, the Pleasant Township church just inside Switzerland County. Among the new school churches were Sharon Hill, North Madison, Bryantsburg and Central (and China). Most of these were reabsorbed with only Sharon Hill lasting into the second half of the 1900s.

And with the loss of population in that century, and successful missionary work by the Baptists, most of the county Presbyterian churches disappeared or dwindled.

Speaking Southern Hoosier: Names

When Edward Eggleston wrote "The Hoosier Schoolmaster," he had one character use the word "juberous". Eggleston footnoted the sentence stating that he wasn't certain, but he though the word meant "dubious." I remember when I was 14 and my father was driving us to church he blurted out "I was might juberous about that" in exactly the sense of dubious. Years later, my mother commented "Of course, I've heard it used that way."

And while much of the country terminology, some of it leftover from the Hoosier accent before the Kentucky accent crept north, is gone or dying, it's useful for genealogists, historians and the just curious as to how things were or are pronounced differently.

Other pronunciations that lingered in my family involved names. It took years before I found out that the "Old Doc Mathis place" near China had belonged to a Dr. Mathews. It's just that the name was pronounced Mathis into the late 1900s and it's a pronunciation that bedeviled census takers and later family historians who might not have realized that Mathis and Mathews were the originally the same name.

Then there is the name Banta, a name from the Frisian area of Holland and one of the families that was part of what was called the Low Dutch, such as the Rykers and Demarees. In my father's hands, it was "Bahn-tee" with the "a" pronounced like the "o" in the word bond and the second "a" converted to a "y" or "i" sound. And that Banty or Bonty spelling pops up in census records in the 1800s.

Likewise, the Stewart family name was rendered Steward by my parents. It took me years to realize the Steward bridge over the East Prong of the Indian Kentuck (where U.S. 62 crosses the creek) was spelled Stewart. In fact, that "d" ending harkens back to the original family occupation, when they were Sty-wards (pigkeepers) for Scottish royalty. And locally, Buchanan is not Byoo-kanan, but Buh kanan, a pronunciation that caused the name to be spelled Buckhanan or the like in many records.

Demaree got a different treatment. Instead of Dem-a-ree, my father pronounced it Dumb-a-ree. (No offense please) And that was probably a longstanding pronunciation as the 1840 census spells the name as Dumaree. While the Buchanan pronunciation is still common, the Dumb-a-ree is not. Also disappearing is Sibben-tal for Siebenthal, which is closer to the original German, but more often now, the last syllable has "thal" like the sound in think.

Among other names whose spelling reflected spoken spounds included Bondurant, rendered Bundren or Bundrent, Vernon, often written as Varnon (or worse) and Lewellyn, which often turned out as Lewallen. I can't say that I heard my family use these, but clearly they were not rare versions.

Church Non History

When I commented that a newspaper supplement in the Madison Courier about the bicentennial was very accurate and one clunker I have found was a statement that the Mt. Pleasant Baptist Church on Madison's hilltop was the parent to Madison's First Baptist Church.

"That's what the church says," was the response I got from a friend. It was that same week that I realized how often in writing church histories, writers neglect to read the church's own minutes.

For example, in the late 1900s, the claim began being made that the Indian-Kentuck Baptist Church was founded in 1812. The difference isn't terribly important, except that a statement written in the minutes said it was founded in 1814 (the minutes up to 1817 are missing). This was probably the same church history published by the Madison Association in 1860 and written by the church's long-time minister, Robert Stevenson.

Of course, written history can lead people astray. A History of Milton Township that was published around 1910 for the Jefferson County Historical Society and probably written by the group's president, William E. Ryker, said the Manville Christian Church grew out of the Manville Baptist Church.

The problem is that there is no record of a Manville Baptist Church. And all evidence points to Manville's growing out of the Milton Baptist Church which sat on the East Prong of the Indian-Kentuck Creek and operated 1829-1836 and 1840 until about 1880.

Annual minutes of meetings of the Coffee Creek Baptist Association, which covered Jefferson County during the second half of the 1820s, show no Manville Baptist Church. What they do show is that John Lanham and William Yates were messengers from Milton Baptist to the Coffee Creek Association meeting of Sept. 5, 1929, just after that church formed.

However, Manville Christian Church records show John Lanham was member No. 2 and William Yates member No. 4. Although this part of the list is undated, it appears members were listed as they joined and that the list dates to Manville's founding in 1830 and these two had jumped ship within a year of Milton's founding.

Back to the Madison Church. While it didn't directly originate in Mt. Pleasant, the real story is more remarkable.

Mount Pleasant voted to disband in April 1831 in order to promote the formation of a Baptist church in Madison and most members joined the newly formed Madison Baptist Church, which is clear from a biographical sketch of Mt. Pleasant's minister, Jesse Vawter.

But Madison had formed a building committee in June 1829 and on December 18 that year, a committee was organized to form a church. The charter members, and these dates, were in a sketch published in the 1869 minutes of the Madison Baptist Association.

And, oh yes, they are in the minutes of the Madison Baptist Church.

Madison and the International Pork Business

When Madison packed pork in a big way, it wasn't packing just for the Ohio River Valley or even the Midwest. It was part of an international trade.

From the earliest days, Midwestern farmers had connections overseas because the only viable route for their products was the Ohio River, taking goods to New Orleans and sometimes beyond. In the footnotes of the book issued as the "History of Switzerland County", Perret Dufour reported how James Bolens went to New Orleans about 1822 and couldn't get a price he could accept and so took his pork cargo to Havana. Dufour also noted how Bolens spotted a threatening looking man in New Orleans, who he also spotted in the crowd in Cuba, suggesting there was a good bit of traffic between those cities.

An author named P.L. Simmons spelled out many of the practices of slaughtering and the market for pork products in an article entitled, "The Commercial Products of the Hog," which was published in the Journal of Agriculture in an issue dated July 1855-March 1857. He reported 38,164 barrels of pork were imported at Liverpool during the year ended Oct. 31, 1853, with 10,500 barrels originating in Canada and the United States. He noted that businesses that catered to the New York market did their slaughtering principally from October 1 to December 1 each year to avoid icing of waterways. Madison's season generally fit into this period.

Two court actions show how the shipping business worked. In 1850, there was an shipment that gave rise to a law suit (Josiah Lawrence vs. White and Stevens) in the U.S. Circuit Court regarding "A contract to deliver pork at Madison, in the State of Indiana, well put up, for the English market …" The pork was shipped to New Orleans and then to Baltimore, where it was received spoiled. The contract called for the delivery of 319 boxes of long middles of pork with the Cumberland cut, meaning part of the bone was left in. Each box contained seven or eight middles. The contract had called for 500 boxed, but that was reduced. That meant the original plan involved delivery of middles from more than 3,500 hogs. The defendants (presumably David White and Stephen Stevens) won their case, largely because the defendant found the pork in good order at Madison.

Even after its boom had passed, Madison was still involved in the international trade. Another Madison packer, Fitch & Son, squared off against City of Madison who assessed for pork as personal property in 1860 and 1861. The Indiana Supreme Court ruled against Madison. Noting many residents engaged in businesses shipping goods to New Orleans and to foreign markets it commented that the pork business could not be taxed.

"Filch & Son, during all that time, had no money or other personal property except their pork, all of which was for export, and was then in process of being exported to a foreign market." Those were key words for the court noted the Madison city charter, as amended in 1849, exempted produce held for export or in transit and found that the pork fit that definition.

Jefferson County's Records

This article is designed to provide an overview to the records in the Jefferson County courthouse, and what can be lost if they cannot be salvaged following this month's fire.

After 40 years of studying them, I believe I know more about their contents than anyone as there are many types of records that I have not seen anyone else use, although I do not profess to be an expert on every record.

Nevertheless, wills, probate records, warranty deeds and marriage returns for the 1800s have been microfilmed and copies are available for viewing at several places, including the Madison-Jefferson County library. Modern deeds are being filmed, instead of being placed into books, as a matter of day-to-day operation by the recorder's office. I cannot testify as to whether all wills, probate records and marriages have been filmed from 1900 on.

There are many records that I do not believe have been microfilmed, including the following.

Auditor's Office: County Commissioners Records from 1817 on. The first book has been partly transcribed by Ruth Hoggatt and is available on www.myindianahome.net and there were two books, typed transcriptions of the first two books. These are indexed, but in a way that does not make them easy for family historians to use.

Auditor's Office: Tax Title Sales. These are the deeds that transfer land when an owner loses the property because of failure to pay taxes. If you lost track of your ancestor's land, it's possible it was for nonpayment of taxes and these are not included in the warranty deed books in the recorder's office.

