USA > Indiana > A History of Indiana from its exploration to 1922 > Part 4
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** Interesting articles on scientific agriculture by Andrew Erskine, Indiana Agricultural Reports, 1856, 387, 392 ; 1859, 60, 119.
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HISTORY OF VANDERBURGH COUNTY
Coast states, and who had come westward with the tide of emigration through Virginia and Kentucky into Indiana. Samuel Scott. Everton Kennerly, Richard Carlisle, the Pritchetts and some of the Fairchilds and others, though of English birth, who were as distinctly American as were any of the natives among whom they intermingled.
These men immediately identified themselves with members of the English settlement, and on the other hand, the latter became identified with all matters of public interest equally with the natives. The act of the legislature creating Vanderburgh County named the house of Samuel Scott-the center of the settlement to be -- as the place of meet- ing of the commissioners named in the act, to select the county seat, and Evansville was thus chosen.
In the enforcement of the law, the grand juries were the source of power, and much of the time the leading and dominating men upon the grand jury were from the British settlement, and at all times there were representatives of the settlement upon the grand jury. In like manner this element was prominent in the trial of cases on the regular panel of the jury of the court, which tried men indicted for offenses against the law. In matters of public opinion in support of the law. there were a number of men in the settlement who were influential and of value in supporting the administration of justice. Particularly among these were Robert Parrett and Joseph Wheeler, ministers of the gospel, whose careers formed a very important part of the develop- ment of this county and town for a period of thirty years.
The leaders of the Saundersville and Blue Grass locations (the lat- ter about thirty miles west of Lincoln City), from the period of 1818 to 1830, when Lincoln, twenty-one years old, left Indiana, had a num- ber of volumes of the classics of English poetry and prose, and enjoyed the music and culture of old English life.
One of the prominent families who came with the settlement in 1818 included James Cawson and wife. They were one of the thirty- nine families who sent Fearon to America. Cawson later in life lived for a while in the city of Evansville at the south corner of Cherry and First streets, and held the office of city treasurer of Evansville. He left no children, but through the relatives of his wife some of the books brought by this family from England have been preserved in the cus- tody of Mrs. Bertha Potts Armstrong, daughter of Cawson Potts, granddaughter of John G. Potts, who was the son of George Potts, who came over with Cawson and who married Mrs. Cawson's niece.
The history of the English Settlement is not only a vital part of the history of Vanderburgh County as well in part as of the city of Evansville, but it has recently assumed much importance in the inves- tigations by the historians of the early life of Abraham Lincoln when he lived in Spencer County from 1809 to 1830, when at the age of twenty-one he moved to the state of Illinois. Ida Tarbell, who has perhaps spent more time on the investigations on this subject than any other historian, in her book just published-"In the Footsteps of Abra- ham Lincoln," the advance sheets of which have been published in the Los Angeles Sunday Times, thus speaks of the history of the English
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HISTORY OF VANDERBURGH COUNTY
Settlement published in the Indiana Magazine of History, in the June number, 1919:
"The Kind of Men He Met Helped to Develop His Character."
"There has been in the last few years a considerable amount of solid work done on the character of the men and women who settled this corner of the state; particularly importance from the Lincoln stand- point, is that of the president of the Southwestern Indiana Historical Society. His work gives us a better basis for judging of the caliber of the men under whose indirect influence at least Lincoln certainly came at this time, then we have ever had before. He has developed, with a wealth of detail, the character of the English settlement which started in 1817 north of Evansville and twenty-five or thirty miles west of where Lincoln lived-a settlement whose descendants are still among the leading people of the section.
"These English settlers, as well as the Scotch and Scotch-Irish that came with or followed them, were intelligent, thoughtful people, many of them with property, who had left their homes because of the dark prospects in Europe. Their small properties, they complained, were "wearing to pauperism." Moreover, the interference with their social and religious affairs was so constant and humiliating that they were willing to undergo any hardships to get a better chance and greater freedom in the world. The experiences of these men at home, tlie ideas that they brought with them, the way they went to work to build up communities-all of these things must have been matters of dis- cussion at Jones's grocery in Gentryville and everywhere else Lincoln met with men. The English settlers brought books, many of them, as the writer mentioned shows, and it is his opinion that many of these books found their way into young Abraham Lincoln's hands."
