Editing Connersville, Indiana (section)

===Whitewater Valley and pre-European inhabitants===
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The [[Whitewater River (Great Miami River tributary)|Whitewater River]] valley running north-south through eastern Indiana and southwestern Ohio was created by the Late [[Wisconsin Glaciation]] ending 13,600 years ago. Fayette County was at the southern fringe of the glaciation at that time. The Ice Age was punctuated by several prolonged warm periods during which the glaciers disappeared entirely from the temperate latitudes and a climate similar to modern times or even warmer prevailed. The flood waters produced resulted in lakes; breaching of the lakes resulted in rivers and streams carving its hills and valleys.

In the [[Northwest Territory]] during the latter half of the 18th century, the [[Miami people|Miami Indians]] were dominant in the region, but the [[Potawatomi]] and [[Shawnee]] had a significant presence. [[Delaware Indians]], displaced from their eastern homelands by European settlement, migrated west and settled along the forks of the Whitewater River. The Whitewater and [[Ohio River]] valleys had also been inhabited earlier by other Native Americans called [[mound builders]] for their characteristic large burial mounds still in evidence.

The geological aspects of the Whitewater River Valley contributed to early settlement after defeat of the Delaware Indians by General [[Anthony Wayne]] at [[Battle of Fallen Timbers|Fallen Timbers]] in 1794, followed on August 3, 1795, by the [[Treaty of Greenville]] ceding most of Ohio and a sliver of southeastern Indiana to the United States. The valley, running south and southeasterly from east central Indiana to the Ohio River Valley, provided a convenient conduit for migration through [[Fort Washington (Cincinnati, Ohio)|Fort Washington]] (Cincinnati) from points east, settlements on the [[Ohio River]], and settlers from Kentucky to northern and central Indiana Territory. Squatters engaged in agriculture and trading were occupying federal lands well before land sales in [[Indiana Territory]] began in 1801. An Indian trail paralleled the river from the Ohio Valley northward to the forks, then went along the East Fork to Eli Creek, thence taking a northwesterly direction passing through what was later Connersville, and then on to the Delaware villages strung along the [[White River (Indiana)|White River]] from north of modern-day Indianapolis to modern [[Muncie, Indiana|Muncie]].