USA > Indiana > Sullivan County > A history of Sullivan County, Indiana, closing of the first century's history of the county, and showing the growth of its people, institutions, industries and wealth, Volume I > Part 11
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27
During the pioneer era of Sullivan county, the Wabash river was the great artery of transportation. From the records of the pioneers it will be found that many of the early settlers used the river route for at least a part of their migration. Some came up the river in canoes or other light craft. Vincennes was at the time the intermediate station for set- tlers, who usually stopped there before making their final selection of land. The journey to Vincennes was often made by water, and from that point the emigrants struck inland to their new homes on the prairies.
But the Wabash river was of less importance to the actual settle- ment of this county than as a commercial highway after the people were permanently located and had begun to produce the crops of the soil in quantities greater than the demands of local consumption. The problem of sending produce to the markets and of bringing home the commodities which supplied the wants of a pioneer community was largely solved, in this county, by the transportation facilities of the Wabash river.
It was only a few years after the organization of the county that the inhabitants of the Wabash valley witnessed the unusual spectacle of a craft propelled by steam against the current of the river. The first steamboat
I39
HISTORY OF SULLIVAN COUNTY
passed up the river as far as Terre Haute in May, 1823, and that event signalized the beginning of an important commerce both up and down the river, which continued until the railroad era. Previous to that time the only boats that could make progress up the river were light hand- propelled craft, hardly serviceable for regular commerce.
Flat Boats.
The magnitude of the Wabash commerce in 1832 is described in a quotation from "The Emigrants and Travelers' Guide," published in that year. "Hundreds of flat-boats annually descend the Wabash and White rivers. The trade of the Wabash river is becoming immense. In 1831, during the period between March 5th and April 16th, fifty-four steamboats arrived and departed from Vincennes. It is also estimated that at least one thousand flat-boats entered the Ohio from the Wabash in the same time. In February, March and April of this year there were sixty arrivals of steamboats at Lafayette." This writer tells us that one- tenth of the flat-boats, according to estimate, were "loaded with pork at the rate of 300 barrels to the boat,"-another tenth said to be loaded with lard, cattle, horses, oats, cornmeal, etc., and the remainder with corn on €
the ear. The value of produce and stock sent annually to market from the valley of the Wabash was estimated by one authority at nearly $1,000,000.
The flat-boat was an ideal craft for the times and purpose for the Indiana rivers, from its light draft, its capacity and cheapness. The flat- boats were made in the fall and winter, ready for the spring waters. Trunks of poplars, sometimes 90 to 100 feet long, without a splice, were
140
HISTORY OF SULLIVAN COUNTY
used for the gunwales. The tree was squared by hewing, and then mounted on "bucks" so that two men could whip-saw it from end to end. The two timbers were then about eight inches thick and from two to three feet wide. These formed the two sides or gunwales. Near the lower edge of each gunwale, a groove was cut a depth of two or three inches to allow the flooring to be set on, and the planks were bolted by wooden pins. The pins were made by the barrel. Spikes were not used because of expense and scarcity of iron. The seams were calked with hemp or flax. Uprights were set at intervals along the gunwales, and the sides were boarded up to the required height, depending upon the draft of the vessel. A thousand bushels of corn were often the contents of one cargo.
The boats were built bottom-side up, and when finished were turned over by block and tackle. Sometimes they were built on a slope at the water's edge so that turning was easier. Another method was to turn the boat right side up in the water, sand being piled on one side until the weight was sufficient to careen the other side, and a little skilful maneuver- ing put the craft upright.
Corn was shipped in the ear. The southern planters preferred it so to being shelled and sacked, since it was less liable to spoil. One of the staples brought back from the south was New Orleans sugar. Of course, sugar was a luxury, and until the steamboat era reduced the cost of trans- portation the pioneers generally depended on maple sugar and other home- made substitutes. Even after the steamboat traffic became general, a large proportion of the imported merchandise used in Sullivan county was brought in overland from Louisville and Evansville. For a number of
.
