Before the town: the Revolution's and 1812's men in the township's ground

1776–1855 · soldiers of the early republic who came later

Olive Township was settled by the sons of one war and the veterans of another, and its oldest churchyard keeps both. Two Revolutionary soldiers lie at Hamilton under stones the DAR copyists read about 1900. Frederick Druliner's stone says it outright — "REVOLUTIONARY SOLDIER," died 3 June 1841. James Ranstead's (1767–1837) reads, in the transcription, "SOLDIER UNDER WASHINGTON," and the copyists note that his grave "was marked by Schuyler Colfax Chapter, D.A.R. of South Bend, Indiana" — the chapter doing in the twentieth century what this section does now. Two more Revolutionary ties are descent only, and print at that strength: Joseph Catterlin, "a Revolutionary soldier, seven years under Washington," died in 1823 without ever seeing this township; his son James settled here. And Jacob Hooton's sketch notes that both his grandfathers were in the Revolutionary War; the grandfathers are not named as residents, and are not claimed.

The War of 1812 lies thicker here. Howard reprints an Indianapolis News account of the township's soldier burials, and its claim is this section's epigraph: "Probably no township in Indiana is the burial place of so many soldiers of the war of 1812 as Olive township, the largest town of which is New Carlisle." At the Hamilton graveyard the News names ten: John Cooper, David Dalrymple, Gabriel Druliner, Moses Ivins, Wm. D. Jones, Joshua Keene, John Lane, Leonard R. Rush, Jacob White and Virgil Reynolds — and three more soldiers of "the Indian war": William Burden, Samuel Reynolds and Elias Heaton. The stones confirm the News where the stones survive: David Dalrymple (died 29 March 1856, aged 62) carries a War of 1812 inscription, its unit line illegible in the transcription; Moses Ivins (died 28 October 1855, aged 82) is inscribed "U.S. Soldier of 1812"; Gabriel Druliner (died 29 December 1871, aged 71) and Jacob White (died 27 September 1861, aged 84) lie there under their own names. One name carries a conflict, printed whole below in the heroes file: the News lists Virgil Reynolds among the 1812 burials, while the DAR transcription of the Hamilton stones records a Virgil Reynolds of Company F, 29th Indiana Infantry — a Civil War regiment. Grandfather and grandson, or an error in one telling: the records read do not decide it. Beyond Hamilton, the News counts four 1812 veterans in the Olive Chapel cemetery, two in the New Carlisle cemetery and two at Maple Grove — and names none of the eight. Their names stand as a named gap of this build, settled by the DAR inscriptions of those three grounds, which the Colfax Chapter volumes carry but no pass has yet read at the section.

Sources

1. Howard (1907), vol. 1, Terre Coupee section, reprinting the Indianapolis News burial account verbatim (read first-hand).
2. DAR cemetery inscriptions, Hamilton Cemetery: Druliner, Ranstead, Dalrymple, Ivins, White, Reynolds stones as transcribed.
3. Chapman (1880), sketches of James Catterlin and Jacob Hooton (descent ties, at sketch strength).