USA > Indiana > A History of Indiana from its exploration to 1922 > Part 11
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HISTORY OF VANDERBURGH COUNTY
mark was the private property of Mansell, and not public property.
The attorneys of Mansell were C. Fletcher and C. I. Battell. Fletcher did not live in Evansville, probably in Vincennes. Battell lived in Evansville, he was early a state senator, judge of the circuit court, and a man of prominence up to about the period of the Civil War. He came from New England, and in the early time did the work of reporting the credit of Evansville merchants, which is now performed by the commercial agencies. Among others of Battell's professional alliances was the partnership of Battell & Ingle. A re- mote succession to this firm was Ingle, Wheeler & Iglehart, to which the writer again became remote successor interested in the law business, and as such is the custodian of many interesting early records at the present time.
The attorneys for the defendant were Samuel Hall and Elisha Embree, both of whom lived in Princeton, and while Evansville was a river town, and had the promise of future greatness, still Princeton was a vigorous town before Evansville existed, and at the time men- tioned, retained among its citizens leaders in the profession of the law.
Mansell's daughter Caroline married Henry S. Hornby, a man of much prominence in Vanderburgh County, belonging to one of the first and most noted families in the British Settlement, and for a generation he was the owner of what was known as the "Hornby Wharf," lying between Ingle Street and Fulton Avenue.
The facts stated in the opinion of the Supreme Court in this case, together with the opinion, embraced six pages, and the opinion was by Justice Blackford, one of the ablest men that ever presided in the Supreme Court of Indiana. The decision as a precedent was valuable in fixing public and private rights in the wharf frontage of Evans- ville.
The men connected with the suit and mentioned in it were men of prominence, worthy to be named as among the town builders of Evans- ville. The lawyers mentioned were of high standing, and good repre- sentatives of the Indiana Bar of the third decade of the last century when many of the members of that profession ranked high as indi- viduals and as pioneers in the development of the state.
It appears from the suits of Lewis and Shanklin filed in 1828, and depositions taken de bene esse before the suits, that Hugh McGary was in 1828 a non-resident of Vanderburgh County, and publication against him as a non-resident was made on affidavit. The local his- tories, several of them, insist that McGary lived in Evansville in 1830 and even later but there is no record showing that he lived in Evans- ville after 1826. He appeared by attorney in court in that year, and whether he was then living in the state or not does not appear.
In the spring of 1825 his name appears in the county commission- er's records as one among the list of inhabitants who were assigned to a particular road supervisor subject to call for road duty in Scott township, in the Hillyard neighborhood. He was then not living in the city of Evansville. He had previous to that date figured as much in the county records as any other man in the county, but after that
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date except as to two old cases, he ceased to be known in the public records, and the judgment of the writer is that he left Evansville as early as 1827 and did not live here subsequently.
The most celebrated series of land suits in the early period were proceedings by landowners to set aside certain conveyances made by Hugh McGary, one to Elijah King who lived on a farm in Henderson County opposite Evansville, and one to Jonathan Anthony, the father- in-law of Hugh McGary. The circumstances relating to these transac- tions are best stated in a deposition given by Elijah King when he was defendant in a suit to set aside the deed to him as void; also in a deposition given by Robert M. Evans. The owners of property de- scribed in the deed to King all obtained judgments against King setting aside the deed, but the deed to Jonathan Anthony embraced all of section 30 lying below Main Street except lots which McGary had previously sold. About 1825 it seems that McGary settled with his chief creditor, the Bowen Brothers of Henderson Kentucky who had staked him for a number of years previous to 1820 in his store at Evansville, and no further notice was taken of McGary's deed to Anthony until after his death which occurred in the twenties, and about 1835 or 1836 when Thomas J. Dobyns, whose deceased wife was the only daughter of McGary and wife, announced that he had pur- chased from the heirs of Anthony all their interest which Anthony held in the McGary property below Main Street, described in the deed from McGary to Anthony.
