USA > Indiana > White County > A standard history of White County Indiana : an authentic narrative of the past, with an extended survey of modern developments in the progress of town and county, Vol. I > Part 21
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The objects of the society, as stated in its constitution, "shall be the collection and preservation of all material calculated to shed light on the natural, civil and political history of White county ; the publica- tion and circulation of historical documents; the promotion of useful knowledge; and the friendly and profitable intercourse of such citizens as are disposed to promote these ends."
Annual public meetings were inaugurated, the first one being held in Library Hall, Monticello, April 19, 1912. At this meeting a paper on the early history of Indiana, by W. H. Hamelle, was read by the secretary, and James M. McBeth read a history of the McBeth family, which he had prepared by request. Short talks giving cordial endorse- ment of the work and purpose of the society were made by James M. McBeth, Judge T. F. Palmer, H. C. Johnson, Rev. A. L. Martin and J. E. Loughry. Music was furnished by the high school orchestra and a ladies quartette composed of Miss Marjorie McBeth, Miss Grace Clapper, Miss Ruth Vogel and Miss Julia McCuaig.
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Records were procured and the work of gathering historical material and collecting and indexing it by the most approved system was begun. Matter pertaining to the early history of the county, and especially biographical sketches, both of pioneers and later residents, were espe- cially solicited, all such contributions to be sent to the secretary.
The present officers of the society are : President, William H. Hamelle ; vice president, Will S. Bushnell; secretary, Jay B. VanBuskirk; treas- urer, Bernard G. Smith.
Executive Committee-William H. Hamelle, Jay B. VanBuskirk, Bernard G. Smith, James P. Simons and Will S. Bushnell, all of Monticello.
Advisory Board-Cass Township, Joseph McBeth, Idaville; Jackson, Geo. H. Mitchell, Idaville; Liberty, James Spencer, Buffalo; Union, Jas. M. McBeth, Monticello; Monon, Eli Cowger, Monon; Honey Creek, Mrs. Sarah Gardner, Reynolds; Big Creek, S. M. Burns, Chalmers; Princeton, Albert Plummer, Wolcott; West Point, Walter Carr, Reyn- olds; Round Grove, A. L. Telfer, Brookston; and Prairie, Thos. W. Sleeth, Brookston.
WHITE COUNTY MEDICAL SOCIETY
The physicians of White County have always stanchly upheld the ethics of their profession, and they justly point with pride to the founder of their medical society, Dr. William S. Haymond, long of Monticello and afterward a resident of Indianapolis and a figure of national fame. It was shortly after his return from army service as a surgeon, in broken health, that he called a meeting of his fellow practitioners in White County for the purpose of organizing a society. Eight physicians met at his office in Monticello. Dr. H. P. Anderson was made chairman and after the adoption of a constitution, which had been previously prepared, these permanent officers were elected : Doctor Haymond, president; Dr. John Medaris, vice president; Dr. John A. Blackwell, secretary.
The time of meeting was fixed for the second Tuesday in each month, various committees were appointed, and Doctor Anderson was selected to read a paper upon any topic he should choose at the next meeting. The society then adjourned to meet at Reynolds on the second Tuesday of the following May. None but physicians of the regular school were admitted to membership; practitioners in other counties were admitted to honorary membership, and three active members constituted a quorum for the transaction of business.
Besides those already mentioned, some of the prominent early mem- bers were C. A. Barnes, W. H. Ball, J. R. Skidmore, John A. Wood, William Spencer, J. H. Thomas, William Mote, A. V. Moore, H. D. Rid- dile, C. E. Lamon, R. A. Harcourt and A. B. Ballou.
Meetings of the society were held quite regularly until 1869, after which there was a break for about six years. In October, 1875, they were resumed, at which time some changes in the laws were made.
* Mr. Mitchell died about 1914 and his successor has not been named.
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Doctor Haymond shared with Dr. John W. Medaris, of Brookston, the honors of prominence and ability in the membership of the County Medical Society. The former, however, while a citizen of more extended fame, withdrew from the historical field of White County in the early '70s, when he moved to Indianapolis and entered upon the broader plane of his life.
DR. JOHN W. MEDARIS
Doctor Medaris, although a physician of middle age when he became a resident of Brookston in 1859, continued to make that place his home and the center of his faithful practice, his Masonic activities and his splendid educational work-all tending to the progress of White County -for a period of more than half a century. At the time of his death on September 21, 1911, he was in his ninety-seventh year; the oldest per- son in White County, probably the oldest Mason in the state (having joined the order in 1846) and the veteran of the White County Medical Society, having survived Doctor Haymond for over a quarter of a century.
