In its fledgling years, the community of Gosport, Owen County, sitting on a bluff above White River, served as a flatboating port. It was named for Ephraim Goss an early settler whose land bumped into the line of an 1809 Indian treaty which created the then northern border of what would become Indiana in l8l6. William Henry Harrison negotiated with the people of the Delaware, Miami, Eel River, and Potawatomi for 29,719,530 acres.
Women of the Gosport Fortnightly Club, organized in 1904, began the Ten O’Clock Line Treaty Museum and have sponsored it for more than half a century. Opening for the 2023 season on April l4, the museum is housed in a former church and contains Gosport and surrounding environs memorabilia and an extensive genealogy collection. Gosport is the only town located on the treaty line.
This year the museum will shine some light on T. C. Steele whose great-grandfather, Ninian Steele, a Revolutionary War veteran, bought 160 acres on April 21, 1817, and whose grandfather James bought the same amount the following May. T. C. Steele was indeed born on family land.
The Steeles migrated from Washington county where they had experienced an Indian attack in 1812 at the same time as the infamous Pigeon Roost massacre in southern Indiana.
Steele’s father Samuel provided a needed service to the area as a harness. and saddle maker before moving his family to Waveland. While one biographer believed all the Steele relatives had moved on from Owen County, there are many there who can proudly claim kinship with the Hoosier artist.
The museum at 19 N. 4th Street in Gosport is open Fridays from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. and Saturdays from 9 a.m. to 1:00 p.m.
The museum maintains only Facebook and the site is referred to as Gosport History Museum. To keep up with their latest news, follow them by clicking the icon below: