(Sep 29 2009, cont.)

The old historic district of Pendleton looked like a likely place to get lunch. I rode east on State Street until it seemed I had gone out of town without finding anything. I turned around and returned, stopping for this photo downtown. I then stopped close to an intersection up ahead, looking up and down the streets. A man in a pickup at the stoplight rolled down his window and asked if I was looking for a place to eat. Well, yes I was. (How could he tell?) He recommended the Bank Cafe on the other side of the street (across the street from my bicycle on this photo).

It looks like the city government offices are housed in an old historic building. Nice that they stayed downtown and didn’t feel the need to move into some modern, soulless pole building.

I took a photo in case this was where court had been held back in 1825. I now know it wasn’t. But it was nearby. Court was held in a log cabin at the intersection kiddy-corner cross the block from the intersection in this photo, i.e. behind and to my left in this photo.

To get to the old court location, one could go down this street to the stoplight, then turn right, to the next intersection to the north. My best guess is the north side of that intersection, based on what I can see on a modern Google Map, and the fact that the site later became the location of a Universalist Church.

When Oliver H. Smith began his role as prosecuting attorney, one of the murderers, Hudson, had already been convicted and hanged. Smith said that in this new term of court, Sawyer was tried first for shooting an Indian woman, but that the jury returned a verdict of manslaughter. He said that immediately a second trial was begun for the killing of one of the boys in camp, after the same jury as had returned the manslaughter verdict was sworn in. These men were handy, because they were still in the box.

He described the jury as “a hardy, heavy-bearded set of men with side-knives in their belts, and not a pair of shoes among the whole of them; all wore moccasins.” That’s a little different from when I was on jury duty last month. We had to go through a metal detector and were told weapons weren’t allowed in the building. We all had shoes, too.

Smith had the job of making the case for a verdict of murder for the second case, even though, as he points out, both cases were cold-blooded murder.

I’ve been wondering why this was done in two separate trials. Was that a way things were commonly done back in the 1820s? I think nowadays two separate charges would be handled in one trial, according to what I’ve noticed in reading news stories about trials. And if Sawyer got two separate trials for two separate killings, why didn’t the other two defendants get the same. The accounts I’ve read seem to indicate that each of them killed an Indian woman, too, and then killed children in the camp.

What did the judge say in his instructions to the jury? Did he remind them, directly or indirectly, that the Indian observers were not going to consider a manslaughter verdict to be what the Indian agent had promised them? After the one manslaughter verdict, all subsequent juries returned verdicts of murder.

Maybe Oliver H. Smith expected us to be able to decipher the true meaning of his words without him having to spell it out. (His memoirs are here.) But at this distance, it’s hard to say.

I also see that the account of the trials as given in the 1880 history of Madison county (not available online) gives a slightly different version of the sequence of events. According to that account, the two trials of Sawyer weren’t held back to back the way Smith described. According to that one, the first trial was held on May 11, and the second not until May 13, after the two other defendants had been tried.

I presume there are Indiana historians who have researched this event more fully. Maybe they found court records or other contemporary records that constitute a more reliable source of information than either of the two accounts I’ve been reading so far. The wikipedi article about the event gives a couple of leads that may take me to primary sources, I hope.

One thing I like about that 1880 account: It lists the jury members not only for Hudson’s trial (which list I had with me on September 29) but for all the others as well. That means more people to check out, and maybe more bicycle destinations.

]]> http://www.spokesrider.com/2010/02/26/keep-trying-until-you-get-it-right/feed/ 0 http://www.spokesrider.com/2010/02/22/directions-to-the-court/ http://www.spokesrider.com/2010/02/22/directions-to-the-court/#comments Tue, 23 Feb 2010 02:18:39 +0000 Spokesrider http://www.spokesrider.com/2010/02/22/directions-to-the-court/

(29 Sep 2009, cont.)

When I first saw a sign indicating the “Town Court” down the road, I wondered if it was a municipal version of a food court. I was starting to think about lunch. But no, when I got there I found it’s a place for legal proceedings rather than hot sandwiches.