I4I
HISTORY OF SULLIVAN COUNTY
years a man named Webb, of Merom, carried on an extensive business in hauling goods overland. He had several fine teams in which he took much pride.
Busseron creek was also considered a navigable stream during the flat-boat era. Owing to the presence of forest growth and lack of drain- age, the waters of this and similar tributaries were greater in volume and less fluctuating than in later years, and during the spring freshets it was possible to float boats loaded with produce down the current of Busseron. Caledonia was once a center for the flat-boat traffic, and boats were also loaded at Carlisle and other points.
Mails and Stage Roads.
For the transportation of mails and passengers, the pioneer epoch had few regular facilities. Mails were carried overland from Vincennes to Merom and to Terre Haute usually by horseback. Travel was usually by the same means, and the individual traveler depended on his own horse and followed such roads as he found through the wilderness. When steamboats began running up and down the river, mail and passengers were conveyed on the boats, and about the same time the state road was constructed from Vincennes north through Merom to Terre Haute. For many years this road was the principal thoroughfare for all kinds of traffic up and down the Wabash valley. The river was not navigable at all times of the year, and consequently the stage road was more to be depended upon for transportation the year around. A line of stage coaches ran over this route even for a year or more after the building of
142
HISTORY OF SULLIVAN COUNTY
the railroad north and south. Merom was a regular station on the line. which passed on through Graysville and Fairbanks into Vigo county.
The state road was so called because it was laid out in accordance with the provisions of a special act of the state legislature. Still other highways were confined to the county itself, although generally connecting with other thoroughfares at the boundaries. Such highways were under the sole jurisdiction of the county commissioners and known as county roads. A large part of the time of every session of the county board during the early period of the history of the county was taken up with hearing petitions for these county roads, appointing viewers to lay them out, hearing and approving the reports of the viewers and establishing the roads, or in listening to remonstrances and appointing reviewers. In time, however, all the necessary roads have been laid out, and it is not often now that petitions for new roads are presented to the commissioners.
Modern Road Building.
The attention of the county board and of the township road authori- ties is now, and has been for years, chiefly given to bridging, draining, grading, graveling and otherwise improving the highways already laid out. Although when first laid out and improved, the various highways were for a time distinguished as national, state, county and even township roads ; yet now, and for a long time, all roads are improved and cared for under the county and township road authorities, and the laws in relation to highways apply uniformly to all public roads, no matter by what authority they were originally established.
It is said that the United States postal authorities in charge of the
I43
HISTORY OF SULLIVAN COUNTY
free delivery mail routes have recently pronounced the highways of Indiana the best in the Union. In Sullivan county the process of perma- nent road improvement is not more than twenty years old. At the present time there are about 400 miles of "improved" roads in the county, that is, roads that have been graded and surfaced with rock or gravel, so that their condition is comparatively speaking one of permanent improvement.
Certain portions of highway in the county, especially what have been known as "Busseron bottom roads," became subjects of special work and expense some forty years ago. There is record of a meeting at the court house in 1867 of those interested in the improvement of the Linton road across the Busseron bottom. J. C. Brodie was chairman. The sum of $800 was subscribed for the repair of this highway.
Aside from these special efforts to make passable roads, the good roads movement in this county began during the latter decade of the 'Sos. In 1886 it was estimated that the total amount of taxes for roads col- lected during the preceding ten years was $57,373.39, this being the net , amount after deducting expenses of collection. The amount expended on roads in 1876 was $2,665; 1878, $3.393.64; in 1879, $2,608.72, while during the last four years of this decade the annual expenditure had reached over nine thousand dollars per year. And yet a very small part of this sum had been expended with a view to permanent results, and the roads were considered as bad if not worse than before.
About 1890 a new law was enacted providing for the construction of gravel roads, to be paid for by township taxation. In Sullivan county the building of gravel roads met strong opposition. The newly organized F. M. B. A. directed its power against this form of community under-
144
HISTORY OF SULLIVAN COUNTY
taking, and when these lodges began to oppose it the public agitation in behalf of the movement was partly nullified. The Democrat had little to say in its columns except to call attention to the depth of mud on the various roads and the consequent loss of business to Sullivan.
