Dear Brother, I now send you as promised, an account of the first settlement of the Miami County, with the circumstances that first prompted the enterprise, the means of its accomplishment, & the names of the persons by whom it was effected, the whole of which has been submitted to the inspection of one of the party, & pronounced by him to be correct.

        MAJOR BENJAMIN STITES, the Pioneer of the company, was a native of Scotch Plains, Sussex County, New Jersey.  When young he emigrated to Western Pennsylvania, & settled on Ten Mile Creek, within the bounds of what is now Green County.  He was commissioned by the authorities of Pennsylvania, as a captain in the militia, & became a leader, & active partizan in pursuing the Indians, whenever they committed depredations on the inhabitants of that state.

        In the spring of 1787, he descended the Ohio river in a flat boat, loaded with flour, whiskey, &c to Maysville, Kentucky, in pursuit of a market, but after staying a few weeks, with but little success, he removed a few miles back from the river, to Washington, a large town, where there was a better prospect of making sales.  One night while at the latter place, the Indians committed hostilities on the inhabitants of the vicinity, by stealing & carrying off a number of horses.  In the morning an alarm was made and volunteers called for to pursue the Indians, & if possible re-capture the horses, & punish the aggressors.  MAJOR STITES, who possessed extraordinary physical strength, & undaunted courage, volunteered  his services to accompany them.

        The company being raised, & necessary preparations made, they commenced the pursuit by following the trail of the horses, to the Ohio river, a short distance below the place where the town of Augusta now stands; thence down the river, on the Kentucky side, to the mouth of the Little Miami, where the Indians had mad a raft & crossed the Ohio, with the horses, just below the Little Miami.  Determined on continuing the pursuit, the white men adopted the same plan of crossing the river, & followed the Indians nearly to an Indian village called Old Chillicothe, on the head waters of the Little Miami, but without overtaking them.  On their return they passed down through the valley of the Miami & had a good opportunity to examine the country.  MAJOR STITES was so well pleased with the face of the country, and fertility of the soil, that before re-crossing the river, he determined in his own mind to make a settlement at the mouth of the Little Miami.  After his return to Washington, he closed his business as speedily as possible, and returned to his family, to make the necessary arrangements to accomplish his designs.  After a short stay with them, he crossed the mountains to visit his native State, & obtain means to effect his purpose, and men to accompany him to his new intended home.

         On his arrival at Trenton, New Jersey, he obtained an introduction to the late JUDGE JOHN CLEVES SYMMES, to whom he related the discoveries he had made & the object of his visit to New Jersey.  From that gentleman he learned that the country northwest of the Ohio belonged to the United States, and that a legal title to the land could only be had from Congress.
JUDGE SYMMES then proposed to join him in the enterprise, which was agreed to by MAJOR STITES.  It was further agreed, that as Congress was about to assemble at Philadelphia, JUDGE SYMMES should make an application for the purchase of the land, & MAJOR STITES prosecuted his journey to raise men. If SYMMES was successful in his application to Congress, STITES was to have ten thousand acres of land below the mouth of the Little Miami, laid off as neatly in a square as the nature of the case would admit of, for the discovery, and as much more as he could pay for.

        JUDGE SYMMES was successful, & purchased one million acres of land to extend on the Ohio from the Little to the Big Miami, & back for quantity.  Congress reserved three section in each six miles square, one for the support of schools, one for the support of the Gospel, & for future sales; also one entire township of six miles square, for the support of a University.  The whole tract to be surveyed, as far as could be, into townships of six miles square, sections of one mile square, and subdivisions of quarter sections.

        MAJOR STITES also succeeded in raising the necessary number of men, and they were thus encouraged to prosecute their previous design.  The parties subsequently published, in a very small pamphlet, printed at Trenton, the terms of settling the Miami Country.  One condition of the sales was that every tract of land sold, unless taken possession of by the purchaser, within three years, should be subject to a forfeiture of one-sixth part to be taken in a square of the northeast corner; and that any male person twenty-one years old and upwards, not the owner of the land, who would enter upon the same, and erect a log cabin, clear three acres of land, and cultivate it three years, should be entitled to a deed for it; and that every tract now owned by one person exceed one section, though the purchaser should settle in country, should be subject to a like forfeiture.

        The next object was to take possession of their newly acquired lands, and for that purpose they agreed to assemble their forces, as speedily as possible, on the western waters, & descend the Ohio to Maysville, where they were to await the arrival of all who had agreed to accompany them.  When they were thus collected, it was thought prudent to raise a company of volunteer militia, to go in advance of their families, and make a further examination of the country.  This company consisting of about sixty men, landed at the mouth of the Big Miami in the month of August, and explored the country some distance back from that place and North Bend.  While at the latter place, one of the men who had gone out with a small hunting party, in search of game, was killed by the Indians, near the present town of Cleves.  After making the necessary examinations, and after JUDGE SYMMES had determined to locate at North Bend, they meandered the river Ohio measuring the distance along the beach from the Big to the Little Miami, & returned to Maysville.

