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PUBLIC LIBRARY FORT WAYNE & ALLEN CO., IND,
ALLEN COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY 3 1833 01714 6561
Gc 977.2 C82co Cottman, George S. 1857- 1941. Centennial history and handbook of Indiana
INDIANA
PAST AND PRESENTS
ALAKĘ MICHIGAN
1816
1916
100 YEARS F
PROGRESS
YHÉ
FRAN KLIK
MAP OF INDIANA
SULLIVAN
DEARBORN
rY
KNOX
JEFFERSON
GIBSON
CLARKE
HARRISON
CARRICK PER Y
R
POSEY
OHIO
W.THEITHAN.
1817
DAVIS
NER
-
Centennial History and Handbook of Indiana
The Story of the State from Its Beginning to the Close of the Civil War, and a General Survey of Progress to the Present Time
By GEORGE S. COTTMAN
Founder Indiana Magazine of History
...
A Survey of the State by Counties
Embracing Specific and Local Information with Numerous Illustrations
By MAX R. HYMAN Editor Hyman's Handbook of Indianapolis, Etc.
INDIANAPOLIS MAX R. HYMAN, PUBLISHER NINETEEN FIFTEEN
Allen County Public Library 900 Webster Street PO Box 2270 Fort Wayne, IN 46801-2270
COPYRIGHT 1915 By MAX R. HYMAN, INDIANAPOLIS All rights reserved
THE HOLLENBECK PRESS INDIANAPOLIS
PREFACE
150125
This work, first of all, aims to supply a popular need. The rescuing of history from documentary sources, the seeking of new facts and the discus- sion of debatable questions is a field to which the writer has here given but secondary attention, the plan of the work being purposely different. This plan has been to put into easily available form and in the compass of one volume a wide range of facts, past and present, that will con- vey an intelligent and tolerably complete idea of the story of Indiana and the thread of its devel- opment on which the facts are strung.
These facts have been accumulating in pub- - lished historical material until they are quite suf- ficient to tell the story in all its essentials, but they are in a scattered form, practically inac- cessible except to the student who can search them out from the shelves of the larger libraries. But few existing works aim to cover the history of the State. Of these some are fragmentary, some present but skeleton outlines too meager to impart much information, and none satisfies the repeated demand for a comprehensive reference work. If this volume falls short of such ideal. it can at least be claimed that it is an advance in that direction.
The prime thing in the history of this or any other commonwealth or society, is not a mass of detached facts, however picturesque they may be in the recital. The chief thing of interest is the organic growth and the facts in perspective as revealing that growth. Any stage or condition is but the "balance of preceding forces," and the culminating interest of it all is in the Present, which we sadly need to understand better. With this idea in view the undersigned, in his author- ship of the historical portion of the book, has endeavored so to group his data as to convey a sense of the chronology and development of cause and effect. Those developments since the Civil War period have not been traced historic- ally, as he would wish, but the general survey, dealing with the results of the historic processes is, it may be held, the vital thing.
It may be added, in this connection. that in
filling out his various chapters, the author has drawn freely upon such other writers as have standing, especially those who have made especial studies of the theme in hand. He has taken their reasonable accuracy for granted, and, in most instances, accepted them as reliable. The aim has been to give credit in every case prop- erly calling for it.
The county sketches, compiled by Mr. Hyman. with whom this work originated. constitute an important part of this work, and the more so. because there is a great dearth of comparative in- formation giving the relative standing of the various sections of the State. This treatment of the county units will thus subserve something broader than mere local history.
Not the least interesting feature of this work is the numerous maps and illustrations. These not only depict conditions as they existed at the dawn of the State's history, but will help the reader to a better understanding of present-day developments : revealing to many for the first time, more fully than has heretofore been done in any other work, much that is historie and picturesque within the borders of Indiana.
