Indiana
Spirit Quest:
Offield Monument
An Indiana Spirit
Quest is generally a cemetery (it can be other things pioneer)
that holds pieces of our history and heritage. It leads us to the
pioneers who settled here, the people who fought the wars at home
and away; to the children who never had a chance and are the
reminders to be thankful for all that modern medicine gives us. A
spirit quest cache takes us to peaceful,quiet places and hopefully
it give us some history that we never knew we wanted to
know.
This is one of those places that shows us
pioneer spirit that isn't a cemetery.
In October
1881 this monument was erected by Sidney Speed to honor and
recognize William Offield who died in Oregon earlier in the
year.
In 1821,
William Offield built a cabin on a creek, (later known as Offield's
Creek), four miles southwest of the future site of Crawfordsville,
Indiana in an area now known as Balhinch. He and William Miller
were the first two settlers in the area. William Offield was born
24 Mar 1793 in Sullivan County, Tennessee and died about 1881 in
Oregon, USA. He was County Commissioner of Montgomery Country in
1823 and 1824.
"In Feb. of
that year [1821], according to well-authenticated tradition,
William Offield with his wife and one child came from a settlement
on the White river, not far from the present town of Martinsville,
in Morgan co., and settled a few rods from the mouth of the little
stream which flows into Sugar creek, some 5 or 6 miles southwest of
Crawfordsville, and which now bears the name Offield's
creek.
His cabin,
which was only 12 X 15 feet, was on the south side of Sec. 16, T.
18 N., R. 5W. Mr. Offield moved from the settlement on White river
in a single wagon. A son of John Sigler, named Andrew, accompanied
Mr. Offield to Montgomery Co. for the purpose of taking back the
wagon which the latter had borrowed from someone in the White river
settlement to transport his household goods to his new home. The
whole country through which they traveled was covered with
undergrowth, in some places so thick that Mr. Offield had to cut it
out with his axe to enable the wagon to pass. In going down a steep
hill Mr. Offield would construct a brake by cutting down a
bushy-topped sapling, making the butt-end fast to the hind axle of
the wagon and leaving the top to drag on the ground." (much of the
above info was found on Wikipedia)
There was a
cache here 2006-2008. When the cache was archived the owners left
the cache where it was placed. We now have a prime example of
mother nature's ability to ignore our petty containers and grow
with vigor. The old container forever belongs to this walnut(i
think)tree. Since its in a really nice hiding place and we know it
can never get lost we're going to continue to use that container.
Its a preform so its a log only cache. I'm pretty sure I forgot a
FTF prize.