Our Family Tree

page 442 - 443
"The first white settlement was made in the Miami bottom in the years 1817 and 1818, and the names of the settlers, as I now recollect, were William McMahan, Thomas Clemens, John Cook, Samuel Perry and Henry Ferril, most of whom were from Kentucky. (This was before I was born, and I only state what I have heard from my parents). These were farmers, but furnished their families with meat mostly by hunting. Henry Ferril and John Ferril, his father, frequently went on trapping expeditions for beaver, some years previous to that date, from Howard county, and also on hunting expeditions after buffalo and elk, and would go as high up the Missouri river as Kansas river, and up it some distance, and other parties sometimes went with them. They had no trouble with the Indians after 1818. The Shawnees and some other tribes frequently came through this part of the country, up to 1836, but were friendly. I have frequently seen the Shawnees and 'my father, Henry Ferril, go on a [page 443] bear chase together. I have also seen the Shawnees and whites practice rifle-shooting at a mark together. The old hunters among the whites could generally beat them at the target, but the Indians could generally beat the ordinary farmer and hunter."