USA > Indiana > A history of Indiana from its exploration to 1850 > Part 35
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50 Berry R. Sulgrove, History of Indianapolis, 143.
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SECOND STATE BANK OF INDIANA
In the midst of this panic in the money market the Gen- eral Assembly met, January 4, 1855. Governor Wright again took up the cudgels for a sound currency.51 He re- peated his statement of two years before that the free bank law was a failure, and that the past events had shown clearly that the restrictions provided in that law were en- tirely insufficient to prevent the abuses of the banking privileges. By January 25, 1855, there had been organized ninety-one free banks with a total nominal capital of $9,502,330 and an outstanding circulation at the time of $4,581,833, backed by deposited bonds, whose par value was $4,941,515. The money of the State was never so deranged as when the thirty-eighth session of the General Assembly met. As soon as H. E. Talbott became auditor, he stopped the issue of bills, but the cancellation went on and the con- sequent contraction of the circulating medium continued.52
The legislature was deeply disappointed in the disas- trous failure of the law. Of course the system had in it all the weaknesses of banking systems not founded on liquid assets. But these weaknesses do not account for its quick and ruinous collapse. Had an efficient auditor administered the law and enforced it rigidly, such banks as that of New- port could not have been organized. The chief defect lay, not in the law, but in the officials who failed to enforce it.
§ 76 BANK OF THE STATE OF INDIANA-THE THIRD STATE BANK, 1855-1865
THE bill to charter a new State bank to be known as the Bank of the State of Indiana had a career in the Gen- eral Assembly very similar to that of the Free Bank Bill, though the opposition to it was more spirited and the lobby for it more powerful. It passed the senate, February 24, 1855, under the call of the previous question, by the close vote of 27 to 22.53 The minority joined in a bitter protest
51 Senate Journal, 1855, 17, the governor's message. Documentary Journal, 1855, 82.
52 Documentary Journal, 1855, 934.
53 Senate Journal, 1855, 551.
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which they spread upon the journals.54 After passing the house, the bill met with the governor's veto. His principal objections were, that he had not had sufficient time to ex- amine the bill; that the bank could issue unlimited paper; that the measure, which might almost ruin the State, was not discussed in the legislature; that the bill exempted the bank from most of the burdens of taxation; that the man- ner of subscribing its capital was unfair and invited cor- ruption; that it could discount paper equal to three times its capital stock, plus three times its deposits; that its title, The Bank of the State of Indiana, was adopted to mislead people; that the State could have no control over it, under the charter, which was to run twenty years; and that the whole atmosphere of this bill, from its introduction to its last vote, was charged with uncertainty and a suspicion of corruption and unfairness. The senate passed the bill over the veto by a vote of 30 to 20.55
The above are the facts around which was woven one of the most noted legislative scandals of the State's history.
54 Senate Journal, 1855, 562.
55 The majority vote in the Senate on the four occasions is here given :
1. Passage of a Bill to Establish a Bank with Branches :- Alexander, Brown, Burke, Combs, Crane, Cravens, Crouse, Drew, Ensey, Freeland, Griggs, Harris, Helm, Jackson of Tipton, Meeker, Parker, Reynolds, Richardson of St. Joseph, Shields, Spann, Suit, Tarkington, Weston, Williams, Wilson, Witherow, Woods ;- 27 in all.
2. Passage of Free Bank Bill :- Alexander, Anthony, Brookshire, Brown, Burke, Chapman, Combs, Crane, Cravens, Crouse, Drew, Ensey, Freeland, Glazebrook, Griggs, Harris, Hawthorn, Helm, Hendry, Hos- brook, Jackson of Madison, Jackson of Tipton, Knightley, Mansfield, Mathes, Meeker, Parker, Reynolds, Richardson of St. Joseph, Richard- son of Spencer, Robinson, Rugg, Sage, Shook, Spann, Suit, Tarkington, Vandeventer, Weston, Williams, Wilson, Witherow, Woods ;- 43 in all.
3. Passage of the Free Bank Bill over the veto :- Alexander, An- thony, Brown, Burke, Chapman, Combs, Crane, Cravens, Crouse, Drew, Ensey, Freeland, Griggs, Harris, Hawthorn, Helm, Hendrick, Hosbrook, Jackson, Knightley, Meeker, Parker, Reynolds, Richardson of St. Joseph, Robinson, Rugg, Sage, Spann, Suit, Tarkington, Vandeventer, Weston, Williams, Wilson, Witherow, Woods ;- 36 in all.
