Indiana American, Volume 1, Number 36, Brookville, Franklin County, 6 September 1833 — Page 1

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OCR CPU KTRY -OUR COUNTRY INTEREST, AND OUR COUNTRY'S FRIENDS.

Vol. I.

Ill tOOKVILt.E, IA. SEPTEMBER 6, 1833.

PRINTED AND PUBLISHED WEEKLY BT C. F. CkARKSOV, t $2 in advance $2,50 in six months; or $3,00 at the expiration of the year. jVpvrrtisemsxts. Twelve lines, or less, will be inserted once or three times, for one dollar; and 25 cents will he charged for each additional insertion. " JUISCELIjAIVEOI S : A snapper wp of unconsidered trifle?." THE GENIUS OE NIAGARA. from Miscellaneous Poem by the .WHJord Hard. (Jexivj of darkness and of storm. Around whose brow, the rainbow's form Is wreath'd in foam, and flaming light, As Heaven's own brilliant bow as bright, Thou art the stern and stormy child, And tempest and tornado wild! Thou art the Demon of the deep, Thron'd on the mighty mountain steep, Where vivid lightnings round thee glow, While awful thunders roll below, And from thy mammoth maw doth pour Eternal floods eternal roar. When Tim3 from Chaos' womb awoka. And o'er Creation's cradle broke The lustre of yon brilliant ball, Thou then didst frame thy mighty fall; And bade thy tumbling torrents roar.

Till Time himself should be no more. Proud Genius, though thy roar sublime. May drown the thundering tongue of Time; Tho' thou may'est bid thy lakes to leap In dashing cascades to the deep; And down thy ragged rocks to yell The foam-flood, deep as caves of hell, Vet, yet proud spirit, thy knell shall be, Thy Trump's last blast, Eternity! PRIVATE CORRESPOND E!VCE....Xo. 3. , la. August 22y 1833. Friend FiFtran It is related of Julius Cisar, that after he had fought a battle with his sword, he made it a practice to sit town and fight it over with his pen. Following at an humble distance the example of this distinguished character, I will give voj a short account of a late "tramp" in Kentucky. I believe it will hold true as a genera! remark, that those who live in the neighborhood of a great curiosity, either of nature or art, manifest least interest in developing its principles of novelty. The modern inhabitants of classic Greece wonder at the strange principle of human nature, that could impel the traveller to visit their barren and deserted coasts, to linger over the ruins of fallen greatness, nnd kneel before the tombs of her departed heroes. The cicerone whose occupation is to conduct travellers from distant coun

tries to the spots which history has recorded, as the

feat of some ancient city or mighty monument of art,

or as the theatre of some immortal aotuevmcnt, as he

pockets the money of the enquirer, laughs at the unac

countable curiosity of other minds about subjects, to

him so wholly devoid of interest.

Who has not heard of BIG BONE LICKS, its waters, and of the enormous skeletons of the mammoth, there foundl And yet many very many, have spent

their whole lives within a few miles of the place without having sufficient cuxiosty to visit a spot which has attracted the curiosity of thousands of travellers from

fvery part of the United States, and many parts of

Europe. Natural History has assigned one of her

choicest pages to the. description of the unknown lord

of the animal creation, whose immense structure gives

name to the place. The Geographer mentions it un

der the head of "Curiosities of Kentucky." I was

within twelve miles of the very spot of which I have read and heard so much: I could not rest my curiosity.