Among the authorities drawn upon by Mr. Hyman in the preparation of the "Survey of the State by Counties," and to whom especial credit is due for valuable assistance are Jacob Piatt Dunn: Ernest V. Shockley. Ph. D .; De- marchus Brown, State Librarian ; Edward Bar- rett, State Geologist; John I. Hoffmann. . A.s sistant State Superintendent of Public Instruc- tion ; Amos W. Butler, Secretary State Board of Charities and Correction : Eugene C. Shireman. Commissioner of Fisheries : Elijah A. Gladder. Secretary State Board of Forestry: Charles Downing. Secretary State Board of Agriculture. Gilbert Hendren, State Examiner : Edward .\ Perkins, President Industrial Board of Indian and William E. Tuite. Deputy State Statistica
To John H. Holliday. Rowland Evans, Gul ford A. Deitch, Henry Stevenson. Hon. William D. Bynum, Hon. Charles L. Henry. Dr. Sim uel E. Earp and Merica F. Hoagland of Inha
apolis, and to Mrs. M. C. Garber of Madison, Phil McNagny of Columbia City, Ulysses S. Lesh of Huntington, Oscar F. Rakestraw, Editor Angola Republican; Howard Roosa, Editor Er- ansville Courier, and Lyman D. Heavenridge, Editor Owen County Journal, he is indebted for valuable contributions and suggestions.
Interesting and valuable photographs were sup- plied by Addison HI. Nordyke, Dr. Morris Al- brecht, Bert Weedon and Frank M. Hohen- berger of Indianapolis, and William M. Her- schell, of The Indianapolis News and Orra Hop- per, School Superintendent of Washington county, also contributed a valuable collection of photographs of historical points of interest.
The book is from the Hollenbeck Press, and with few exceptions all of the engravings were
made by the Stafford Engraving Company of Indianapolis, from original photographs, many of which were taken by the W. H. Bass Photo Company.
The work, as a whole, has been made possible only .through the generous support given to Mr. Hyman in this undertaking by the people of the State, whose autographs are herein published, and to whom he herewith gives public acknowl- edgment.
This edition is now submitted to the public with the hope that it will be found to be useful as well as interesting, and that its support will necessitate many editions.
GEORGE S. COTTMAN.
Indianapolis, Ind.,
December. 1915.
Corrections and suggestions are invited for future editions. Address all commu- nications to MAX R. HYMAN, Publisher.
CONTENTS
PART I
A HISTORY OF INDIANA BY TOPICS, CHRONOLOGICALLY ARRANGED, FROM THE BEGINNING TO THE CLOSE OF THE CIVIL WAR.
CHAPTER PAGE
I Preliminary-The French Occupancy of the Wabash
Valley . 9
II Acquisition of Our Territory-Story of Clark's Conquest 17
III
The Northwest Territory-Civil Beginnings 35
IV Indiana Territory-Beginnings 41
V The Danger Period-Indian History 57
VI The New State 69
VII The State's Development to 1836 83
VIII The Story of New Harmony 93
IX Internal Improvement Movements Preliminary to Law of 1836 99
X An Experiment in Paternalism 103
XI Other Developments Prior to 1840
107
XII 1840 to 1850-Conditions and Development During Dec- ade . 111
XIII Period from 1850 to 1860 119
XIV The Civil War Period 135
PART II
A GENERAL SURVEY OF INDIANA AS DEVELOPED SINCE THE CIVIL WAR.
XV Conditions Since 1870-General Survey of Period . 153
XVI Natural Resources 169
XVII Manufactures 185
XVIII Agricultural Advancement 187
PART III
A GENERAL SURVEY OF INDIANA BY COUNTIES WITH BRIEF HISTORICAL SKETCHES ALPHABETICALLY ARRANGED.
Population of Incorporated Cities and Towns in Indiana, 1910
454
Addenda General Index
457
461
PART IN
WHO'S WHO IN INDIANA-BRIEF BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES OI PROMINENT MEN AND WOMEN.
PART I
A History of Indiana by Topics, Chronologically Arranged. From the Beginning to the Close of the Civil War.
HISTORICAL.