Auditor's Office: Tax assessment records. There were few existing, 1827, 1828 1831 and 1833 for the whole county and 1829 for Madison Township alone. These have been placed on CD and are available through the Jefferson County Historical Society.

Auditor's Office: Land transfer records. Useful, but not critical. Organized by year and township.

Recorder's Office: Warranty deeds, as mentioned these have been microfilmed as have the deed indexes. They exist to the beginning of Jefferson County.

Recorder's Office: Sheriff's Deed Books. There are perhaps five of these and they cover loss of property via sheriff's sale. They are sometimes indexed in the warranty deed index books, but the deeds themselves are not in the regular books. Not microfilmed to my knowledge.

Recorder's Office: Entry books. These show original owners of tracts. The first set was abstracted by W.G. Ruesink and published by the Jefferson County Historical Society.

Recorder's Office: Mortgage records. Before about 1873, these include a lot of deed descriptions that simply reiterate what's in the deed book, but tie the sale to the loan. However, during this period mortgage books also record election of church and fraternal organization officers. They also include some freedom papers for blacks and some incorporation papers. They are hardly used and I don't they are microfilmed.

Recorder's Office: Miscellaneous Record Books. From about 1873 on, these include the church and fraternal organization elections, powers of attorney (often involve sale of a decedent's property and so valuable for family history research), lease and incorporations. Not microfilmed to my knowledge.

Recorder's Office: Apprenticeship book. There is only one of these to my knowledge. These can be very valuable for genealogist. I started transcribing it but didn't get far. It covers about the 1840s and 1850s--I only have referenced one of these in my family. These are not include in the Apprenticeship records abstracted in the 1900s by the John Paul Chapter DAR and have not been filmed

Recorder's Office: Articles of Incorporation. Record of incorporated companies from the second half of the 1800s. One book, not filmed.

Recorder's Office: Soldier's Discharge Record-Civil War soldiers. Ruth Hoggatt abstracted some of these, but not filmed to my knowledge.

Recorder's Office: Will Books. For whatever reason, perhaps four or five of these exist and are duplicates of what's in the circuit court clerk's office.

Recorder's Office:Gas and Oil leases. Not filmed

Circuit Court Clerk's office. Will, marriage return and marriage application books were in the office on the second floor. Other records were placed in the basement

Naomi Sexton published Book A of the wills in the Hoosier Journal of Ancestry. The DAR abstracted wills and two books were placed in the Madison library. I merged these two together and added probate records and estate settlements from deeds and suits. This is available at www.myindianahome.net.

Circuit Court Clerk's office. Guardianship Book. There was only one of these and I have not seen it in a long time. There was a report, I can't remember from who, that it was taken to Indianapolis, either the state library or archives. I know from records I used it included guardianships in the 1860s and 1870s.


Basement: Probate Order Books. Many of these were filmed. Wills from the 1830s and 1840s were filed in these not in books marked Will Books. This led many to believe wills from this period had not survived.

Basement: Complete Probate Order Books. A wealth of material if your ancestor's estate was recorded in these. Both these and the order books can include names of heirs. Not sure if the complete records were microfilmed.

Basement: Civil Order Books. The first Book, Volume A, is critical because at that time, the court not only handled probate and criminal and civil suits, but administered the county business. I am not sure it has been filmed. I believe Naomi Sexton transcribed at least part of this book and published it in the Hoosier Journal of Ancestry.

Basement: Complete Record Civil Order Book. Not filmed to my knowledge

Basement: Criminal Order Books. I forget how the spines are marked, but the criminal cases from the 1800s were in the basement and I don't think they were filmed.

Basement: Indexes to civil and probate books, after 1860. Early books each contained indexes, although since these were not bound to the main volume, some have disappeared.

Other abstracted records

Apprencticeship records. Abstracted by the John Paul DAR in the 1900s, they were transcribed by me and are available www.myindianahome.net. These appear to come from court books and do not include the volume in the recorder's office.

Naturalization records. Abstracted by the John Paul DAR in the 1900s, they were transcribed by me and are available www.myindianahome.net. These appear to come from court books

Michael Bright Corners Madison's bank stock

The question is not whether Michael G. Bright, brother of powerful Senator Jesse G. Bright conspired to capture a lion’s share of stock at the branches of the Indiana State Bank. The question is whether financier James F.D. Lanier was in on the deal.

