----- Forwarded Message ----- From: [email protected] To: [email protected] Sent: Wednesday, January 27, 2010 6:03:39 PM GMT -05:00 US/Canada Eastern Subject: 1819? Although some of us have ancestors who were said to have settled as early as 1816 when Corydon was the capital, in what wouldn't become Shelby County until 1821 , some land purchases were made at Brookville, Franklin County before that time. Example:  The Wilsons of "Little Marion", the Nails of Brandywine Twp., etc. Counties south to the Ohio River had settlements much earlier.  In 1818, Jacob Whetzel followed a  buffalo trace from Laurel on the Whitewater River, to about 5 miles north of where Shelbyville would be platted, to the White River a few miles south of where Indianapolis would later stand. He platted the "Whetzel Trace". There was an 1820 agreement  with the Delaware Indians and other tribes to be out of the area by 1822. Whites were not to settle the new land until 1820 or later. Some did anyway like the James Wilson family above. "The Bears of Blue River " takes place in the 1820s-30s, and was written in 1944.  It is a historic fiction.  It has enough facts and surnames to make it totally believable.  I'm not sure how  someone arrived at  the date of  1819 for the book's setting.