CHAPTER I
PRELIMINARY-THE FRENCH OCCUPANCY OF THE WABASH VALLEY
Fundamental Factors: Soil, Climate, Stock and National Policy .- A study of the influences that have given direction, shape and character to the history of Indiana carries the inquirer back not only to the beginnings of American history in the Mississippi valley, but to more remote causes. For example, what is the explanation of the phenomenal swiftness (as history goes) with which this valley, one great primeval wilderness but little more than a hundred years ago, has progressed to the high tide of twentieth century civilization ? Obviously, soil, climate, configura- tion and natural features of the country, stock and national policy are all factors which, col- lectively, have wrought results that for expedite- ness and inherent energy hardly find an analogy in the history of the world. A comparison with other continental portions of the globe presents some interesting contrasts. The most striking, perhaps, as presenting differences imposed by the physical basis, is Africa. That vast conti- nent, with its more than ten million square miles, lying contiguous to the older centers of civiliza- tion and itself the seat of the most ancient ones. has, until recent times, remained the "dark con- tinent," and the invasions of the dominant nations have to the present day resulted only in a polyglot group of colonies that are practically
negligible in an estimate of the world's growth Insufficient water supply and vast wastes, tropic heat, fell diseases and ineradicable pests have been effective deterrents to the successful reign of the Caucasian.
If we consider South America. with its zones of climate ranging all the way from the tropics of Brazil to the Antarctic sterility of southern Argentine, and its fertile soils, capable of sup- porting a teeming multitude. we find it, beneath the rule of a Latin race, a congeries of minor nations that seem forever on the border of an- archy. Briefly, the history of South America and that of the United States since the settlement of the two continents largely illustrates the dif- ference in stock.
Australia, with an area almost equal to that of the United States, is little more than one vast barren waste, with a fringe of isolated civilization strung along part of its coasts.
Of Asia, we are told by an authority, "owing to its great extent from east to west the central parts, deprived of moisture, are almost every - where deserts, and a belt around the western, southern and eastern shores comprises nearly all that contributes to the support of man."
This same writer ( Charles Maclaren) pointing out the superior natural advantages of the Amer-
9
10
CENTENNIAL HISTORY AND HANDBOOK OF INDIANA
icas as a seat of civilization, maintains that "the new continent, though less than half the size of the old. contains at least an equal quantity of useful soil and much more than an equal amount of productive power"; and he adds that "Amer- ica is indebted for this advantage to its compara- tively small breadth, which brings nearly all its interior within reach of the fertilizing exhalations of the ocean." This means that the rain supply, which is evaporated from the ocean, reaches these interior parts ; the rain supply, in turn, means a system of well-supplied streams, and they mean, in the first instance, irrigation and vegetation, and in the second, natural routes of travel and transportation that are a great de- termining factor in the distribution of settlers in a new country. Apropos to this, if we study a hydrographic chart of the Mississippi valley showing the numerous streams that ramify far and wide from the great "father of waters" and its larger affluents, and if our imagination adds to these the innumerable creeks that reach out, traversing almost every square mile of the coun- try, what nature has done for the land in this particular becomes apparent.
Closely correlated with the abundant water supply in this favored region is a soil unsur- passed in productiveness and a climate which is at once adapted to a wide range of vegetation and to the stimulation of human energy-a very potent factor in the development of civilization. For variety of productions useful to man perhaps no spot on earth excels the Mississippi valley, and this value is enhanced by the adaptability of the soil to vegetation that is not indigenous, many of our products today being of exotic origin. This fertility and adaptability of the soil, says Livingston Farrand in his "Basis of American History." "must be regarded as among the chief contributing causes to the stupendous growth of the American nation."
The stock that peopled our section has, of course, been an immeasurable factor in the extraordinary development of the country. What self-government is in the hands of an untrained Latin race is demonstrated by South American history. The Anglo-Saxon tide that poured into our middle west after the revolutionary war was not only the offspring of the most staid and substantial race on earth, but it had back of it nearly two centuries of training in self-govern-
ment. It was a race hardy, independent and capable, jealously guarding its institutions and the best that it had inherited politically. Above all, its individuals were ardent lovers of their land and permanent home-makers. Add to this a national policy, evolved through the same peo- ple, that fostered the settlement and development of the public domain along wise lines that had been thought out by some of the most patriotic and most able statesmen of the age, and we have in rough outline the fundamental factors of that particular phase of civilization in which our State shares. To appreciate well the character and meaning of our local history we should consider these antecedent causes explaining the larger his- tory of which we are a part. A long and interest- ing chapter on these preliminaries might well be written, but the aim here is to touch upon them in a cursory way only, as an introduction to our nearer theme.
