There are many ghost stories associated with Abraham Lincoln. Most revolve around his time in the White House, his assassination at Ford’s Theatre, and his death in the Petersen House across the street. But what was the first ghost story that Abraham Lincoln ever heard? Historian Louis A. Warren, whose 1959 book “Lincoln’s Youth. Indiana Years 1816-1830″ is considered to be the definitive work on Lincoln’s early life in the state, does its best to answer that question.
In the fall of 1816, Thomas and Nancy Lincoln packed their belongings and their two children, Sarah, 9, and Abraham, 7, and left Kentucky bound for southern Indiana. They arrived at his 160-acre claim near the Little Pigeon Creek sometime between Thanksgiving and Christmas. Thomas moved his family into a hunter’s half-face camp consisting of three rough-hewn walls and a large fourteen-foot space where a fire was almost always kept burning. Lincoln’s earliest memories of this home were the sounds of wild panthers, wolves, and coyotes howling just beyond the opening.
Once the chores were finished, Thomas would entertain his small family with tales of hunters, wild Indians, and ghosts. None was more frightening than the ghost of old Setteedown, mighty chief of the Shawnee tribe. The Shawnees were scattered throughout the region with their main settlement of about 100 wigwams located on the Ohio River near present-day Newburgh.
For the most part, the Indians were friendly and peaceful. Tradition recalls that Chief Setteedown (or Set-te-tah) and settler Atha Meeks were the exceptions to that rule. The Chief accused Meeks, a farmer and trapper, of robbing his traps and Meeks accused Setteedown of stealing his pigs. A feud developed between the two men that would ultimately leave both men dead.
The hatred became bitter and Setteedown decided to settle the matter once and for all. Early on the morning of April 14, 1812, Setteedown, his seventeen-year-old son and a warrior named Big Bones lay in wait outside the Meeks family cabin. The warriors were armed with rifles, knives, and tomahawks. When Atha, Jr. stepped out of the cabin to fetch water from a nearby spring, one of the Indians fired at him, wounding him in the knee and wrist.
In 2016, descendent Anthony Dale Meeks detailed the encounter in his family history. The Indians “crept up behind a fodder stack ten or twelve rods in front of the door and when my brother Atha (Jr.) got out of bed and passed out of the house and turned the corner with his back towards them, they all fired at him. One ball passed through his knee cap, another ball passed through his arm, about halfway from his elbow to his wrist. Another ball passed through the leg of his pants doing no injury.”
When Atha, Sr. heard the shots, he ran out of the cabin where Big Bones shot him as he exited the doorway. Margaret Meeks and another son dragged the dying man into the cabin before the Indians could scalp him. Atha, Sr. died without ever knowing what hit him. That 2016 account continues “Meanwhile father jumped out of bed, ran to the door to see what was up, and met an Indian right at the door who shot him right through the heart. He turned on his heels and tried to say something and fell dead under the edge of the bedstead.”
Setteedown and his son then ran to the wounded younger man and attacked him with their tomahawks. Meeks Jr. managed to fight his attackers off until his uncle William arrived from his adjacent cabin. William Meeks fired his rifle at the tribesmen, killing Big Bones and chasing the other two away.
Some accounts report that the attack on the Jr. Atha was more of a contest of humiliation than a duel to the death. Chief Setteedown and his son were toying with their prey like a cat with a mouse, throwing tomahawks and knives at the wounded young man from a close distance.
Among the Plains Indians, “counting coup” is the warrior tradition of winning prestige in battle by showing bravery in the face of an enemy. It involves shaming a captive with the ultimate goal being to persuade the enemy combatant to admit defeat, without having to kill him. In Native American Indian culture, any blow struck against the enemy counted as a coup. The most prestigious acts included touching an enemy warrior with a hand, bow, or coup stick and escaping unharmed; all without killing the enemy. The tradition of “counting coup,” if true in this instance, ultimately cost the great Chief his life. The gruesome practice allowed armed avengers to bring this “game” to an end by precipitating a hasty retreat.