Soon after this, Mollen Stewart & Company, New York City mer- ยท chants who had taken a deed from the Bowens to the property con- veyed to them by McGary in payment of his debt to the Bowens, who in turn probably satisfied a debt owing by them to the New York merchants, thus making the land perform the function of barter instead of the payment of money outright, brought an action against Dobyn's and Hugh McGary's children and other heirs of Anthony to set aside McGary's deed as fraudulent against creditors. The suit of Mollen Stewart & Company was brought about 1838 and tried in 1842. By this time both McGary and his wife and Anthony were dead, and it became more difficult to make the proof which had been made in former suits by William Lewis and John Shanklin and others against Elijah King, and the suit of Lewis, and Shanklin did not involve all of the real estate described in the deed of McGary to Anthony, and while they succeeded as plaintiffs in setting aside the Anthony deed as against Dobyns (who claimed under that deed by virtue of deeds from Anthony's heirs) there was yet remaining a large portion of land in the city of Evansville, the title of which on the face of the record had passed to Anthony, and through his heirs to Dobyns, but nothing but a separate suit by the owners of particular real estate could cancel that title on the record.
The writer remembers when he was admitted to the Bar, 1869. that the outstanding Anthony, Dobyns title was a very objectionable feature in abstracts of title in all cases where there had not been twenty years adverse possession, and at that time much of that real
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estate had not been in adverse possession for the period of twenty years. In the course of time however, twenty years elapsed with ad- verse possession sufficient to make perfect title to all the lands de- scribed in the Anthony deed, and that outstanding title is now dis- regarded in real estate purchases. It was important, however, where the witnesses having knowledge of the facts were all dead, and where adverse possession could not be proven in any suit by the real owners of property who happened to be out of possession, and where any grantee however perfect in fact his title happened to be under the law, brought an action to quiet title and for possession, the plaintiff must recover on the strength of his own title, and must trace title to the government in suits against a mere claimant in possession. This could not be done as to the property embraced in the Anthony deed, as the record showed that McGary had conveyed the land to Anthony before he conveyed it to the subsequent purchasers who were the real owners, but as stated, time has cured that defect.
In the suit of Mollen Stewart & Company vs. Dobyns and others, an answer of Thomas J. Dobyns was filed containing the fullest details of the history of the transactions of Hugh McGary probably of which there is any record, and which is referred to elsewhere in the sketch of Hugh McGary in Evansville.
The suit of David Negley against the Trustees of the Evansville schoolhouse was before a justice of the peace, and later appealed to the Circuit Court. The note upon which the suit was brought reads as follows :
"Due David Negley Seventeen Dollars for plank furnished for the Schoolhouse Evansville Dec. 1st, 1831.
N. ROWLEY, JOHN MITCHELL, WM. LEWIS,
Trustees."
It appears that in 1831 there was but a single school house in Evansville, referred to in the court papers and in the note as the Evansville school house.
The costs exceeded the amount in controversy. Negley and the trustees, Rowley Mitchell and Lewis, were all prominent and success- ful men but the record does not show the animus of the suit. Probably the town didn't have the money.
THE LONGWORTH TRACT
How the Growth of Evansville was Arrested for Nearly 20 Years.
The case of Longworth and Miles vs. Bell and Kiger, in the Van- derburgh Circuit Court, 1855, reported on appeal in 6 Indiana Report, page 273, contains reminiscences of some public interests. In 1821 Nicholas Longworth, a Cincinnati lawyer, father of the man of the same name now in public life, purchased one hundred and sixty acres of land near the town of Evansville, and took an assignment of the cer- tificate of purchase issued by the Patent Office, which had been al-
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ready transferred several times, and when the credit terms of the sale had been complied with and the patent was issued, although money was paid by Longworth, the patent by mistake was issued to the persons who of record had originally taken out the certificate, and Longworth did not notice the error until long afterwards, and as it later appeared, mislaid his certificate, the only paper evidence of his title. It was known for a long period in Evansville that the record showed no title in Longworth through any patent, and the part owner of the property, to whom Longworth had conveyed one half, Dr. Miles of Cincinnati, sent his son here in 1851, who lived here for a short time, but left Ev- ansville when the law's delays prevented his putting this land on the market, and of whom there otherwise seems to be no record.
