(photo is Pike Twp in 1855 and can be found
hereI am fascinated and perhaps quietly obsessed with trying to understand whether William Conner operated a trading post on Eagle Creek at Lafayette Road. Conner did not keep a diary. There are few clues, other than his own land records. The land records confirm his ownership of 80 acres in Pike Township, a parcel which includes the intersection of Eagle Creek and Lafayette Road. Locals say the area is called Traders Point because there may have been a trading post at this point where trade occurred with the Indians. But of all the folklore that has been passed down over the years, no one I have met and nothing I have read has linked the name William Conner to Traders Point. In fact when I first shared with Timothy Crumrin, Conner Prairie Research Historian, my discovery of Conner’s Pike Township land record, I was disappointed to learn he thought it would have been a different William Conner.
When we are working on a problem related to past events, and characters long deceased, it is possible that God or some invisible hand puts people in our path who hold pieces of the puzzle or keys to doors that lead us closer to resolving a mystery. These strangers are placed in front of us at a time and place when we are ready to grasp the significance of their gift. They pass these pieces unknowingly, aware of neither the puzzle we are trying to solve, nor their role in it. Occasionally they may even pass us pieces of information that can be verified. Yesterday two keys were presented and each can be verified, leading me closer to resolving my mystery.
I attended an Ice Cream Social hosted by the Pike Township Historical Society. (I am a recent addition to their board and they had asked me to share with the group some of my research, a small part of which is the Conner connection.)
First Key
I was introduced to George P. Scott, a Zionsville resident who has done considerable genealogy on-line with Ancestry.com. George is in his eighties and surprisingly comfortable with computers and on-line research. We discussed his knowledge of the area’s history. He was familiar with James Harmon, the area’s first settler, knew the location of the Harmon family graves at Cotton Cemetery, (a subject I have written about here), but Scott had never heard about the William Conner connection to the area. The key he innocently presented was this: his family was distantly related to Robert Duncan, who came to Pike Township in the 1820’s. (Duncan is a common enough name and I had even known a Billy Duncan from Pike who died a few years ago in his eighties. Mr. Scott did not believe he was related to Billy.) The story of the second key is even more profound. Following the story of the second key I will return to the story of the Duncan and the first key for my lucky and surprising discovery. More on the first key in a moment.
Second Key
The next key was presented by Audrey Myers, whom I had never met. Audrey is an octogenarian resident of the area, her family farmed in the area, and I believe she said her maiden name was Shaw. Her key was immediately profound. In fact, her story was so fresh, so original, that her companion, Nelson Roetter, who has lived in the area for most of his 80-plus years, and who is familiar with my writings, immediately saw its significance. But Nelson had not previously heard the story either.
William Conner’s Satchel
She said that over 20 years ago, some relatives found a leather satchel on their farm while tilling a field near Traders Point. When they opened the old satchel it contained papers belonging to William Conner. They contacted Conner Prairie and donated the leather satchel and its contents to the museum. This donation and its contents should be easily confirmed. She also mentioned a newspaper article that was published at the time about the discovery and the donation. She promised to try to find a copy of the article. The discovery occurred on a farm located on the south side of West 79th Street in Pike Township near the Baptist church and Eastbrook Elementary School. I believe this would place the satchel find on the Shaw farm (now a residential subdivision) which was located between Payne Road and New Augusta Road. If the satchel contained papers belonging to Conner, why would he or anyone have buried them? Is it possible the satchel was not buried but just misplaced in a wooded area that was undisturbed for over a hundred years? Was it lost or buried by Conner himself? Did the satchel’s contents pertain to a business transaction or real estate in Pike Township? What did the satchel look like?
