JULY 2, 1814

200 years ago today in Washington County, Indiana Territory, a deed executed on April 9, 1814 by Clement and Susannah Beck Lee transferring 160 acres of land to Jesse Roberts was finally officially recorded by Isaac Blackford as the Clerk/Recorder. Roberts had delivered the deed for recording to Blackford on April 11, 1814 at the house of William and Mary Pitts Lindley where public business was being conducted until such time as a Court House could be built in the developing town of Salem.  Although Isaac Newton Blackford was a young lawyer of considerable intellectual acumen, he was unable to gain possession of a leather bound volume of sturdy blank paper suitable for the entry of official land documents until June 26.  After the transcription of DePauw’s plat of Salem; Lindley’s deed to DePauw as agent for the town of Salem; Brewer’s deed to DePauw as agent of the town of Salem; and a deed for 120 acres sold by John and Miriam Hollowell Hobson to Edward Wayman on March 31, 1814; Blackford then transcribed the Lee to Roberts deed on Saturday July 2.  As there was a backlog of documents to record, Isaac Blackford was working on that weekend.

The real estate that Roberts had purchased from Lee was located in Lost River Township in the karst plain along Lost River downstream from the confluence of its tributary Carter’s Creek. William Brooks who was a son in law of Henry Wyman of the Dutch Creek neighborhood in Blue River Township had originally registered the claim to this tract but sold his rights to it to William Lee.  Lee paid off the balance of the $320 owed to the Federal government and obtained his land patent on August 13, 1812.  William Lee died early in 1814 and it must have been informally decided that one of his sons, Clement Lee, had either inherited the property or was acting as sale agent for the entire family.  The sale took place within 3months of the owner’s death.  There must have been some urgency to the sale as the price of $250 which Roberts was paying was less than the $2 per acre price charged by the Federal government.

The Roberts and Lee families had come to the Indiana Territory from Cumberland County, Kentucky.  Jesse Roberts served in the Indiana Militia in 1812 and obtained the rank of Major.  Like many officers of the Indiana Militia, Roberts was appointed to serve in various public capacities in the early days of Washington County.  He and James Mansfield were the two Overseers of the Poor for Lost River Township appointed by the Washington Circuit Court on April 13, 1814.   His house was designated as the polling place for Lost River Township for the 1814 territorial election. His first land claim in Section 33, T3N, R1E was located on the road laid out from Major George Beck’s mill to the sulphur springs in Knox County, Indiana Territory.

The adjoining neighbors to the 160 acres sold by Clement Lee to Jesse Roberts were William Denny on the south; Clement Lee on the east; and David Finley on the north and west.  These settlers were rather far removed from that part of Washington County where the county seat was being laid out by John DePauw.  One of these settlers in Lost River Township, Samuel Lewis, was the Justice of the Peace who prepared and witnessed the Lee to Roberts deed.  He lived a mile west of the original Jesse Roberts tract.  Lewis was giving some thought to establishing a town on his land as a central location for trade in his neighborhood as Salem was not going to be conveniently located.  In fact, Samuel Lewis did so in when he filed the original plat for Orleans with the Washington County Recorder on March 11, 1815.  After the subdivision of their farm, Samuel and Sarah Lamaster Lewis moved to the  Coahuila y Tejas and took out land in the Bevil Settlement between the waters of the Sabine and Neuces Rivers.  The former Washington County Justice of the Peace died in the Republic of Texas in 1838.