The complaint charged in the fullest manner, and the plaintiff's evidence tended strongly to show that Kiger was the attorney of Long- worth and Miles (though Kiger said he only represented Miles) and that for the purpose of making a perfect record title, as the land was about to be platted and sold on the market. he obtained from Long- worth through young Miles as professional secrets a knowledge of the fact that Longworth's record title was imperfect, and that he had lost his original papers. Such a fact, if believed by the trial court, would have defeated the defendant's case, but there is nothing to show upon what ground the case was decided below, and the Supreme Court on appeal decided the case on purely legal grounds involving the statute of limitations, and more than twenty years adverse possession.
Two other interesting facts appear in the case, one in the testimony of young Miles, son of Doctor Miles, who came out in 1850 or 1851 to look after the land speculation of Longworth and Miles, and in answer to one question, thus testifies :
"I contracted with Alexander Farrel to cut all the timber on the quarter section with the exception of such trees as I wished left for shade, and I employed Mr. Woodward (for many years city surveyor ) to survey the land, and from his outline laid it off into lots, blocks, streets and alleys myself, and sent the drawing to Cincinnati where the plaintiffs had it lithographed. A number of these maps were posted in lawyer's and other offices in the town of Evansville. In all these acts I acted as the agent of Longworth and Miles. Kiger was aware that I employed Woodward to survey the quarter section and that I laid it off into lots, blocks, streets, alleys, and made a plat thereof, and that the plat was lithographed-and at his request one of the streets was named 'Kiger Street' after him."
All these plans were destroyed, the scheme of opening up this prop- erty for residence and building sites of all kinds was abandoned on account of this lawsuit, and the property remained for nearly twenty years, an obstruction to the growth of the city of Evansville. What Evansville would have been, and in what direction its important resi- dence quarter would have gone had the plat thus prepared by Miles been filed for record, and the property then put upon the market, no one can say, but that this delay and obstruction was a great injury to the future city, there can be no doubt.
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From the testimony of Kiger in the case it appears that young Miles advised him to buy in the outstanding claim appearing on the face of the record hostile to Longworth, and he did so for a small sum, taking the title in the name of Crawford Bell who furnished the money to purchase a deed from the heirs of the original patentees. Having obtained such deed, Kiger and Bell began fencing the land, working day and night, when Longworth and the elder Miles brought an action against Bell and Kiger of forcible entry and detainer.
The important question of fact in the case on appeal was as to ac- tual possession by Longworth through his agents in Evansville, who were J. V. Robinson, Luke Wood and Edward Hopkins, father of John S. Hopkins and Stephen Hopkins, both men of prominence in later years, and the important law question upon the facts was whether possession of a part of the land under fence under a claim of title to the whole was in legal effect possession of the whole. The question of law and fact were decided in favor of Longworth and Miles who re- covered the land.
The Longworth tract was owned by Longworth and his heirs and. associates, and it remained unbuilt adjoining and as a part of Evans- ville for over fifty years. It was used in the sixties for a race track, and as late as 1872 there was a circular race track roadway well marked upon it. When at that time driving at night to the hospitable residence of the late Thomas D. Smyth in Knight Township to attend the mar- riage of his son, the late Henry B. Smyth, as the best man, the writer, having with him the best lady, the horse with a buggy in the darkness left the direct road for Knight Township and took the race track, and made a portion of the circuit before the diversion was discovered.
In the later sixties the heirs of Longworth and Miles sold the land to Cincinnati merchants, who in 1869 platted it as the Heidelbach and Elsas Enlargement to Evansville, which is now compactly built as a part of the city. Mr. John J. Marlett remembers having been lost in the woods out not far from the center of this tract about the year 18 -.
The judge who tried the case was Alvin P. Hovey, afterwards judge of the Supreme Court of Indiana, Major General in the United States Army in the Civil war, where he gained renown as a man of great dash and courage, and after the war he was congressman and governor of Indiana. The lawyers in the case were, for the plaintiff, Jones, later attorney-general of Indiana, and Blythe, a distinguished lawyer and Whig orator, and for the defendant, Conrad Baker, later governor of Indiana, among the leaders of the Evansville Bar, all men of the highest ability as trial lawyers. The defendant Bell was a mer- chant of prominence, and Harrison Kiger was long afterwards spoken of by the old practitioners as one of the somewhat odd celebrities of the Evansville Bar. A large number of depositions were taken, and a number of witnesses examined, whose testimony was reduced to writ- ing and signed by them, which are a part of the record of the trial. The witnesses were among the leading men of the city at the time of the trial in 1855, and composed those who had known the Longworth tract in 1821, and some who came later, and embraced John S. Hop-
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kins, whose father was the agent of Longworth, Silas Stephens, J. V. Robinson, Michael P. Jones, John Ingle, Sr., Marcus Sherwood, Bar- ney Cody, Horace Dunham, Judge John Law, Abel Sullivan, Harrison Kiger, and Nathan Rowley, and others.
