USA > Indiana > A History of Indiana from its exploration to 1922 > Part 16
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German township. Formed from parts of the original Armstrong and Pigeon townships, German was organized in 1845. It is bounded on the north by the present Armstrong township, on the east by Scott and Center, on the south by Perry, and on the west by Posey county. David and Jesse Hewson, Joseph Chapman, Walter Bryant, and Jesse Holloway at the head of six families of settlers, were the early pioneers of this township. The village of St. Joseph is the only community of interest in German.
EVANSVILLE IN 1856
1.
TRANSPORTATION
When, in the early development of the middle western country, settlers began to make their way into this region, it was natural that they follow the courses of the rivers which gave them easy passage through the wilderness. Thus it was that towns came into existence along the Ohio river valley almost before the interior was explored.
In the era of river and canal traffic it was inevitable that the Ohio be used as an avenue of commerce. The economic necessity of trans- porting surplus products to distant markets brought flat boats and barges into use on the river, and as the population of this territory in- creased there came a rapid growth in the use of such conveyances. Barges were built on the banks of the river, and, when launched, were loaded with corn, pork and other commodities. Manned by crews of hardy river men, they were then floated down stream, usually to New Orleans, where the produce was sold and the barges sold, the men making the return trip overland at first, later by steamboat. The crews consisted of from five to twelve men.
With the introduction of the steamboat, the flat boat and barge gradually was driven from the river except for the occasional trans- portation of some heavy cargo in the conveying of which time did not enter as an important factor. The steamboat was not only faster than the barge, but possessed the added advantage of being able to travel upstream. The river soon became dotted with steamboats of all de- scriptions, ranging from noisy, puffing freighters to beautiful and palatial passenger and mail packets which ran on regular schedules. As early as the 'Thirties, Evansville became known as a distributing point for the towns of the interior, and the outgoing and incoming freight was wont to line the levee from end to end. By the time of the Civil war this city was one of the most important shipping points in the entire valley of the Ohio and Mississippi. However, the railroads began to take precedence over the river for long haul business, and the steamers were used for short trade routes, but it was long before the river ceased to be a factor in the transportation problem, there having been over sixty steamers registered at Evansville as late as 1889. Gradually they have dwindled in numbers until now river traffic has practically ceased, the railroad with its enormous time saving element having superceded the steamboat for nearly every purpose. 1
Before the days of the railroad, people looked upon water transpor- tation as the best, cheapest and, indeed, the only practical method of freight transportation and travel, and since rivers did not flow through all towns and cities the building of canals was looked upon as neces- sary. Cities and rural communities isolated from rivers of the navi- gable sort sought and demanded artificial water routes by which an outlet for their commerce could be had. All sorts of canal schemes
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were exploited, most of them the dreams of speculators and therefore disastrous and epheremal, but out of the insistent demands of the peo- ple grew the Wabash and Erie canal.
The Erie canal was opened in 1825 making passage easy to and .from Detroit, but as yet there was no adequate method of traversing the distance from Detroit and the Lakes to the waterways leading to the Gulf of Mexico. Consequently the desirability of a canal along the Wabash route became increasingly evident, and business men began advocating its construction. The government had already taken steps which showed it was favorable to some route connecting Lake Erie and the Mississippi river. Washington had prophesied such a canal as early as 1784. Three years later the government made the portage between the Maumee and the Wabash a tax free, national road. Gov- ernor Jonathan Jennings, in 1818, recommended the building of roads and canals to improve the internal communication of the state's busi- ness as well as "to remove jealousies of local interest." In 1827, the federal government took the building of the canal out of the realm of conjecture by granting alternate sections of land on each side of the route proposed and surveyed by the state in 1824 pursuant to an act of Congress. In 1830, the state legislature provided ways and means for building the canal, and two years later its construction was begun at Fort Wayne. The first section of the canal was thirty-two miles long, and was opened July 4, 1834. At the recommendation of Gov- ernor Noble, the legislature of 1836-37 appropriated ten million dol- lars for canal construction in the state and ordered the canal to be ex- tended from the Tippecanoe river to Terre Haute. State bonds were sold on credit to raise this ten million dollars, and when the financial panic of 1837 came, the state lost three million dollars through the failure of banks and other credit purchasers. Indiana went into debt head over heels, and an issue of bonds in 1841 could not be sold. Canal construction practically stopped in 1837, and in the succeeding few years much of the canal and road work was dropped or sold to private parties, although the Wabash canal was kept as a state project. Repudiation of the debts of Indiana and Michigan was seriously con- sidered as an avenue of escape from the pressure brought to bear upon them for payment by creditors, but it was thought that if the Wabash canal could be completed to Terre Haute or beyond, sufficient revenue would be earned thereby to relieve the embarrassment. In December, 1845, the legislature passed a bill by which the Wabash canal could be completed and the revenue from it secured to the holders of unpaid state bonds who were represented by Charles Butler and Thomas H. Blake. The canal was completed to Terre Haute in 1849 and to Evansville in 1853. The decade of 1847-57 was the best in the history of the canal, the revenues amounting to as high as $193,400 in 1852, the best year. Railroads then began to cripple the canal, and although many efforts were made to preserve its glory, the need for it was passed, and it was closed in 1874.