And it’s in a convenient location for legal business, too. It’s not downtown, but on the north side of the creek. Only 500 away, on the same side of the creek, is a place where criminals were hung. The close proximity might give one the idea that Pendleton is a place that takes its traffic laws seriously.

The place of execution is of course where the Fall Creek murderers were hung in 1825. I was curious about where the trials were held. Could it have been at this very place, I wondered? Has court been held at this location for nearly 200 years now? The main part of town is on the south side of the creek, but one of the early references indicated that the double log cabin where the trials were held was in the north part of town. This was north, all right.

An account given in Oliver H. Smith’s reminiscences about Early Trials in Indiana at first encouraged me in this mistaken idea. Smith (portrait above) was the state prosecuting attorney for three of the four trials. (Well, maybe it was three of the five trials if you count a possible instance of double jeopardy. More on that another time.)

In telling about his ride (by horse, not bicycle) from his home near Connersburg to Indianapolis and then to Pendleton, he explained how he tried going up the east side of Fall Creek, but ran into impassably wet conditions. So he crossed to the west side, which would also be the north side when you get to Pendleton, i.e. the side where the Town Court is now located. His horse took him across the somewhat flooded creek with no problem untill the end, when the girth of his saddle broke. You can read about it here, on page 176 of his book.

He was a mess after that crossing, but then says:

All matters were soon adjusted. Fox [the horse] bounded on as light as a reindeer and before dark I was in lively conversation with the other lawyers before the large log fire at the hotel of Mr. Long.

That must mean he had crossed back to the south side, because elsewhere it is strongly implied that the only hotel in Pendleton was on the south side, at a place near where the railroad bridge later crossed. This, I presume, was the bridge for the now-defunct railroad I had crossed in Falls Park a short time earlier.

In my googling last night I finally came across more definite information about where the log cabin courthouse had been located. It was not on the north side of the creek. Instead, it was very near the place where I got lunch soon after leaving the Town Court. Unfortunately, the place where I got lunch was not called a food court.

(Sep 29 2009, cont) Back on the south side, I took one more look at Fall Creek and the marker on the north side that says, “THREE WHITE MEN WERE HUNG HERE IN 1825 FOR KILLING INDIANS.” It’s still visible from here, but in this photo you’d have to know where it is in order to see it.

My next intended destinations (aside from a place to eat) were:

1. the cemetery back on the north side where James Hudson had been buried, and where perhaps the other murderers had been, too.
2. the site of the historical marker near where the murders took place
3. Reuben Bentley’s farm on Blue River in Rush County.

Bentley had been one of the jurors in the trial that ended with Hudson being sentenced to death by hanging. I was interested in learning more about these jurors, because there had been some question at the time as to whether this trial was going to be rigged. The U.S. Indian agent had assured the Indians that the defendents would be found guilty and punished. The federal government and prominent men from Indiana state government got involved in a trial that was held in what I understand to be a county circuit court. There is an anecdote from one of the trials (not James Hudson’s) that suggests a bit of tension during jury selection:

The court met in the morning. We agreed to try Sawyer first for shooting one of the squaws. The prisoner was brought into court by the Sheriff. He appeared so haggard and changed by his long confinement that I scarcely knew him. The court room was crowded. General James Noble, Philip Sweetser and myself for the State. James Rairden, Lot Bloomfield and William R. Morris for the prisoner, Judge Eggleston–”Sheriff call the petit jury.” Judge Winsell–”Sheriff, call Squire Makepeace on the jury, he will be a good juror; he will not let one of these murderers get away. Judge Eggleston, turning to Judge Winsell–”This will never do. What! the Court pack a jury to try a special case?” The jury was soon impanelled.

So, was Judge Eggleston really trying to keep this from being a packed jury? Or was he reminding the others to keep up appearances, that it dare not look like a packed jury?

It’s hard for me to tell. But it made me interested in finding out what became of the jurors — how life was for them after it was all over. Before leaving home for this Indiana outing I spent a few hours of internet searching–looking at land records, census records, and local histories. A few of the jurors left traces of their lives that were easily found, but the only one that gave me a bicycling destination was Reuben Bentley.

