Places: William Henry Harrison Mansion Grouseland

If Natives had a more tenacious nemesis than Andrew Jackson, it was William Henry Harrison, the future 9th President of the United States.  Harrison descended from a prominent Virginia family.  His father had been a signer of the Declaration of Independence.  As a young man, Harrison wanted to be a doctor but opted for the Army instead after his father died and he was forced to quit med school to support the family.  He was posted to the Northwest Territory following the Battle of the Wabash and served as General "Mad Anthony" Wayne's aide-de-camp.  Thus, he was present at the Battle of Fallen Timbers in 1794 and the signing of the Treaty of Greenville of 1795.  Harrison married and later resigned from the Army, seeking instead a post in the government of the Northwest Territory.  He was appointed Secretary of the Indian Territory and later became Governor of Indiana Territory in 1801, a post he held until 1812, when he returned to active duty.


A stickler for rules an discipline who ran things by the book, one of Harrison's charges as Governor was to persuade (you can read that however you want) the various tribes in the territory to part with land in exchange for territory out west in what is now Kansas or Oklahoma.  And lest anyone, Native, Settler or British (who still had designs on the Northwest Territory) fail to take him seriously as a governor, he had a plan.  Being from Virginia, he had replicated in Vincennes, the territory capitol, a Southern plantation mansion.  Because of the wild grouse abundant in the area, the home was named Grouseland and, yes, it was staffed by black slaves.  Because there were no good roads at the time, the house was built from local materials by local craftsmen and stocked with furniture, decorations and dishware from Europe. 

Harrison used Grouseland as a place to receive visitors and showcase the best that the territory had to offer.  He also welcomed delegations of Natives to Grouseland, including Potawatomi, Wea, Delaware, Shawnee and others.  He even had a special room in his home set aside for the large gatherings often occasioned by treaty councils and negotiations.  The first treaty negotiated there was the Treaty of Grouseland in 1805.  Among the Native leaders who gathered
for the Treaty signing were Little Turtle of the Miami and Buckongahelas of the Delaware, two of the more prominent Native commanders at the time, though Harrison was probably less than impressed with any of them.  In 1810, he had the first of two meetings with Tecumseh at Grouseland.  As both men had large parties of armed men with them, the meeting took place in the yard and not inside the home.  The discussions became heated and both Harrison and Tecumseh called for their men to attack the other side.  A Potawatomi leader, Winemac, confronted Tecumseh and talked him down, urging his men to disperse.  In 1811, there was another meeting between Harrison and Tecumseh.  It was equally tense and both men realized that talking was getting them nowhere. 

Grouseland remained in the Harrison family until the 1840's, when it was sold and gradually fell into dilapidation.  It is maintained now by the Daughters of the American Revolution.