The canal days had many interesting features. In the 'Fifties, when it was the only means of transportation to and from the north,
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HISTORY OF VANDERBURGH COUNTY
the arrival of the packet boats was one of the interesting sights, and people went to see them come in, as they went later to the railroad station. The one or two omnibuses of the town made the boats. The first signal of arrival was the pleasing strains from the long horn of the boat, and to those who recall the times it seems that some of the sweetest music ever heard was that produced by the boatmen on their horns as they approached town or signalled the lock tenders.
Traveling by canal packet was really pleasant and picturesque. There was then neither knowledge nor desire of great speed and frantic haste in traveling, and during the days spent on the decks and the cabins of the smoothly gliding packets, in the midst of pleasant company, new friends were made, games were played and politics discussed. The best packets made about eight miles an hour, and the driver kept his tandem team of three on a sharp trot, the horses being changed often enough along the route to be always fresh. The canal offered the nearhand view of the country which now is vaunted as one of the charms of travel by automobile and interurban.
BY A. GILCHRIST
As a result of the success of the Erie and other Eastern Canals this state, as shown by the Legislature Acts of 1829-1831, 1832, 1836 and those of other years, went largely into the making of canals.
One of the projects which was pushed for years was to bring the commerce of the great lakes to the Ohio River and to the Gulf. The Wabash and Erie which connected at the Ohio State boundary with a canal of the same name extending from Lake Erie at Toledo, to the boundary of Indiana, was the canal which finally came to Evansville.
The first design was to have this canal connect with the Wabash River at Lafayette.
Among the many canals to be built under the acts of 1836 was the Central Canal which was to connect with the Wabash and Erie at some point between Fort Wayne and Logansport, thence by Indian- apolis and down White River and by the best route to be found to Evansville. The Evansville end along Pigeon Creek was surveyed and its route fixed in the summer of 1836 and a short portion of this canal was finished or called finished in 1839. Pigeon Creek, which was to be a feeder was dry when the canal was completed in that part of it.
Because of the financial debacle of 1837 and its results which were the cause of complete business depression throughout the country the canal construction broke down in 1839. The State was bankrupt.
During the preceding years the State had issued its bonds for the construction of the Wabash and Erie and its extension in an amount in excess of $1,700,000 and for other internal improvements for $8,900,- 000. The interest on these bonds had been unpaid for years. In the meantime, the Wabash and Erie had been extending to Terre Haute from which point the Wabash was thought to be navigable to the Ohio River.
By the act of Congress of March 3rd, 1845 all the unsold U. S. lands in the Vincennes Land District, more than 750,000 acres, were
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HISTORY OF VANDERBURGH COUNTY
donated to this State on the condition that the Wabash and Erie Canal should be completed to the Ohio River within fifteen years. In the meantime, the bondholders were clamorous for the interest on their bonds and for a better security for their principal and their attorney, Mr. Butler of New York made a speaking campaign in this State in the endeavor to find a solution which would be satisfactory to the creditors and the State. The result was the legislation of 1846 and 1847, by which the Bondholders were to turn over and did turn over, their bonds to the State.