On account of the importance attached by Ida Tarbell to the exis- tence of this English settlement with English books and culture during the period of the residence of Abraham Lincoln in Spencer County, Indiana, the history of the English settlement has assumed new im- portance and Mrs.Armstrong has given these books to the Vander- burgh Museum and Historical Society, together with an oil painting of James Cawson and his wife, probably made in England. There are still living descendants of the English, old people, who learned their childhood speech from men and women born in England, more than one hundred years ago, from those who spoke the language of England in its purity, and who preserved in the wilderness its literature, music, culture and religion, and delivered them to their children and chil- dren's children. These old people, even yet in their childhood memo- ries, treasure the nursery rhymes, humor and family traditions of Eng- land, the plaintive poetry of Tom Moore, Thomas Campbell and oth- ers, commemorating the martyrs of the Irish Rebellion and deploring the loss of Irish liberty, set to sad music, as well as the martial strains of Scott and Burns. These conditions mentioned in the British settle- ment were probably nearer to the Lincoln location than any similar opportunity in the wilderness. Lincoln's nature craved books. He
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HISTORY OF VANDERBURGH COUNTY
traveled on foot long distances to get them. He was a frequent vis- itor of the Breckenridge home near Boonville to read and borrow law books.
According to Nicolay & Hay, at 19, Lincoln read every book he could find. Tarbell gives the usual short list of books which the scant information of his life in Indiana furnishes and says: "These are the chief ones we know about . besides these he borrowed many other books . He once told a friend that he read through every book he had ever heard of in that country, for a circuit of fifty miles."*
From the beginning, contemporaneously with the settlement of Ev- ansville on the one side, and the Saundersville, McCutchanville and Hillyard settlements on the other, on account of its superior location for health, its proximity to the perennial Pigeon creek, and its near- ness to the Ohio river, and itself lying on the direct road to Princeton and Vincennes from the river, Mechanicsville was an important cen- ter of activity and population. It was, so to speak, a connecting link between Evansville and the English settlement.
Here was one of the first meeting-houses for religious and educa- tional uses built in the county (1832). It is still standing and in use, as the village church, in excellent condition, though eighty-seven years old, and now the oldest church building in the country.
At the south end and part of Mechanicsville, opposite Negley's mill, was a small village which has wholly disappeared.'
Mechanicsville was a competitor with Evansville for the county seat of Vanderburgh County in 1818. It is stated that in the 30's, the citizens of Evansville had to go to Mechanicsville for first class black- smithing and wagon-making. Here, in the early 30's, John Ingle, Jr., learned his trade as a cabinet-maker. Here later settled Dr. Lindley, one of the leading men of the county, also the Whittlesey family, long prominent citizens of the county, as well as of the city of Evansville ; still later the McGhees, Olmsteads, Woods and others. Mechanicsville had always been and still is a well-settled community, and todav is thickly settled with well-built houses, and in addition, on account of its superb location, has become a popular place of suburban residences of Evansville people.
Before the middle of the last century, John Ingle, Jr., had estab- lished in Evansville a primitive bureau of immigration, one of the im- portant duties of which was to send money through John Ross, Bank- er, Chatteris, England, from the English here to their friends and rel- atives in the old country, to enable them to come over as well as to divide the profits of a successful life in America with the old people and needy relatives in England, and not infrequently collect legacies in England for people here. This continued for many years.
Through influences such as these, there came from England to Vanderburgh County, and to the city of Evansville while it was still
*Life of Lincoln, V. I, p. 29.
** Elliott, History of Vanderburgh County, 94.
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HISTORY OF VANDERBURGH COUNTY
small, a number of young and vigorous men, who soon became leaders in their various fields. Among these were leading farmers, builders and contractors in wood, brick and stone, who in the last generation were, at the least, equally, if not more prominent and capable than any other element, in the building of Evansville, and other towns and cities in this section, of churches, sewers and other large structures, requiring ability, capital and public confidence. A number of these acquired wealth and position, and some of them are still living. There was for many years a section in the center of Evansville below Main Street called Little Chatteris. It is not the purpose of this history to attempt to deal with the careers of these later emigrants, or even to mention the names of prominent people among them; rather to deal with emigrants who came previous to 1830.
