(Sep 28, cont.) The 1882 history of Randolph County page 359) tells of the first settler in Greensfork Township, who was also the first settler in the entire county.
The first settler was Thomas W. Parker, April, 1814, on Fractional Section 32, Town 1, Range 1, just east of the old boundary, and just north of Wayne County line, not very far west of Arba.
I had now reached the “old boundary,” i.e. the Greenville Treaty boundary. The road here follows that boundary line. Parker’s farm was on the left side of the road. The road that forms the Wayne County line can be seen in the distance here. The clump of trees at the bottom of the hill is perhaps a third or half of the distance from where I was standing to the county line.
By the time of the 1882 history (from which the above map snippet is taken) was made, Parker no longer owned that land. He had sold it not long after arriving. But the family names of two of the three other settlers, Thomas and Bowen, who came at almost the same time are still on the map as late as 1882.
Jesse Parker, a son of Thomas Parker, described the setting:
North and northwest was an endless wilderness, except a few soldiers at Fort Wayne and Fort Dearborn and Green Bay and Mackinaw. At first it seemed lonely, but neighbors came gradually, and the blue smoke of the cabins could be seen curling up among the forest trees, as we followed the “blazes” from hut to hut.
The Indians were thick all around us, but they were civil and peaceable and friendly. They would help the settlers raise cabins, bring us turkeys and venison, etc. Three wigwams were in sight of our cabin. We children had great sport with the young Indians, and they were then almost or quite our only playmates.
It looks like a P.H. Wright owned Parker’s land in 1882. No farm residence is shown on Parker’s former property. But it would have been the bottom part of the green-colored section.
My next stop would be the corner where the treaty line intersected the county boundary, at the lower left of the green-colored piece. I was hoping to get a good enough idea of the terrain to pick a likely spot where the Parker’s cabin could have been located, from which they could have seen those three wigwams.
Here’s the googlemap.