Bright did everything he could to control the sale of stock at Madison, and probably at Lawrenceburg as subscriptions to stock for the newly chartered bank, was supposed to be open to the public at the branches throughout the state. But while branches such as New Albany had shares sold to 40 or more persons, there were only a handful who bought stock at Madison and Lawrenceburg, and some others, where different businessmen grabbed the shares.

Technically, the Madison office was open from 9 a.m. through noon, as required by law. By in reality, the books closed after perhaps 15 minutes..

Bright acquired 1,200 of the 2,000 shares sold at Madison and 1,200 of 2,000 sold at Lawrenceburg. At Madison, the only successful purchasers were Jesse Bright’s son Richard J., Bright, Joseph Chapman, along John Marsh and J.B. Merriweather, the two subcommissioners were in charge of opening and closing the sales with 200 shares each. Chapman had been Michael’s law partner and Merriweather was later Chapman’s law partner.

If in our modern view this procedure smelled rotten, there were many people who thought so then, which resulted in state senate’s appointing an investigating committee, which took testimony in January and February 1857, to see if there was corruption in the process legislature’s approval of the bill granting the bank charter.

During his testimony, Bright was unapologetic for his actions. “I took myself—sixty thousand dollars. I meant to take stock enough to control the branch at Madison, if I could get it; and I know that other gentlemen intended to have the control of other branches; if they could obtain it.”

The committee tried to determine if any legislators had been illegally influenced in their passage of the bill that established the process. David Branham, who represented the area in the general assembly, testified that when he and John R. Cravens (one of Lanier’s sons-in-law), who had voted for the bank bill as a member of the state senate, met with the commissioners who were running the sale, they were informed that the subcommissioners at Madison “must be acceptable to M. G. Bright.” Finally, it was agreed to choose three subcommissioners and then let Bright pick from those. But Bright chose none of those recommended. Branham said Bright offered him the chance to buy stock at the opening, but he did not accept the offer.

Perhaps the most stinging testimony given by Branham came in the following exchange. “Question. Were, or were not the persons appointed sub-commissioners for the Madison branch, men of good character and standing at the time they were appointed. Answer. I decline answering.”

Bright was coy in denying there was undue influence on legislators prior to the passage of the bill as shown in the following testimony.

“Question. What do you know, if anything, about the friends of the bank being engaged in treating the members with oyster suppers, liquors, or otherwise, as a means of enlisting them in favor of the proposed bank charter?

Answer. I saw gentlemen, who, I know, were friendly disposed to the establishment of a bank, frequently eating oysters, and drinking liquors with members of the legislature; nor did I notice anything unusual in their doing so; nor did I regard it as a means of bribing them to vote for the bank.”

But he then said he knew nothing about any influence peddling.

Williamson Dunn, another one of Lanier’s sons-in-law, said he showed up at the office in Madison between 15 and 30 minutes after nine and it was empty. About 11 a.m., he encountered Marsh and Merriweather in the streets, who informed him the stock had all been sold. Dunn said he did not want any, but had friends who did.

The committee clearly was trying to determine the nature of the agreement between Michael Bright and Lanier, who immediately acquired Bright’s Madison shares for $14,000, which was generally described as a premium. Bright also apparently agreed to indemnify Lanier if the bank charter were thrown out and the sale nullified. The committee was clearly curious about the background of the quick sale.

Cravens, who visited the Madison office that day, said he probably would have purchased some stock, but when he demanded to see the books, he was informed they were sealed and on the way to Indianapolis.

“There was dissatisfaction at Madison, at the manner in which the books were opened and closed; though I cannot say that it was general,” he told the committee.

No one was able to point a finger directly Lanier and his company, Winslow & Lanier. But there was testimony the firm ended up with most of the stock of the Vincennes branch. And this was the only Wall Street firm mentioned in testimony.

First Family Non History

With the Madison Bicentennial having some residents interested in documenting their descent from "First Families", it's always useful to to talk about what's history and what is serious error. And there's a lot of the latter, particularly in the information about Revolutionary War soldiers that was published in the 1930s.

One of the most glaring examples was the DAR's decision to admit Johnston/Johnson Brown of Jefferson and Switzerland County, who, it was claimed died in 1869 at 109 and was supposedly squirrel shooting at age 100. Researchers Al and Margaret Spiry demolished this--suggesting the old man was simply a good story teller. Johnson's father signed to given him permission to marry in 1795 in Nelson County, Ky., meaning he wasn't 21 years old. Do the math.