4. Passage over the veto of a Bill to Establish a Bank with Branch- es :- Alexander, Anthony, Brown, Burke, Combs, Cravens, Crane, Crouse, Drew, Ensey, Freeland, Griggs, Harris, Helm, Hostetler, Jackson of Tip- ton, Meeker, Parker, Reynolds, Richardson of St. Joseph, Robinson, Shields, Spann, Suit, Tarkington, Weston, Williams, Wilson, Witherow, Woods :- 30 in all.
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The smallest majority was that on the first passage of the bill to charter the Bank of the State of Indiana. All of the twenty-seven senators who supported this bill also supported the Free Bank Bill. It was an allied majority that ruled the Assembly. The vote is the more surprising because the bills provide for entirely distinct systems of banking. The Bank of the State of Indiana is, as the gov- ernor pointed out, a misnomer. It was not a State bank, but one of the worst forms of an unrestricted bank. The only guaranty of its integrity was its mutual liability and the character of its stockholders and officers.
The bill, as it was introduced, provided for three grafts.56 The first consisted in selling the State Bank stock at a price to be named by the lobby and paid for with bonds bought at 90 and turned in at 100. This met with the most violent opposition and had to be dropped later.
The second was in locating the branches, in which the new board of bank commissioners had full power. This board of commissioners, named in the second section of the bill, was composed of Thomas L. Smith of New Albany, Andrew L. Osborn of Laporte, Jehu T. Elliott of New- castle, Addison L. Roach of Rockville, and John D. Defrees of Indianapolis. It is but fair to state that Mr. Defrees took no part in the work after he ascertained the pur- pose of the lobbyists. It is not necessary to comment on the personnel of this board. All were prominent men and all had been highly honored by the people in an official way. There was no excuse for their conduct. They were to get their pay for lobbying by selling the locations of the branch banks. The commissioners were also empowered to ap- point two subcommissioners to open the books for each branch and receive subscriptions.
The third opportunity for graft was in subscribing the stock of the bank. The law directed that the subcommis-
56 Bank Frauds, 41. This document of the legislative session of 1857 contains the evidence heard by, and the findings of, a joint committee appointed at the suggestion of Governor Wright to investigate the char- tering of the Bank of the State of Indiana. The report contains the tes- timony of most of the lobbyists and of members of the session of 1855. It has a good index.
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sioners should open the books to receive subscriptions between nine and twelve o'clock. The commissioners were careful to appoint subcommissioners who would allow no one to subscribe except those recommended by the lobbyists. The charter was worth $500,000, at a fair estimate, basing the estimate on the dividend paying power of the old bank.
Several lawsuits followed the organization of the bank, but the real merits of the case, with the State as a party, were never brought before the supreme court. Nor would it, presumably, have availed anything. Courts naturally hesitate to question the integrity of a coordinate branch of the government.
No further changes in the bank laws were made till the law of 1874 was enacted, under which the State banks of today operate. The national law of 1863 as amended in 1866 stopped all State banks from issuing currency, and effectually put an end to experiments in banking, though it has not solved the greater question of the inflation and contraction of the currency.
The new Bank of the State of Indiana gathered itself together after the storm and began to do a careful, con- servative banking business. The people soon came to look upon the whole winter campaign as a war among highway- men, in which, for the moment, the lobbyists had got the upper hand of the old bank men.
Hugh McCulloch of Fort Wayne was elected president, and James M. Ray, cashier. Branches were established at Lima, Laporte, Plymouth, South Bend, Fort Wayne, La- fayette, Logansport, Indianapolis, Richmond, Connersville, Rushville, Madison, Jeffersonville, New Albany, Bedford, Vincennes, Terre Haute, Muncie, and Lawrenceburg. The bank opened with $197,903 paid-in capital, and $35,497 in specie, an average for each branch of $10,000 capital, and less than $2,000 in specie. It was on a level with the worst "wildcat" banks in all its essential features save two. Its branches were mutually responsible, and it was in the hands of the most capable business men in Indiana. Its president was one of the three or four greatest American financiers. The bank prospered until overwhelmed by the national bank
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system. Under an act of the General Assembly of 1865, it closed up its business. Nearly all the branches became national banks. Its last report, for the year 1864, shows how the national currency was affecting its circulation. At the close of 1862, it had $5,000,000 in circulation, and at the close of 1864 only $1,500,000.
