Clearing Indiana Land in 1827
Ancestor of the Gibson Family
This is an online book
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"In 1823 Benjamin Beckelhymer, Thomas Isaac and James Terguson, in February made a tour of inspection, finding at that time but two permanent settlements in the county, but there may have been others. Forbes and Mendenhall seemed to them the possessors of immense areas. All entered land in Wabash township, Beckelhymer, in September 1827, moved his family of wife, Eunice (Fitzpatrick), and four children by his first wife, who died in 1823. His children were Peter, Isaiah, Levi and Enos. Prior to his second trip he had engaged a man to do some work on the place. He moved with an ox team. In a year or so, in partnership with Isaac Ferguson, he built a saw-mill on Coal creek, and afterward added a gristmill. In about ten years Ferguson and Beckelhymer sold to Headley and Kiger. Beckelhymer bought a bottom farm in Wabash township,on which he died in 1844. He and his partner worked eighteen days in cutting the first road, a distance of about one and a half miles to the mill. Terguson was prominent in church affairs and township."
Note: Benjamin Beckelhymer was in partnership with Isaac Ferguson on the saw-mill and gristmill. Isaac Ferguson was also the father-in-law of Benjamin Beckelhymer. They went into this partnership after Benjamin Beckelhymer's first wife died. She was the daughter of Isaac Ferguson.
Further down the page it describes the primitive state of land in this area. The next page talks about coal being in this area.
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Last Modified February 2012
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