Blue River Township - The time has now come when the first permanent settlement 
is to be planted in Johnson County.  In 1814 a young man by the name of John 
Campbell, born and reared in Tennessee, went to find a home north of the Ohio.  
Fate directed his footsteps to the vicinity of Waynesville, in the State of Ohio, 
where he married Ruth Perkins, a native of South Carolina.  In 1817 he moved to 
Connersville, and in 1820 to the "new purchase" on Blue River.  It was as early as 
the latter part of February, when, with his wife and four sons he set out through the 
wilderness to become the first settler of a county that was yet unformed and unnamed.  
Four little girls belonged to his household, but these were left behind to follow on 
horseback, when the home was prepared for them.  A neighbor, Benjamin Crews, went 
with him and helped to clear a path and drive his domestic animals and team.  The road 
which they cut must have been the most primitive of paths, for, when two years after, 
Alexander Thompson, Israel Watts and William Reynolds came over the same general 
route, they found a wagon road to Flat Rock, south of Rushville, but thence on they were 
compelled to cut their own way.

Campbell reached the Blue River on Saturday, the 4th of March, and at once began 
the erection of a pole cabin, on the tract of land lying immediately south of the present 
site of Edinburg, and the same spring cleared a small field which he enclosed with a brush 
fence to keep out his own stock, in time to raise a crop of corn.  Crews returned to Connersville 
for his family and moved to Campbell's neighborhood the same spring, arriving on the 17th of 
April.  On a spot already selected by him, which afterward proved to be on the Bartholomew 
side of the line, he encamped the evening of his arrival.  That night his son Jonathan, a lad eight 
years of age, while lying down and looking at the moon, through the limbs of a large tree, "saw 
something reach out a hand and pull up a limb," to which he at once called his father's attention, 
who said it was a coon.  The next morning, on inspection, the tree was found to be hollow, and 
Benjamin Crews at once cut it down, and as it fell crashing to the ground, a she bear and her two 
cubs tumbled to the earth from their den in a hollow limb.  The dogs at once mounted the old beast, 
but cuffing them right and left, she made her escape, leaving her cubs in the hands of their captors.  
Stripping the horses of their halters the two young bears were soon securely tied, but the horses 
now thoroughly alarmed at the unwonted commotion, and finding themselves at liberty, took the 
back track for the White Water country and ran eight miles before being overtaken and recaptured.

John Campbell's neighbors were Crews and Richard Beny, the latter who lived a little over a mile 
below him, but within the present limits of Bartholomew County, whither he had removed the 
year before.  But he did not have to wait long for others to come in.  A half dozen or more families,
it is said, moved into the Blue River woods, the same spring, but this is not certain.  A large 
number did come in during the year.  The lands since incorporated, in part, into Blue River Township, 
were surveyed in August of that year, and on the 4th of October, the same year, were exposed for 
sale at the land office in Brookville.  That day these purchases were made of Blue River lands 
(which were the first within the county) by James Jacobs, William W. Robinson, and John Campbell, 
(who afterward lived in Sugar Creek), and on the day following, John Campbell, the first settler, and 
eight others made entries.  Thirty-nine entries in all were made before the close of the year, covering 
a total of 4,400 acres.

As far as now known, eighteen families moved into the new settlement during the year, of which 
Henry Catsinger, Simon Schaffer, Jesse Dawson, Zachariah Sparks, Elias Brock and Joseph Townsend, 
were Kentuckians; William Williams, and as already stated, John Campbell, were Tennesseans; Amos 
Durbin was from Virginia; John A. Mow and Joshua Palmer, were from Ohio; Isaac Marshall and John 
Wheeler were from North Carolina; Samuel Herriott, from Pennsylvania, while the native places of 
Louis Bishop, Thomas Ralston and Richard Cormorave are unknown.

The second year of settlement, twenty-seven families are known to have moved in.  Elisha Adams 
came from Kentucky and moved to the north end of the township, and founded the Adams 
neighborhood.  Richard Foster and John and William, his brothers, Patrick Adams, Patrick Cowan, 
Arthur Robinson, Curtis Pritchard, David Webb, William R. Hensley, William C. Robinson, James 
Farrell, John Adams, John P. Barnett, Jacob Cutsinger, Isaac Harvey (a Baptist preacher), Lewis Hays, 
William Rutherford, Jefferson D. Jones, Thomas Russell and Samuel Aldridge, all Kentuckians; and 
Isaac Collier, Israel Watts and Jonathan Hougham, Ohioans; and Alexander Thompson, from Virginia; 
Jesse Wells and Thomas Doan, from North Carolina, and William Reynolds, from Tennessee, moved in.  
By the close of this year, the lands contiguous to Blue River were taken up, and a line of settlement 
extended nearly across the south side of the township, while John Campbell, an Irishman, had laid the 
foundation of a settlement at the mouth of Sugar Creek, and Lewis Hays and William Rutherford had 
joined John Adams' settlement higher up the creek.

In 1822, fourteen families moved in.  Of these Able Webb, James Connor, Hezekiah Davison, 
William Hunt, James M. Daniels, John Shipp, William Barnett, David Durbin, Hiram Aldridge and 
Thomas Russell were from Kentucky; Charles Martin and Samuel Umpstead were from Ohio; and it is 
not ascertained whence came Baker Wells and Samuel Johnson, who came in this year.  In 1823, William 
Freeman moved from Bartholomew County into the township, and Richard Shipp and John Hendrickson 
also moved in.  All these were Kentucky born.  By the close of 1823, there were at least sixty-three 
families living in the township.

Transcribed by Cheryl Zufall Parker