I Wish the World to Look Upon Them as My Murderers: A Story of Cultural Violence on the Ohio Valley Frontier

1 Wish the World to Look Upon Them as My Murderers": A Story of Cultural Violence on the Ohio Valley Frontier Randy J. Mills Karl Arndt, while undertaking his study of the Harmonist Society in nineteenth century Indiana, stumbled ulioii a str,inge : ind chilling last will:ind teStament in an old 13(, scy County reccird hook. Written in IRINby: i young doctor named Thomas Moore Parke, the will declared in part, " I am now in a sound state in health and mind, but am fearful of a deadly attack being made upon my pursuit through R: ichel Givens, Mathew Williams and George Gibbons. 111 am murdered I wish the world t() 1(, ok uptin them as my murderers." 1 The unfortuiiate 1': irke died a vic)lent death the very next 91: y. Incredibly, while local officials indicted two (, f the people named in the illySte ]i (, US will i (} r P.11·ke's 111 urder, no c,Iic cv cr stix,d trial for the deed. Arndt cited Dr. Parke's will : is an ex: 1111plc of the everpresent possibility of sudden violence in the region, but lie app: irently never discovered the puzzling story behind Dr. Parke's test: linent. The storv. 1 bizarre t:] c of grave robl, ing, murder, alill iniusticc on the American frolitier, alst) reveals a deeper tension on the Ohit) Valley frontier at thai time, resulting tri, m the sc> inctimes brutal clashes between settlers froni the up]: ind South and those tr) iii New Eng]: ind. Over time, this unusual story faded from community memory; one can find, for example, only brief sketches telling of the murder iii three (, Ider histories of P£) scy County.2 Wh: it follows here is a much lcinger and more detailed telling of the occurrence gleaned from cc}unty records : ind local ficmtier letters and other previously unexamined sources. Like a Greek tragedy, this tale reveals hciw 317111itic)11, pride, and anger c(, iispired with tlic regioIi's divided culture to bring cal: imity to one frontier H()() sic! village. In 1 816, Thom: 14 Mot) re Palke , 11(, rn cif a prciminent Connecticut family, iourneyed with his wife and young daughter to the rugged frontier village of Mt. Fall zoo i Vernon, Indiana.3 At the time, the coimmunity, origitially called McFaddin's liluff, ccinsisted of fifteen or so crude cabins scattered : bc,ul on a small rise next to the Ohio River. Why Thomas Mt)(, re Parke brought his young and vulnerable family to sc)haril and unsettied a place proves difficult to discern. The apparently ambitious Di-. Parke lind studied at tlic University f Edinburgh's prestigious medical college in Sccitland, and thus his Ct,ming tc) Mt. Vernon iii : 816 suggests a troubled past. No records exist, however, ti) hintat what might] 1. lvel[rivelitliC i, irkcs' difficult ' move ti) the Indinna wilderness. His wife Nancy, baptized iii I 79 5 in the New South (= hurch iii Bt,st: 11·kes found, however, lay in the great prejudice that the Ic,cal people, who were inostly from the South, held toward New Engl: inders, whom they called Yankccs. Richard I>() Wel IlOteS ill P] antiilg Ct, rn Hell Culture that sciuthern Indiana and Illinois " more than any other arca (, f the north became 1111 outlic,st of Southern folkways which the Yankees COull|not quite understand I,r mcidify." 7 And L. C. Rudolph in his study of the CArly develcipment of the Presbyterians in Indiana obscrves that in the Hoosier state, " an unusually strong current iii population from the upland South met an especially persistent minority of eastern settlers ." 8 Unfortunately this c(, mbination occasionally i, qnitcd, as it did in Th. 1, 3'. 4.,/ A , 4. &" k'/' MA U. 1-' .I .'· U.:' ' 4_ 22 as such fiercely oppcised any such endeavor.1 1 One radic: 11 leader of the antimission effort iii Indiana dcclai·ed he would " kill the niissionaries or they sh. 111 kill ine." 14 Bethel Baptist Church, the only congregation at that time in the Mt. Vernon community, held especially stri) ng anti-mission and antieastern cc,n victions. Morris Birkheck, an Englishman who settled in...