Captain Spier Spencer (c. 1770 [1] – November 7, 1811 [2] ) was an Indiana militia officer who commanded a company of mounted riflemen known as the Yellow Jackets at the Battle of Tippecanoe. Spencer County, Indiana and Spencer County, Kentucky are named in his honor.
A native of Virginia, Spencer moved to Kentucky with his parents. He married Elizabeth Polk, daughter of the noted Indian fighter Capt. Charles Polk, in Bardstown, Nelson County, Kentucky on January 18, 1793. Spencer and his wife moved to Vincennes, Indiana. In 1809 Spencer was appointed by Governor William Henry Harrison as the first sheriff of Harrison County, Indiana. He moved his family to Corydon and served in that office until his death. [3]
Spencer and his wife ran "The Green Leaf Tavern," in their large log home on Oak Street. Governor William Henry Harrison and Lieutenant Governor Ratliff Boon stayed there when they came on official business, as did delegates to the 1816 Indiana Constitution Convention.
When tensions grew high between the settlers and the Native Americans, Spencer organized the Harrison County Militia known as the "Yellow Jackets" because of the color of their uniforms, for a campaign against them. The Battle of Tippecanoe on November 7, 1811, ended with Captain Spencer being seriously wounded during the battle. He was shot in the head and both thighs. When he was being carried off the field he was killed instantly by another shot. Spencer's horse and sword were brought back from the battle and were returned to his widow.
The following account of the battle of Tippecanoe is taken from the official dispatch sent by General Harrison to the secretary of war, on the 18th of November, eleven days after the battle: "...Spencer was wounded in the head. He exhorted his men to fight valiantly. He was shot through both thighs and fell; still continuing to encourage them, he was raised up, and received a ball through his body, which put an immediate end to his existence..."
Captain Spencer's bravery and the heroics of his men were lauded by General Harrison. He is the namesake of counties in Indiana and Kentucky [4] as well as the town of Spencer, Indiana, the seat of Owen County. [5]
Spencer's widow continued operating The Green Leaf Tavern. When she married William Boone, she changed the name to the "Billy Boone Tavern". However, the marriage was short lived and she divorced Boone in 1829.
William Henry Harrison was an American military officer and politician who served as the ninth president of the United States from March 4 to April 4, 1841, the shortest presidency in U.S. history. He was also the first U.S. president to die in office, causing a brief constitutional crisis since presidential succession was not then fully defined in the U.S. Constitution. Harrison was the last president born as a British subject in the Thirteen Colonies and was the grandfather of Benjamin Harrison, the 23rd U.S. president.
The Battle of Tippecanoe was fought on November 7, 1811, in Battle Ground, Indiana, between American forces led by then Governor William Henry Harrison of the Indiana Territory and tribal forces associated with Shawnee leader Tecumseh and his brother Tenskwatawa, leaders of a confederacy of various tribes who opposed European-American settlement of the American frontier. As tensions and violence increased, Governor Harrison marched with an army of about 1,000 men to attack the confederacy's headquarters at Prophetstown, near the confluence of the Tippecanoe River and the Wabash River.
Tecumseh's War or Tecumseh's Rebellion was a conflict between the United States and Tecumseh's confederacy, led by the Shawnee leader Tecumseh in the Indiana Territory. Although the war is often considered to have climaxed with William Henry Harrison's victory at the Battle of Tippecanoe in 1811, Tecumseh's War essentially continued into the War of 1812 and is frequently considered a part of that larger struggle. The war lasted for two more years, until 1813, when Tecumseh and his second-in-command, Roundhead, died fighting Harrison's Army of the Northwest at the Battle of Moraviantown in Upper Canada, near present-day Chatham, Ontario, and his confederacy disintegrated. Tecumseh's War is viewed by some academic historians as the final conflict of a longer-term military struggle for control of the Great Lakes region of North America, encompassing a number of wars over several generations, referred to as the Sixty Years' War.
Fort Harrison was a War of 1812 era stockade constructed in Oct. 1811 on high ground overlooking the Wabash River on a portion of what is today the modern city of Terre Haute, Indiana, by forces under command of Gen. William Henry Harrison. It was a staging point for Harrison to encamp his forces just prior to the Battle of Tippecanoe a month later. The fort was the site of a famous battle in the War of 1812, the siege of Fort Harrison in Sept. 1812 that was the first significant victory for the U.S. in the war. The fort was abandoned in 1818 as the frontier moved westward.
Sanford Wesley Ransdell was an early American pioneer and soldier in the Battle of Tippecanoe. Ransdell was born in Orange County, Virginia, on September 11, 1781. He was a descendant of Edward Ransdell, a signer of the historic Leedstown Resolutions written up in defiance of the Stamp Act.
