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History of Dubois County, Indiana
The writing of this history has been a self-assigned, pleasing task. If the reader gains from it as much satisfaction as the author has enjoyed in gathering and compiling the material he will consider himself amply repaid.
For more than twenty-five years the author has, at every opportunity, secured and preserved data with a view of preparing a history of his adopted county that would accurately set forth not only its present conditions, but also the dominant factors that have developed them.
The period covered is not far from a century. On its pages are the names of the builders of the county. Not only is it an epitome of the silent past — it is also a story of the splendid life of an ambitious, growing county, hardly yet conscious of its ever expanding strength.
In presenting this history the author desires to say that the work has been performed with extraordinary care, and at no small expense. The writer has been upon practically every farm in the county, and in every church and school house. He has penetrated its mines, explored its caves, and followed the meanderings of its principal rivers. Within its confines he has traveled over every highway. He knew personally hundreds of its pioneer families, from whom much valuable information was obtained. He examined thousands of pages of its local official records, original muster rolls, family Bibles, wills, newspapers, old personal letters, passports, com- missions, land patents, deeds, and scores of inscriptions upon gravestones and monuments. He surveyed mile after mile of its original boundary lines, traversed thousands of its acres, and ran the level of many of its streams.
Add to this, his researches into the original official treaties, records and documents, at Frankfort, Vincennes, Springfield, Bardstown, Indianapolis, and Washington, and the reader will have a fair idea as to the means by which the writer arrived at his conclusions.
If this opportunity should not be improved, a large amount of interesting data concerning Dubois county might be lost.
This book contains twenty-one chapters. Each chapter is a unit in itself, covering one subject, or one line of thought upon a subject. In a sense each chapter is a separate book.
In the writer's opinion the book should be read as the chapters are numbered, but any one chapter treating of a specific subject may be read without reading: the others.
The chapter on Military History, after covering the record up to iS6i, considers the record made in the Civil War, by regiments, and this is, in a measure, self-indexed. The chapter on Church History, after covering the county as a unit, takes up, in detail, the local church history by townships ; hence, this is also, in a measure, self-indexed. The same plan prevails in a few other chapters. An examination of the book will soon show that it may be readily used as a local book of reference.
The philosophy of the local history, as well as the history itself, is often considered. The institutional life of the people has been given special consideration.
To many people, history is a dull, dry study. It is a difficult task to arrange a mass of data in such a manner as to hold the reader's attention, unless the reader himself is a student of history, and searching for information.
This history is from the pen of one who knows his county at first hand, and interprets its story in a spirit of sympathy.
Table of Contents
CHAPTER I.
THE ORIGIN OF DUBOIS COUNTY.
CHAPTER II.
LOCAL GEOLOGY.
CHAPTER III.
LOCAL GEOLOGICAL OBSERVATIONS.
CHAPTER IV.
NATURAL SCENERY IN DUBOIS COUNTY.
CHAPTER V.
DUBOIS COUNTY AS A PRIMEVAL FOREST.
CHAPTER VI.
EARLY BIRD AND ANIMAL LIFE IN DUBOIS COUNTY.
CHAPTER VII.
INDIAN TITLES AND ORIGINAL SURVEYS.
CHAPTER VIII.
EPITOME ON PIONEERS AND THEIR ETHNOGRAPHY IN DUBOIS COUNTY.
CHAPTER IX.
THE PIONEERS OF DUBOIS COUNTY. THEIR HOMES, SOCIAL LIFE, LABORS, CHARACTERISTICS AND NATIVITY.
CHAPTER X.
PIONEER LIFE, PASTIMES AND SPORTS.
CHAPTER XI.
PIONEER WAYS AND CUSTOMS. INCIDENTS OF PIONEER DAYS.
CHAPTER XII.
PIONEER HIGHWAYS AND MEANS OF TRANSPORTATION.
CHAPTER XIII.
WHEN, WHY, AND HOW JASPER BECAME THE COUNTY TOWN. COMPLETE LIST OF REAL ESTATE OWNERS UP TO DECEMBER 31, 1830.
CHAPTER XIV.
EDUCATIONAL WORK IN DUBOIS COUNTY.
CHAPTER XV.
EDUCATIONS WORK IN DUBOIS COUNTY.
CHAPTER XVI.
CHURCH HISTORY OF DUBOIS COUNTY.
CHAPTER XVII.
DUBOIS COUNTY - HER COURTS, OFFICIALS AND QUASI-OFFICIALS FOR ONE HUNDRED YEARS.
CHAPTER XVIII.
THE MILITARY HISTORY OF DUBOIS COUNTY.
CHAPTER XIX.
DETAILED TOWN AND TOWNSHIP HISTORY OF DUBOIS COUNTY.
CHAPTER XX.
DUBOIS COUNTY. ITS MODERN, POLITICAL, SOCIAL, FRATERNAL, AND COMMERCIAL LIFE.
CHAPTER XXI.
MILITARY AND CIVIL HISTORY OF CAPTAIN DUBOIS.
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When the first year of the nineteenth century rolled around, what is now within the confines of Dubois county was practically one unbroken wilderness. White river quietly carried its clear waters down past the beautiful sycamores, the white armed daughters of the primeval forest, that grew in grandeur below the site of Portersville and dipped their umbrella shaped leaves far across the water to drink in nourishment. The osprey fished on the wing, while the cat-fish played to its heart's content at the bottom of the river, without much danger of arrested sport.
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