The success and importance of the first British settlement in In- diana lies much in its being a vital part of the beginning of organized society and government in this section, and its impress of Anglo-Saxon ideals at the beginning, out of which and upon which in a substantial degree were established the present conditions in this community, in- cluding the city of Evansville.
So perfect was the assimilation that the history of the settlement is not the tracing of a separate element, and but for a careful record of these details there would be preserved now no dividing line between the British element and other elements in the early settlement of this part of Indiana.
ROBERT M. EVANS
History has left much material concerning Robert M. Evans who was a very interesting personality, was much in the newspapers, much in politics, and who for the period nearly forty years from 1805 when he came to Indiana Territory to his death in 1844, may be said to have been a representative man as commonwealth builder in the state of In- diana. He was unlike Ratliffe Boone, who was a professional politi- cian, a good mixer and a good political organizer, who ruled the polit- ical machine in his congressional district.
Evans was in 1810 a member of the territorial legislature from Knox County, and in the back of volume 3 of the bound volume of the Western Sun, printed at Vincennes, now on file in the Indiana state library, is an extra circular, which announces that Robert M. Evans is a candidate to represent Knox County in the territorial legislature, and contains an interesting statement from him.
May 28, 1810, Evans had been keeping tavern at Vincennes for perhaps a couple of years, and printed the following advertisement :
"LOOK HERE!
Notice to debtors on book account to pay balance or give note as his barkeeper designs to leave this place in a few weeks.
(Signed) Robert M. Evans."
In a subsequent notice to the same effect Evans left out the reference
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HISTORY OF VANDERBURGH COUNTY
to liis barkeeper. It is well known that all taverns were required by law to keep a bar.
April 9, 1814, the Western Sun refers to the meeting of the militia. This address by Evans carefully studied, will probably be instructive on that subject generally as well as Evans' familiarity with the sub- ject. There is no doubt that about this period and earlier, perhaps a little later Evans was on duty on the Indiana frontier in central and northern Indiana, and exposed himself so as to injure his health, and probably shorten his life. J. P. Elliott in the beginning of his reminis- cences interestingly describes Robert M. Evans, who made such a statement to Elliott at that time explaining his ill health.
On July 27, 1816, a political controversy existed and Evans in three columns makes an answer to an attack on him by Governor Jen- nings. In September, 1824, Colonel Evans announces he is a candi- date for Congress, to succeed Judge Prince.
December 17. 1825, Robert M. Evans was elected speaker of the House of Representatives of the Indiana legislature by the following ballot : Evans 30, Isaac Howe 13, Scattering 2. The House Journal shows a resolution of thanks to Evans speaker, and an address by the speaker to the House before adjournment is quite interesting. In that address he states that he was elected without any effort on his part, and without previous conference with him.
Evans appeared rarely in court as an attorney, but not in litigated cases. In 1827 he was assistant postmaster at New Harmony as ap- pears in a newspaper advertisement of the time. In the New Har- mony Gazette of May 16, 1827, appears a very interesting discussion on Deism over the signature of Robert M. Evans, which is made to protect Mr. Owen of the charge of partisanship in a previous anony- mous article written by Evans. The article is well written and inter- esting, and tested by the fair standards of the present age Evans views are not subject to criticism.
In 1821 in the Indiana Centinel Robert M. Evans over his own sig- nature delivered a caustic attack upon Judge Goodlet, and published with it cards of a number of lawyers certifying to certain facts. These attacks continued through several issues until Goodlet published an article denouncing Evans in return. The controversy was over a rul- ing by Judge Goodlet on the bench upon a matter of evidence, where Evans was a defendant, which Evans treated as so unfair as to justify a personal attack. While many of the leaders of the bar published cards, none of them took sides in the real controversy, other than to state facts occurring at the trial.