And at the end of the day I ran into an older gentleman who said he had known Reuben Bentley. His Reuben Bentley wasn’t from the right generation of Bentleys, but it was the family I was looking for. That was several hours later, though.

(Sep 29 2009, cont.) Before this ride I somehow had the impression that the monument for the Fall Creek hanging was on the south side of the creek. I was pleased when I spied it on the north side where it belonged, and that there was a bridge over the creek so I could get there. This photo is taken on the north side. Note how the bridge is set on bedrock. I’m guessing this outcropping of bedrock is what put the Falls in Falls Park.

It looked like one might need to wade through the stream just to get to the bridge during times of high water.

The marker is not far from the bridge, on the first terrace above the creek valley bottom. The maple tree had some branches that would have been good for a hanging. But as far as I know, nobody recorded what kind of tree was used in 1825.

I wish I knew when the monument was placed here, and who did it, to help me understand how the community viewed this part of its history.

There are some parallels between this event and the current controversy over whether Khalid Shaikh Mohammed should be tried in a civilian court or in the military system. Assurances have been given that he will be found guilty, which then calls into question the effect on our court system when sentences are sometimes pre-determined. “We’re going to give him a fair trial in which he is innocent until proved guilty, following which he will be sentenced and hanged.”

One of the local histories describes the situation:

The news of these Indian murders flew upon the wings of the wind. The settlers became greatly alarmed fearing the retaliatory vengeance of the tribes and especially of the other tribes of the Senecas. The facts reached Mr. John Johnston at the Indian Agency at Piqua, Ohio. An account of the murders was sent from the Agency to the War Department at Washington City. Colonel Johnston and William Conner visited all the Indian tribes and assured them that the Government would punish the offenders, and obtained the promises of the chiefs and warriors that they would wait and see what their “Great Father” would do before they took the matter into their own hands. This quieted the fears of the settlers, and preparation was commenced for the trials.

So the government and the settlers had a strong interest in ensuring a guilty verdict.

What happened next? You can read about it by going to the above link, beginning at page 766.

(29 Sep 2009, cont.) These are more scenes from the walk in Falls Park. My bicycle and I walked together.

I wanted to get down to Fall Creek itself, but railroads prefer not to come down to our level in places like this. I was assured by the increasing height of the railroad bed that I was getting closer, though.

Finally, the famous Fall Creek itself.

And a bridge across to the town side. Next I went looking for the marker that commemorated the hanging. I had seen photos of it on the web, like the one on this site (about two-thirds of the way down the page).

(Sep 29 2009, cont.) After leaving the Huntsville-Williams cemetery I circled around to approach Pendleton and Falls Creek from the north. Falls Park was where I expected to find a historical marker where the Falls Creek murderers had been hanged.

I saw from this sign that I wasn’t the only one likely to have come here for the history of it. But here’s a gripe: I’ve never found it easy to find information on places in National Register of Historic Places. There is an official web site, and there is a search function. But after trying to use it (for the umpteenth time) I still haven’t found anything that tells me what got Falls Park on this register. In particular, I’d like to know how important the Falls Creek Massacre was in the designation. I suppose it’s possible that the Register is working on it and that organizing this information into a useful web site is a difficult task that will require a lot of time and money. I’m not quite sure myself just what would be a good way to do it.

BTW, I just now measured the distance, and have found that the town court pointed to on the sign is less than 500 feet from the site of the hanging. But I didn’t follow the road indicated on the sign.

I had not expected to find an entrance to Falls Park up here. The Google Map and other maps don’t show the park extending this far to the north. Maybe it has been recently expanded. In any case, I knew that the hanging took place on the north side of the creek, so I figured I should give this entrance a try.

googlemap

Here is a somewhat sanitized trace of my route through the park.

I soon found myself on paths better for walking than riding. And there was nothing at the forks in the paths to tell me which way to go, either.

