The History of the Faulkenberg Family: Indiana

Victor Faulkenburg’s 1977 research included a 1930 interview with a 90 year old woman named Mary Ellen Esarey Ewing, which was conducted by Professor Logan Esarey. I assume she was either the professor’s aunt or his great aunt, but it doesn’t explicitly say. In the interview, Mrs. Ewing said James Faulkenborough and his wife Barbara were married back in South Carolina. She went on to say that before marrying James, Barbara had had two last names: Black and Flie. She wasn’t sure which was her maiden name and which was her first husband’s name, but she did say that Barbara was a widowed mother before remarrying. Apparently when she and James moved northwest with their oldest daughter Mariah, Barbara left her first child with her mother back in South Carolina never to be seen again. Though for what it’s worth, Barbara did write letters back and forth with her mother and daughter all her life. Mariah Faulkenborough, Barbara’s first child with James, eventually grew up and married a man named Samuel Ewing in Indiana, which probably explains why another Mrs. Ewing remembers so much about James.

The old woman continued, saying she remembered James and Barbara talking about Camden, a town in South Carolina located 28 miles south of the Faulkenburgs’ land along Lynches Creek. She also said she thought the Faulkenburgs (sometimes printed Faulkenboroughs) left South Carolina in 1807 or 1808, and that the couples’ first son William was born in Kentucky before they arrived in Indiana in 1814. I don’t think she has the date of their departure quite right. There is no record of James Faulkenborough (or James Faulkenburg) in Kentucky in 1810, but there is a record of him in South Carolina then. Mrs. Ewing wasn’t born until about 1840, so it’s not too surprising that she would be a few years off here.

At one point or another, probably between 1811 and 1814, James and his family arrived in Meade County, Kentucky with a two-wheel cart and an old mare. They stayed there for a while before eventually crossing over into Indiana in 1814. According to Mrs. Ewing, this occurred in modern day Alton, Indiana where the Little Blue River meets the Ohio. At the time of this journey, Kentucky and Ohio were already states, but Indiana and Illinois were not. According to the official Indiana state website, the Indiana territory was denied statehood in 1811 because its population was below the 35,000 mark. It would still be years before Indianapolis or Chicago were either one so much as a small town, but Indiana did join the Union in 1816. Four years later, when Perry County conducted its first census, they had a total of 2,330 people.

Among that population were James, Barbara, and their first two children. According to Mary Ellen Esarey Ewing, the first Faulkenburg (or Faulkenborough) home in Indiana was a log cabin along Ewing Branch, a creek between modern day Oriole and Branchville about ten miles northwest of the spot where they crossed the Ohio. Here in Perry County, Barbara gave birth to another boy, Littleton Smith Faulkenborough, as well as three more girls, Malinda, Mahalla, and Matilda. In Victor Faulkenburg’s 1977 book, he quotes Thomas de la Hunt’s History of Perry, Spencer and Warrick Counties, which says Matilda’s husband Adam Shoemaker II taught school in Troy, Indiana, where one of his students was Abraham Lincoln. After finding the marriage record of Abe Lincoln’s older sister Sarah in the Perry County files, I have to say I almost fully believe this story. The only exception is that based on their ages, it must have been his father Adam Shoemaker I who had Lincoln as a student. Adam II was several years younger than Lincoln.

On the topic of early schools in southern Indiana, in Perry County, Indiana, a History, author Henry Strobel says Oil Township got its first teacher in 1817. Apparently this man taught day classes for children and night classes for adults. The Faulkenborough family are recorded as some of his first patrons, although it doesn’t specify if they were in day classes, night classes, or both. Strobel also has James and Barbara listed as two of the first eight members of Oil Creek Baptist Church, which was founded in 1851 near Branchville, and the book goes on to say that James was on the first ever grand jury in Perry County.

