The case of the Indian Murders

Two hundred years ago on Oct. 7, a man named James Hudson went on trial in Madison County for his role in what early local historians referred to as “The Indian Murders.”

While it’s questionable whether this was, as some have claimed, the first time in this country’s history that a white man was held accountable for the murder of Native Americans, it was, nevertheless, a significant event.

Normally, I stick to Hamilton County history, but there are enough Hamilton County connections to this that I feel justified in straying past the county line. (I’ll get to those connections later.)

If you’ve read Jessamyn West’s 1975 fictionalized account of the murders, “The Massacre at Fall Creek,” you’re probably familiar with the story already.

In March, 1824, a small band of Native Americans had established a hunting / trapping / sugaring camp on Madison County’s Deer Lick Creek (not nearby Fall Creek, the location usually given.)

After all these years, many details surrounding this incident are in dispute, but most accounts refer to the Indians as members of the Seneca tribe and the most reliable descriptions indicate there were three men, three women and four children.

Enter Thomas Harper, a devout Indian hater, who’d recently come to Madison County  to visit relatives.

Harper managed to convince some of the local settlers that the Senecas were a threat, and he and his followers proceeded to murder everyone in the camp — even the women and children — in a manner so heinous, I’m glad I don’t have room to go into detail.

The other men who took part in the massacre, John T. Bridge Sr. and John Bridge Jr.; Andrew Sawyer and his son, Stephen; Andrew Jones and James Hudson were all caught. Harper managed to escape and was never found or punished.

Jones and Stephen Sawyer turned state’s evidence. The other four were tried for murder, with Hudson’s trial coming first. Hudson was convicted and was hanged the following January.

A few months later, Sawyer and both Bridges were also convicted. The two older men were executed, but many of central Indiana’s most prominent men, including William Conner, signed a petition to save John Bridge Jr., citing his youth (he was 18 at the time of the murders) and his remorse.

It worked.

In a scene out of a movie, Indiana Governor James Brown Ray arrived to hand Bridge Jr., a written pardon, just as the young man was standing with the noose around his neck.

Now, about those Hamilton County connections . . .

Madison County was so new at that time that it didn’t have a magistrate or even a jail yet, so the defendants were taken before Andrew W. Ingraham, a Hamilton County official, for their initial hearing.

Fearing reprisals from Native Americans, Indian agent John Johnston recruited William Conner to travel with him to Indian villages and camps in this area in order to reassure the inhabitants that the U. S. government would see justice was served.

Early Fall Creek Township settler Samuel Holliday was one of two associate judges at the trials. Holliday had bought land in Fall Creek Township in 1820 and he’s buried in the township’s Arnett Cemetery.

According to local historian Augustus Finch Shirts, when Fall Creek Township’s first permanent settlers arrived, they discovered two abandoned cabins on Fall Creek near the mouth of Thorpe’s Creek. Shirts states that he accidentally learned one cabin had belonged to Bridge Sr. He assumed the other belonged to Sawyer.

I know of no documentation to prove that, but it’s possible. The Bridge family could have been squatting on the land before it came up for sale, as the first Horseshoe Prairie settlers had.

Note: I’m desperately in need of wooly worm sightings for the annual weather column. Please let me know if you’ve seen any.

Paula Dunn’s From Time to Thyme column appears on Wednesdays in The Times. Contact her at younggardenerfriend@gmail.com