The State transferred the Wabash and Erie Canal, all its properties and its revenues from sales of lands and all other sources to three trus- tees. These trustees were to complete the canal to Evansville, which place was made the point of connection of the canal with the Ohio River.
By elaborate provisions in these acts the bondholders were to re- ceive, in place of their bonds, obligations of the state by which ap- proximately one half of the bonds was to be asumed by the State and for the other half the bondholders were to look solely to the canal, its properties and its revenues.
Thereafter, the Wabash and Erie was constructed from Terre Haute to Evansville, crossing the White River at Newberry and thence by Maysville, Petersburgh and through the Western part of Warrick County and Knight Township. The Southern Railway as it comes from Chandler was built on what was the tow path of this canal.
The canal entered the city on what is now Canal Street to Second Street. The intention probably was to make the connection with the Ohio by extending it across Second, First and Water Streets to the river. If such was the design it was given up and the canal was made along what is now Fifth Street, to the corner of Sycamore, whence it ran diagonally across the block or square to the basin. The County Court House now stands upon the site of that basin. From the basin it passed along, what is now First Avenue and across the space on which the New Market stands to what is now Indiana Street and along that Street to a basin at or near the bank or Pigeon Creek.
The extension from Terre Haute to Evansville was in its construc- tion during the years, 1849, 1850, 1851 and was finished or called fin- ished in 1852. The interruptions from Cholera in 1849, of which one of the trustees died, and again in 1852 and from many serious floods greatly delayed the work.
The first boat that came through to Evansville from Toledo and one of the only two that ever traversed the whole length of the canal reached Evansville on the 29th day of September, 1853. Owing to the scarcity of water it was dragged for some distance to the basin by Mr. Igleheart's oxen.
A great celebration took place, cannon firing, brass band music, cheering crowds and speeches from John Ingle and others. As Malaria was active in those days, corn whiskey only fifteen cents a gallon and the only bone dry places were spots in the Canal bed, it is possible that
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a gill or more of that soothing beverage was disposed of in that cele- bration.
The occasion deserved a celebration. Although the canal as a canal, was a failure, the fact that Evansville was made its terminus and that it was actually made a continuous canal from Lake Erie to the Ohio River, drew the attention of the whole country to our young city and a rapid increase in population and wealth was the result.
While the Wabash and Erie never became a serious competitor for the commerce of the lakes, at its Evansville end it did business in the aggregate to a pretty large extent, boats running upon it spasmodi- cally and bringing grain, cordwood, hoop-poles and profanity to Evansville.
During, and for sometime subsequent to its navigable existence there were a number of bridges over it; On Locust, Main, Vine, Divi- sion, Second Avenue and perhaps on other streets. The enterprising boys of that day would drop from one bridge on a passing boat and ride to another bridge, soothed and sustained meanwhile by the limit- less cussing of the crews and mule drivers.
The naval stratagem related by Artemas Ward, as happening on the Wabash and Erie Canal, where a boat manned by murderous pirates with a black flag, when fast overtaking a peaceful craft was stopped by throwing a peck of oats on the towpath in front of the horses of the pirate boat, may have occurred at this end of the thoroughfare.
In the summer of 1855 the dam on the reservoir at Birch Creek, which was claimed by the adjoining inhabitants to be a fruitful source of malaria, was broken down by a mob. The militia of Evansville under General Dodds and Captain Charles Denby were sent up there to protect the work. They found everything quiet and everything was quiet so long as the militia remained there. Those gallant soldiers spent the summer at this reservoir, hunting, fishing, playing euchre and seven up, at rare intervals taking an anti-malarial drink. When they returned to Evansville the dam was at once broken and the reservoir remained dry.
Navigation on this canal from Terre Haute south ceased in 1860, but a few miles at Evansville end was used for boating until 1861. When the end came there remained a strip of stagnant water, which furnished opportunities for skating in winter and at other times was a convenient receptacle for dead cats and other abominations. The fish, who feasted on this offal were caught, eaten and enjoyed by persons who are still living and apparently in good health.