Probably the best story about James found in this Perry County history book is one that takes place in the dead of winter. As the story goes, James was being followed by nine wolves. In order to reach safety, he ended up shooting a few of them, which resulted in the wolves eating the dead members of the pack instead of our ancestor. By the early 20th century, the Indiana wolf population was totally wiped out. And although this story was first written down around that same time, the events of the story probably take place about 70 or 80 years earlier. So even though you’re much more likely to come across a coyote than a wolf in southern Indiana today, the story as it stands is very plausible. According to Victor, James Faulkenborough was a farmer all his life and remained in Oil Township until his death in 1861.

My grandfather’s great grandfather, James and Barbara’s younger son, was born in 1824. Although his given name was Littleton Smith Faulkenborough, he liked to be called Bob. According to Victor Faulkenburg’s research, his first name was sometimes listed as Robert, and his last name occasionally as “Faulkenberg”. Mrs. Ewing says he was married several times, and that his first wife was a woman named Catherine Shoemaker.

In fact, Perry County marriage records indicate that Littleton and his sister Matilda had a double wedding in February of 1845. Matilda married Adam Shoemaker II that day, and Littleton married his sister Catherine. According to their marriage record, her last name was Beard at the time, so we can probably assume she had been married previously. Catherine died of consumption five years later, and just three months after that, Littleton married a woman named Mary J. Riddle. I don’t know why those two split up, but in August of 1854, Littleton got married for a third time. At the time of this wedding, his bride’s name was Catherine Volz, but her son’s death certificate says her maiden name was “Catherine Clipper”. After much digging, it’s clear the family name was actually Klippert, and all records agree she was born in Germany or “Prussia”. (You can read a full explanation in the Faulkenberg section of my mapped ancestry towards the end.)

Victor says Bob’s first wife gave birth to a boy named Samuel, and his third wife gave birth to another James, as well as Otto and Mary Ann. Bob and his son Samuel apparently both served in the Union Army during the Civil War, and both ended up dying of measles in 1864 at Camp Noble, just across the river from Louisville in New Albany, Indiana. My great great grandfather Otto Faulkenberg was born in 1858, meaning his father and half brother Samuel died before his seventh birthday. So whatever became of Otto?

Well, he did not live a forgettable life. According to the February 17th, 1893 edition of The Indianapolis News, Otto was reported to be the local leader of a group called the Whitecaps, a name that begs an explanation as to whether or not it’s the same thing as the Ku Klux Klan. In a Timeline article, Matt Reimann says, “Whitecapping was a widespread practice of vigilante justice that expanded outward from Indiana in the late 19th century. The moniker derives from the white coverings its bandits would wear on their nocturnal rides.” Apparently in Indiana alone, the Whitecaps lynched 20 black people before the group dissolved shortly after 1910. Reimann goes on to say that at this time, members in many areas ended up joining the Klan, which must have been a smooth transition, between the disguises, the night rides, and the vigilante attitude. 

Otto Faulkenborough/Faulkenberg, circa 1900

So far, this was not the answer I was hoping for. Some of that information might be a little misleading though. The Timeline article also says that about 70% of all people lynched by the Indiana Whitecaps were white and that “the practices and concerns of Whitecaps varied by region. In Indiana, whitecapping took on the more traditional mode of policing morals and behavior… Whitecaps favored whipping as their preferred method of punishment, and most often targeted characters who flouted community standards, such as abusive husbands, the visibly idle, licentious women, petty thieves, and drunkards.” Also, keep in mind that Otto Faulkenberg’s father and half brother were both soldiers in the Union Army when they died.

That’s not to say there wasn’t any Klan activity in a free state like Indiana in the early 20th century; there certainly was. But the Ku Klux Klan has Confederate roots. Plus, Wikipedia’s county by county map of Indiana Klan membership percentage at that time shows very low rates of membership in Perry and Dubois counties. This makes sense considering the significant amount of German and Irish Catholics but lack of a robust black population. The Klan’s anti-Catholic stance would have been enough to deter interest among the Catholics, but the Catholics themselves probably would not have been considered enough of a threat to trigger much Klan activity among the Protestants.

