As a young man of 21, he moved to Niles from Liberty in Union County, Ind., where he was born Aug. 29, 1820. Here he learned to be a carpenter under apprenticeship to William Deniston.
However, when a group was formed in Niles to enlist in the Black Hawk War, Jacob Kingery Brown was the first to enlist. This was the same war that saw a young Abraham Lincoln of New Salem, Ill. serve three enlistments. Each enrollment lasted for approximately 30 days.
The website http://www.u-s-history.com reports on the reason behind the Black Hawk War: "By the 1830s the process of removing Indian tribes from lands in the eastern United States to accommodate white settlers had been embraced by President Andrew Jackson, many in Congress and the bulk of the population at large. Few were apologetic, believing that the tribes and their homes were obstacles to the spread of a superior civilization."
Click here for the full article on the Niles Daily Star website
Published July 11th, 2009