Showing posts with label robbed. Show all posts
Showing posts with label robbed. Show all posts

Tuesday, April 11, 2017

Robbed by Indians in Early DeKalb County, Indiana

Robbed by Indians in Early DeKalb County, Indiana




"At that time there was a large Indian Village where Denmark now is, 
And some traders came among them with whiskey, and made them drunk, so 
they came to rob us. We had worked hard all day, until nearly sundown, 
when we went to the house to eat supper. The Indians came yelling and 
soon filled the house. They then drew their knives, bows and arrows, and 
tomahawks, stuck their hands into our supper pot, and our supper was gone 
in a trice. Samuel Houlton drew a large poker, and was about to strike 
when Avery exclaimed, 'Don't strike, Sam, or they will kill us all !" Hughes 
also told him not strike, but let them take what they wanted, and he would go 
to the Indian agent at Fort Wayne and make them pay for it. They then acted 
as true lords of the soil. 

"They poured out their whiskey into their camp kettles, knocked in the 
head of a flour barrel, and also of a pork barrel, and in fifteen minutes flour, 
pork and whiskey were gone. They crossed the creek about twelve rods off, 
and camped for the night, While they were making their fires and drinking 
the whiskey, we rolled out our last barrel of flour and hid it in a brush heap. 
We had also about thirty pounds of pork up in the chamber, they did not 
get, and that was all that saved us from starvation. The two hundred Indians 
fought and screamed all night. A better sample of the infernal regions never 
could be gotten up in this world. 

"As soon as we had secured our barrel of flour, we next resolved that 
when they had generally got drunk, we would alight on them with a vengeance, 
and kill the last one nf them. So we loaded our four guns with slugs and then 
 got two tomahawks and two hand-axes, and waited until they would become 
more drunk. In this, however, we were disappointed. They did not seem 
to get more intoxicated. After drinking twenty gallons of whiskey, eating 
two hundred and thirty pounds of pork, and using up two hundred and fifty 
pounds of flour, with several bushels of potatoes, they started off about eight 
in the morning, well satisfied with what they had done. 

"We made application to the Indian agent at Fort Wayne, but never got 
any compensation for the articles taken. Every time I think of Indian 
tragedy, I feel thankful that we were prevented from imbruing our hands in 
their life blood. It was the traders, with their whiskey, that made all this trouble.