Josephus Bingaman and his father, Henry Bingaman, were early pioneers in Kansas and Indiana, respectively

John Tecumseh “Tauy” Jones House on Tauy Creek in Franklin County, Kansas. Stonemason Josephus Bingaman helped build this historic home which was completed by 1870.

I have been occupied the better part of two months by combing through digital copies of 19^th and early 20^th century newspapers online. Newspapers from this time period offer genealogists a wonderful lens into the lives of our ancestors, often covering major life events as well as snippets of their comings and goings.

Sometimes more than just a sentence or two was published in the local newspaper. The article below recounts how two of my Bingaman ancestors were acquainted with a locally well-known Native American man named John Tecumseh (“Tauy”) Jones in Indiana, and later, Kansas.

This article is chock-full of clues to pursue about Henry Bingaman, the father of my great-great-grandfather Josephus Bingaman. I present a transcription of the article in its entirety below.

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When Tauy Jones Came to Wabash
The Evening Herald (Ottawa, Kansas), 19 Nov 1913

JOSEPH BINGAMAN’S FATHER KNEW HIM IN INDIANA.

Father and Son, Pioneers in Two of the States–Ottawan Worked as Stonemason on Chief’s House on Tauy Creek.

  When Henry Bingaman, father of Joseph Bingaman of this city, was a pioneer in the Wabash River country of Indiana almost 100 years ago, John Tecumseh Jones (Tauy Jones) came down on the Wabash from the Great Lakes country. He was an emissary of the government to the Miami Indians in Indiana, asking them to take up lands in the West.

  Almost half a century later Joseph Bingaman met Tauy Jones in Franklin county and the venerable old Indian recalled the family name of Bingaman. The two talked together many times and Mr. Bingaman still recalls many interesting events about Jones.

  The Bingaman family has sent out pioneers to new countries for over 100 years. An uncle of Henry Bingaman was a pioneer in Kentucky. A party of Indians attempted an attack upon the home and Mr. Bingaman killed seven of them. Theodore Roosevelt mentions this event in one of his books.

  Henry Bingaman as a boy was a soldier under General Harrison and was at Tippecanoe. It was there that he became charmed with the Indiana country. He went back to Ohio and three families emigrated to Indiana. They were the Neffs, the McCombs and the Bingamans. These three sturdy families settled on the Wabash twelve miles west of Logansport. General Tipton had a trading post there then and it was the first post above Vincennes.

  Joseph Bingaman, a son of Henry, came to Kansas in 1869 after serving two enlistments in the war. He was an apprentice stonemason working under Mack and Damon Higby, known to many of the old settlers around Le Loup. The Higbys were building the Tauy Jones home which is now the big stone residence on the estate of the late Captain William H. Woodlief.

  Mr. Bingaman assisted in completing the house and he became acquainted with Jones who remembered the Bingamans of the Wabash country back in the ‘20s.

  Joseph Bingaman is one of the pioneers of this country. He helped build the Forest Park mill and several other stone buildings here. He was a workman on the old L. L. & G. the first railroad in Ottawa. Mr. Bingaman and an uncle also rode for eighteen miles on the first engine traveling between Cincinnati and Chicago.

  “We gave the engineer fifty cents to let us ride,” said Mr. Bingaman today.¹

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Reverend Jones, also known as “Ottawa Jones”, was an interpreter for the Ottawa Indians who were removed from Ohio to eastern Kansas in territorial days. He and his wife were instrumental in the founding of Ottawa University, a Baptist college.² His image can be seen on the Kansas Memory website, along with additional images of his home.

Sources and credits
Image credit: “John Tecumseh “Tauy” Jones House on Tauy Creek” by user: Bhall87 / Wikimedia Commons / CC-BY-SA-3.0. Original image located here. Edited by Dawn Bingaman.

¹ “When Tauy Jones Came to Wabash,” The Evening Herald (Ottawa, Kansas), 19 Nov 1913, p. 6, col. 3; digital image, Newspapers.com (http://www.newspapers.com : accessed 27 Nov 2015).

² “Ottawa U. Born Out of Pioneer Sacrifice,” Topeka Daily Capital (Topeka, Kansas), 11 Jun 1922, p. 6B, col. 2; digital image, Newspapers.com (http://www.newspapers.com : accessed 27 Nov 2015).