72                  HISTORY OF CLAY COUNTY

proved by confining the course and flow of the stream within a walled
channel. This stream is to be henceforth controlled and restrained by
similar improvements.
    Aside from Eel river, Birch creek is the historic stream of the county,
having contributed as a feeder to the Wabash and Erie canal. and having
been, also, the scene of the Reservoir war, on the banks of which was
encamped, in June, 1855, the army of occupation.
    There were several mills of the crude, corn-cracking kind on this
creek in pioneer times. James Green is said, traditionally, to have built
and operated the first one, as early, perhaps, as 1832 or 1833. of which the
location is not given. At some time prior to 1840 George Zenor built a
mill on the east bank of the creek. just below the cemetery at the present
iron bridge crossing of the stream, less than a half mile east of Prairie
City, In 1846 Elijah Drake rented this mill, operating it several years.
when Thomas Gibbons bought the machinery and moved it about a half
mile north, locating it on the west branch, just above the confluence of the
three streams, where it was operated until at some time in the '50s. Some
years later this mill and the grounds on which it was located came into
possession of Joseph Lenhart, who established and conducted a brewery
there at the time of the Civil war. About the year 1850, James and Madi-
son Norton constructed a little mill a mile or more below this point, near
the Kintzley crossing of the creek, now known as Vandalia station, on the
Brazil branch of the E. & I. Railroad, Which, later on was known as the
Joe Crise mill, operated up to the time of the Civil war. The principal
branches of Birch creek are Wolf creek from the east and Brush creek
from the west. The former rises in the south part of Jackson township.
is crossed by the old Bowling Green-Brazil road, two miles northwest of
Center Point, very near the former Amos Hedge residence, now that of
A. H. Wright, and flows into Birch at a point a half mile south of Prairie
City. The latter rises in the east part of Perry township, flowing eastward
and emptying very near Saline City, within the area of the canal feeder,
so named from the thickets of underbrush through which it meanders.
Birch Creek valley is wider and the surface of the lands bordering upon
it less broken and milder than those of Jordan, Six Mile and Croy’s Creek.
The valley of this stream is frequently flooded by sudden rises, as the
middle and lower courses are sluggish. In very dry seasons this creek
sometimes ceases to flow.
    Splunge Creek rises in Vigo county, flowing eastward, in the main,
across the old reservoir grounds, crossing the line into Clay county a
mile or more west of the foot of the Old Hill, at which point it empties
into Eel river. This, too, is an historic stream, the Wabash & Erie canal
feeder constructed here covering an area of four thousand acres of land,
for the period of eighteen years, much of which is now in cultivation.
    Splunge creek, more properly Plunge creek, was so named circum-
stantially. One of the earliest merchants of Rockville, whose name was
Dunkin Dorrow, who made periodical trips to Louisville, on horseback,
to buy goods, on his return home, once upon a time, on reaching the banks
of the stream, found it much swollen from recent rainfalls and, by some
mistake, missed the regular fording place, plunging headlong over his
horse into the current, making a narrow escape with his life.
    Whether any name had been given this stream previous to this time
is unknown, but from his experience the then merchant prince of Parke