Doctor Medaris was born in Clearmont, Ohio, October 22, 1814, was educated in his native state, and received his medical training in the Miami School of Medicine at Cincinnati and the Sterling School of Medicine, Columbus. After his graduation he began practice at Hart- ford, Ohio, and in 1859 located at Brookston. The town was then very young and the doctor's circuit of practice was often many miles out in the country, over terrible roads and through storms and mud. But, like others of his fellows, he accepted such hardships with good cheer as matters-of-course in the career of the country doctor. No member of the profession was more widely known or beloved than Doctor Medaris.
In 1867, three years after the founding of the county medical so- ciety, Doctor Medaris realized another of his ambitions, which was par- ticularly his triumph, in the building of the Brookston Academy, one of the prominent educational institutions of Northern Indiana. During the Civil war he had served as a member of the Indiana Sanitary Com- mission, having been detailed by Governor Morton to give medical aid and assistance to the Union soldiers of White County detained in the Memphis hospitals. But he was best known throughout the state for his enthusiasm and steadfastness in Masonry, which endured for sixty- five years-from the time he joined the order until his death. Through- out its official life he was one of the stanchest and dearest friends of the Old Settlers Association, and at its meeting of August, 1911, held the month before his death, appeared to be in his usual health. A few days before he was called away to the Future which knows no centuries, he received a dispatch announcing the death of his daughter, at her home in Danville. The attendant shock, with a decline in his physical strength which had been noted a short time previously, undoubtedly hastened his end. A strong personality, which was evinced in practical accomplish- ments, honesty and sincerity, with a generosity which often went far beyond the bounds of self-protection, and an abiding affection for those
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nearest him, as well as a broad charity for all, were the marked traits in this revered patriarch.
Among the members of the profession who joined the White County Medical Society at a later date than those mentioned were Doctors A. B. Jones, F. A. Grant, R. M. Delzell, R. S. Black, William Tracey, W. V. Trowbridge, John Harcourt, Madison T. Didlake, W. Holtzman, Robert J. Clarke, S. H. Parke, J. H. Reed, R. M. Reagan, J. W. McAllister, F. E. Lester, H. R. Minnick, J. E. Chaffee, James L. Carr, George R. Clayton, W. H. Clark, E. P. Washburn and Walter McBeth.
DR. MADISON T. DIDLAKE
One of the oldest and best known of what may be called the second generation of physicians, who are still in practice, is Dr. Madison T. Didlake, of Monticello. He is a Kentuckian who passed the earlier stages of his development as a resident of Bloomington, Illinois. There he finished his literary education with two years of study at the Wes- leyan University, and at the age of twenty began his professional train- ing under Dr. C. R. Parke, of Chicago. In the winter of 1866-67 he graduated from the Chicago Medical College, and for several years there- after practiced at Augusta, Arkansas, and Stanford, Illinois. In 1871 he commenced his professional career in White County by locating at Wolcott, but since 1881 has been a practitioner at Monticello. Besides enjoying a large practice, Doctor Didlake has served in several public capacities, being county treasurer in 1880-84 (two terms).
The White County Medical Society of today has a membership of twelve, with the following officers: Guy R. Coffin, president; Madison T. Didlake, vice president; Grant Goodwin, secretary, all of Monticello ; and Augustus J. Blickenstaff, of Wolcott, treasurer.
CHAPTER X
HISTORY OF THE PRESS
THE DAWN OF NEWSPAPERDOM-THE PRAIRIE CHIEFTAIN-PRESERVING NEWSPAPER FILES-END OF THE CHIEFTAIN-THE WHITE COUNTY REGISTER-THREE OBSCURE NEWSPAPERS-WHITE COUNTY JACKSON- IAN-WHITE COUNTY DEMOCRAT-MONTICELLO DEMOCRAT-DEMO- CRAT-JOURNAL-OBSERVER COMPANY-MONTICELLO SPECTATOR-MONTI- CELLO HERALD-THE NATIONAL-MONTICELLO TIMES-MONTICELLO WEEKLY PRESS-THE DAILY JOURNAL-WHITE COUNTY REPUBLICAN -WHITE COUNTY CITIZEN-OTHER MONTICELLO PUBLICATIONS- EARLY NEWSPAPER FIELD AT REYNOLDS-THE WHITE COUNTY BAN- NER-THE BROOKSTON REPORTER-OTHER BROOKSTON ITEMS-THE REYNOLDS BROOM AND SUN-THE REYNOLDS JOURNAL-IDAVILLE OB- SERVER-THE MONON DISPATCH-MONON TIMES-MONON NEWS-W. J. HUFF-THE WOLCOTT ENTERPRISE-CHALMERS DESPATCH-BUR- NETTSVILLE ENTERPRISE-BURNETTSVILLE DISPATCH-BURNETTSVILLE NEWS-GENERAL PROGRESS.
