EARLY SETTLEMENT OF NEWTON COUNTY

            It would be difficult to determine who was the first white man to settle temporarily in this county. Something more than one half of its territory was originally a wet, marshy country, inhabited by a vast number of fur-bearing animals, which early attracted trappers. There is but little definite information to be had of this country during that period. The beginning of the permanent settlement was not later than that of jasper County, but the nearer location of the county seat, for several years after 1839, operated to the disadvantage of this section. Immigration naturally gathered about the county seat, and this western settlement remained at almost a stand still, and showing only a slow growth up to 1854.

            Josiah Dunn and John Elliott are know to have been in the county, on the Iroquois, as early as 1832; among the very oldest settlers was an old man Joseph Redding, who came from Ohio, and settled near the Iroquois River, in the western part of the county. He subsequently moved further west. About the close of the year 1832, the Brook settlement was formed by James W. Lacy, G.W. Spitler, Squire Lyons, ____ Meekins, T.K. Barker and Samuel Benjamin. The latter first settled on the river in the western part of the county, but left on the breaking-out of the Black Hawk disturbance, returning, however, and settling on the eastern side of the county. About this time came, James Cuppy, Jacob Trout, John Meyers, Bruce Dunn and Matthias Redding.

            About 1836, Jacob Kenoyer came from Southeastern Indiana, to near Spitler’s Creek about 1845 erected the first saw mill and corn-cracker in the county. It was run by a dam thrown across Spitler’s Creek, and stood near the present residence of Zachariah Spitler. Samuel and Frederick Kenoyer came in soon afterward, and Amos Clark and Charles Anderson. These families formed the nucleus for the entire settlement which gathered in the middle-western part of the county. This colony was further reinforced at an early date by Amos White, Michael Haney and Philip Earl.

            In 1838, John Murphy came to this region and settled north of the Kenoyer settlement on Beaver Creek. He was a native of Virginia and removed to Ohio in 1808. In 1825, he removed to Indiana, choosing a site on the Tippecanoe River, opposite the site of the city of La Fayette, which was then a wilderness. In 1838, he came to the territory which is now Newton County. At that time, there were but about twelve families in the county, among whom were the families of Bridgeman, Cuppy, Smith and himself in the edge of the Beaver timber, while on the Iroquois there were but a few families –John Lyons, Job Hunt, Frederick Kenoyer, John Myers and a few others. The rest of the county was an unbroken solitude.

            The first time he went to Chicago was in June, 1822, when he assisted in driving cattle from Ohio to Green Bay, for the United States garrison located there. It took two months and two days to make the trip. From Piqua, Ohio, to green Bay was an unbroken wilderness, except a small settlement at Fort Wayne, and the garrison at Chicago. Just after the town of La Fayette was laid out, Taylor and Linton opened a store, and Mr. Murphy engaged to take an ox team and find a road to Chicago for them, by which good could be bought at less expense than to haul them from the east. In company with two other teams, he proceeded through Parish Grove, to Buncombe, Ill., and thence to West Point. Buncombe, at that time, consisted of four or five log cabins and a French trading post about a mile up the Iroquois River, on the north side. From this point, he had to make his own road, there being no trace to Chicago. The latter place had increased since his first visit to some twenty-five dwellings, but land was still very cheap. Mr. Murphy was offered lots, near where the Tribune building stands at $10 each, the payment to made in potatoes or oats at 50 cents per bushel. Murphy was subsequently joined on the Beaver Creek by James Elijah, John Darroch, David Kestler, Daniel Deardorff, Benjamin Roadnick, Silas Johnson and others.

Source: Counties of Warren, Benton, Jasper and Newton, Indiana by F.A. Battey & Co., 1883.