Our party consisted of nine. All were in the spring

tide of life; right merry, jovial fellows. " Whora for Big Bone!" shouted a voice at my elbow, as I stood yawning on the porch after breakfast, debating how

I could best spend the day. No sooner said than done

I fell in with the pioneers of this glorious excursion,

and was shouting at the topmost of my lungs, "Whora

for the mammoth land!" Our party, in the words of

Virgil, "crescit cundo," increased as we proceeded

through the streets, every idler dropping into tho rear

Our Bkiff was loaded to the water's edge, and thrice happy were those unfortunate souls on shore, who watched with disappointed eyes our bark as it proceeded down the river. "A leak a leak," cried one

of the party, as he presented to our astonished eyes one of his boots disrobed of its morning lustre by the

entrance of water. All was now confusion. Two

skilful hands worked at the oars, and in a short time we

reached the Kentucky shore, though not till most of

ns had been dipped in the watery element. Unlucki

ly some of the party having on buckskin shoes, were incapacitated from further proceeding on foot, without

disposing of so necessary an article, as a covering for

their feet. There was, however, no alternative. 1 he

disabled shoes were safely stowed away behind

log, esconsced beneath a quantity of dry leav es. Oiv

ward our party proceeded, some bare-footed, others

hare-legged, and altogether presenting an appearance

that might safely be termed ridiculous.

A philosopher may find subjects for contemplation

Mid reflection, in occurrences the most common and

insignificant. Ours was surely not a philosophic com

Pny, yet in the cha meters and bearing of its differ

nt constituents, there was abundant food for the

amusement of the attentive observer. We had our

wit,who also officiated as clown. This individual act

3 on the principle, that he is of most consequence

ho captivates pretcnt attention, and pleases the fan

"1 by novel and grotesque combinations of thought The individual u pon the right, who scorns to cur!

hp at tho wittv uivincm nf tiia rfi trlihnr. in man

of the world," accordin f to Corporal Bunting's definition.; lie feels his importance in the company of those whose curious ear s drink in his relations or long winded stories, as acqui sitions which n title the possessor to a large share o. reverence. He has visited many cities and seen r. wny faces, and is willing to base his whole consequence on this accidental requisition. The little fellow-who disdains the measured tread of" the more so' cr pedestrians, and whose heels a9 he bounds away, Fcem as elastic as his feelings, is one of your happy careless souls, whose tho'ts terminate with the pres ?nt. With the cares of the world, he holds no comn tunion. In one respect he!

differs from most of his comrades he arrogates no importance to himself. There were others whom I might describe, had I time and patience. Suffice it to say that but few seemed t have remembered the real object of the "tramp." Tkke them all together, and they were a merry whole-sou! company, prepared to defend each other's rights till death. A walk through woods by unfrequented paths, new roads, with but a scattered house here and there, is fraught with few ad ventres save those that arise from bruised toes and mangled feet. If these may be termed adventures, we ha 3 our share of them. It was about noon when on descending a hill and turning an angle in the road, the foremost of the party announced our vicinity to Big Bone. All my wandering thoughts immediately centred upon the object that had drawn

us lather. I rushed tortvaru with the eagerness of

ong-deferred curiosity an! high-wrought expectation.

stood in the middle of a plain and was turning to ut

ter a curse upon the individual who had thus played

upon my feelings, when he pointed to a spring that

was silently pouring forth its waters before me. "But where is Big Bone," I exclaimed in accents of bitterness. "Before you," he calmly replied. This, then, was the very identical Epot which my roving fancy

lad so often visited; but "Oh how changed," in the

inguage of Mjlton, when looked upon in its reality.

The shock was too great. I could not render the civ-

lities which decency demanded, over a spot so hal-

hallowed: where sleep "the mighty dead." I could at

the moment have wished that some accident, like that which caused the African conqueror to embrace the soil he was destined to subdue, had brought me in a

posture to manifest my deep sense of the place and its

associations. A muddy spring whose salt waters ren

der it the polite resort of horsea, cattle, gentlemen and ladies, was the only clue by which to determine

the origin of its name Big Bone Licks! But where were the evidences of those giants of the animal creation of which I have heard so much? But one bone lay in Bight. I, in an instant, was brandishing it aloft to my astonished comrades. All gathered around me to witness the wonder. It might have been that our

optics were unusually distended by the circumstance

and occasion for certain it is, that upon a closer examination we came ti an unanimous decision, that the

wonderful bone in question had upon sonic former and perhaps diotant period, occupied the front of a a cow, or its opposite gender or to speak more classically, it had once been the head of a"ieor Ilacc 6o."