Sherwood testified of his coming to Evansville in 1821 and that he made boats and obtained the lumber from timber cut on the Longworth tract by the permission of Luke Wood, Longworth's agent, and he stated that Luke Wood, who was then dead, cut cord wood from the land, and it appears from the case of Mansel against Wood that this cord wood was used to supply steamboats at the river landing.
Judge Law was at the time prosecuting attorney in Vanderburgh County, and did not move to Evansville from Vincennes till 1851, but was familiar with land values. John Ingle of Saundersville (father of John Ingle, Jr., the railroad builder) testified that in 1831 and 1835 he was acquainted with most of the people of the county (he had been for many years lister of taxes, for which he was paid $30.00 a year) and that from 1820 to 1830 the people ten miles apart were better acquaint- ed with persons and officers than close neighbors were at the time he testified.
The testimony of Nathan Rowley contains some facts of public interest. His description of Evansville and its real estate values for a period of fifteen years, is a contribution to our knowledge of the time. He testifies that he came to Evansville December 10, 1819, that he be- gan purchasing real estate in 1821. He says this place appeared to be coming into notice. Prices were inflated. At the beginning of 1820 in January the only property he saw sold was a five acre tract adjoin- ing the Longworth tract on the southeast side, which was purchased for $100.00. That was considered cheap. In the spring there was much sickness. People began to scatter, and improvements stopped, and real estate fell, till 1826 or 1827 it reached its minimum. It con- tinued so until 1834, when property advanced rapidly. The southeast quarter of section 20 was entered in 1821 and the northeast quarter was entered. half of it, about 1820 or 1821. It was discovered in 1831 that half of the southeast quarter was wholly vacant (this term applied evidently to record title). He says land at that time around town (1821 in the fall) was worth $5.00 per acre. When Elisha Harrison owned the tract in question in 1820 he valued it from $1,000 to $2,000. The property was called his in 1820. This town ( Evansville) is lo- cated on fractional section 30. The town now (1856) occupies the whole section, it did not then, part of it is in Lamasco. The Dixon trail already alluded to adjoins the Longworth tract on the south. J. V. Robinson bought ten acres on the south side of Longworth's tract, and he gave $100.00. Another party owned two ten acre lots then. Rob- inson bought at sheriff's sale. Rowley bought of him and gave $250 for three lots of ten acres each, and he bought in 1834. A year after he bought the other ten acres of Trafton for $500.00 (these four ten acre lots embraced forty acres elsewhere referred to as Rowley's farm, now known as the Northeastern Enlargement of the city of Evans- ville).
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Robinson bought previous to 1828. Robinson came here in 1820 and left in 1828. In the fall of 1821 in Rowley's judgment the quarter section in controversy would not have brought $5.00 per acre in cash, that is if it had been paid out of the land office. A year before it was held higher. He understood the owners held it in the beginning of 1820 at from $1,000 to $2,000.
The tract above town, the Parrett tract, in 1827, was sold at ad- ministrator's sale. He knew Judge Olmstead and Joshua V. Robinson who dealt in real estate. It was supposed that the land in controversy was entered, but in 1831 it was discovered that the half of it was not entered.
Rowley describes the State Road, which is elsewhere referred to, in this neighborhood, and says that Sam Emerson, James Watson and Neely were the commissioners to lay out the road, and Robert M. Evans surveyed the road from Evansville to Princeton.
