People's Pilot, Volume 5, Number 27-25, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 2 January 1896 — HISTORY IN BRIEF. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

HISTORY IN BRIEF.

" ■ T is not the purpose of this article to trace the r«£i§»| changing of political lines ■ which composed the present territory of Jasper county back to the discovery of America, or even to the time that Indiana was formed into a territory, but to simply note a few facts bearing directly on the happenings in this immediate vicinity.

THE FIRST JASPER COUNTY. The legislature of 1834-35 created a county called Jasper, which embraced the whole of Renton county and that portion of the present Jasper county now represented by the townships of Carpenter and Jordan and part of Marion and Newton townships, also four townships now forming the south portion of Newton county. THE SECOND JASPER COUNTY. This territory was attached to White county, but in 1838 J asper was organized as an independent county, and Newton county attached for some purpose only. For other purposes Newton county was under the jurisdiction of White county. In 1840 Newton county was wholly incorporated with and became a part of Jasper, and the name Newton dropped as a county, but adopted as the name of the county seat which was located on the present site of Rensselaer. COUNTY AS FINALLY ORGANIZED. Jasper county lost the territory of Benton in 1840, but retained that of Newton for twenty years, or until 1859, when it was reduced to its present limits, though still next to the largest county in Indiana. ORIGIN OF THE COUNTY NAME. The following paragraph by the compiler of a county history seems admissable in this place: “The natre of most counties of the state are suggestive of the Revolution. The period when most of them were designated was so near to those heroic ti mes, that no memorial to the virtues of its heroes seemed so appropriate as the political divisions which owed their existence to their achievements. The name of Jasper is a tribute to that heroic devotion which Americans are glad to honor in the subordinate as well as in the chieftajn. Among the garrison of Fort Moultrie, in Charleston, S. C.. Harbor on the 28th of June, 1776, was a Sergeant by the name of Jasper. It was on this day that the British fleet, which had occupied the harbor, opened the attack upon the fort with such a heavy and well-directed fire as to cause the observing patriots on the shore to tremble for the outcome of the conflict. Once during the day, as the smoke from a terrific cannonading cleared away, the flag of the fort was nowhere to be seen. The felhot of the fleet had carried it away, and the anxious spectators, with sinking hearts, feared the fort had struck its flag to the foe. But the ensign had not fallen willingly nor unnoticed. In face of the storm of shot and shell that fell upon the garrison, Sergt. Jasper rescued the flag, and in a perfect hailstorm of bullets, nailed it to the broken staff. At night the fleet quietly left the harbor, with the fort unsubdued. Jasper was the hero of the occasion, the delighted citizens of Charleston uniting to do him honor. The ladies presented him with a beautiful flag, which he pledged himself to defend with his life, and true to his word he was found later in the war dead upon the field of battle, clinging to his and his country’s flag. Such is the hero which this county honors.” FIRST SETTLEMENT OF JASPER. The county was not opened to settlement as apart of the NorthWest Territory until 1832, and in that year William Donahue settled in Gill am township. He was attracted here by the abundance of fur-bearing game, as were most of the early settlers of Indiana. This man made a permanent home, improved his farm, and after several years died. None of his descendants remain in this locality now. The