Source: North Manchester Journal, January 19, 1893

PIONEER SKETCHES. Some Interesting Reminiscences from the Life and Experience of Early Settlers.

As a boy pioneer, Philip Walters of this place gets back about as far as the farthest. He came to this valley in the fall of 1835 with his parents. He was but five years old but remembers well the day they forded the river at what is now North Manchester. The country was known then only as Eel River. The river was the end of the road and to go up or down it a road had to be hacked out. His parents were two days in getting from here to Squirrel creek near where Stockdale is now situated. "I remember," he said, "about the circumstance of the man Anderson killing the Indian that Mr. Barber spoke of in his recollections. If the Indians had wanted to they could have killed all the whites north of the Wabash river easy enough. To kill a deer in those days was regarded as no great thing but the white deer that I killed was the talk of the neighborhood for a long time. It was white all over except its ears, they were red. The inhabitants of Squirrel creek drew their supplies from Mexico and Logansport and went there to mill and to trade. The country filled up fast as long as the good land was not all taken. It was a long time before there was a road to Wabash at all and in fact it never got to be a good road while we lived in that section. The chance for schooling where I lived was bad, very bad, on the line between Miami and Wabash counties. Neither had public money and the people were poor. The boys and girls of these times don't know how well they are off in school matters. The country has improved in that one thing very much."