Day 107: Tippecanoe River State Park, IN t

The purpose for camping north of Indianapolis last night was to allow me a chance for a brief visit to the State Archives this morning.  A few years ago, while I was writing my Williams book, I had requested the Posey County, IN probate file for Lee Allen (for some reason, a handful of probates got transferred to the State Archives, the rest remain in the courthouse in Mount Vernon, IN).  I was quoted a total of $180 for two files (for Lee Allen and Leroy Allen [the latter, it turns out, is not a person of interest to me]).  Once I got that quote I requested separate quotes for each file and never got a response.  Instead I got a snide reply, stating that perhaps I should stop by and pick and choose what documents I was interested in!

So I did that this morning, three years later.  The main information that I was after would have cost me $1, but I got a few extra copies of interest and paid a total of $3.

Lee isn't a direct ancestor, but I have a suspicion that he is a relative of some sort, or at least related by marriage in more than one way.  Perhaps he was the brother of my Cater 4th ggf's wife?  Or perhaps his family and her family had children or siblings who married into the same family?  Due to the lack of availability of records in South Carolina in the late 18th Century, I'll likely never know the answer to those questions.  But it was the hope of finding another clue toward solving those puzzles that led me to look at his probate file this morning.

Lee, sometime in the late 1820s, moved across the street just outside of Cynthiana, IN from Simon Williams, one of my 4th ggfs.  He had mortgaged 30 acres of land from Abram Benson, a son of David Benson.  Lee Allen, David Benson and Simon Williams had all been neighbors around 1810 in what was then Warren County, KY (now Allen County, KY), before they all eventually moved to Posey County, IN (Lee was the late arrival by more than a decade, the other two men where there prior to statehood).

There has always been an interesting connection between the Caters, Allens and a Davis family of interest: Newberry County, SC.  Somehow the families are likely intermarried, but marriage records from that period in South Carolina are almost unheard of (most having been destroyed in courthouse fires and during the Civil War, the rest suffering from rampant mildew).

So, the net outcome of today's visit to the Archives was that my analysis in the Williams book, which evaluates two uncited and conflicting sources about Lee's children, was spot-on.  Plus I learned that he had another daughter who married had a Jamieson: both she and her husband had died prior to Lee (who died in May 1833), and their four children were living in Georgia at that time.  I also learned about where two of Lee's sons had gone after leaving Kentucky and Indiana.  So it was worth both the $3 and the nearly 200 mile detour to retrieve the information.

Once that was done, I drove back to the campground, where Alea had everything waiting to be hitched up.  We drove back up to the Northern Tier to resume cycling westward.  It was 85 degrees when Alea started riding the 33 miles of low rollers to our stopping point for the day, and 95 degrees when she finally got there (where the trail intersects Hwy 35).

From there we headed north nearly 20 miles, where we've camped for the night at Tippecanoe River State Park, IN ($33.61 [$23 for camping, $9 non-resident fee + tax], power, showers [no water]).  As we drove in, we got an earful from a park ranger about how wonderful Indiana State Parks are.  We don't concur, especially with the $9 surcharge.  They might as well put out the Not Welcome sign.  We've been in several states that have better parks, but we would agree that Indiana wins the prize for highest out-of-state surcharges - by a very wide margin!

Still, it is probably marginally better than most private parks.  And we'll be up early tomorrow to beat the heat on our continuing journey westward!