KETCHAM, JOHN: 1782-1865.
John Ketcham , Indiana pioneer, Indian fighter and leader in settlement and development, was born in Maryland on Sept. 10, 1782. The family moved to Shelby County, Ky., in 1784, and young John was reared and received some education there. Life was precarious: there was the constant threat of Indians from the north, and Samuel Ketcham, father of the family, was himself a captive for some months.
In 1802 John married Elizabeth Pearcy, and they set up housekeeping in the same locality. In 1811 the couple moved with their six children (there were to be as many more) to what was then Jackson County, Indiana Territory; but almost immediately Indian hostilities in the neighborhood (which preceded the War of 1812 in the West) began, and Ketcham soon took his family back to Kentucky.
Ketcham came back across the Ohio and assisted in driving the Indians from the lands recently purchased in southern Indiana. His chief activities were in the defense of the central Indiana settlements against raids –of which the Pigeon Roost Massacre is a notable example. In 1813 he enlisted in Capt. James Bigger's company of Mounted Rangers, raised in the Territory by the government: service in this campaign was largely limited to skirmishes in the upper Wabash Valley, but the troops performed an important service.
After the war Ketcham was appointed an Associate Judge of the Territory–soon to become a state–and in April, 1818, he brought his family to the land in Monroe County (near present Elletsville) which he had bought. Here he immediately became, and continued until his death, a leading and vastly popular citizen. Perhaps his popularity was due to the qualities which enabled him to summarize humorously his later life and achievements–"I was solicited to build the Court House, which I did, thirty or forty years ago. It still stands firm. Because I had built a good Court House, and had a sword and several pistols, the people thought I ought to be a Colonel. I was so elected … But my honors did not stop here. The people knew I had killed an Indian, and had decided three law suits in about forty minutes,–they said I must go to the Legislature. I agreed to it. My popularity not high enough yet,–my old friend Dr. Foster … knew I had been wounded by the Indians, and had killed and scalped an Indian, went to the Democratic Convention at Indianapolis, and told them what Ketcham had done, and said he must be appointed one of Genl. Jackson's Electors … and here I am yet, one of Genl. Jackson's Electors !"
When John Ketcham died on Feb. 7, 1865, the regard of his friends and neighbors was by no means limited to that extended to a man whose only claim to fame was as "one of Genl. Jackson's Electors."
Information from Hopkins, Rev. T. M.–Reminiscences of Col. John Ketcham.
- The Devil's Dream Interpreted and Corruptions
Adversary: or Ketcham's Exposition of Whitcomb's Circular,
and Conduct on the Eve of the August Election of
page: 178[View Page 178]
1830, with General Remarks, to Which Is Added a
Few Biographical Sketches of the Aforesaid Whitcomb.
Bloomington, Ind., 1832.