But the good roads movement made an appeal to business interests that made its ultimate success inevitable. In January, 1892, a meeting at tlie court house resolved unanimously in favor of building a road from Sullivan to the gravel beds in Turman township. The executive com- mittee appointed by this meeting consisted of Claude Crowder, Robert Dudley, John H. Welling, Jacob Billman and J. L. Higbee, while a com- mittee to furnish estimates of cost was composed of P. H. Blue, Harry Pittman, C. L. Davis and T. J. Wolfe. About the same time a session of the farmers' institute devoted an entire afternoon to the road question.
A resume of the road situation was published in February, 1892, in which it was shown that from 1875 to 1890 the sum of $90,805.84 was paid out for roads, an average of six thousand dollars a year, exclusive of salaries to trustees and supervisors and the sums paid for road scrapers, graders and plows; also it did not include the sums paid out of township funds nor work done by road hands who were warned out by the road supervisors and required to work a certain number of days. All this money was declared to have been wasted so far as any permanent improve- ment in the condition of the county's highways was concerned.
About the middle of that decade, however, the construction of gravel roads became general in different parts of the county. An item in March, 1896, states that in nearly all the townships petitions for improved roads were circulating, and that the surveyor and viewers had been at work
I45
HISTORY OF SULLIVAN COUNTY
in Haddon, petitions having been circulated for the grading of roads in almost all directions from Carlisle.
In July, 1897, a contract was awarded by the county commissioners for the construction of 77 miles of road in the county, for a total sum of $137,000. Other contracts followed each year, until within ten years the county had about four hundred miles of road. While many of these roads have been surfaced with gravel, in recent years the commissioners have awarded large contracts for crushed stone roads. There are no large gravel deposits available in the county, and it has been found to be more economical to bring in crushed stone for road making. The cost per mile of a stone road is between four and five thousand dollars.
The building of these roads has been a heavy drain upon the resources of the county and townships. Several years ago it was found that some of the townships had reached the limit of their indebtedness, and were unable to contract further improvements. In May, 1906, it was announced that the county commissioners would entertain no petitions for graveling roads until the different townships became able to assume their share of the financial burdens. Every township was then bonded to its legal limit, and no funds would be available for road making during the next two years. It was charged that this condition was largely the result of the abuse of the privilege of building short roads. Every resident had interested himself in the construction of a road past his farm, but this did not promote a thorough system of roads, laid out for the best welfare of all concerned.
Bridges.
The building of bridges has been one of the important functions of Vol. 1-10
146
HISTORY OF SULLIVAN COUNTY
the board of county commissioners from the time of the settlement of the county. At the present time it would be difficult to find in the county a highway crossing over a stream that is not bridged. Along the principal roads, especially those traversed by the stage and mail lines, bridges were built at an early date, though until within the memory of the present generation a customary method of getting over a stream was to ford it, and the roads often turned aside from the straight line in order to strike the stream at a fordable point. Likewise a great change has occurred in the type of bridges used. Formerly the wooden bridge was altogether in use, the superstructure resting often on wooden pillars, but sometimes on stone columns. Most of the larger bridges erected within the last twenty- five years have been of iron or steel construction, though the cement arch and the reinforced concrete type has rapidly come into favor during the past ten years.
One of the early iron bridges of which there is record was a bridge built over Buck creek in 1883, the King's Iron Bridge Company of Cleve- land having the contract. The supports for this bridge were four iron columns about twenty inches in diameter, filled with rock and cement, and the fifty-foot span was of iron. In 1886 the county commissioners contracted for the building of two iron bridges, one over the Busseron at Paxton and one at Carlisle.
The commissioners reported. in November. 1894. that 31 iron bridges had been put up in the county as a result of orders from their office. Each year a considerable part of the county expenditures have been devoted to the construction of bridges, the sum expended in 1901 being nearly eleven thousand dollars.
1
CHAPTER VIII.
THE ERA OF RAILROADS AND ELECTRICITY.