Google Search
When I returned home I performed several google searches in hopes of discovering the newspaper article or a Conner Prairie archive mention. One of my searches was a paired search where I added two disparate topics. In the search window the paired search looked like this: “William conner” + “pike township”. And here’s an exciting
verifiable fact that appeared:“Robert B. Duncan, born in Ontario, Co. NY on 15 June 1810. In 1817, with his father’s family, he removed to the then village, now city, of Sandusky (then Sandusky now Erie Co.), OH, until the spring of 1820. Then to New Purchase in Indiana, settled on Conner Farm, 4 miles south of site where Noblesville stands. Shortly after organization of Marion Co. in 1822, which then embraced Madison & Hamilton Counties, the family removed to Pike Twp. In Marion County proper, and settled on Eagle Creek where Robert remained until 1827 when he became a permanent citizen of Indianapolis. The bold type is mine to highlight that at nearly the same time Conner was perfecting his legal entitlement to land in Pike Township on Eagle Creek, residents of Conner’s settlement on the White River, where Conner operated a trading post, were relocating to the Eagle Creek valley of Pike Township (!!).* From the footnoted account below we also learn that a handful of white people living in central Indiana in the 1820s as squatters were being redirected to other parts of central Indiana, probably by Conner himself, where they could legally own land under the new land patent system approved in the New Purchase of Indian lands which Conner helped to engineer. Conner was not only redirecting the Indians out of the area, including his own wife and children, he was also redirecting the new settlement of central Indiana by white people who squatted on Conner’s farm.
*“IN Historical Society Publications” Vol. 2, #10, 1894 (FHL book 977.24 B4; copied first article only; no genealogical info in three later articles). Pg 376-381: During the month of January, 1879, while convalescing from a long spell of sickness, Robert B. Duncan wrote these four papers about the “old Settlers” of this section of Indiana; they were written for the Indianapolis “Herald”, a weekly paper, at the request of George Harding, who was then its owner and editor, and appeared in the issues of January 11th, 18th, 25th and February 1st, 1879. It was Mr. Duncan’s intention to write much more on this subject but he neglected to do so.. He still resides in this city, at the advanced age of 83, and has lived in this vicinity since 1820. It is at the request of the Historical Society that I have gathered these papers and furnished them for publication. John R. Wilson, Indianapolis, January 1894. Old Settlers’ Papers No. 1. In the early spring of 1820, about the last days of March, my father, with his family, settled – perhaps the better expression would be squatted”, as all newcomers were then called squatters – in an Indian village, situated on the east bank of White River, bordering a prairie of about 300 acres, situated about 4 miles south of the present town of Noblesville, the whole of central Indiana being then owned by the general government, unsurveyed, mostly unoccupied, and, with very limited exceptions, heavily timbered. The Indian village above mentioned had been owned and was still occupied by the Delawares (from which tribe the government had but recently purchased a considerable portion of central Indiana) and was the trade station of the late William Conner and his partner, William Marshall,. Hence for a period of nearly three years (1820-1823), there was quite a number of Indians in and about the village, mostly Delawares. About the time my father squatted in the Indian village, William Bush and family, Charles Lacy and family, and a family whose name has escaped my recollection, squatted near the village but on the opposite (west) side of the river. Judge John Finch (father of Judge F.M. Finch of this city) had in the previous November squatted on a tract of land about two miles north of the village, also on the opposite side of the river, with his family. These five families, with Conner and Marshall, constituted all the white people then in that part of the country, and with Robert Harding and family, Samuel Harding and family, George Pogue and family, James McIllvain and family, John McCormick and family, Jeremiah J. Corbaley and family, Jeremiah Johnson (Quaker) and David McCurdy and family, who had, as early as April, 1820, settled in what is now Marion county, mostly in or near where the city now stands, constituted all the white people within the territory now composing the counties of Marion, Hamilton, Madison, Hancock, Shelby, Johnson, Hendricks and Boone, so far as my recollection now served me. In looking over a list of some 300 of the early settlers of Indianapolis and its vicinity, and their descendants, which I have in my possession, I find very few of those early settlers still remaining. January 11, 1879, Robert B. Duncan.
(in related genealogy “. . . their son Robert B. (Duncan) was born in Ontario Co. NY June 15, 1810, where the earliest seven years of his life were spent. In 1817 he removed to OH and settled near Sandusky, his residence until the spring of 1820, when the family emigrated to Conner’s Station, in the present Hamilton County, IN, then an unsurveyed prairie. Various employments, until 1824, when became a resident of Pike Twp. Marion Co., farmed.