        During the absence of this party, MAJOR STITES employed himself in preparing to remove with his company to the mouth of the Little Miami.  He also fixed on a plan of a fort, and that it might be built with as little delay as possible, he and his son BENJAMIN went to the woods and made a large quantity of slap-boards, which they put into a boat; also, the hearts of the timber, to be used in filling the open place between the logs of the houses.  While passing to or from the woods, a youth by the name of NEHEMIAH STITES (nephew of MAJOR STITES) was killed by the Indians.  They also made doors of boat plank, with hangings affixed, so that as soon as the walls of a building were up, they could use the doors as a safeguard against the Indians, if attacked.  All the necessary preparations being made, they re-embarked about the middle of November to descend to the mouth of the Little Miami, with the party that was to accompany MAJOR STITES, JUDGE SYMMES having to await a few days the arrival of some provisions, then on their way down the river.

        This company consisted of MAJOR STITES and family, ELIJAH STITES, GREENBRIGHT BAILEY, ABEL COOK, and JACOB MILLS with their families.  There was accompanying them without families, HEZEKIAH STITES, JOHN S. GANO, EPHRAIM KIBBY, THOMAS C. WADE, ELIJAH MILLS, EDMOND BUXTON, DANIEL SHOEMAKER,
MR. ____ HEMPSTEAD, EVAN SHELBY, ALLEN WOODRUFF, HAMPTON? WOODRUFF, JOSEPH COX, and
BENJAMIN COX.

        There were in the family of MR. BAILEY,  JAMES F. BAILEY & REASON BAILEY, and in the family of MAJOR STITES, his son BENJAMIN STITES, & nephew JONATHAN STITES (brother to NEHEMIAH) - making in all twenty men, and two boys able to do nearly the labor of men.  The descended the river to Bracken Creek, where they stopped, and from which place they started, (as they supposed) in time to float down to the Little Miami by sunrise so as to have the day before them for labor.

         Previous to their leaving Maysville, a report had been in circulation, that some hunters had returned from the woods, who had seen five hundred Indians at the mouth of the Little Miami, & that the Indians had heard the white people were coming to settle; and intended to kill them all as soon as they should arrive.  On it's being announced at break of day, they were near the mouth of the Little Miami, some of the females were very much alarmed on account of the report alluded to.  To allay their fears, five men volunteered their services to go forward in a canoe & examine; if there were no Indians, they were to wave their handkerchiefs and the boats which were to keep close to the Kentucky shore were to be crossed over and landed.  If there were, the men were to pass by & join the boats below.  The token of no Indians was given, and the boats were crossed over and landed at the first high bank (about three-fourths of a mile) below the mouth of the Little Miami, a little after sunrise, on the morning of the 18th of November, 1788.

        After making fast, they ascended the steep bank, and cleared away the underbrush in the midst of a pawpaw thicket, where the women and children sat down.  They next, as tho' to fulfill the command of the Saviour, ("watch and pray") placed sentinels at a small distance from the thicket, and having first united in a song of praise to Almighty God, to whose Providence they ascribed their success, (MR. WADE taking the lead in singing), upon their bended knees they offered thanks for the past, and prayer for the future protection, and in this manner dedicated themselves (and probably their thicket) to God, as solemnly and acceptably, as even a stately temple with all the pomp and splendor attending it was dedicated.  There were in this little group, six persons, viz: BENJAMIN STITES, JOHN S. GANO, THOMAS C. WADE, GREENBRIGHT BAILEY, EDMOND BUXTON, AND MRS. BAILEY, who were professors of the Christian religion of the Baptist Church.

        This is a little more than one year from the first conception of this great enterprise, MAJOR STITES with his little company, was on the ground prepared to commence that immense labor necessary to change this then vast wilderness into a fruitful field.
                                                             E. F."
 

        My note: Abel Cook died in Covalt's Station in 1791, and his widow, Catherine Bailey, daugther of Groombright  Greenbright) Bailey, was remarried to William Digby.  Catherine and William Digby had 3 children, one a son also named William.  This son was a very early settler in Tippecane Co., IN, before it was even a county.  He platted the town of Lafayette, and purchase the land on Dec. 24, 1824.  Tippecanoe was made a county in 1826 and Lafayette is the county seat.   He chose the name for his new town in honor of the Marquis de Lafayette.

        Catherine Bailey Cook Digby died in 1849 in Lafayette and is buried in Greenbush Cemetery  Another daughter of Groombright Bailey, Rachel, married a Robert Brown.  After living for a little while in Butler Co., they also came to Indiana and eventually settled in Lafayette, where she died Nov. 1850.  She is also buried in Greenbush Cemetery.
 

Photo of William Digby: https://sites.rootsweb.com/~intippec/WmDigby.JPG
 

Adina
West Lafayette, IN