CHAPTER XVIII
THE PIONEERS AND THEIR SOCIAL LIFE
§ 77 THE PEOPLE
THE present population of Indiana, like that of all other American States, is a compound of the civilized nations of earth. The predominating strain in this population is the English, Scotch and Irish peasantry. Along the eastern foothills of the Appalachians these immigrants from Great Britain mingled and fused into a class with pretty well defined characteristics. They were of the substantial stock of English yeomanry, the stubborn, independent stock that has made the English soldier and the English colonist successful in all parts of the world.
The second generation of these folk occupied the high valleys of the mountains from Carlisle and Pittsburg to the Watauga and Holston. Wherever they settled they built States and established institutions. The third generation, generally speaking, pushed on across the mountains, es- tablishing boroughs or forts at Limestone, Louisville, Bryants, Crab Orchard, Boonesborough and Harrodsburg, many of them pressing on to Vincennes and Kaskaskia. In numerous instances brothers and sisters parted in the eastern valleys, and their children met as cousins in Ken- tucky, one branch of the family having come by Tennessee and the Wilderness Road, the other by Pittsburg and the Ohio river. The fourth generation, about a century after their ancestors came from abroad, crossed the Ohio river into Indiana and Illinois, or crossed the Mississippi river into Missouri and Arkansas.
The language of this group of pioneers was the lan- guage of the eighteenth century commoner of England. By
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calling it a Hoosier dialect, we would claim among the earli- est Hoosiers, Pope, who made "join" rhyme with "divine," and Burns, who invariably, in the full tide of his songs, "draps" the final "g" in all present active participles.
But how, it may be asked, did it happen that a people would get a century behind in their language? A group of people in the heart of a wilderness continent late in the nineteenth century speaking the language of the early eighteenth century peasants sounds like an anachronism. The explanation is at hand. When this people settled in the back country of America they tore themselves away from the culture of England, they separated themselves from the ordinary channels of commercial life, and virtually went into exile. The long, century struggle with the wil- derness and its inhabitants engrossed their whole attention and energy. When they could snatch a moment's rest from the battle they did pitch their tents and endeavor to repro- duce English institutions, but the lure of the wilderness was too strong.
The thirst for education was continually upon them. Witness the founding of Washington College at Salem, Tennessee; Transylvania in Kentucky, Vincennes in In- diana, to name only a few. During this whole century this energetic folk, impressionable, wide-awake, free, in a strange country, retained its language almost entirely by memory. The usual library among the pioneers was the Bible, the King James translation.
It was a homogeneous group of people. Their preach- ers, their lawyers, their orators, all those who are sup- posed to influence language, were part and kindred of all the rest. There were very few newspapers and they had a very limited circulation. It is worth noting, however, that there is little trace of dialect in any newspaper.
Whether this is due to the typesetters, who used a book, or whether it is a case of a written and spoken language existing side by side does not appear conclusively at pres- ent. However, there is abundant evidence that the latter explanation is the proper one. There is no doubt that such
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eloquent pioneers as Clay, Cass, Lincoln, Cartwright, and Asbury spoke the picturesque native language of their fore- fathers.
The term Hoosier dialect is a misnomer. So far as it can be said to have any justification, it is in connection with the southern element of our population. Whatever pecu- liarity there may be in it is common to one-third of the na- tion, and a characteristic so common cannot be said to be very singular.1
The social customs of early Indiana are most clearly un- derstood in the light of their history. Scarcely a feature of their early life but expressed itself earlier in Kentucky, Tennessee, Virginia or the Carolinas, and many customs and conventions were brought from over seas.
The charivari, the Christmas shooting, the maltreating of the schoolmaster, the drinking and gambling, the tavern, the shooting match, the election day, the wedding and in- fare, the log-rolling, the quilting, the camp-meeting, all smack of the "old South" and "merrie Englande."
The open-handed hospitality, which regarded it almost an insult for a man to offer to pay for meals or lodging, the quick sense of honor, which resented more keenly a reflec- tion on one's integrity than a physical assault, the con- tempt for business shrewdness or close bargaining, the quick temper, the explosive humor, the wide humanity, the philosophic as opposed to the scientific mind, the deep thought in the homely expression-these are some of the mental characteristics of this people.