But no time was to be lost. I was now on the fam

ed spot, and an eternity might elapse before I should again pay it a visit. The Waters themselves are suf

ficient to render tho place extraordinary. Their taste

is extremely disagreeable. They are very salt, and

impregnated with substances which, however medicinal they may render them, certainly impart a very dis

agreeable taste. Several of the party held pieces of

silver in the spring which in a short time was chang' ed to a blackish color.

I was informed by an individual of the place who

acted as ciecronc, that he had in his possession some

boxes of bones which belonged to a private gentleman.

He was at first, from some cause or other, reluctant to

give us admission to his Museum. A tempting offer,

however, soon overcame all his scruples and he con

ducted the whole party to his house. It was a low log

cabin, which to my ideas of dimension, seemed alto

gether too small to accommodate many bones of very

unusual magnitude, without the exclusion of the occu

pant. With bended necks we entered the lower story

Still there were no signs of the mammoth. A narrow

staircase in one corner of the room led to the upper

part of the "castle"' as Don Quixote would have styl

ed it. Slowly, solemnly, and in single file we ascen

ded the 6tairs. amid reekine hams which were sus

pended on either side, in fearful proximity to our per

sons. Here the signs of the wonderful animal men

tioned, became much more evident. The floor was

strewed with bones which, though not as large as I had anticipated seeing from the descriptions, evidently be

longed to an animal of gigantic structure, and larger

than is now known in the world. I had the curiosity

to examine one bone in particular. It must probably

have been a part of the foreleg, reaching from the knee to the joint immediately above tho foot. It

could not have been less than three feet and a half long

I shall venture no opinion of my own in reference to

this class of the animal creation, the time they exist

ed, or the manner in which they came to their death.

It is the general hypothesis, that the mammoth, like

other animals, was attracted to this spring by the 6alt-

ness of the waters; that the ground was soft and yiel

ding, and they became stuck in the mire. The whole party seemed repaid for their trouble by what they had

seen, and thought that the gratification of their curios

itv had been a full compensation for their tedious

walk. We all started homeward in good humor.

When we reached town, the shades of evening had already began to fall. The busy hum of the day was subsiding into the stillness of evening. I gazed with

pleasure on faces from which I had parted in the morning. I now had rich and abundant sources for

reflection. Slowly and thoughfully I took my way to

my room, and as I resigned my weary limbs to re

pose, I could truly look back upon this, as " a day

well spent." Yours, &c. D

SPIRIT OF THE TIMES. IMPORTANT DECISION. By the annexed letter from a correspondent at Trenton, N. J. it will be seen that the Quaker case has been decided in favor of the Orthodox party. This decision is final the Court of appeals being the highest Court of the State, and consisting, as constituted on this trial, of 11 Judges. Although the property in dispute in this particular case is not large, yet the principle involved in the decision is all-important;;

there being numerous cases exactly similar, and a great amount of property depending on the issue. We are told that a principle established

by the Court of Appeals is of the nature of law,

and binding upon (lie lower Courts. But wheth

er it is or not, will be of little consequence in practice. For if Ly chance in any instance, a

different result should be experienced in a lower

court, the Urthodox party would of course carry it up to the Court of appeals, and so the same

hench would eventually decide upon it, which

has given its verdict upon the present occasion.

V e speak now ol the cases which may arise in New Jersey. Journal of Commerce.

"Trenton, Aug. 15, 1833. "Agreeably to vour request, I now inform you

that the case of Debou and Ilendrickson has

just been decided by the Court of Appeals in fa

vor ol the Orthodox party, by athrming the decree of the Court of Chancery."

THE SEA SERPENT. We deem it our duty to lay before our readers

all the evidence which comes into our possession

relative to the appearance of a Marine Monster

on our coast, supposed to be a Sea Serpent.

