Needham Township - In the month of February, 1821, Elisha Adams, a Pennsylvanian by birth, but moving from 
Kentucky, and Joseph Young, a North Carolinan, and Robert Gilchrist, from Washington County, Ind., came to 
the county.  Young settled in the delta formed by the union of Sugar and Lick Creeks, while Adams moved 
farther north, and built a cabin near the present site of Amity.  Lick Creek was so named by the United 
States surveyors, because of the great number of most excellent deer licks found near its source.  But 
Young's cabin soon came to be known better than the licks, and the first settlers caring little for the 
name bestowed by the surveyors, changed Lick Creek into Young's Creek, and time has sanctioned their act.

In the autumn succeeding Adams' arrival William Rutherford moved on Sugar Creek in Section 33, less than 
two miles northeast of Adams', and became the first settler in what is now known as Needham Township.

About the time Rutherford was building his cabin, Adams' horses strayed off, and while hunting for them 
in Bartholomew County, he met with John Smiley of Washington County, who said he was looking for a mill 
site.  While hunting game, Adams had more than once noticed a place on Sugar Creek in Section 34, where 
he thought a mill could be advantageously built, and he not only acquainted Smiley with the fact, but 
gave him such a glowing account of the country adjacent to the site, that Smiley came to see for himself, 
the following summer.  The place suiting him, he made a purchase, and in the ensuing fall moved his family 
to the county, and after erecting a cabin in which to live, began at once building a mill, which was finished 
the same fall, and which was the first mill in the county.

Transcribed by Cheryl Zufall Parker