Madison County Historical Society

     If the river could talk, it would tell of the immense physical changes in Madison County brought about by the Wisconsin Glacier.  As the melting process proceeded, the leading edge of the glacier withdrew to the north, and wherever there remained un-destroyed rock barriers, they gave direction to the flow of water that underlies the bed of a glacier.  This explains how the courses of the White River and other streams in Madison County were determined.  In its present form, the White River has two forks.  The East Fork begins at Columbus in Bartholomew County at the confluence of the Driftwood and Flatrock rivers.  It flows in a southwesterly direction for 192 miles before joining the West Fork about four miles above Petersburg.

The West Fork begins south of Winchester in Randolph County and is much longer that the East Fork, covering 312 miles.  After the junction of the two forks, the river flows another 50 miles before entering the Wabash River across from Mt. Carmel, Illinois.  Madison County is shaped like a rectangle measuring 30 miles in length and 15 miles in width.  The West Fork of White River crosses the eastern boundary about one and a half miles northeast of Chesterfield and meanders for almost 20 miles across the county in a general westerly direction before crossing the western boundary not far from Perkinsville;  roughly  one-third of the county lies south of the river and two-thirds to the north.

Packed into those 20 miles in and along the river's banks is a large part of the county's very rich and colorful history.  If the river could talk, the tales it could tell of happenings it has witnessed during its 12,000 years of existence.  Nature was the dominant feature at one time.  In the beginning, native trees included white, red, and burr oak;  white and swamp ash;  shell bark, bitter, and white hickory;  hard maple, slippery, and swamp elm;  black and white walnut;  poplar;  sycamore;  cherry;  and gum.  The area was heavily forested and was a natural habitat for a variety of wild animals.

Thousands of years before Christopher Columbus arrived in the Americas, which led the way for the Europeans, an ancient race of people lived in North America.  These people were the ancestors of the Native American Indians.  Along with the native people that lived around the Great Lakes area, large animals roamed.  One of these prehistoric animals was the mammoth(sometimes referred to as the woolly mammoth) which looked somewhat like a modern day elephant.  There were also giant bison which were very similar to today's bison.  In addition, there were large wolves, saber-toothed tigers, bears, and mountain lions.

The first people who lived in what would later become Indiana were hunters of these and other animals.  They cooked their food over open fires and used the skins of animals for clothing and shelter.  As time went on, hunting and gathering among the Indians changed.  They began to hunt smaller animals such as deer and rabbits.  To do so, they had to change their weapons.   Small spearheads were used in place of large spearheads.  Eventually the bow and arrow was developed because it was easier to hunt small, quick animals.