Jonathan Lindley (1756–1828) was an 18th-century member of the North Carolina legislature, land speculator, and one of the original settlers of

Orange County, Indiana Orange County is located in southern Indiana in the United States. As of 2020, its population was 19,867. The county seat is Paoli. The county has four incorporated settlements with a total population of about 8,600, as well as several small u ...

Early years in North Carolina

Lindley was born in

Alamance County, North Carolina Alamance County (), from the North Carolina Collection's website at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Retrieved September 18, 2012. is a county in North Carolina. As of the 2020 census, the population was 171,415. Its county seat ...

(then still part of Orange County) on June 15, 1756, to Thomas and Ruth Lindley, Quaker immigrants from

County Wicklow, Ireland County Wicklow ( ; ga, Contae Chill Mhantáin ) is a county in Ireland. The last of the traditional 32 counties, having been formed as late as 1606, it is part of the Eastern and Midland Region and the province of Leinster. It is bordered by t ...

. The Lindleys had first lived in

Chester County, Pennsylvania Chester County (Pennsylvania Dutch language, Pennsylvania Dutch: ''Tscheschter Kaundi''), colloquially known as Chesco, is a County (United States), county in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. It is located in the De ...

, but moved to the

Piedmont it, Piemontese , population_note = , population_blank1_title = , population_blank1 = , demographics_type1 = , demographics1_footnotes = , demographics1_title1 = , demographics1_info1 = , demographics1_title2 ...

region of

North Carolina North Carolina () is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States. The state is the 28th largest and 9th-most populous of the United States. It is bordered by Virginia to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the east, Georgia and So ...

, where they settled on Cane Creek, a tributary of the

Haw River The Haw River is a tributary of the Cape Fear River, approximately 110 mi (177 km) long, that is entirely contained in north central North Carolina in the United States. It was first documented as the "Hau River" by John Lawson, an E ...

, near the town of

Saxapahaw Saxapahaw ()
from the North Carolina Collection's website at the

at a spot later known as Lindley's Mill. The

Battle of Lindley's Mill The Battle of Lindley's Mill (also known as the Battle of Cane Creek) took place in Orange County, North Carolina (now in Alamance County), on September 13, 1781, during the American Revolutionary War. The battle took its name from a mill that sat ...

, fought between Loyalists and Patriot militias on Thomas Lindley's property, was the last battle of the Revolutionary War in North Carolina. According to family tradition, Thomas Lindley died the following day from the shock of the battle waged on his land. Like many North Carolina families, the Lindleys were torn apart by the war. Jonathan's brother James, who was twenty years older and had settled in upcountry

South Carolina )''Animis opibusque parati'' ( for, , Latin, Prepared in mind and resources, links=no) , anthem = " Carolina";" South Carolina On My Mind" , Former = Province of South Carolina , seat = Columbia , LargestCity = Charleston , LargestMetro = ...

, served as a prominent

Loyalist Loyalism, in the United Kingdom, its overseas territories and its former colonies, refers to the allegiance to the British crown or the United Kingdom. In North America, the most common usage of the term refers to loyalty to the British Cro ...

militia captain. James Lindley was taken prisoner at the Battle of Ninety-Six and executed for treason in the battle's aftermath. James' son William, of Chatham County, commanded Loyalist militia during the battle waged at his grandfather's mill. After the British evacuated Wilmington, William Lindley headed west to the Blue Ridge Mountains with the brutal Loyalist Colonel David Fanning, and was then murdered by Loyalist deserters in January 1782 at the Watauga settlement in eastern

Tennessee Tennessee ( , ), officially the State of Tennessee, is a landlocked state in the Southeastern region of the United States. Tennessee is the 36th-largest by area and the 15th-most populous of the 50 states. It is bordered by Kentucky to th ...

. (Fanning claimed that William Lindley was "cut to pieces with their swords" and personally tracked down two of the assassins and hanged them.) Jonathan Lindley went into the lumbering and turpentine business, speculating in wilderness acreage in central North Carolina. He quickly became one of the leading men and merchants of the area. In 1786, Lindley served in the North Carolina General Assembly at Hillsborough, also participating in the state convention that ratified the U.S. Constitution in 1788. Lindley was among the North Carolinians who insisted on amendments to the original Federal constitution, which resulted in the

Bill of Rights A bill of rights, sometimes called a declaration of rights or a charter of rights, is a list of the most important rights to the citizens of a country. The purpose is to protect those rights against infringement from public officials and pri ...