THE FRENCH PERIOD
Relation of the French to Our History .- The French occupancy of the Mississippi valley, last- ing nearly a century, or from the time of the explorations of La Salle and Joliet till the French and Indian war, is for the most part, as a tale that is told, with little permanent sequence. This is true of the. early invasion of the Wabash valley, and while French life there, from the establishment of the first posts in the first half of the eighteenth century till the American in- vasion early in the nineteenth, affords a pic- turesque and romantic preliminary chapter to our history, it can scarcely be called an integral part of it, and its influence in modifying our develop- ment is scarcely appreciable. The story of Indiana as a State is a story of Americanized Anglo-Saxon stock pure and simple. The iso- lated, straggling French life, little ethnological fragments, as it were, left stranded here far from their kind, was not strong enough to tincture the incoming population with that wonderful French race persistence that is notable in Canada, and in short time they were incontinently swallowed up.
It can be said, however, that the previous French settlement at Vincennes determined the starting point of the American occupancy, and the beginning place of Indiana politics. The treaty of Greenville, in 1795, secured from the
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12
CENTENNIAL HISTORY AND HANDBOOK OF INDIANA
Indians, along with certain strategic points on the Wabash river and a large tract at the falls of the Ohio. for George Rogers Clark and his soldiers, the lands adjacent to "the post of St. Vincennes," to which the Indian title had already been extin- guished. This reservation, which was rather indefinite as to boundaries, in turn determined the first of the series of Indian purchases that ultimately comprised the whole State. By a treaty consummated in 1803 William Henry Har- rison secured an extension of the 1795 reserva- tion, with defined boundaries, that reached some fifty miles westward from Vincennes. This tract was the first part of the new territory to be sur- veyed by the rectangular system adopted by the United States government,* and was the first to be thrown open for general settlement. This, and the existence of Vincennes as the one town in the territory that was to be the future Indiana, logically determined the location of the territorial seat of government and the first center of Ameri- can population.
One great preliminary service that the French did for their successors was in the first explora- tions of the country. First the professed ex- plorers and then the coureurs de bois, em- ployed by the fur traders, traversed our streams, penetrating to the remoter parts of the virgin wilderness, and the maps left us by the old French cartographers are not only curious as revealing the growth of the geographical knowl- edge of our region, but are particularly inform- ative as to the location of Indian tribes in those days.t
French Beginnings .- The exact dates of the first French explorations of the Mississippi valley are so variable, as given by various historians, that it is hardly worth while to give any as really authentic. According to the researches of Mr. J. P. Dunn, who may be accepted as careful and thoroughgoing, La Salle, the first white man in this region, probably "traced the entire lower boundary of Indiana in 1669-70," by way of the Ohio river, and passed through the northwest corner of the State in 1671 or 1672. From this time until 1679 (still drawing upon Mr. Dunn) there was no recorded exploration of Indiana, though it is argued that in that interval more or less fur trading was carried on in this region.
The portage between the St. Joseph and Kan- kakee rivers, where South Bend stands, was first used by him in 1679, while in 1682-3 "he was all through Indiana and Illinois." Who was the first to traverse the Maumee-Wabash route by way of the site of Fort Wayne is not recorded, but it was probably used by the fur traders at a very carly date, as the Wabash threaded a rich and extensive fur country, besides being one of the most direct highways to the Mississippi. The first post planted in this valley was Ouiatanon, which was a fort as well as a trading post. There has been controversy as to the exact location of Quiatanon, but according to Professor Oscar J. Craig, formerly of Purdue University, who has written a monograph on the subject, it is now pretty well established that it stood on "the west side of the Wabash river and four miles below the present city of Lafayette." The date of its establishment is given as 1719 or 1720. Its pur- pose was to "counteract the influence of the English and to keep ascendency over the In- dians." The logic of the location was that at this point on the river "the lighter barks and canoes that were used in the carrying trade be- tween Canada and the southwest were changed for larger ones, to be used on the deeper waters of the lower Wabash and the Ohio"-the same cause, practically, that operated in the lo- cating of Lafayette more than a century later. The post took its name from the Ouiatanon In- dians, who were located in that vicinity. Ouiata- non was garrisoned by the French until 1760, when it passed into the hands of the English, but there is no mention of any military force there twenty-nine years later, when George Rogers Clark invaded the northwest territory. Accord- ing to Craig, its later history was enveloped in mystery. In a way it had been a "settlement" as well as a post, and a few French families seem to have lingered there until Scott's campaign against the Wabash Indians, in 1791, after which they betook themselves to other settlements.