By J. B. VanBuskirk Formerly editor of the Monticello Herald
The early newspaper history of White County is largely traditional. No files of the early newspapers were preserved, and it would be hard to establish the the existence of some of them but for an occasional men- tion of their names in the court records. Up to the year 1850 the pub- licity required by law in certain legal proceedings was secured either by posting notices in public places or by publication in newspapers of ad- joining counties. In this way the names of the LaFayette Journal, the LaFayette Courier, the Logansport Journal, the Delphi Times, the Car- roll Express and other papers outside of White County are enshrined in the old records of the clerk's office as recognized "newspapers of general circulation" in those early days before White County had a newspaper.
THE DAWN OF NEWSPAPERDOM
That era of darkness came to an end in 1850, sixteen years after White County was born. The harbingers of the dawn were two men who came from other states and combining their money, their credit and their muscle, dispersed the gloom by founding the Prairie Chieftain. These men were Abram V. Reed, a brother of the late Judge Alfred
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Reed, and John K. Lovejoy. The former came from Urbana, Ohio, where he had been publishing a democratic paper under such disadvantages that it had finally suspended. He was postmaster at Monticello under President Pierce's administration and died here during his term of office in June, 1856. His brother, Col. Alfred Reed, was the administrator of his estate, and it required almost nine years to get it out of court, the record showing the administrator was not discharged until May 11, 1865. The printing office of the decedent was inventoried at $500 and was sold to James E. Robison, who gave his note with M. M. Sill and R. W. Sill as sureties. There is no evidence that Mr. Robison ever became an editor, but on the settlement of the Reed estate two judgments against him were listed as assets. John K. Lovejoy, who came from Illinois, was a brother of Halsey Lovejoy, a merchant here who was one of Monticello's bulwarks of integrity and sobriety. Lovejoy, the printer, was of a different tem- perament and less inclined to take life seriously. He soon retired from the Chieftain and moved West. He afterward engaged in the newspaper business at Downieville, Nevada, and died in that state in 1877. During his residence in Nevada he won some newspaper notoriety by betting a coffin with a neighbor that he would live a year. He won the bet and on receiving the coffin remarked, "It was a good bet. I shall want the wooden overcoat before long, and it will be handy to have around."
THE PRAIRIE CHIEFTAIN
It is common tradition that the Chieftain was published in the old courthouse, a frame building which stood on the present site of Mrs. S. P. Cowger's residence, 209 South Main Street, and so it was, at least during a part of its existence, but it probably first saw the light else- where, for at the time of its birth the old courthouse was still occupied as a county building, its successor not being completed until 1851. Its crowded condition, which occasioned the building of a new courthouse, would hardly have permitted the use of any part of it for a printing office before that time. Just where the squeak and rumble of the Chieftain's old handpress first broke upon Monticello's expectant ear is now un- known and will likely remain so forever .* But it was migratory, and according to a statement from Mr. James Spencer of Buffalo, who was once the "devil" of the office, the last days of the Chieftain were spent in a building on the northwest corner of Illinois and Washington streets.
In former sketches of White County's newspaper history the date of the Prairie Chieftain's first issue has been assigned to 1849, but from the court records and from the serial number of the paper as shown in a facsimile copy still extant, it appears that the publication must have begun in July, 1850.
* An inspection of the court records since the above was written shows that for several months prior to the advent of the Chieftain the sessions of the Circuit Court were held in the New School Presbyterian Church. It is possible, therefore, that the ambition of White County for a newspaper led the fathers to vacate the courtroom to give it an abiding place.
