History

David Heighway

William Clark, of Lewis and Clark fame, may have traveled through Hamilton County in 1791

rom 1785 to the signing of the Treaty of Greenville in 1795, Indiana was part of the Northwest Indian Wars. The land was occupied by various Native American tribes, but incursions of whites from Kentucky caused the groups to clash. Hamilton County may have been on the path of some of these clashes. There was a confederation of tribes that opposed these incursions—the important leaders were Little Turtle (Miami), Blue Jacket (Shawnee), and Buckongahelas (Lenape [Delaware]). President George Washington ordered a military response with soldiers commanded by General Arthur St. Clair. General Charles Scott led a group of Kentucky militia, among whom was a young lieutenant named William Clark who kept a journal, (now at the Missouri Historical Society and accessible online). In 1791, the army advanced into what would become Indiana. They started on May 1st by crossing the Ohio River near the present site of Madison and headed for the Indian villages at Ouiatanon (near present-day Lafayette). General Scott reported later: “By the 31st, I marched one hundred and thirty five miles, over a country cut by four large branches of White River and many small streams with steep, muddy banks. During this march, I traversed a country alternate-

ly interspersed with the most luxurious soil, and deep clayey bogs from one to five miles wide, rendered almost impervious by brush and briars. Rain fell in torrents every day, with frequent blasts of wind and thunderstorms. These obstacles impeded my progress, wore down my horses, and destroyed my provision.” Some historians have said that this gave the expedition the name of the “Blackberry Campaign” since the soldiers stopped to pick berries to supplement their food supplies. When the expedition reached its objective, the soldiers destroyed the villages they found and the attack was considered a success. The return trip was as difficult as the initial advance. William Clark said in his journal, “The badness of the hills and deepness of the mud and the height of the creeks, together with brush, exceeds all kinds of descriptions.” Crossing the White River at one point, three men and several horses were drowned. The army returned in early June to the “rapids of the Ohio” —known today as the Falls of the Ohio near Clarksville. The town had been established by George Rogers Clark, the Revolutionary War hero and older brother of William. General James Wilkinson launched another expedition in August and, according to various maps drawn between 1796 and 1819, went from Fort Washington (Cincinnati) up the present state line to the area of Fort Wayne. He deliberately avoided crossing White River, saying in his report afterwards: “I left the neighborhood of Fort Washington … and agreeably to my original plan, feinted boldly at the Miami villages, by the most direct course the nature of the ground, over which I had to march would permit. I persevered in this plan … and thereby avoided the hunting ground of the enemy, and the paths which lead directly from the White River to the Wabash, leaving the headwaters of the first to my left …” He attacked a village at Eel River, then followed the Wabash River to Ouiatanon. On his return south, he followed Scott’s route to Falls of the Ohio.

General Charles Scott

Did they come through Hamilton County?

It’s important to know that two trails crossed at Strawtown: the trail following White River going north to Fort

Wayne, and the Lafayette Trace going from the Whitewater Valley to Lafayette. The routes had been in use for a long time and stayed in use afterwards. There was an expedition during the War of 1812 that started from Vallonia (near Seymour), took a route up through Bartholomew County, and followed White River to Strawtown. On their return trips, could Scott and Wilkinson have taken the Lafayette Trace from Ouiatenon to Strawtown, then turned to follow the White River trail south? The southern part of the route would have roughly paralleled present highway 65, through Bartholomew County, past Vallonia, then to Clarksville. The “four large branches of White River” that General Scott talked about could be the Muscatatuck, the East Fork of the White River, Fall Creek, and the West Fork of the White River—all of which would have been on the route. The crossing where the three men drowned could even have been at Strawtown. Maps from this time were wildly inaccurate, but on the ones that are available, the Scott/Wilkinson route from Ouiatanon to Clarksville does cut through the center of the state. There is one from 1819 that has a noticeable bend that could be interpreted as being in the Hamilton County area. The original is in the Indiana State Library. A potential clue may have appeared a century later. A young boy fishing on White River in 1893 found a Spanish silver quarter dollar dated 1784. That sort of currency was circulating in the United States in 1791. While the coin could have been brought into the county at any point in time, it is an interesting find. It will take more research to find the answers to this. However, it’s interesting to think that 13 years before he joined Meriwether Lewis in leading the Corps of Discovery, William Clark may have been learning about survival in the wilderness as he came through the present area of Hamilton County. HCBM

David Heighway is the Hamilton County Historian

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