Some eight hours later, a group of settlers arrived at Setteedown’s village seeking revenge. The vigilantes captured Setteedown, his wife, the son who participated in the attack, and two or three other children. The posse confined them in the cabin of Justice of the Peace Uriah Lamar near Grandview. They were guarded by three men, including the deceased’s brother William Meeks. Sometime during the night the old chief was shot and killed, presumably by Uncle William Meeks.
The remaining family members were banished from the region. Legend claims that they left a treasure behind buried somewhere near Cypress Creek and the Ohio River. Setteedown’s tribe disbanded and reportedly joined Tecumseh to fight in the War of 1812.
And what became of Chief Setteedown’s body? Author Louis Warren notes, “Setteedown was buried in his Indian blanket in a shallow grave close to the Lamar cabin. Mischievous boys were reported to have pushed sticks down through the soil until they pierced the old blanket. (thereby releasing his vengeful spirit). And for many years old Setteedown’s ghost was supposed to be visible at times in the vicinity.”
Local lore claims that old Chief Setteedown roamed the hills, dales, and waterways of Spencer and Warrick County looking for scalps to add to his war belt. Frontier children were warned that Setteedown’s playful spirit was a ruse with deadly intentions. Chief Setteedown was searching for souls to repopulate his lost tribe in the afterlife.
In an age when children were often in charge of refilling the household water trough, gathering firewood, or collecting nuts and berries to supplement every meal, it is easy to imagine how ghost stories about bloodthirsty Indians may have sparked young Abe Lincoln’s imagination. The Setteedown legend had every element that would have sparked a child’s imagination: Indians, murder and lost treasure.
The legend takes on added significance when it is remembered that Abraham Lincoln’s namesake grandfather was ambushed and killed by Indians. In May 1786, Abraham Lincoln, Sr. (his Kentucky tombstone lists his surname alternatively as “Linkhorn”) was putting in a crop of corn with his sons, Josiah, Mordecai, and Thomas, when they were attacked by a small war party. He was killed in the initial volley. In referring to his grandfather in a letter to Jesse Lincoln in 1854, Lincoln wrote that “the story of his death by the Indians, and of Uncle Mordecai, then fourteen years old, killing one of the Indians, is the legend more strongly than all others imprinted upon my mind and memory.”
Although life was generally good for the Lincoln family during their first couple of years in Indiana, like most pioneer families they experienced their share of tragedy. In October 1818, when Abraham was nine years old, his mother, Nancy Hanks Lincoln, died of “milk sickness.” The milk sickness came about when a person consumed the contaminated milk of a cow infected with the toxin from the white snakeroot plant (or Ageratina altissima). Nancy had gone to nurse and comfort her ill neighbors and became herself a victim of the dreaded disease.
Thomas and Abraham whipsawed Hoosier Forest logs into coffin planks, and young Abe whittled wooden pegs with his own hands, pausing only briefly to wipe the tears away that were flowing down his cheeks. Ultimately, Abe’s hand-carved pegs fastened the boards together into the coffin for his beloved mother. She was buried on a wooded hill south of the cabin. For young Abraham, it was a tragic blow. His mother had been a guiding force in his life, encouraging him to read and explore the world through books.
His feelings for her were still strong some 40 years later when he said, “All that I am or hope to be, I owe to my angel mother.” Lincoln’s fatalistic countenance, his famous bouts with melancholy, and his overall sad-faced demeanor could easily be traced back to those “growing-up” days in Southern Indiana. It is easy to imagine that, although terrifying to most children, the Setteedown ghost story was welcome entertainment to the hard reality of life on the Hoosier frontier for young Abe Lincoln.
Al Hunter is the author of the “Haunted Indianapolis” and co-author of the “Haunted Irvington” and “Indiana National Road” book series. His newest books are “Bumps in the Night. Stories from the Weekly View,” “Irvington Haunts. The Tour Guide,” and “The Mystery of the H.H. Holmes Collection.” Contact Al directly at Huntvault@aol.com or become a friend on Facebook.