Many arc still credulous as to the actual exis

tence of such an animal, and probably never will

be convinced that the creature seen is of the

form and character of a Serpcntuntil it shall be

lairly caught, hauled out ot its native element.

and exhibited in full view to their astonished eyes on shore. The statement below, from a respectable and intelligent ship master, belonging to this neighborhood, we think is the strongest piece of evidence in favor of!lisSnakeship,that

we have seen for a longtime. Capt. Bridges informs us, that he had been utterly incredulous as to the existence of a Sea Serpent, until he saw what he did on his late voyage. It w ill be seen that it was on his outward passage from this port to Philadelphia in May last, that he fell in with

the animal, which he now has no doubt was in reality a Sea Serpent, He returned to this port

week before last, but has been reluctant to make any statement respecting this matter, in consequence of the great incredulity which prevails,

and the ridicule which other statements have excited. Essex Register.

SALEM, Aug. 19, 1S33. On the 18th of May, 1833, on my passage

from Salem to Philadelphia, in the Schooner

Mechanic, a man at the mast-head discovered something in the water, which he supposed to be an empty hogshead floating. I looked at it with

a glass, and saw not only what 1 supposed to be a hogshead, but also several smaller objects which appeared like kegs or barrels. We were then 8 or 10 miles from Cape Cod Light House;

the sea was pcrlectly calm, and our lines were out fishing. A short time after we discovered the object first, we found that it approached

nearer to us, which I attributed to a current,

and let our leads go to the bottom to ascertain

the set but I found that if any we had a slight

drift from it. We however found that the ob

jeet was alive, and soon saw very plainly that it

was the &ea Serpent, lie came directly to

wards the vessel, and passed within 12 or 15

yards of us-, going quite slow, so that we had an

excellent view ol him. lie appeared upwards of 80 feet long, judging from the length of our-

vessel, as, when his head was opposite our stern,

we all judged his tail to be 10 or 15 feet beyond

our bow, and our vessel is upwards ot 4) feet

long. His body, in the biggest part, appeared about the.size of a GO gallon cask, and his head appeared much larger, and appeared very rough

and shaped very much like a horse's. His color

was a rusty black he appeared at a distance to

have a great many humps, but as he came near, I rather thought it was only his undulating mo

tion which cave that appearance, lie never

altered his direction, or appeared the least dis

concerted by his being so near us. As he pass

ed us, he turned his head a little to one side to look at us; he swam with his head out of water.

We saw him fairly for more than half an hour

he was seen by all on board as well as mysell;

and the mate made an entry of it iii the logbook

at the time. 1 iios. Bridges.

THE CIRCULAR.

The following is a copy of the Circular addressed by

Mr. Kendall to the State Banks: Washington, Aug. 1833.

Sir I have been appointed by the Secretary

of the Treasury, at the request of the President of the United States, to confer with State Banks

in relation to future deposits and distribution of

the public revenue.

It is deemed probable by the Government that

the Bank ol the United States will not be re

chartered, and that no other institution will be

established by Congress to supply its place as A gent of the Treasury.

As it is now less than three years to the expi

ration ot its Charter, the President thinks it his duty to look.to the means by which the service

it now renders to the Government is thereafter

to be performed, and if sufficient reasons shall

exist, the Government may desire to employ an other agent, or agents, at an earlier period.

The sole object of appointment is, to ascertain on what terms the several State Banks may be willing to perform the service now rendered by the Bank of the United States to the Government, should it become necessary or expedient to employ another agent, or agents, that the Secretary of the Treasury may, in that event, be able to make a judicious selection. Ia pursuit of this object.1 have the honor to inquire whether the Bank over which you preside is desirous, should a change lake place, of undertaking that agency, or a portion of it, at

II this inquiry should be answered in the af

firmative, I am authorised to communicate with

you further on the subject.

It is, however to be distinctly understood, that

nothing which may pass is to be considered a

pledge on the part of the government to remove the deposits on the part of the United States,

before the expiration of its charter, or to employ your Bank in any event, or to make any

final arrangements upon the conditions which

may be now proposed or received. If it be convenient, I shall be happy to know the disposition of your Board of Directors on the

subject; if not, will you do me the favor togie

me your own, leaving an expression of the wish

es of the Board to some more convenient oppor

tunity.