There are some other great tales. The DAR has Ralph Griffin as having died in July 1838 and buried at Springdale Cemetery. However, the Jefferson County Probate records show he died on Sept. 13, 1838 at the hosue of John Rogers (his grandson-in-law and executor) in Switzerland County. Since Rogers lived near Pleasant, and since Rogers and Ralph's wife Catherine and son David Griffin are buried at Brushy Fork Baptist Church, it's more likely his unmarked grave is there. By the way, the newspaper article about the burial said simply that a Mr. Griffin was buried in July 1838 (and Springdale was established in 1839.)

Then there was George Buchanan, whose family established Buchanan's Station, the blockhouse on the Jefferson County-Ripley County line, in 1813 according to the DAR, in 1812, according to a contemporary account.

George lived 1721-1818 according to the DAR's records; lived to be more than 100, according a newspaper article of the reminiscences of his grandson George W. in 1910, or died in 1815, according to a stone that now stands in the Buchanan family cemetery opposite the replica of the blockhouse. (It was probably moved there about 1985 from the McLaughlin Cemetery)

Many individuals have been admitted to the DAR and SAR based on the Pennsylvania Archives that show George Buchanan served from 1777 through 1781 in the Fourth Pennsylvania Continental line. The problem is, the record does not say which George Buchanan, and there are plenty to choose from in that place and time.

Now, U.S. records show that in 1786 Ezekiel and Elizabeth Buchanan, no relationship given, were paid for services of George Buchanan in the Fourth in Pennsylvania. They were paid with interest accruing from Jan. 1, 1781, which suggests the service ended on that date. The only conceivable reason someone other than the solider would be paid is that the solider, George Buchanan, had died by 1786.

Then there is Gerardus Ryker, who the DAR was Gerardus was an ensign in Col. Theunis Day's Bergen Co. Regiment, New Jersey Militia and was also an ensign in the Battalion of Major Mauritious Goetschius, New Jersey State Troops, serving extending from 1776 to 1781.
Ryker, however, moved to modern West Virginia in 1778, then to Kentucky in 1779 and was killed by Indians in that state in 1781. Based on my suggestion this didn't make since, Lynn Rogers of Dayton, Ohio, pursued this conflict and believes the Gerardus in New Jersey was a relative of the same name.

Our final problem is Samuel Welch. The DAR put a stone at his family plot on Scott's Ridge, Shelby Township, commemorating his Revolutionary service in Springer's Legion. Unfortuantely, Springer's unit served in the Indian Wars after the Revolution was over. In fact, the DAR started rejecting applicants because Samuel's initial pension application was rejected because of this fact. However, when he resubmitted his claim, it was approved. Either Samuel served as a teenager, or he was a complete liar--take your pick

Samuel's Revolutionary War pension application says that enlisted in Cumberland County, Pa., in September 1776 at age fourteen for two months as a drummer in Capt. John Campbell's company for two months. Unfortunately, his tombstone inscription said he died on Dec. 30, 1842 at the age of 75. His family Bible, published in 1811, also appears to say he was born in 1811. However, there is a tear and a smudge at the date (I own the Bible). Since this entry was clearly made decades after his birth, it suggests the date was entered incorrectly and someone tried to erase, tearing the paper. I buy the idea he was born in 1763 or so, regardless of what the Bible and tombstone say.

Then, there's the question of his wife's maiden name. The book, "Welch and Allied Families," which was printed in 1932, carried a transcribed letter from Knox Jamison, that had been written in 1924. Jamison wrote that he checked Samuel's Bible (the one I own and that was passed down along with his farm in my family), and gave Samuel's marriage to Jane Cunningham in 1797. The Welch Book author created a nice family tree for Jane that many descendants have elaborated on, listing her parents as a John Cunningam and Ann Sinclair, who lived in Massachusetts.

There are two probems with this. The first is that some Cunningham researchers show this couple's daughter Jane, who married a Samuel Welch, died in Massachusetts. The second problem is that's not what the Bible says, and the author who transcribed Jamison's letter simply got it wrong.

The Bible shows her name as Jane Cumming (it actually looks more like Cunning, but I think that's an issue of handwriting.) There's another family Bible, one that Samuel reportedly carried with him as a soldier, that shows her name as Cummins or Cummings (the last letters are blurry.)

And this are merely lines I have investigated well. Imagine the possibilities!