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The Prairie Chieftain and its early successors were not bad-looking specimens of the printer's art. They were printed on "all-rag" paper, which cost 25 cents per pound. It was before the era of straw and wood pulp, which has so cheapened the production of paper that publishers now think the times are out of joint if they have to pay more than two or three cents per pound. It was also before the days of stereotype plate matter and ready-print sheets, so that the early country newspaper was an exclusively home production. It was limited to four pages, and an advertisement once set remained the same yesterday, today and forever. Though all the matter was home-set, there was a sad dearth of home news in the columns of these old newspapers. Practically all the reading mat- ter was select miscellany from current magazines, speeches from the Con- gressional Globe, and news clippings from far-away weekly newspapers. The metropolitan daily was of no use to the Monticello editor in those days, when mails arrived only once a week, and even the weeklies were several days old before reaching here. Under such circumstances, it seems strange that the local newspaper did not resort inore largely to local news, but it must be remembered that local happenings were few in such a sparse population, and that the editor from necessity was also foreman, compositor, pressman and sometimes "devil," leaving him little time for news gathering or editorial writing. Yet it must be recorded that the first murder trial in White County received a treatment in the Prairie Chieftain which would do credit to some of its present-day suc- cessors. Its issue of November 4, 1850, contained a nine-column report of the trial of Cantwell and Dayton for the murder of David Jones, in- cluding all the testimony, the judge's charge to the jury, the names of the jurors, their verdict, the overruling of the motion for a new trial. and the sentencing for life. It was a piece of newspaper enterprise which caused that issue of the Chieftain to be in great demand, and copies of it were preserved for many years even in adjoining counties. Yet at the present writing not even a single copy of this historic issue can be found. though the late Milton M. Sill, in his unpublished and uncompleted "His- tory of White County," mentions a copy which belonged to the late Dr. R. J. Clark, who had secured it from a Mr. Harvey, a relative in Tippecanoe County.
All hail to the man who never throws anything away, be its current value much or little! He is as rare as copies of the Prairie Chieftain itself. A veteran printer of this city might now be the owner of untold literary wealth if he had not hung James Whitcomb Riley's autograph poems on the dead hook like common copy, as he set them day after day in a country print shop many years ago.
PRESERVING NEWSPAPER FILES
The idea of preserving files of local newspapers had not taken root with our county fathers at that early day, though as early as 1853 the Indiana Legislature enacted a law authorizing county commissioners to subscribe for local newspapers and keep them on file in the county re-
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corder's office at their option. This procedure appears to have been adopted in White County as early as 1857 or 1858, but not very faith- fully executed. The papers were carried off or mutilated, and up to 1883 the files kept in the recorder's office were very scattering, and no attempt had been made to preserve them in bound form. During the term of Mr. James P. Simons as recorder he suggested to the board the advisability of binding their newspaper files, and upon the order of the board he gathered up and arranged the accumulations of past years and had them decently bound. Since that time this precedent has been followed at intervals of one or two years, and now a more or less complete file of the county seat papers may be found in the recorder's office, extending back as far as 1858, though very fragmentary as to the earlier years of this period.
After the departure of John K. Lovejoy for the West his partner, Mr. Reed, continued the publication of the Chieftain alone until the summer of 1854, when he was joined by Mr. John Carothers, who also came from Urbana, Ohio. Mr. Carothers severed his connection with the paper in the fall of the same year, but continued his journalistic career elsewhere. During the Civil war he was publisher of the Cham- paign County Union at Urbana, Illinois. Later he returned to Urbana, Ohio, and was living there in 1896, at which time he wrote a letter to the Herald recalling his newspaper days in Monticello. He was moved to write the letter by receiving a copy of the Herald containing a fac- simile of the first page of the Prairie Chieftain as it appeared during his connection with the paper.
END OF THE CHIEFTAIN
The existence of the Prairie Chieftain came to an end some time in 1854 or 1855, but the manner of its taking off is veiled in obscurity. There is reason to believe that it "struck the rocks" on account of hard times, its death being hastened, perhaps, by the appearance of another paper in a field barely large enough for the support of one. The Chieftain was a democratic paper, and the county was democratic, but the issues which led up to the Civil war a few years later were already coming to the front, and even in White County the discussion of these issues was waxing hot. Though the impression has prevailed that only one paper at a time existed in White County up to 1859, it is certain that the Chieftain had a contemporary in its last days, for in its issue of August 17, 1854, appears an account of a meeting held in Prairie Township at which a series of resolutions condemning the Nebraska Bill was adopted and ordered published "in the two papers of the county."