John Tipton was from Tennessee and became a farmer in Indiana; an officer in the 1811 Battle of Tippecanoe, and veteran officer of the War of 1812, in which he reached the rank of Brigadier General; and politician. He was elected to the Indiana General Assembly in 1819, and in 1831 as US Senator from the state of Indiana, serving until 1838. He was appointed as US Indian Agent and was selected to lead the militia in removing Menominee's band of Potawatomie in 1838; they were relocated to Kansas, Indian Territory.
Major Joseph Hamilton Daveiss, a Virginia-born lawyer, received a mortal wound while commanding the Dragoons of the Kentucky Militia at the Battle of Tippecanoe. Five years earlier, Daveiss had tried to warn President Thomas Jefferson about Aaron Burr's plans to provoke rebellion in Spanish-held territories southwest of his Kentucky district. Several places in the United States are named for Daveiss, but though he spelled his name "Daveiss", these places all have the spelling "Daviess".
Toussaint Dubois was a Montreal born person and American soldier who joined with Lafayette to fight for American independence in the American Revolutionary War.
Jacob Warrick was an early settler of Indiana and a militia officer.
During the 18th and early 19th centuries, the French, British and U.S. forces built and occupied a number of forts at Vincennes, Indiana. These outposts commanded a strategic position on the Wabash River. The names of the installations were changed by the various ruling parties, and the forts were considered strategic in the French and Indian War, the American Revolutionary War, the Northwest Indian War and the War of 1812. The last fort was abandoned in 1816.
Joseph Bartholomew was a general in the Indiana Militia and served in numerous military conflicts. He also worked as a farmer, hunter, trapper, self-taught surveyor, and politician. Bartholomew County, Indiana and the Bartholomew Trail were named after him.
Davis Floyd was an Indiana Jeffersonian Republican politician who was convicted of aiding American Vice President Aaron Burr in the Burr conspiracy. Floyd was not convicted of treason however and returned to public life after several years working to redeem his reputation. He lost his wealth in the Panic of 1819 and died in obscurity in Florida 1834.
Thomas Allin was a soldier and surveyor who became an early settler and political leader in Kentucky. He served in the Revolutionary War, first in the North Carolina militia and then as part of general Nathanael Greene's campaign.
During the War of 1812, the Indiana Territory was the scene of numerous engagements which occurred as part of the conflict's western theater. Prior to the war's outbreak in 1812, settlers from the United States had been gradually colonizing the region, which led to increased tensions with local Native Americans and the outbreak of Tecumseh's War. In 1811, Tecumseh's confederacy, formed in response to encroachment by white American settlers, was defeated by U.S. forces at the Battle of Tippecanoe. After the conflict broke out, most Native Americans in the region joined forces with the British Empire and attacked American forces and settlers in concert with their British allies.
The Indiana Rangers, also known as the Indiana Territorial Mounted Rangers, were a mounted militia formed in 1807 and operated in the early part of the 19th century to defend settlers in Indiana Territory from attacks by Native Americans. The rangers were present at the Battle of Tippecanoe, and served as auxiliaries to the army during the War of 1812. At the peak of their activities they numbered over 400 men.
The Yellow Jackets were a mounted militia company from Harrison County in the Indiana Territory. The company numbered sixty men and officers and saw action as part of the expeditionary force dispatched to put down the American Indian uprising during Tecumseh's War. The company saw additional service as part of a larger militia force that operated during the War of 1812.
Benjamin Parke was an American lawyer, politician, militia officer, businessman, treaty negotiator in the Indiana Territory who also served as a United States federal judge in Indiana after it attained statehood in 1816. Parke was the Indiana Territory's attorney general (1804–1808); a representative to the territory's first general assembly (1805); its first territorial delegate to the United States House of Representatives (1805–1808); one of the five Knox County delegates to the Indiana constitutional convention of 1816; and a territorial court judge (1808–1816). After Indiana attained statehood, Parke served as the first United States District Judge of the United States District Court for the District of Indiana (1817–1835).
The following units of the U.S. Army and state militia forces under Indiana Governor William Henry Harrison, fought against the Native American warriors of Tecumseh's Confederacy, led by Chief Tecumseh's brother, Tenskwatawa "The Prophet" at the battle of Tippecanoe on November 7, 1811.
The Battle of Wild Cat Creek was the result of a November 1812 punitive expedition against Native American villages during the War of 1812. It has been nicknamed "Spur's Defeat", which is thought to refer to the spurs used by the soldiers to drive their horses away from the battle as quickly as possible. The campaign is sometimes referred to as the Second Battle of Tippecanoe.
John Small was an American gunsmith, frontiersman, soldier, and public official. An Irish immigrant to Pennsylvania, he served in the American Revolutionary War. After the war, he served as sheriff of Knox County, Indiana, as a territorial legislator, and as Indiana Territory's first Adjutant General.