| The Jasonville Story |
| By Ben Sink, 1958 Revisions by Max Griffith, 2000 |
| Chapter 1 It is regrettable that one must begin work by disappointing a considerable segment of his readers, but the addicts and ardent followers of the many Wild West T.V. shows, are to have their dreams shattered at the very outset. At the coming of the first white settlers to this community. you did not find a savage Indian, in full war paint, and with uplifted tomahawk, lurking behind every tree. In fact, the land that is now .lasonville had few trees to �lurk behind�. It was, for the most part. a flat prairie without trees and heavily covered with native prairie grasses. Many such prairies existed in this section, some such areas having timber today, that were wholly without trees more than 100 years ago. The Puckett Prairie to the North and one in the Warrick neighborhood to the South are examples. Uncle Dave Terhune of the Lone Tree neighborhood, who died in his nineties, many years ago related to me some history of that section. He said that area was a vast open prairie and that a single tree standing near the cross roads was the only one for quite a distance in either direction, hence the name, �Lone Tree Corner�. Always, on every side of these prairies stood the dense forests of virgin timber, giant oaks and poplars, white and black walnut, hickory, gum, beech, cherry and many other varities, each seeming to excel for some particular purpose. Richard Leiber, the leading conservationist of our time, told me in 1926 that at the present, 1926, price of lumber, the trees standing in Indiana in 1816 would have had a greater value than the entire assessed valuation of all the property in the state, both real and personal, for the 1926 taxable year. There is evidence that the mound builders had habitation near Howesville and numerous places along Eel River. Much material is available dealing with this race written by learned men who have devoted their entire lives to the task. Obviously, comment on the excavation of many mounds and the cataloguing of their assorted contents, has no place in this brief history. The territory embracing Jasonville had for some years prior to 1767 belonged to the Painkeshaw Indian tribe. In this year they ceded it by treaty to the Deleware tribe. The Deleware Indians called, what we know as Eel River, Shak�a�mak�, meaning in their language, �The Waters of the Long Fish�. The writer has often wondered what the Delewares meant by �Long Fish. Was it the numerous eels found in the waters or the huge flat head catfish that abounded in the steam? I saw a catfish weighing 98 pounds that had been taken from the stream and many more weighing in excess of 50 pounds. When our local state park was established many, many names were suggested and considered. It was finally decided to go back to the Indian tribe that last roamed the grounds and give it the name they had called nearby Eel River, Shak�a�mak�. I find no evidence of sizeable Indian villages nearer Jasonville than Howesville and the old Wilson Church communities. Nor is there recorded any killing between the races in this vicinity. In Eastern Greene Countv several Indians were found dead from rifle shot. This covered a period of several years and perhaps was a result of the deep and abiding hatred those settlers sustained, who had had relatives cruelly and wantonly murdered by Indians. Sullivan County which was settled earlier than Greene, had many fights between the settlers and Indians resulting in the loss of several lives on each side. Such conflicts occured near Carlisle, Sullivan, Shelburn, Fairbanks and elsewhere. Soon after the battle of Tippecanoe in 1811 the Indians began to move West, the last band leaving Greene County in 1819. A few years later a band from some other section of the state, or from another state, camped for a few days at the point where Latta�s Creek empties into White River. Only an occasional straggler was ever seen afterward. The band last referred to above had been ordered to a reservation in Kansas and was enroute to that place when making camp in Greene County. |
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