In Stormont's History of Gibson County, it is stated that Robert M. Evans was one of Harrison's aide-de-camps at Tippecanoe. This is incorrect. Evans was not at the battle as appears by the list of sol- diers there. In Pirtle's Battle of Tippecanoe, Filson Club publication No. 15, page 123-"Roll of Captain Benjamin Parks Troop, Light Dragoons of the Indiana Militia" from September 18 to November 19, 1811, is a list of privates among whom General W. Johnston was one and the following: "Robert M. Evans, (never joined)." This
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HISTORY OF VANDERBURGH COUNTY
would seem to indicate that Evans' name had been placed on the rolls, but that he did not join, and in fact Evans was not at the Battle of Tip- pecanoe. Among the archives of the Southwestern Indiana Historical Society is an interesting paper by Mr. Lucian C. Embree of Princeton, who is a great grandson of David Robb, who narrates an incident told him by his grandmother, a daughter of David Robb. When she was a small child sitting in the door of the house with a baby in her lap, Robert M. Evans rode up to the gate and without alighting, reached over, unlatched the gate, and rode up to the door, and then announced that news had just arrived that a great battle had been fought at Tip- pecanoe, and that certain individuals in whom the family were inter- ested were safe. He then rode on to carry reports to other persons. Mr. Embree states that his grandmother said that Evans was not at the battle, but was at home when he received the information.
April 11, 1806, Evans was appointed Justice of the Peace of Knox County by Governor Harrison.
In 1808 he is named in a dedimus to administer oaths to Captain Warrick and officers of his company in the Knox County militia.
In 1809 Evans was appointed captain in the militia in Clark County, Vice-captain Bland resigned. Why the appointment was made in this form is not explained, as Evans undoubtedly then lived in Knox County ; possibly the name of Clark County may have been a mistake instead of Knox.
March 28, 1812, Evans was appointed colonel of the Fourth Reg- iment. This was after the Battle of Tippecanoe.
September 14, 1813, he was appointed clerk of Gibson County, and on the 11th of September, 1813, writs were issued to the sheriffs of Knox, Gibson, and Warrick Counties for the election of a member to the House of Representatives to fill the vacancy occasioned by resig- nation of Robert M. Evans in the territorial legislature.
January 3, 1814, Evans was commissioned clerk of Gibson County. On July 18, 1813, Colonel Russell, of the United States regiment in a campaign against the Indians addresses a letter to Governor Posey, giving the particulars of his movements, in which he says the right flank was commanded by Gen. Cox of the Kentucky volunteers; the extreme left was commanded by Colonel R. M. Evans of Indiana ter- ritory ; the other column on the right was commanded by General Thomas of the Kentucky volunteers; the other column on the left was commanded by Colonel Walter Wilson of Indiana Territory, and the central by Major Z. Taylor of the United States Army. An interesting incident is told by Colonel Cockrum in his Pioneer History of Indiana of Colonel Robert M. Evans, who was in charge of the militia, meet- ing Major John Tipton who afterwards became U. S. Senator from Indiana, who was in charge of all the militia forces in Dearborn, Franklin, Clark and Harrison Counties. Colonel Evans at one time while making an inspection of the forces somewhere in the woods where Jackson County now is, with his large cavalry escort, came up to the place where Major Tipton was giving some directions to mounted spies. Tipton, not paying the Colonel what he (the Colonel) thought
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HISTORY OF VANDERBURGH COUNTY
was proper military attention, Evans said, "What is your name, sir?" Tipton turned around in his saddle and looking at him, said: "If that is of any importance, Colonel, my name is John Tipton." "Where are your headquarters?" asked the Colonel. The Major replied, "It is now on this saddle, and tonight, sir, if I can find a tree without a panther being at roost in it, it will be on this saddle at the root of that tree." The Colonel, being a very dignified man and much used to formality, in making his report to Governor Gibson. said: "That varmint that you have on duty up in the wilds of Harrison County paid no more attention to me than he would have to an ordinary man."
Evans was the first county agent of Gibson County. By direction of the county commissioners he entered the land upon which the town of Princeton was located, and was clerk of the court from the organ- ization of the county till he left the county and came to Evansville. As soon as his term expired as clerk, he removed to Evansville and voted there about 1820. Excepting a short time at New Harmony, he re- mained in Evansville till his death in 1844.
