AUGUST 4, 1814
John DePauw was 29 years old in 1814 when he was a Colonel
in the Indiana Militia and the Agent for the establishment of the Town of Salem
as the seat of government of Washington County, Indiana Territory. He and his wife Elizabeth Baptiste DePauw were
married in Lincoln County, Ky in 1805 where his family lived near Blue Lick Knob. They then
moved from Casey County, Kentucky
to the Indiana Territory sometime in either 1809 or 1810. They had registered a claim on land located
in the northwest quarter of Section 20, T2N, R4E in Washington Township of
(then) Harrison County, Indiana Territory.
This tract was located on rolling land that sloped to the north
northwest toward Royse’s Fork of Blue River.
They were among the first to settle in the area. Their immediate neighbors were: Edward and Martha Roper Cooley; Thomas and Priscilla
May Hight; William and Mary Pitts Lindley; Benjamin and Catherine Mellinger
Brewer; and Andrew and Margaret Braxton Pitts. At the time that Washington
County was created by the Territorial legislature in December of 1813, the
DePauws had 2 young daughters, Ann and Rachel. The family lived in a basic
cabin located at the crest of the hill overlooking Pitts Bottoms along Blue
River.
The source of DePauw’s apparent ability and influence came
from the background of his father Charles Levien DePauw who was born in Ghent,
Flanders in 1753. He had come to the
American Colonies with French soldiers who aided the Continental Congress in
the rebellion against Great Britain. He was reputed to be a lifelong friend of
Marquis de LaFayette which was the apparent basis for his notoriety. Charles DePauw settled in Virginia at the end
of the Revolutionary War and married Rachel Young in Amelia County, Virginia. They then crossed the transappalachian frontier
and settled in Kentucky by 1785. Charles
DePauw was rumored to have been involved in a planned invasion of Spanish
territory in the lower Mississippi Valley that had been planned by the French
ambassador Genet. Secretary of State
Thomas Jefferson had written Kentucky governor Isaac Shelby in 1793 admonishing
him to intercede in any attempt by Kentuckians under the influence of Genet to
engage in such a filibuster. Shelby
could have dissuaded Charles DePauw in such a venture as they were neighbors in
Lincoln County, Ky at the time. There
was probably some basis for this story as Charles DePauw led a group of
settlers from Kentucky to the Louisiana Territory near New Orleans after the
death of his wife in 1806. In 1814,
Charles DePauw was living in Louisiana as part of this settlement.
John DePauw at the time he was engaged in the acquisition,
platting and sale of lots in Salem was not well established financially as
he had not yet paid off his $320 obligation to the US government for his 160
acres. With his father having interests in Louisiana, he was probably planning to engage in the New Orleans flat boat trade as he had his eye on a tract of land registered by Thomas Ewing near the
old ford of the Muscatatuck. This
location at the base of the knobs where a recently established public road
crossed the river could be a good launching point for flat boats carrying produce
such as salt pork, venison and corn down the Mississippi to the New
Orleans market.
PORTRAIT OF CHARLES LEVIEN DEPAUW
FLATBOAT ON MISSISSIPPI
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