Here's another migration route --it goes into Indiana -and was
one of the early MAIN roads into Indiana!
The Delaware Indian Road
Just above the bridge over the Whitewater River at
Yankeetown, south in Richmond IN, is a hard packed ford some 6
ft. wide. The river bottom is soft and mucky on either side,
but here the bottom is packed hard from its first use by
buffalo, or the American Bison, that used to roam this
woodlands, then to its use by the Indians and the "Indian Road"
that is traced across the county. Early deeds identify this as
"the Indian Road from Muncytown to Ft. Hamilton". The route
across Union County IN has been plotted from surveyor records
on early deeds and collected by former county surveyor and Four
Mile Church deacon, Albert Brown. Some of the physical route
has been identified by farmers, due to the improvement of the
Indian trail by early settlers, who widened it to a wagon road
and filled the low spots with gravel. Local farmers, when
plowing, suddenly find gravel in their clayloam fields.
The traced route started at Rossville, at Hamilton OH,
directly acrossed the Great Miami River from old Fort Hamilton
or the bridge over the river there. It is picked up west of
Darrtown where it passed Chaw Raw Hill along the Four Mile
Creek banks. [Chaw Raw Hill -its named that -because one early
migrant father and sons decided to camp on top of the hill,
along the Indian Path. They had killed a turkey for their
meal, but just as they were getting ready to cook it -they
discovered that a group of Indian warriors were coming down the
trail. They dare not start a fire -so they "chawed the Turkey
-Raw!"] The old road there has been washed away as the creek
has shifted its banks. Somewhere north the old road crossed
the creek and went past what became the town of Oxford, OH.
Brown Road going north out of Oxford to the Hueston Woods State
Park seems to be the old Indian Road. In the Park, the Indian
Road would have started down the drive to the Sugar Camp, but
where the drive turns right, the access road going ahead to the
beach area follows an old road shown on early maps. The Indian
Road is identified as about 1/2 mile from the juncture of the
Middle and Little Four Mile Creeks, about where the circle
drive cr osses the Little Four Mile, where the College Corner
Road enters at Park Headquarters. The boat storage there could
be the site of the old trading post and the Indian village was
possibly in the open grounds by the office buildings. The
Indian Road passed around the Indian Mound, at the far west end
of the campgrounds on the ridge above the Little Four Mile. A
long winding gully at the south-east corner of the campgrounds
is probably the Road climbing out of the Four Mile creekbed
where the settlers could pull their wagons. On the Eaton Pike,
out of College Corner, just south of the Buck Paxton Road,
there used to be a residence building sitting back of the
current house. It faced southwest on an angle, just above the
decline into the ravine there. This would be where the Indian
Road crossed the ravine.
On the State Line Road, where the Union County survey
shows the Indian Road, an old pair of foundation sites were
remembered, again on an angle to the world, in back of the
present barnlot. Just west of this, on the back of the Hartman
farm, is an old crossing over Little Four Mile Creek, still
used to get to the fields east of the creek. This was
originally the Christian Witter Farm and the Witter cemetary is
on the bank of the Four Mile. Mrs. Hartman is a Witter. The
Indian Road continued north-west and crossed first the Nine
Mile Road then IN 44 south and west of the corner. It
continued more northward till it crossed Hannas Creek a little
south of the Hanna's Creek Church. Then turned nearly due west
across Union County. South-west of Clifton it angled northward
to the Buffalo Ford. The road then seems to have angled
north-west, to the old Universalist town of Philomet, and on
toward Hagarstown, IN.
Just north of the Nettle Creek Church at Hagerstown, is
the old Stout Farm. In the early years of this century,
Indians walked between the house and barn of that farm, on what
they claimed was their old pathway. The scout-camp at Muncie,
Ind. (old Muncytown) tells Indian lore about the old Indian
Path to Richmond. The road actually passed south and west of
Richmond. From Hagerstown, the Indian Road would have followed
on or close to the Buck Creek Road, to Mt. Pleasant onto US 35,
south of Muncie. This would account for the Dunker settlement
along it called the Buck Creek Church. The winding and
twisting of this old country road could be the original winding
and twisting of the Indian path as it wove along the higher
ground around the giant forest trees, swamps and steep gullys.
The early migrants used an extension of this road from
Muncie IN going northwest. One route went westward, to the
Wildcat Creek which flowed into the Wabash River at Lafayette
IN. Most of the Brethren settlers stopped along it, few going
farther than Flora IN. The other went more northerly, through
Kokomo and Peru IN. This triangle was a major settlement area
in western Indiana during the early 1830s for the Four Mile
families and their kin and neighbors in Preble and Montgomery
Counties OH.
Early settlers also used the Wayne Trace (General Anthony
Wayne's army road) -north to Fort Wayne IN.
Elder Jacob Miller (lived on the west side of the Great Miami
River, at Dayton -c1806) would come visit his children on the
Four Mile. This is still used -US 35 going STRAIT west from
Dayton to Eaton OH, and OH122 continueing strait west to Boston
IN -the trace wound southward to Connersville IN -trading post
of the half-breed Delware/American -John Conner (family survived
the massacre at Schoenbrunn Village)
Merle C Rummel
Church Historian
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