Pigeon Roost Massacre

Pigeon Roost State Historic Site is located between Scottsburg and Henryville, Indiana, near Underwood, Indiana. A one-lane road off U.S. Route 31 takes the visitor to the site of a village where Indians massacred 24 settlers shortly after the War of 1812 began.

Pigeon Roost was established in 1809 by William E. Collings (1758-1828), and consisted mainly of settlers from Kentucky. Collings and his large family held the original land grants in what is now Nelson County, Kentucky, signed by the Governor of Virginia, Patrick Henry. These land grants were deemed illegal. After passage of the Northwest Ordinance, many squatters moved across the Ohio River and illegally occupied Shawnee lands in southern Indiana. Families living in what is today Scott, Clark, Jefferson and Washington Counties still can often trace their ancestry back to these early settlers.

The town was named Pigeon Roost because of the great number of passenger pigeons in the area. The settlement consisted of a single line of cabins stretching north and south approximately one mile north of the present town of Underwood. The nearest Indian village was located some 20 miles north near the Muskatatuck River. None of the Indians from this settlement are believed to have taken part in the attack on Pigeon Roost. The closest forts (called "blockhouses") were one to the north in Vienna in present-day Scott County and another built by Zebulon Collings to the south near what is now Henryville in Clark County.

On September 3, 1812, a war party of Native Americans (mostly Shawnee, but possibly including some Delawares and Potawatomis) made a surprise attack on the village, coordinated with attacks on Fort Harrison (near Terre Haute, Indiana) and Fort Wayne the same month. Twenty-four settlers, including fifteen children, were massacred. Two children were kidnapped. Only four of the Indian attackers were killed.

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