Gradually the bridges were removed, the bed was filled up and made into streets and by 1870 nearly all traces of the canal in the city had disappeared.
The trustees of the canal, formally surrendered their trust in 1874, and a decree was made under which the canal was sold, February 12th, 1876, the purchasers paying for the canal and all the property con- nected with it, $96,260. The bondholders, in addition to their previous losses received a small percentage on the $800.000.00 they had ex- pended in completing the canal to Evansville.
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As there was some danger that an uncomfortable spasm of honesty might burst forth in the people of Indiana, the partial repudiation pro- vided for in the acts of 1846 and 1847 was made a part of the consti- tution by the Legislatures of 1871 and 1873 and by a vote of the people in 1873. This repudiation may have been justifiable under the condi- tions that obtained in 1846. It is perhaps responsible for the fact that notwithstanding the glorious record made by the Indiana soldiers in the Civil war, a record for daring, courage, faithfulness, devotion to the cause of the Union, surpassing that of any other state, the term Hoosier is still to some extent one of reproach.
In 1866, in the case of Edgerton vs. Huff, in 26 Indiana Reports the Supreme Court of this State decided that the State took only an easement in the lands, which had been taken for the canals. The result was that when the canals were abandoned, the canal bed and all other canal ground became the property of the original owners or their gran- tees. On the faith of this decision the owners or their grantees along Fifth Street, First Avenue, Indiana Street, lined those streets with houses and other structures in the undoubting belief that they would not be disturbed in their ownership. But in the year 1873 the same court decided in the case of Waterworks Company vs. Burkhart, found in 41 Indiana Reports, that the state took a fee in such lands.
The purchasers at the sale of the canal land, on the faith of this last decision sought to recover from the astonished owners of the prop- erty along the streets in question so much of each lot as was covered by the bed, towpath and heelpath of the canal. A number of suits were brought as test cases upon the different streets, and the ensuing litiga- tion lasted for years with the final result that all these cases were dis- missed and the long list of such owners were left in peace.
In 1873, and before the Burkhart decision was made, the county commisioners bought the basin between Vine and Division Streets from Frederick W. Cook, Jesse W. Walker and others, who claimed through those owning it before it was made a basin for the canal. The purchasers of canal land from the state made no movement to disturb the county in its possession of this square until the Court House was almost half completed. An action was then brought and was tried be- fore Judge Parret in the Circuit Court.
The finding and decision of Judge Parret was that the County and the persons under whom the county claimed had been in the adverse possession of the basin and square for a little more than twenty years, and hence the purchasers were defeated. This ended this kind of liti- gation in this county.
In making the railroad from Evansville to Boonville in 1873, the projectors of that road, which is now the Southern Railroad, assuming as they had a right to do, that under the decision in Edgerton vs. Huff the towpath of the canal belonged to the original owners of the lands, with the assent of those owners, built the railroad on that towpath. Under the changed ruling of the Supreme Court in the latter case, the railroad company had to pay the purchasers about $20,000.00 for so much of the towpath, as was used by the railroad.
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Roads and Highways. Lawrence E. Lyons, as director of the State Highway Commission, has described the progress in road con- struction in Indiana. Munificently endowed with natural resources, he says, the abundance and variety of which are seldom found else- where, Hoosiers of fifty years ago experienced little difficulty in mak- ing better roads than horseback trails and foot paths. At hand were unlimited natural resources such as sand, gravel and stone, and the pioneers began early the construction of an improved type of road. They took the available native materials, and in some cases huge stones, and used them in places where they served their purpose well. At points where roads traversed swamps and lowlands, they felled trees paralleling nearly every highway, and on top of this corduroy used gravel and sand with an occasional mixture of native clay to act as a binder. Due to this foresight of our forefathers, we of today are in- debted for a system of roads in Indiana which is undoubtedly bet- ter on the whole than those of other states less fortunate than our- selves in possession of road building materials.