Going back to the 1893 article from The Indianapolis News, it reported that one year prior, Otto and a relative named Lewis Faulkenberg broke down the front door of a man from Branchville named Joseph Underhill with a fence rail before dragging him from his bed and knocking him down with a club. According to the article, it was at this point that Underhill, who is described as “deaf and not especially bright”, got some assistance from his wife when she handed him an ax. Apparently when the Faulkenbergs turned to run, “Underhill struck Lewis Faulkenberg in the back with the ax, crippling him for life. As the white-cappers ran off, they fired a shot-gun, by which Underhill was severely wounded.” Apparently the incident was the result of Underhill accusing Otto of stealing some of his lumber. Otto was sentenced to five years in prison, but Lewis got a fine and probation because of “his youth, his previous good character, and a petition, signed by 167 of the best citizens of Oil township, who regard him as having been the dupe of Otto.”

By 1901, Otto was a free man. According to the August 19th edition of The Indianapolis News, he and David Lamon, two farmers with adjoining land, got into an argument over the placement of a fence. Actually, the article, which describes Otto Faulkenberg as “a noted character”, says there had been a grudge between the two of them for a while. But it was the morning of August 19th that David Lamon ended up shooting Otto with a shotgun. The Indianapolis News reported that Otto Faulkenberg was not expected to live.

But when it comes to the meanest man with the meanest dog in Perry County, expect the unexpected. On January 2nd, 1909, The Troy Times reported a story titled “Christmas Tragedy”. According to the article, Otto and a man named Henry Knight had both been competing in a turkey shoot eight days prior on Christmas evening. Otto complained that a “boy contestant had used a larger shot than had been permitted. (Knight) called him a liar and was immediately shot through the heart.” Henry Knight died instantly, and Otto made his escape “during the excitement” that ensued. When the story was reported eight days later, Otto had not yet been found.

The gun Otto used to shoot Henry Knight

Nor would he be found by law enforcement for another eight years. According to an old, uncredited newspaper clipping from southernindianaconnections.com, the Cannelton marshall and a man named Victor Gelarden hid in Otto’s barn one night in 1917. The next morning when Otto came out to milk, he was finally arrested. However, the stakeout was ultimately in vain as Otto Faulkenberg was acquitted at his trial. In 1926 though, Otto stood trial once again, and this time his case made it all the way to the Indiana Supreme Court. In lower courts, Otto had been convicted of “assault and battery with intent to commit manslaughter” against a man named Emory Rickenbaugh. In April of 1926, the Supreme Court upheld his conviction.

The only other information I can give you about Otto Faulkenberg are a couple of things I’ve heard people say about him over the years - one of them being that he served time in prison at some point for stealing someone’s horse, a charge that my grandpa (Otto’s grandson) vehemently denied. For the record, my grandfather’s name is Henry Otto Faulkenberg. When I asked if his name might have possibly been inspired by Otto Faulkenberg’s reported murder of Henry Knight, my aunt Kathy said she remembered her dad saying he was named after both of his grandfathers, Henry Georges and Otto Faulkenberg. Anyway, there’s also a story of some argument that led to a physical altercation in St. Croix or Branchville, at which point Otto tackled a guy to the ground, supposedly making an imprint in the mud so big that people came all the way from Tell City just to see it.

Marshal Faulkenberg at work with two granddaughters in the foreground

Otto and his wife, whose maiden name was Mary Elizabeth Carr, had two daughters named Rebecca and Bettie and two sons named James and Marshal. My great grandfather Marshal Faulkenberg was born in 1889, exactly a century before I was. (Okay, not exactly a century. He was born on September 17th, and I was born on August 14th.) Not to be confused with Hall of Fame Indianapolis Colts and St. Louis Rams running back Marshall Faulk, my great grandfather married a woman named Rosalia Georges. They had seven children, whose names are Martin, Marie, James, Henry, Irvin, Leonard, and Rose. James and Irvin actually both went by their middle names, Elmer and Lafe respectively - Lafe being short for Lafayette.

My dad and his siblings say they think it was Marshal who changed the spelling of the family name to "Faulkenberg". This is most likely true. His father Otto's name does appear that way in many newspapers and legal documents, but his grave says "Faulkenborough". Anyone spelling it "Faulkenberg" before Marshal came along was probably just writing it how it sounded.