He was county clerk in 1834, was lister of taxes for the county of Vanderburgh in 1830, succeeding John Ingle of Saundersville who had held the position for several years. He was cautious and prudent in his investments, very successful in life, leaving a large estate. He, at all times, took an interest in public affairs and in the act of the legislature of December 24, 1833, to incorporate the Evansville and Lafayette Railroad Company, the first railroad company chartered at that session of the legislature when six railroads were chartered, Rob- ert M. Evans is named first among the incorporators. In the Acts of 1832 there was incorporated an earlier railroad known as the "Rich- mond, Eaton and Miami Railroad Company, which was later changed by an Act of the same session of the legislature to the Richmond, Eaton and Miami Turnpike Road to correspond with similar legisla- tions in the state of Ohio, so that the corporation in which Robert M. Evans figures as the first charter member seems to have been the first railroad corporation chartered in the state. The road was never built, but later two railroad charters were granted which were consolidated into the name of the Evansville and Crawfordsville Railroad in the early fifties after Evans' death, and John Ingle, Jr., seems to have taken the place which Evans sought to take in public affairs nearly twenty years earlier.
JAMES W. JONES
No family is entitled to more recognition as pioneers and common- wealth builders in Evansville and Vanderburgh County from their beginning down to the close of the Civil war than the family of James W. Jones. He was a brother-in-law of Robert M. Evans, of whom both lived in Kentucky previous to 1805 when Evans came to old Knox County, they each married a sister of Judge Robert Trimble, justice of the Supreme Court of the United States.
Jones came to Indiana Territory about the time that Gibson County was created out of Knox County, and settled in Princeton at
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HISTORY OF VANDERBURGH COUNTY
about the time that town was laid out, and in partnership with Robert Stockwell, under the firm name of Jones & Stockwell, conducted a gen- eral store in Princeton, and they were both very successful. When the town of Evansville and the county of Vanderburgh were launched as going concerns, Jones and Stockwell advertised in the Western Sun in Vincennes a dissolution of the firm, announcing that Jones would retire, and that Robert Stockwell would continue the business, which he did until some time in the forties, when having made a success in business and accumulated large property he moved to Lafayette, and through the marriage of his daughter to one Reynolds, a railroad mag- nate, became interested in early railroad in northern Indiana. "A letter in 1863 from Robert Stockwell to Lyman W. Draper at Madison, Wis- consin, in answer to an inquiry in a letter by Draper in regard to the McGarys, locates the grave of Hugh McGary the elder, and describes the grown sons of Hugh McGary as residents in Indiana contempo- raneously with their father and subsequently.
Jones immediately upon the dissolution came to Evansville, where he embarked in earnest with his brother-in-law Robert M. Evans, even more earnestly in making the success of the town his life work. Hugh McGary remained clerk of the circuit court of Vanderburgh County and county recorder for a short time until the complete organization of the county and things were in working order, but following him James W. Jones became the clerk and was a very competent and efficient one during most of the first decade. His son, W. T. T. Jones, was deputy and later in the thirties W. T. T. Jones became clerk, and his father worked with him in the office.
Jones had considerable ready means, and in this connection withi Elisha Harrison, Harley B. Chandler, and Gerard Jones, his brother, became a partner in the firm of Jones, Harrison, Jones & Chandler, and during a portion of the period Harrison and Gerard Jones con- ducted a separate partnership, the details of which do not fully appear. Judging from the advertisements in the Evansville Gazette, as well as in the Western Sun at Vincennes, this was the leading firm in Evans- ville in business during its existence, and other facts point to the same conclusion as no other man or men appear during that period to have taken equal prominence in the commercial affairs of the town. Jones and Harrison furnished the means to bore for the salt springs which are mentioned in an editorial in the Evansville Gazette.
Shortly after the death of Gerard Jones occurred the death of Elisha Harrison in 1826 or 1827, when both of these firms were dis- solved, and on account of the want of accurate methods of bookkeeping to show the exact conditions of the firm, it became necessary to Jiqui- date both of these firms by a proceeding in court on the part of the representative of Gerard Jones in one case, and the representatives of Elisha Harrison in another case, which were satisfactorily closed upon a master's report made by John Shanklin as master, who seems from the records to have been the chief, if not the only competent account- ant in the village at the time. His finding, which was reported in neat and accurate business form, fixed the balance in each case, a small bal-
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