In the past fifty years were built in Indiana about fifty thousand miles of stone and gravel highways of all kinds. Some today form the foundations for better roads of brick, concrete and bituminous concrete types. While hard surfaced types are considered to be the first type of modern highway construction, secondary roads made of water- bound macadam, bituminous macadam and better grade gravel are serving excellent ends in regions where traffic is neither congested nor heavy. In the past twenty years there were built within the State- and we are now building in many sections-hard surfaced roads of brick, concrete and asphalt. ' However, this type of construction at the beginning was chiefly confined within corporate limits of cities and was frequently a part of city street systems.
From 1900 to 1910, the general idea prevailed among highway en- gineers that only hard surfaced pavements were necessary in cities where heavy hauling was the rule rather than the exception, and that on market highways stretching across the state, were unnecessary. While such surfaces expedited vehicular traffic, making overland travel more comfortable and pleasant, the popular impression was that long stretches of hard surfaced roads where traffic was not unusually heavy, represented extravagant expenditure of public funds, rather than the idea of economic betterment.
This fallacy, however, was short lived, for the automobile follow- ing close on the heels of the horse drawn vehicle sprang into almost overnight popularity and universal use. Figuratively speaking, the long distances between cities was reduced by this new speed creation. Rapidly moving vehicles such as pleasure cars quickly wear out and rut gravel roads. Likewise, heavy trucks, often carrying a twenty ton load, soon pound to pieces the ordinary road, and our gravel and stone highways as they were built a few decades ago cannot stand such ter- rific and continuous wear. The tremendous impetus given good road construction in the past fifteen years has developed in the county a system of highways that is rivaled by but few in the country, excellent,
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HISTORY OF VANDERBURGH COUNTY
year around transportation being provided by a network of improved roads. Superb avenues of vehicular traffic extend from Evansville northward through Princeton, Vincennes and Terre Haute, and all other neighboring communities such as Mount Vernon, New Har- mony, Boonville, Rockport and so on are made easily accessible in the same way, bringing to this city a vast amount of business, which in- creases from year to year.
Evansville's streets were originally unpaved, and this was a most undesirable state of affairs. During wet weather, mud was the result. In dry weather dust polluted the atmosphere. Continuous use made ruts and chuck-holes, the bane of the farmer with a heavily loaded, springless wagon. In an effort to eliminate this unsatisfactory con- dition cobblestones were tried as paving material, and while this elim- inated the dust and mud, a cobblestone street was so very rough that many people wondered if after all it was much of an improvement. After many years, brick was tried, and so satisfactory was this at first, that it appeared as though the paving problem was solved. However, the continuous pounding of heavy wagons, street cars and traction cars, jarred the foundations and wore the bricks to such an extent that eventually a brick *street became nearly as rough as a cobblestone thoroughfare, and it was not until the introduction of asphalt that real comfort and satisfaction was obtained. This type of paving has been laid almost to the exclusion of all others on the city streets for some years, and there is now no city in the state of equal size which can boast of better streets, practically all the business and principal resi- dence streets being asphalted. There is but little asphalt used for county roads as yet, but recently there has been opened a road of this type extending from the city limits past Woodmere insane hospital.
Railroads. A comprehensive account of the coming of the first railroad to Evansville appears in an old publication on the subject. The internal improvement bill of 1835 provided for the construction of a railroad running northward from Evansville, and until some time in 1837 its successful operation was looked forward to with great expec- tations. The collapse of the plan of general public work put an end to all such hopes. It was more than ten years before anything fur- ther was done. In the meantime Evansville had grown and prospered ; a city charter had been granted, and her citizens were zealous and progressive. Intelligent and far-seeing men began to take steps to draw the surplus of the rich interior to Evansville after shipment. Laws had been passed by which local aid might be granted to public works upon a vote of the people. At its March term, 1849, the board of commissioners of the county ordered an election to be held on April 12th following, to take the sense of the people on the question of sub- scribing for stock in the Evansville & Illinois Railroad Company to the amount of $100,000. The poll showed 624 votes for and 288 against the proposition. In June of the same year the county audi- tor was directed to subscribe for 500 shares of the stock at once, and 1,500 shares additional as soon as the company was duly organized. To show the condition of the county treasury at that time, it may be
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