V ery respectfully, Vour obedient servant, AMOS KENDALL.

HORRID BUTCHERY. From the Lawrenceburgh Indiana Palladivm. Napoleon, I a. Aug. 23, 1833. Two men were mortally wounded on Thur-

day,22d inst. one mile and a half north of Nrp;

leon, on the State lioad leading tolndianarc!:; A man named John Basse l,was indicted for ; ;r-

jury and a writ handed to the officer to r.pj-rc-

hend him. The officer summoned three cilizc s

of the neighborhood to assist in taking said lio: -sel, and after he was taken, he requested to be

permitted to go into Ins son-in-law s house, and he then would go with them. When he gof

into the house he immediately seized his gun and butcher knife and cave battle. Daniel.

Booker, a stout able bodied man, laid hold of

the gun and a scuffle ensued, when Bassel let

loose the gun and made at Jacob Hudson and stabbed him iij the breast, the point of the knife ranging downwards, giving a deep wound, sup

posed to be four inches deep; then turning round .

gave Booker a mortal wound immediately under , the shoulder blade, ihe orifice supposed to be . three inches in Length. Then leaving him put at the third man, who gave him a blow on the

head which broke his club, and retreated. Bassel then took to the woods and has not been ta--ken. The neighbors have rallied to the num

ber of thirty or forty, and are now on the search

of him. Booker cannot survive but a few hours ; Hudson may, with proper attention, recover. The citizens have subscribed a handsome re

ward for the apprehension of Bassel. You will

confer a favor on the public by giving this an insertion.

Bassel is a man of swarthy complexion ; of a

small size; about five feet six or eight inches

Inch; about 50 years of ace, with a scar over

one of his eyes; rather a down look. It is re

ported he left Kentucky lor killing a man there.

HORRIBLE AND DISTRESSING OUTRAGE. It has never fallen to our lot (says the Berkshire, New Hampshire, Advocate) to record a transaction, at once so revolting in its nature, so disgraceful to humanity, and so harrowing to the feelings of friends, as one that lately occurred at Rendsborough, Vermont. For several days previous to Saturdaj-, an idle, transient man, whom no one knew, had been loitering about the place. Sometime during the day, a Mrs. Ames, the wife of Fisher Ames, Esq. and the mother of a highly respectable family, came into the village to transact some business at one of the stores. Having purchased a few articles, she got on'her horse and started for home. She had not proceeded far when coming to a hollow in a small piece of woods, she was beset by this stranger man, pulled from her horse and insulted with the most infamous proposals. In a lone and unfrequented spot, beyond the reach of human aid, she found herself dependant upon her own feeble strength to resist this merciless, fiend-like monster. Though he presented a knife and threatened her with instant death, she neverth eless resisted, and it was not until after an hou r's struggle, that nature became exhausted, and d o sunk insensible to the earth. Even after 1c I. rtd perpetrated his hellish purpose, and his id:::. was yet writhing in his brutal fangs, be presented his knife with the intention of finishing Lis brutal work, by putting an end to her existence. She summoned all her remaining strength, and in the name of her innocent and tender babes, she implored her execrable destroyer to spare her life. . To this, he finally consented, on condition that she would not reveal the affair. Thw done, he fled, and his victim, divested of almost every vestige of her clothing, dragged herself to the nearest neighbor and gave alarm. In a fewmoments the whole vicinity was in pursuit They chased the heartless, infernal monster into the forests of Monroe, where he was surrounded and taken. He denies not the crime, but only wonders how the woman could be such a liar to break her word, when it was only on her promise of secrecy that he spared her life. Con pared to this brutal whelp, Clough appears virtuous and noble. He had the charity to put his victim quietly to rest. Jhe monster ot only gives his a thankless existence, but would have rendered that existence still5 more burdensome, by loading her with a disgraceful, soul-sickening secret Yet his punishment is only imprisonment.

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