Michael Downing by W. D. Ritter

In all wars a soldier, in peace an honorable, useful citizen, was born of Scotch-Irish parents, in Ireland, in the decade of the fifties of the last century. He emigrated from Cork, Ireland, to Virginia in time of the Revolutionary war. He was in the springtime of early youth and he felt as had his fathers for ages the grinding heel of oppression from the British government. In the long past they had no chance to help themselves. Now he might strike for God and home and the common rights of humanity.

He enlisted in a Virginia regiment, marched, toiled , suffered and fought seven weary years against that flag "that for a thousand years had braved the battle and the breeze".

From the nest that can now be learned it seems that he was under General Wayne. No particulars are known of his long career as a soldier in the Revolution. We only know he was a gallant, efficient, useful man in it.

When the blood and darkness had passed he put his hand to useful, honorable industry. In no act did these matchless heroes more show their real manhood than when the they laid down their arms and walked the long lonely journey to their desolate homes, with not even money to pay for a night’s lodging – to beg their way, to work their way or starve their way, just as they could.

Mr. Downing was a home and family man in peace, and in war was a soldier. To have a home was what great numbers had left all in the old world for. Just when Mr. Downing married cannot be told. The Revolution ended early in the eighties of the seventeenth century. Early in the nineties occurred Harmer’s defeat here in the northwest. He was in that, for as long as he was able, whenever he had a chance, he was in the army of his adopted country manfully fighting the old, hated oppressor.

Harmer and St. Clair both having been beaten by the Indians under British encouragement, Washington appointed Wayne to command in the northwest. With the stern joy that warriors feel Mr. Downing marched under his old, trusted, loved commander of the Revolution – "Mad Anthony", as he was called. All this my father told his children when Mr. Downing passed his house on his way to his son’s (ANDREW DOWNING) in 1832.

The Indians were behind the fallen trees blown down by a hurricane, which gave the name Fallen Timbers. They supposed the Whites would just be good enough to stand and be shot.

As quick as charge as possible was ordered. The logs were mounted, the Indians were vey still behind them; there they got the bayonet. The some setting up and running took place by the survivors, and the got the bullet. Forward through that old forest went our army, and when the foe was driven out of it the victory was complete. One may imagine how so splendid a veteran as Mr. Downing, every fiber of soul and body ablaze with battle, would bear himself through such a bayonet rush as that.

So far the dates of all his service are known to all. After this he is known to have been long a soldier along the frontier on the Ohio River as well as being, as we are caused to believe, five years in the regular army, taking in the War of 1812. Now which of these took place first we do not know.

At Fort Massac, on the Ohio River, in what is now Illinois, below the mouth of the Tennessee River, he was on duty; how long is not known. From there he carried the mail afoot and alone through the wilderness, likely to the falls of the Ohio, now to Louisville. The lonely, dangerous journey, the slow hours of night as they passed over the silent man in his solitary bivouac, the writer never passed Fort Massac without trying to imagine.

Through the War of 1812, from what little we know, it seems he was in the regular army. Of his service in that war we have no particulars. It is only known that eleven years of his life ere spent in the tented field, and whether longer is not known. This is the longest soldierly career in actual war of any man who ever lived in Green county. In 1818, on the Kanawaha River in West Virginia, he embarked his family on a flatboat and came to Louisville. From there he came by land to Washington county, Indiana, where my father knew him; settled on Walnut Ridge; lived there until 1832, when he came to Bloomfield; lived there some years, then went to Jackson county, where in, 1852, he passed from earth. In. that year a land warrant was issued to him by the government for one hundred and sixty acres. His children were JOHN ANDREW, so long a very energetic citizen of Bloomfield, having built and operated the Richland furnace, built the old brick court house and jail and many other buildings and was part owner of the steamboat - "Richland". AUL, the great flatboat pilot’ ALBERT and GALLATIN (twins) and PEGGY.

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Biographical Memoirs of Greene County, Ind. With Reminiscences of Pioneer Days, Illustrated (1908, B. F. Bowen & Co. Indianapolis, Indiana) Vol. 1 Pg. 110-4