Following the era of river and canal and stage-coach transportation came the railroads. During the stirring epoch of internal improvements of the early thirties, railroads and canals were planned to supplement each other. Eight railroads were chartered by the Indiana legislature in 1832, and during the next five years twenty-eight charters in all were granted for proposed lines. But for the time the canals were pushed with greater energy, and the era of railroads in Indiana begins with the middle of the century.
The first railroad in the state was a mile and a half long, at Shelby- ville, as part of the Lawrenceburg and Indianapolis line. It cost $1,500 a mile, and was opened July 4, 1834. Its traction equipment was one horse, which "was found able to draw forty or fifty persons at the rate of nine miles an hour." A few miles of the line from Madison to Indian- apolis was opened in 1838, and marked the real beginning of the great railroad system of the state.
After the collapse of state enterprise in promoting internal improve- ments, the Madison road was turned over to a private company. The
147
148
HISTORY OF SULLIVAN COUNTY
first train steamed into Indianapolis on October 1, 1847, and at this date the Madison & Indianapolis Railroad was the only one of importance in the state. The progress of railroad building during the next few years is indicated in the figures for 1850, when five short roads comprised only 212 miles in the aggregate, and for 1852-53, when twenty roads were in operation in the state. Railroads ruined the canal enterprises, and it is also noteworthy that the towns which grew during the second half of the century were those located on railroad lines.
The first railroad between the Wabash and Indianapolis was built between Terre Haute and the capital, largely through the enterprise of Chauncey Rose, who was the first president. This road (now the Van- dalia) was completed at the close of 1851. Up and down the Wabash valley the freight traffic was still carried by the canal and river packets. On the south the nearest railroad to Sullivan county was a line that had been started from Evansville about 1850, and after progressing as far as Vincennes halted there for lack of means. Chauncey Rose saw the value of a southern connection for his east and west road, had the line surveyed, raised founds, and W. D. Griswold built the first railroad through Sullivan county and was placed in control of its management.
This was the origin of the Evansville & Terre Haute Railroad, which was completed through Sullivan county in 1854. The first train passed through Sullivan over this line November 25, 1854. For several months preceding passengers had been conveyed between Sullivan and Carlisle by stage.
It is not surprising that the advent of the first railroad to a com- munity was made the occasion of celebration, and the year 1854 was
149
HISTORY OF SULLIVAN COUNTY
marked by several gatherings in Sullivan and Carlisle and elsewhere in the county to give proper distinction to an event of so much significance to the whole welfare of the county and its people. The construction of railroads at that time partook more of the character of a popular enter- prise than is true of present undertakings. Large subscriptions were raised in the country tributary to the roads, and without this assistance few of the earlier roads could have been built. It is estimated that Sulli- van county contributed about $100,000 to the building of its first railroad, and that over half of this amount was paid in 1854, a year which was marked by an almost total failure of crops. Carlisle gave the largest amount of any town in the county. The first survey located the road three miles west of the village, and rather than lose the great prize some sixteen public-spirited citizens subscribed over thirty thousand dollars to the railroad company.
The railroad did not solve all the problems of transportation for the people of Sullivan county. Either the railroad management proved somewhat arbitrary in its dealings, or the people were slow to accustom themselves to the new conditions. There is curious evidence of this atti- tude toward the railroad in a brief article in the Democrat of January 24. 1857, in which complaint is made of the exorbitant railroad rates and of the lack of depot facilities. The wagoners of Sullivan had met a few days previously, with Isaac Voorhiss chairman and John Carico secretary of the meeting, and had resolved to establish a wagon line to Terre Haute for transportation of freight at not higher rates than those charged by the railroad company, with the advantage to the customers in saving drayage charges at both ends of the line. Whether the wagon men were
150
HISTORY OF SULLIVAN COUNTY
successful in getting a considerable share of the traffic is not known, but it is certain that competition between the railroad and the wagon road would soon result in complete victory for the former .*
In the election for representative for the legislature in 184-, the charge against the re-election of Benjamin Wolfe was made that he had voted to charter the E. and T. H. R. R. at the previous session, which had failed to pass ; that if re-elected and the charter was granted, that the horses, now worth fifty to seventy-five dollars, would not be worth more than twenty-five or thirty. The issue failed. Mr. Wolfe was elected and the charter was granted.
