John Ketcham (Indiana surveyor)

Colonel John Ketcham (September 10, 1782 – February 5, 1865) was an American surveyor, building contractor and judge.

[1] The founding father of Brownstown, Indiana, Ketcham was famed for his military escapades against Native Americans.

Though Ketcham's father was presented with 1,400 acres of land by the government in Shelby County, Kentucky, the family struggled financially.

Daniel claimed his captors forced him through many hardships, namely carrying a full pack while marching through the wilds and fording rivers.

Allegedly, the group came to a large camp near Detroit, Michigan, where Daniel was kept prisoner until, one day, his captors led him to a stake where a fire had been prepared.

He was blackened and made ready to die in the fire when a maiden decorated with "fully 500 silver broaches", came forth, denouncing the group and taking Daniel for herself.

His wife, when he had been captured, kept the neighbors from pursuing the group lest Daniel be the victim of a tomahawk death, because she believed that God would bring him back to her.

[6][7] From 1809-1818, fighting Native Americans was almost an everyday occurrence for the settlers in South Central Indiana, in attempts to claim the area.

In my first month's service I killed and scalped an Indian, was very proud of it, got leave to go home and show it to Daddy and Mama.

Constant harassment was given the settlers with occasional killing and horse thievery being committed by the Natives, but no large battles occurred at that time.

Once, upon discovering some Native Americans attempting to steal horses, the settlers gave pursuit to John Ketcham while directing the chase when shot.

He was a ranger in the militia and received a dollar a day in pay, "sustaining himself" as he put it, which meant finding his own food and clothes.

In 1818, Colonel Ketcham moved to Monroe County, Indiana six or seven miles (11 km) from Bloomington near Victor and Harrodsburg.

In 1836, Colonel Ketcham was named one of General Andrew Jackson's electors for the Presidential election of that year.

Stone used in the chapel was quarried from Colonel Ketcham's original farm to make the project more realistic.

Colonel Ketcham and a co-worker established a Methodist religious school on grounds at the south end of College Avenue in Bloomington.

The fictional Ketcham is cited as a reason why the house at 112 Ocean Avenue is haunted and why Ronald DeFeo Jr. killed his family.

This Ketcham caricature in the 1979 and 2005 films was said to have killed multiple Native Americans and himself in a secret part of the house in the basement.

The real Ketcham is not known to have been to either Salem, Massachusetts nor Amityville, New York and was born more than a century after the character in the book was said to have lived.