I’m not complaining about that in the least. In a previous paragraph I was complaining about not enough information. But sometimes having too much information takes away the adventure of it. Judging by the leaves covering the paths I was the only person who had used the trails since the leaves had come down. Just now I zoomed in on the googlemap and got a clue as to where I had taken a turn to the road less traveled. But if I had taken that I would have missed these old railroad underpass tunnels.

(Sep 29, 2009,cont.) This cemetery is two miles west of the William Williams homestead. Williams is buried on the knoll in the foreground of this photo, judging from a photo taken from the other direction that you can see on an excellent web site about Madison County cemeteries that I just now discovered.

But I didn’t know that at the time. The reason I stopped here was because of another person — James Hudson — who was hanged for his part in the Fall Creek massacre. I had with me this description from the web site of the Conner Prairie Interactive History Park:

When they arrived at the scaffold, Hudson requested Rev. Miller to preach a sermon on ‘being prepared to meet your Maker,’ a text based on Matthew 25: 3-4 and prayer was offered. A penitent Hudson one last time insisted that he had been deceived and led into his murderous act by his associates. His last request was ‘that Captain Berry would take care of his body and deliver it over to his friends.’

James Hudson was then hanged by the neck. His body hung motionless for thirty-five minutes when it was taken down and placed in coffin. The next day he was buried in the village burial ground north of the falls.

I wondered if it was in this cemetery that Hudson had been buried in. I was now north of Pendleton, which is the town that grew up at the Falls of Fall Creek. But it didn’t seem like it was quite the right location, and it wasn’t.

And I didn’t know how likely it was that any of those convicted of murder would have been honored with headstones. Hudson had wanted his wife to bring their three children to the hanging, but instead, before the event took place she returned to her former home in Ohio. So how likely was it that she returned to put up a gravestone?

And besides, it didn’t seem like this place was quite close enough to the falls to be the one referred to in the above passage. But this was my chance to take a quick look. I did, and then rode on.

(Sep 29, 2009) On the previous two days I had ridden to the northeast and then to the east. This time the wind was almost in my favor for a ride to the south, to my main destination for the three-day outing. This time I was headed towards Fall Creek and to sites of the Fall Creek Massacre and its aftermath.

The trial of the killers took place at Pendleton, my first destination. When I reached the creek valley I came across this “Hoosier Homestead Farm – Owned by the same family for over 150 years.”

The barn says “Williams Homestead 1824.” 1824 was the year of the massacre. Did these people have anything to do with it or with the jury trial? I took a photo just in case.

From the 1874 history of Madison County (and the GLO land records) I learned that the name of the first settler here was William Williams. He was a Quaker from North Carolina, like so many of the settlers of Randolph County near Arba and Winchester, where I had ridden the day before. He served on a grand jury in 1829, but seems to have had no connection with the trial of the Fall Creek killers that took place in 1825.

googlemap

He is said to have started the first nursery in the county. I suppose this south-facing slope overlooking Fall Creek would have been a good location for one. But I don’t recall seeing any signs of any modern nursery that may have descended from that one.

The first part of this week had winds worth avoiding. You can tell which way the wind blew by my bike routes. We stayed in Anderson. Sunday’s ride (shown in red) took me to Portland. Monday (shown in blue) had the strongest winds, straight out of the west. So I went east, not quite to the Ohio border. Tuesday’s ride (a purplish line) took me south to the northwest corner of Rush County.

The first photo stop was only a mile from the motel. I was slightly amused, wondering if we are witnessing a historical change in Christian symbolism. The open bible and the dove have been around for a long time, of course. But what about that coffee cup?

For a couple of years I operated a coffee bar at our own church in Battle Creek, making coffee in French presses on a moderately large scale, with New Orleans style café au lait for those few who liked it that way (mainly my wife, Myra). We might go back to doing it again some time, too. I’ve heard of other churches doing similar things. Coffee drinking can be a form of communion (small c), though in our church it doesn’t supplant the Holy Communion with wine instead of coffee to drink.

This stop was not exactly about settlement-era history, but maybe it’s history in the making.