John Mitchell, one of the leading merchants of the early time, who occupied what Joseph Lane calls Mitchell's Corner, which was the southeast corner of Riverside and Main Streets, and who through Steel and Hunnel, contractors, at an early date built the building which now stands on that corner (the name of Steel and Hunnel is found in stone embedded in the brick work of the building to this day), was in April 1855 examined by deposition before John F. Crisp, recorder of the city of Evansville, being too feeble to attend court, and narrates the incident of calling on Nicholas Longworth in Cincinnati in 1836 on his way East in an effort to buy the Longworth tract with three other tracts, and Mitchell had hopes of purchasing, conducted consid- erable negotiation, and learning that Mitchell was going East, Long- worth told him to make his biggest figures by the time he returned, and if they came within his expectation he would sell, and thus Mitchell describes his final talk with Longworth: "He said I have concluded that you are going to have a city there, alluding to Evansville, similar to Cincinnati, and I don't care about selling."
These papers contain a good many interesting facts incidentally stated relating to a number of men prominent in the first and second decade of the town's history nowhere else to be found.
Harrison Kiger, who, according to his own testimony, made an at- tempt to procure the title to half of this land against Longworth, de- nies the imputation which is directly charged against him in the bill that he had violated his professional relations as attorney in the trans- actions, but he denied that he was Longworth's attorney, and was only acting for Miles, and that young Miles had advised the step.
Kiger lived for a while in Evansville, later in Princeton ; was a son of the Rev. John Kiger, very able and well known circuit rider in the early parts of Indiana history ; there is no sketch of Harrison Kiger which the writer has seen in any of our local histories.
The following records relating to Elisha Harrison directly or indi- rectly show that he was probably the most active man in the business of the town of Evansville in all of its various phases, from the begin- ning until the time of his death the latter part of 1826 or the first part
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of 1827. Less facts are given of him by the historians than any other man of equal prominence, although his name appears in a number of places. The facts relating to his work and life are no where collected together, but the court records furnish a good deal of information in regard to him.
1. Among other court proceedings is a note filed in a suit follow- ing a liquidation of the partnership of Jones & Harrison for salt well kettles by Jones and Harrison, as follows :
"Six months after date we Jones & Harrison of Evansville, Indiana, promise to pay Eli Harrison or order, one hundred and ninety-two dol- lars fifty cents, for value received, it being payment for two and three fourths tons of Salt kettles sold said Jones & Harrison by Duncan Mc- Arthur as witness our hands this twenty-first day of October, 1824. Witness JONES & HARRISON.
R. Kerchwol. Endorsed Eli Harrison."
This taken in connection with the editorial in the Evansville Ga- zette at the time Jones and Harrison struck salt water shows what was done, although subsequent statements appearing in the settlement of the various partnerships after Harrison's death showed that the ket- tles were not used, as the salt well was a failure in producing salt.
2. Suit of Alanson Warner vs. Elisha Harrison, March term, 1826, by Amos Clark attorney for plaintiff, filed October 25, 1825; witnesses William Olmstead, Amos Clark and Gerard Jones. Both the witnesses and all the parties were leading citizens of the community, a civil suit brought by Warner against Harrison for damages for as- sault and battery. There had been bad blood between them in a suit then pending and not settled until after the death of Harrison, in which the history of the Evansville Gazette is incidentally furnished.
3. An indictment against John Slow was returned to the March term 1819, which contains the following charge:
"That the said Slow not having the fear of God before his eyes but being moved and instigated by the Devil did in the township, county and state aforesaid on the 29th day of January, year of our Lord 1819, with force and arms and with a rifle loaded with powder and ball, which he, the said John Slow, in both his hands then and there held in and upon one Elisha Harrison of the township, county and state aforesaid did make and assault and with a leaden bullet out of the rifle as aforesaid then and there by force of the gunpowder and shot and sent forth the aforesaid Elisha Harrison in and upon the right side of Elisha Harrison under the right breast of him, the said Elisha Harrison, then and there with a leaden bullet aforesaid out of the rifle aforesaid by the said John Slow so as aforesaid shot went forth and discharged felonously, wickedly and wilfully did strike, penetrate and wound giving to the said Elisha Harrison then and there with a leaden bullet as aforesaid shot, discharged and sent forth out of the rifle aforesaid by the said John Slow in and upon the right side of him, the said Elisha Harrison under his right breast a wound of the depth of six inches and the breadth of half an inch with intent in the said Elisha Harrison then and there felonously, wickedly, maliciously and
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