The portage between the Maumee and Wabash rivers, where Fort Wayne stands, was an impor- tant point commercially and a strategic one from the military view. Before the advent of the whites it was the site of one of the principal Miami towns, called Kekionga, and, according to Dillon, the French established a trading post there probably as early as 1719, which would
" See section on Rectangular Survey System.
? See "Early French Maps," p. 15.
13
CENTENNIAL HISTORY AND HANDBOOK OF INDIANA
make it contemporary with Quiatanon in its be- ginning. Subsequently they erected there Fort Miamis, which was surrendered to the English in 1760. This, in turn, was succeeded by Fort Wayne, built by General Anthony Wayne's troops in 1794, and the name of which was trans- mitted to the present city.
Vincennes, the largest and most permanent of the three French settlements on the Wabash, was also long involved in obscurity as to its origin, but it is now established by documents unearthed in Paris by Consul General Gowdy, that the date was 1731. It began as a military and trading post and went by various names before it evolved into "Vincennes." in honor of Sieur de Vincennes, its accredited founder. The life of this isolated Gallic community in the far western wilderness for three-quarters of a century, particularly after the severance, by the war of 1754-63, of all ties with the country whence it sprung, makes a pic- turesque and romantic chapter in our history which is not without its pathos. For years it left its traces up and down the Wabash valley, and these are inseparable from the memory of the vanished red race, with which it assimilated.
An old document published by the Indiana His- torical Society as "The First Census of Indiana," gives the names of the heads of families residing at the three French settlements in 1769. By this there were sixty-six families at Vincennes, twelve at Quiatanon and nine at Fort Miami.
French Life at Vincennes .- The old French life at Vincennes is described at some length by J. P. Dunn in his "Indiana." Like the American pioneer life it was rude to primitiveness, in many respects, but with many distinctive features. The log house or cabin, instead of being laid hori- zontally with notch and saddle like the familiar American type, was often built by setting the logs upright in a trench, like pickets.
Sometimes grooved posts were set a distance apart with horizontal slabs to fill in the interven- ing spaces, the ends fitting in the grooves. Thatching or strips of bark were often used for roofs. There were a few stone houses with piazzas. Of the rude furniture usually found the conspicuous article was the high corded bedstead with its big feather bed and gay patch-work quilt. while occasionally in the better families a display would be made of a little treasured silverware or
some ancient heirloom that had come long ago from the motherland. They were fond of flowers and these usually could be found in profusion in their gardens, fenced in by sharpened pickets set close together in the ground. Every man, prac- tically, was his own artisan, and as there was no great skill and perhaps less love of labor the home-made articles were few and crude. The women, we are told, had neither spinning wheels nor looms, and the clothing, half Indian and pic- turesque, was a mixture of leather and the fabrics brought in by the traders-leggins, moc- casins, the capote or cloak, a fancy sash beaded by the Indians and a gaudy handkerchief for the head being in the sartorial inventory. Their agri- culture was primitive and the natural fertility of the land was relied upon to obviate the necessity for skilful husbandry. Their cumbersome, awk- ward plows had a wooden mold-board and. drawn by oxen by means of a rope of twisted rawhide attached to a horn-yoke, instead of a neck-yoke, could turn only a shallow furrow. About the only other farm implement was a clumsy iron hoe, and their one vehicle was a light two-wheeled cart without iron work of any kind about it, known as a calache.
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