Busseron Creek

Template:Use mdy dates Template:Template other Busseron Creek is a long creek that runs south-westward through Sullivan County, Indiana and Knox County, Indiana and that is a tributary of the Wabash River.Template:Sfn

Old Busseron Creek enters the Wabash at and is the old course of the creek before it was re-routed and straightened for flood control purposes,Template:Sfn leaving (but not connecting to) the new course at having to that point run beside the current Busseron over several meanders, the re-routing having left behind several oxbow lakes, from headwaters at .

Hydrology

The following gaging stations are located on the Creek:

Location	Coordinates	Drainage area	Datum (above mean sea level)	Source
Sullivan County, bridge on CR900N west of Hymera				Template:Sfn
Sullivan County, bridge on SH44 upstream from the mouth of West Fork and west of Hymera				Template:Sfn
Sullivan County, bridge on SR54 upstream of Buttermilk Creek				Template:Sfn

Tributaries of Busseron Creek in Sullivan include Mud Creek, Sulfur Creek and Buttermilk Creek.Template:Sfn Out of their combined drainage area of , just over had been surface mined, and damaged by improper reclamation, by the early 1970s.Template:Sfn

Settlement

West Union

The Creek was settled by Quakers in July 1813, the settlement at its largest comprising and about 400 people.Template:Sfn They founded a town named West Union (sometimes known as Shakertown or BusroTemplate:Sfn) that included a wooden-frame Friends meeting place.Template:Sfn Most of the buildings in town were finished with walnut, except for one communal brick brick residence for prayer meetings and containing dormitories on four storeys for 60 people, that was torn down in the 19th century.Template:Sfn

They raised livestock, including cattle and sheep, and were in horticulture, having a fruit orchard.Template:Sfn On the Creek itself they built a water-powered sawmill and a water-powered grist mill, and they manufactured lumber of cedar and walnut.Template:Sfn There was some silk manufacturing with a cocoonery.Template:Sfn

Busserons

There were two planned settlements named Busseron near to the Creek that failed to become reality, one in Knox and one in Sullivan.

The Busseron in Knox County, located at , was surveyed by George Calhoun in 1854.Template:Sfn W. W. Harper, J. A. McClure and T. P. Emison were proprietors.Template:Sfn It was a railroad stop on the Evansville & Terre Haute Railroad but had never got beyond being simply a railroad station, although twenty lots each 100 feet square had been laid out, by 1886.Template:Sfn

The proprietors of the Busseron in Sullivan County were James B. McCall and James Dunkin.Template:Sfn Originally, according to its 1815-06-21 advertisement by their agent David Porter, it was going to be named Indiana and had "12 lots in a square" and was north of Vincennes.Template:Sfn It was advertised as being within of the West Union mills.Template:Sfn This was one of several failed proposals for where the Knox county seat was to be.Template:Sfn The area, clearly only a land speculation, was put up for sale for delinquency on taxes on 1818-01-17.Template:Sfn

"Old Purchase"

Another mill, in Sullivan, was Ledgerwood's Mill, which with an accompanying of land was put up for sale by William Ledgerwood on 1814-06-03.Template:Sfn This was part of the "Old Purchase", lands ceded by the Native Americans to the French in 1742 and confirmed by a treaty of 1803, and the first settled parts of Sullivan County.Template:Sfn The family of James Ledgerwood was the first significant settler in the area, and they settled on the parts of the Creek that are in Sullivan and those that were separated off in 1808 to become Busseron Township in Knox.Template:Sfn

Others

The grist mill to the south-east of Hymera (somewhere around ) erected in 1829 was on the Creek.Template:Sfn

References

Bibliography

• (Template:HathiTrust Catalog)
• (Template:Trim A History of Sullivan County, Indiana at the Internet Archive Template:HathiTrust Catalog)
• (Template:HathiTrust Catalog)