Benjamin Fisher and the "Strawtown Massacre"

Has anybody ever heard of Benjamin Fisher and the "Strawtown Massacre?" It happened in Strawtown, Indiana, just north of Noblesville. Quite an intriguing story.

 "Mr. and Mrs. Benjamin Fisher, from Clermont County, Ohio, in June of 1820...in a wagon came to Indiana.  They drove through Winchester to Anderson, Indiana, the latter place being then merely an Indian Village, with no white people living there.  The old chief Anderson, for whom the town was named, was living there at the time.

    "They drove down the river...between Perkinsville and Strawtown and there settled in a round log cabin 16 feet square, in which was no floor but the dirt.

    "In Strawtown...was one white family named Shintapper.  This man kept liquor to sell to the Indians and when they bought the liquor and got drunk Shintapper would abuse them.  He had a great fireplace in which logs six feet long could be burned and he once threw an Indian on this fire where he was burned to death.  At another time he burned one until he was crippled afterwards.

    "By such treatment the Indians were justly incensed and determined to be revenged and so ten of them went one day armed with their knives and tomahawks, intending to kill Shintapper when no one was about.

    "That same day--in March, 1821--Benjamin Fisher, John Colip, and Jacob Hiers happened to go to Shintappers to grind their axes, he being the only one in that settlement who owned a grindstone.  They had not been there long before the Indians arrived.  Of course they could not stand by and see Shintapper killed so undertook to defend him.

    "There was a five-rail fence around the cabin, outside of which were the Indians and inside were the white men. ... The battle then continued as at first, the red men retreating and the white men chasing them, then in turn being chased back.  Finally one Indian hit Shintapper with a club and knocked him down, then jumped on the fence to get inside.  At this Hiers struck the Indian on the head and killed him...Then the battle waged fiercer than ever.  But when retreating from the Indians Benjamin Fisher fell and was at once tomahawked by the Indians, who then gathered up their dead Indians and went away.  Mr. Fisher was not scalped as some accounts have stated but from the pieces of skull (now in possession of [son] Charles Fisher) it is evidenced that he was truck several times with the tomahawk.

    "That same night Shintapper loaded his goods in a canoe and with his wife and child went down White River and was never heard of again.  Benjamin Fisher was buried at Strawtown near where he was killed. His was the first grave in what is now known as Strawtown Cemetery."

http://www.cemeteries-madison-co-in.com/stonycreek_twp.htm