. He also supported the creation of the

University of North Carolina The University of North Carolina is the multi-campus public university system for the state of North Carolina. Overseeing the state's 16 public universities and the NC School of Science and Mathematics, it is commonly referred to as the UNC Sy ...

, the first public university in the United States. The school was built on a hill near a chapel not far from Lindley's own property, a spot later called

Chapel Hill Chapel Hill or Chapelhill may refer to: Places Antarctica * Chapel Hill (Antarctica) Australia *Chapel Hill, Queensland, a suburb of Brisbane *Chapel Hill, South Australia, in the Mount Barker council area Canada * Chapel Hill, Ottawa, a neighbo ...

. As a Quaker with anti-slavery convictions, Lindley introduced several bills to curb slavery, one of which called for an end to the importation of slaves from Africa to North Carolina, a crucial first step toward

abolition Abolition refers to the act of putting an end to something by law, and may refer to: * Abolitionism, abolition of slavery * Abolition of the death penalty, also called capital punishment * Abolition of monarchy *Abolition of nuclear weapons *Abol ...

. The slave trade in North Carolina was outlawed in 1794, partly through Lindley's efforts, though slavery itself survived until the

Civil War A civil war or intrastate war is a war between organized groups within the same state (or country). The aim of one side may be to take control of the country or a region, to achieve independence for a region, or to change government policies ...

. Lindley left the General Assembly in 1805.

Settling in Indiana

As new land in the

Midwest The Midwestern United States, also referred to as the Midwest or the American Midwest, is one of four Census Bureau Region, census regions of the United States Census Bureau (also known as "Region 2"). It occupies the northern central part of ...

was opened to settlement, land-hungry Quakers – often motivated by their ideals regarding slavery – began to move out of the "Quaker Belt" of the South. By 1808, Jonathan Lindley had already been considering a move west from North Carolina. As a successful landowner and lumber merchant, he was not motivated by the slavery issue alone. The Midwest's unbroken forests were primarily what attracted him north.

Indiana Territory The Indiana Territory, officially the Territory of Indiana, was created by a United States Congress, congressional act that President of the United States, President John Adams signed into law on May 7, 1800, to form an Historic regions of the U ...

attracted many Southerners, in large part due to the

Northwest Ordinance The Northwest Ordinance (formally An Ordinance for the Government of the Territory of the United States, North-West of the River Ohio and also known as the Ordinance of 1787), enacted July 13, 1787, was an organic act of the Congress of the Co ...

of 1787, which radically simplified land titles and helped owners secure a clear legal hold on their property. This appealed to settlers from the South, where deeding new land had grown complicated and often led to protracted, even violent, disputes. Lindley and his son Zachariah traveled overland to Indiana Territory in 1808 to prospect for land. Lindley was mesmerized by Indiana's old-growth woodlands. He purchased large tracts of land along the

Wabash River The Wabash River ( French: Ouabache) is a U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map accessed May 13, 2011 river that drains most of the state of Indiana in the United States. It flows fro ...

in present-day Parke County and initially intended to establish a Quaker colony near

Fort Harrison Fort Harrison, later renamed Fort Burnham, was an important component of the Confederate defenses of Richmond during the American Civil War. Named after Lieutenant William Harrison, a Confederate engineer, it was the largest in the series of fort ...

, just north of the future site of

Terre Haute Terre Haute ( ) is a city in and the county seat of Vigo County, Indiana, United States, about 5 miles east of the state's western border with Illinois. As of the 2010 census, the city had a population of 60,785 and its metropolitan area had a ...

