Joseph Knox

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Marker in Lancaster Township identifying the location of the Joseph Knox homestead

Lancaster Township. The Knox homestead was at site #2

Close-up view of the Joseph Knox historic marker

Earliest land entries in Lancaster Township, including those of Joseph Knox

Dr. Joseph Knox is credited as being the first settler in Wells County, Indiana. But he is said to have fled at the time of the Black Hawk scare, and to have sold his farm shortly thereafter. It is not known where he came from before living in Wells County, or where he moved afterwards, except that when he made his land entry, he identified his residence as Allen County, Indiana.

There is a rough stone monument with a plaque on the land where he lived -- land that he bought from the general government. It's on the northwest of the corner of county roads 300N and 100E.

The source of that 1831 date for Henry Miller, who purchased his land, is unknown. If that date is true, it contradicts the information about his fleeing from the place during the Black Hawk war, or at least throws an entirely different light on it.

The biography of Henry Miller in the 1887 county history provides a different date -- one that is more specific. Miller had died 5 years before this book was published, so this could be information that was provided by family members or neighbors:

In priority of settlement [Henry Miller] was the oldest settler of Wells County at the time of his death. He made his home near where Murray now stands, November 10, 1832, having been preceded by only a few men, viz: Mr. Norcross Dr. Knox and Robert Harvey. -- pages 742-745

Another section of the same county history says the following:

Joseph Knox was the first white man to make his home in Wells County, being also the first to settle at any point between Fort Recovery and Huntington, and that was in the year 1829, on the southeast quarter of section 18, Lancaster Township, near Murray Postoffice, or the village of Lancaster. Shortly after his location here he was joined by his two sons-in-law, Vantrees and Warner, who "took up" the tracts since known as the Robert and James Harvey farms. Both came with their families and remained until 1832, when they were all frightened out of the country by wild rumors concerning the Black Hawk war.

Another of the early settlers' families seems to have provided yet another account of his behavior at the time of the Black Hawk war. It also is recorded in the same 1877 history, and is quoted below. Of course, it must be kept in mind that the families of those making these assertions were still living in Wells County at the time this history was written. Joseph Knox had left long before, so he and his family were not available to tell their side of the story.

Robert Harvey, the father of our subject, although afflicted with partial blindness of his left eye, volunteered in the war of 1812 and served one year. ... In April of that year [1832] they removed with their family to Wells County, settling on section 18 of Lancaster Township, Robert Harvey being the fourth man to settle in what is now Wells County. The preceding winter he had become totally blind from inflammation of the eyes.... The troublesome times of 1832 (the year of the Black Hawk war) induced his brothers Samuel and John to come from Union County. and move him back there. He left his stock and implements with a man named Joseph Knox, and returned with his brothers to Union County, where he spent the following winter. On returning to Wells County he found himself robbed of his stock and everything that was movable, and never recovered anything nor heard of his rascally neighbor again....

This account makes it sound as though Knox stayed put during the Black Hawk troubles, and didn't flee when Robert Harvey and others did. It doesn't say that directly, though.