Pioneer History of Indiana

'Col. Cockrum...was recognized as one of Indiana's foremost authors and historians...was incorporated into Indiana history textbooks.' -Evansville Courier, Feb. 24, 1924'Regarded as standard authority on early Indiana history.' -Princeton (Indiana) Daily Clarion, Sept. 10, 1915'William M. Cockrum...is dead...at the age of 86...when a young man he began to collect and preserve valuable historical material which he published...in the form of...A Pioneer History of Indiana.' -Indianapolis Star, Feb. 27, 1924'A pioneer history of Indiana and contains many personal recollections of the author, who is one of the early settlers of this section.' -The Culver (Indiana) Citizen, Jan. 2, 1908Which section of the country did most pioneers of early Indiana come from when this section of the country first opened up for settlement?Col. Cockrum, who spent his life living on the old family homestead in Indiana, patiently gathered material from private sources for fifty years or more, and his harvest, published in his 1907 book ' Pioneer History of Indiana' is most interesting.This pioneer history covers their manners and customs, the dangers they encountered from the Indians, the hunting for game and the many terrible encounters with savage beasts. There are narrations of adventure with the Indians, and pictures of life and manners among the very earliest pioneers, that are among the best accounts of this kind that we have.There are, too, not a few documents that are a real addition including letters of instruction from Governor William Henry Harrison to William Hargrave, a captain of rangers, in 1807. Those letters are decidedly informative. In the first place, the fact that there was a ranger service guarding our frontier from Vincennes to Lawrenceburg as early as 1807, is one of which none of our historians seem heretofore to have been aware.In introducing his book Cockrum writes:'In this volume, many of the early happenings that occurred during the settling of Indiana are given for the first time and if this opportunity were not improved, a large amount of interesting history of our state would be lost....For fifty years the data for this volume has been collecting: From personal acquaintance with the pioneers, from a history of incidents transmitted from parents to children and from tradition that is accepted as reliable.'The book includes many true tales of encounters of the ferocious wild beast of the wilderness, including a run-in with a panther by a surveying party:'The panther, regaining her feet, rushed at Tate, who was trying to shoot, but found that the priming had fallen out of the pan of his flint lock gun when he knocked the panther down. As she came at him he thrust the muzzle of the gun into her mouth and thus held her at bay for a little while. She tore the gun out of her mouth with her claws and again rushed at Tate....'Also included is the interesting account of the 'Piasa' a winged creature that preyed on local Indian tribes and resided in a cave located in a river bluff.About the author:William Monroe Cockrum was born December 8, 1837, and died February 24, 1924. He was distinguished as an Indiana historian, educator, manufacturer, farmer, and veteran of the Civil War and was the senior member of one of the most distinguished pioneer families of the State. He had spent his life up to the publication of his book on the old Indiana homestead. He and his father have had a true appreciation of historic records, as a consequence of which he was in possession of a large amount of data concerning the early history of the southwest corner of the State.