. (In 1816, Lindley was still the largest stockholder in Abraham Markle's "Terre Haute Company," which platted the town in 1821. Some sources cite him as a founder of Terre Haute.) Zachariah Lindley had established a grist mill on Lick Creek, in the limestone uplands forty miles northwest of Louisville, near what became Paoli, Indiana. Jonathan Lindley returned from North Carolina in 1811 with around twenty families. At least eleven of these families were "free colored," descendants of Africans and

Lumbee The Lumbee are a Native American people primarily centered in Robeson, Hoke, Cumberland and Scotland counties in North Carolina. They also live in surrounding states and Baltimore, Maryland. The Lumbee Tribe of North Carolina is a state-recog ...

, a Native American tribe in southeastern North Carolina. (The Lumbee often married African Americans and thus came to be classified as "colored" by the state.) Increasingly stripped of their rights by the

Black Codes The Black Codes, sometimes called the Black Laws, were laws which governed the conduct of African Americans (free and freed blacks). In 1832, James Kent (jurist), James Kent wrote that "in most of the United States, there is a distinction in re ...

in the

antebellum Antebellum, Latin for "before war", may refer to: United States history * Antebellum South, the pre-American Civil War period in the Southern United States ** Antebellum Georgia ** Antebellum South Carolina ** Antebellum Virginia * Antebellum ar ...

South, free blacks had compelling reasons to leave and often resettled near Quakers when they moved to the Midwest. Originally intending to settle in the Wabash Valley, Lindley's settlers (numbering 218 people) were turned back by the outbreak of conflict between Tecumseh's

Shawnee The Shawnee are an Algonquian-speaking indigenous people of the Northeastern Woodlands. In the 17th century they lived in Pennsylvania, and in the 18th century they were in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana and Illinois, with some bands in Kentucky a ...

Confederation and the Indiana militia led by Territorial Governor

William Henry Harrison William Henry Harrison (February 9, 1773April 4, 1841) was an American military officer and politician who served as the ninth president of the United States. Harrison died just 31 days after his inauguration in 1841, and had the shortest pres ...

. Turned away from the Wabash Valley, Jonathan Lindley and his family lived first near

Richmond, Indiana Richmond is a city in eastern Wayne County, Indiana. Bordering the state of Ohio, it is the county seat of Wayne County and is part of the Dayton, OH Metropolitan Statistical Area In the 2010 census, the city had a population of 36,812. Situa ...

, then purchased land at Lick Creek in what was later christened

, after his North Carolina birthplace. (Lick Creek itself was apparently named for a tributary of the

near the old Lindley Mill in

Chatham County, North Carolina Chatham County ( )
, from the North Carolina Collection's website at the

Hoosier National Forest The Hoosier National Forest is a property managed by the United States Forest Service in the hills of southern Indiana. Composed of four separate sections, it has a total area of . Hoosier National Forest's headquarters are located in Bedford, w ...

. This settlement is also often referred to as "Lick Creek" or "Little Africa" and was abandoned by the early 20th century. In 1814, Lindley became an Indiana territorial court judge. He was a member of

Indiana House of Representatives The Indiana House of Representatives is the lower house of the Indiana General Assembly, the state legislature of the U.S. state of Indiana. The House is composed of 100 members representing an equal number of constituent districts. House memb ...

from 1816 to 1817, where he served on a committee to locate a spot for a state university (at that time called Indiana Seminary) in Bloomington. Lindley thus played a role in founding both the University of North Carolina and

Indiana University Indiana University (IU) is a system of public universities in the U.S. state of Indiana. Campuses Indiana University has two core campuses, five regional campuses, and two regional centers under the administration of IUPUI. *Indiana Universit ...

. He died in

Orange County Orange County most commonly refers to: *Orange County, California, part of the Los Angeles metropolitan area Orange County may also refer to: U.S. counties *Orange County, Florida, containing Orlando *Orange County, Indiana *Orange County, New ...

on April 5, 1828. His interment was at Old Lick Creek Quaker Cemetery, along U.S. 150 in Chambersburg, Indiana. The Thomas Elwood Lindley House in Paoli was owned by Jonathan Lindley's son and was built in 1869 on land deeded to him in 1812. In 1974, the house was given to the Orange County Historical Society and is often open to visitors.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Lindley, Jonathan 1756 births 1828 deaths People from Alamance County, North Carolina People of colonial North Carolina American people of Anglo-Irish descent Orange County, Indiana Burials in Indiana Loyalists in the American Revolution from North Carolina