Thorough-going democracy, freedom from all restraint, elbow room, believers in Christianity though careless of creeds and forms, simplicity in dress and houses, careless- ness of accumulated wealth, life above property, neglectful- ness of business, enjoyment of plain society and discussion, rarely calling into action their great reserve power, on easy terms with the world, believing that the consequences of
1 Lois Kimball Matthews, The Expansion of New England, 197; Meredith Nicholson, The Hoosiers, ch. I. The text is based on a wide study of early Indiana newspapers.
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one's deeds return to the doer-these are some of the lead- ing principles of their philosophy of life.
They believed and practiced a community of work, but there was an individual score kept. The man who did not help his neighbor roll logs received no help in return, unless on account of charity. No people were ever more chari- table. They borrowed and loaned with the greatest free- dom everything from a team and wagon down to a set of pewter spoons. Yet there was little partnership in the own- ership of property. Each family lived to itself and had no great desire to have near neighbors.2
§ 78 HOME LIFE AND CUSTOMS
THE pioneer located his home with little regard to any- thing but a supply of good water. Southern Indiana was well supplied with springs, and each pioneer home was near one.
The style of the house depended on two factors-the time of the settler's arrival and the character of the man. Usually the settler came on ahead of his family, planted his crop and then proceeded to build a good cabin. If he preferred hunting to work, or took the ague, or if his family came with him, he usually lived a year or two in a half-faced camp.
The half-faced camp was a log pen with three sides and a covering of brush. Sometimes a large log or a shel- tering rock served for a back wall. The front, usually fac- ing the south, was closed by a curtain or hung with skins. In front of this open side the fire was built and the cook- ing done. The ground was covered with skins and furs. Such a house did very well in dry, warm weather when no real shelter was needed. It was considered a makeshift by the pioneers and only occasionally resorted to.
2 The best discussions of this subject are in the writings of Edward Eggleston, Meredith Nicholson, and James Whitcomb Riley. From the historical standpoint F. J. Turner, Rise of the New West, is the best discussion available. A book just from the press, In My Youth (author unknown), gives a good sympathetic picture of Quaker life in early In- diana.
(28)
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HISTORY OF INDIANA
The simpler form of the log house was a four-sided pen made of rather small, round logs, which were notched into each other at the corners so that each log touched the one below. It is said the settlers from the east built their log houses square, while those from the south built theirs about twice as long as wide. The houses were covered with clap- boards about four feet long, held on by weight poles. A hole for a door was made by cutting out parts of about four logs. A wooden board or a skin closed the opening. At the end stood a mud and stick chimney, the framework made of sticks and then covered over with clay.
The best form of the log house consisted of two pens made of hewed logs. The pens were separated by an entry about twelve feet wide, which served as a porch. A frame window and two stone chimneys with four fireplaces, two downstairs and two up, often added an air of luxury to the double log house. The floors were made of heavy punch- eons split from ash, walnut or poplar logs, pinned to the sleepers and dressed smooth with an adz. The taverns were generally of this style.
In one corner, on a framework of poles, was the shuck or feather bed, soon replaced by a more comfortable feather bed, pieced quilts and the famous Carolina coverlets now highly prized as relics. In the opposite corner of the room was the table with its quaint tableware, part pewter, part gourd, part wooden, and all remarkable for their scarcity. A huge fireplace six to ten feet wide monopolized the op- posite end of the house, decorated with a semi-circle of three-legged stools. A trundle bed for the babies was hid away during the daytime under the big bed. The boys scampered up a pole ladder to sleep in the attic. Any num- ber of visitors could be accommodated by spreading the feather bed on the floor. Tradition leaves no doubt that this log cabin hospitality was genuine.
There were not many cook stoves in pioneer Indiana. A few might have been found as early as 1820, after which they appeared in increasing numbers. Perhaps one family in five had a stove by 1840. The immigrant who trudged
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west on foot or came on horseback even was fortunate if he got through with a skillet and a pot. A spider skillet with lid and an earthen pot were more than the average cooking utensils possessed by a family. The meat was usu- ally cooked on a spit. Cornbread was baked in a small oven which, in reality, was a large skillet, if the family was for- tunate enough to possess one. If not, then Johnnycakes were baked on a board. If there was no board, the handle was taken out of the hoe and the metal covered with corn dough and cooked. This was the famous hoecake. Practi- cally all bread was made of meal. All cooking was done over coals drawn out to the front of the fireplace. Some- times a crane was fixed in the side of the fireplace so that it could be swung on and off the fire at the convenience of the cook.