For twenty years the county had the one railroad as the central com- mercial artery. Some time after the war arose discussion and agitation over the construction of what was known as an "east and west railroad," the principal terminal points of the proposed line being St. Louis and Cincinnati. The career of this east and west line has been a checkered one, and in its original construction it was an example of certain railroad enterprises which were projected in different sections of the country and nearly all of which were principally productive of expensive litigation and the unloading upon counties, townships and individuals of large obliga- tions with a few miles of railroad to show for them.
The proposition was first brought to practical consideration by the voters of the county early in 1870, when a vote was taken on the matter of laying a tax of two dollars per hundred on all personal and real prop- erty of the county for the benefit of the projected railroad line. Anti-
* " An increase of freight has justified the putting on of an extra train, so that we now have an accommodation train each way daily."-Democrat, April 10, 1862.
15I
HISTORY OF SULLIVAN COUNTY
donation meetings were held at Carlisle and elsewhere, and when the election was held in April, only a little more than five hundred votes were cast in favor of the tax, and nearly 1.900 against it. Gill township voted for the tax and in Hamilton the vote was close, but elsewhere the people showed themselves unmistakably opposed to any such county subsidy.
The Cincinnati and St. Louis Straight Line Railroad was the name of the enterprise which received most support in the county. The year 1872 was fruitful of railroad projects, frequent election notices appearing in the Democrat of that year. Support for these undertakings was sought not only from the county as a whole but from the individual townships. Thus twenty-five freeholders of Fairbanks township petitioned that ten thousand dollars should be appropriated by the township to aid in the building of the Terre Haute and Southwestern, the appropriation to be invested in the stock of the railroad, and a condition of the appropriation was that the line should be built from the northern limit of the township to a point not further north than the Narrows. At the same time the Cincinnati and Terre Haute Railroad was asking aid from the county, to the amount of $73.000 from the county, and at the same election Hamilton township and Cass and Gill townships were asked individually to contrib- ute two dollars for each one hundred dollars of taxable property for the construction of the east and west railroad. The election was held Feb- ruary 12, and the county tax defeated by a large majority, but the three townships mentioned each voted the subsidy asked for by the C. & St. L. S. L.
In the following July the tax voted by the three townships was assessed and collected, at the rate of 60 cents on the hundred dollars.
I52
HISTORY OF SULLIVAN COUNTY
For over two years nothing is heard of these railroad enterprises. In October, 1874, mention is made of a meeting held at the court house in the interest of the east and west railroad, and it is reported at the time that work was being pushed on the section between the I. & V. and Bloom- field. In November, 1874, a meeting of Cass township citizens was held in the Center schoolhouse to aid in making arrangements to secure the east and west railroad, and the committee appointed for that purpose con- sisted of William Bledsoe, Dan Case, Jefferson Alumbaugh, Thomas G. Neeley, Wiley Gambill, Flemmon Keen, and J. M. Stansil. In the follow- ing month the township voted a two per cent tax for the purpose.
In 1875 the east and west railroad made considerable progress. Those interested in the enterprise met at Sullivan in July, and at the time it was reported that a contract had been entered into for the con- struction of the entire line from the Wabash river to Bedford, the con- tractors being Buell, Clark and Company. The section from Switz City to I. & V. was to be completed by October Ist, and the rest of the line by July 1, 1876. In September Gill township gave a large majority in favor of a two per cent tax for this railroad, provided it was built on the specified route.
The work progressed slowly. In April, 1876, an item states that the narrow-gauge trains were to run into the Evansville and Crawfordsville depot, a third rail to be laid in the track for that purpose. But the first definite announcement of operation of trains to Sullivan by the new line was a paragraph in the Democrat of July 15, 1877: "The long expected locomotive of the narrow-gauge railroad arrived in town last Monday. It is a very handsome little engine, and is named the Joseph W. Wolfe.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.