The Early Settlers

Washington Township

Brown County, Indiana

            It is probable that old man Schoonover, who located on Schooner Creek (The creek was named in honor of the old man. It will be observed that the name has been contracted.) in Washington Township, as early, certainly, as 1820, was the first permanent white settler within the county limits. He was a German and was semi-barbarous, preferring to live in the wilderness than in the settled localities. Some state that his location in the township, on Schooner Creek, was as early as 1817 or 1818, and there is positive and undoubted evidence that he was living on the creek in 1820. Others also state that, for a time, at the period of his earliest settlement, he owned a small stock of trinkets, ammunition, etc., which he kept to trade with the Indians for their furs. This is purely traditionary, and could not have continued longer than three or four years at the farthest, as the great bulk of the natives was removed early in the twenties. What finally became of the family cannot be stated. It is likely that the second settlement was at the old Jackson salt works, about the year 1821. The presence of salt there became known to hunters and others in Monroe County several years before, and finally families moved there to open the industry of manufacturing salt. A well was sunk, and a fair article of brine was secured and boiled down in iron skillets until a hard cake of salt was the residue, which was pulverized and rendered fit for market. In after years large quantities were prepared. Several families located there and in a few years a little settlement sprang up around them. Edward David located in the eastern part of the township as early as 1822, though it is stated that he was not the first there. A man named Henderson, and perhaps others, settled on a creek of that name about the same time, and perhaps earlier. The early entries of land will show the early settlement in a fairly correct light.

Source: Counties of Morgan, Monroe and Brown, Indiana. Historical and Biographical. Charles Blanchard, Editor. F.A. Battey & Co., Publishers, 1884.