As stated above, cornbread cooked in one of a dozen different ways was the staple food. Next came hominy and then some kind of meat. In the early days the most com- mon was venison and bear. Turkey and squirrel were not uncommon. In a few years chickens and hogs became plen- tiful; later vegetables and fruit appeared on the table, the latter dried for winter use. The cooking was necessarily poor, and doubtless accounts for much of the sickness of that early period.
The very first pioneers depended almost entirely on skins and furs for their clothing. The hunting-shirt, trousers, and moccasins were made of deer skins. A well- made suit with fringed coat, laced leggings and coonskin cap appeared well and was fairly comfortable in the warm, dry weather. When wet, it drew up to about one-half its usual dimensions, becoming cold and clammy. Soon linsey cloth took the place of skins, which, while more comfort- able, did not stand the rough wear like buckskin. All hailed with delight the time when they could lay aside both skins and linsey for the home-made woolen garments. A bear- skin overcoat, a beaver hat, a pair of buckskin gloves lined with squirrel fur, was considered good taste down till the Civil War.
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Women wore plain dresses with an extra jacket in cold weather. The petticoat was usually of homespun. Woolen shawls were worn instead of coats. Hooks and eyes were used instead of buttons. On their heads they wore a sun- bonnet in summer, a knitted hood in winter. Shoe-packs were worn in winter and all went barefoot, men, women and children, in summer. Handkerchiefs and gloves were home- made, the former of cotton, the latter of squirrel skins.
The children did not wear enough clothes in summer to warrant a description, the maximum being a long shirt hanging straight from the shoulders to the knees. In win- ter they dressed like their parents, the clothes being made on the same pattern and only slightly smaller. The pioneer boy in his everyday dress was a wonderfully skillful ma- chine, but the same boy dressed for a camp meeting, with starched shirt and brogan shoes, was the most woe-be-gone creature imaginable.
About 1820 imported goods began to appear, such as broadcloths, brocades, taffetas and peau de soies. Beauti- ful furs, beaver hats, flounced skirts, balloon-shaped hoops, hats with a garden of flowers, cut-away coats with double- breasted checkered vests, silk stocks over hard buckram collars-such wore the gentlemen and ladies of the old school from 1830 to 1860.
§ 79 OCCUPATION
THE pioneers as a rule came to their western homes empty-handed. While raising their first crops they lived on game. Many of them made their first payments for their land with money obtained from pelts and venison hams. In their hunting they depended entirely on their dogs and flintlock rifles. The woods were full of game. Deer, bears, turkeys, pigeons, and wild ducks were plenti- ful. The deer were found in large numbers around the salt licks. Droves of them ventured into the wheatfields or cornfields. Wolves were a pest that preyed on sheep and hogs.
Swarms of wild bees were numerous in the woods. They
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made their homes in hollow trees or clefts of the rocks. By watching the loaded bee, usually sprinkled with flour so that he might be seen as he made a "beeline" for home, the pioneer located the bee tree. He could either cut the tree at once or mark it. All pioneers respected a bee-hunter's mark. The tree was usually cut in September, if only the honey was wanted. It was cut earlier if it was desired to save the bees.
The more serious work of the pioneer consisted in pre- paring his little home. He prospered just in proportion to the time he devoted to his farm. He found his land cov- ered with a heavy growth of oak, poplar, walnut, beech, gum, ash, maple, hickory and various other kinds of hard- wood timber.
It was necessary to kill the trees so that sunshine might get through to the growing crop. The clearing might be made either by cutting and burning all the trees or by "deadening" the heavy timber. In either case the under- brush had to be cut, piled in heaps, and burned. Then the large trees were felled with an ax and cut into suitable lengths for rolling. The cuts were about twelve to twenty feet long. In some cases the logs were "niggered," that is, a smaller dry log was laid across the larger one and a fire kindled where they were in contact. In time the log was burned in two. The chopping in the clearing went on in- cessantly during the winter. In the spring, about the last of April, the settler was ready for the rolling.
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