THE WHITE COUNTY REGISTER
The other paper is said to have been the White County Register, a paper bearing the name of Richard T. Parker as publisher and Benjamin F. Tilden as editor, the latter being an attorney from Starke County,
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Ohio. Mr. Tilden died in the fall of 1854, and the Register apparently died with him. Its press and materials were sold by Rowland Hughes, his executor, upon an order of the Common Pleas Court, and Mr. Tilden's estate was settled as insolvent after long litigation. Richard T. Parker and Leonard H. Miller, two printers who had been connected with the office, each claimed a one-third interest in the equipment, and objected to the order of sale. Their objection was overruled, and they prayed an appeal to the Circuit Court, but their appeal was denied and the sale was made. The press was sold for $225 to James P. Luse, of LaFayette, who had previously held a lien of $167 on it, probably for purchase money.
THREE OBSCURE NEWSPAPERS
In the meantime there appeared and disappeared three other papers, whose origin and history it is impossible to trace accurately. Nobody now living remembers them by name, and their existence seems like "the baseless fabric of a vision." Yet the court records show that in 1855 and 1856 the Monticello Tribune, the Monticello Republican and the Monti- cello Union were legally recognized as newspapers of general circula- tion. Whether they represented three separate efforts of three venture- some men to fill a long-felt want or were only the afterglow of some van- ished luminary which had preceded them, can only be surmised. The Tribune appeared early in 1855, but no copy of it survives, and even the name of its editor is unknown. A little later in the same year the Monticello Republican is mentioned frequently in the records as the vehicle for legal notices, and early in 1856 the Union comes upon the field in the same capacity.
Whether these three papers were contemporaneous or successive, what party, element or interest they represented, how much "velvet" was accumulated by them or hard earnings sunk in them, what was their ancestry or what their progeny, are questions akin to "Who were the mound builders ?" or "What became of the lost tribes of Israel?" The voice of history is silent, and to all our inquiries we hear only the raven echo, "Nevermore!" As if to tantalize the historian and make it im- possible to dismiss these three old papers as a myth, one solitary copy of the Monticello Republican is now on file at the public library. It is dated "Sept. 22, 1855. Volume 1, number 21." It bears the name of Thomas T. Scott as editor and the motto, "Liberty and union, now and forever, one and inseparable!" Its name hints that the political party which afterward became such an important factor in history was then struggling into existence in White County, but its editorial columns give no hint of its political bias. They only convey a hint of the paper's approaching dissolution. The editor says :
"Two of our hands went fishing a few days since and on their return stated that they could hang their hats on the ague fumes they saw while absent. Today the 'ague fumes' have hung them on their beds and set Vol. 1 -11
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them to shaking teeth for a livelihood. * * It will be impossible for us to publish a paper on our next publication day. Ague, the flustrat- ing 'yaller feller,' has got us down, clear down."
This was probably the swan song of the Monticello Republican. Its editor is said to have died here, but he left no estate, and his name does not appear on the public records. His paper contained a number of Crawfordsville advertisements, from which it is inferred that he came from that city.
After the Republican had passed away the Union seems to have run a similar brief course. In a proof of publication dated September 2, 1856, Henry C. Kirk makes affidavit that "the publisher has departed this life and no copy of his paper containing said notice is within reach of the affiant." The publisher's name is not stated, but it appears from an action brought by the administrator of A. V. Reed's estate to collect a note that it was none other than A. V. Reed himself, the former editor of the Prairie Chieftain. The defendants in the suit were James E. Robison, Robert W. Sill and Milton M. Sill, who, it was alleged in the complaint, were partners in the publication of a paper called the Political Frame at the time the note was given, July 24, 1856, and that they had purchased therewith the press and other material of the Union to be used in the publication of their oddly named paper. For more than a year the Frame was apparently the sole occu- pant of the newspaper field in White County. For the first few months it was under the management of Robert W. Sill, but in March, 1857, the name of H. C. Kirk, then sheriff of the county, appeared at the masthead. Though the name of the paper smacked strongly of politics, it had no avowed political allegiance, so far as can be discovered. Mr. Kirk, its last editor, said in his salutatory : "Politically, the Frame shall remain as heretofore, 'independent in all things, neutral in nothing.' It shall be devoted to the best interests of the people upon all local and national questions." Whether the Political Frame died or was translated or passed by transmigration into the Jacksonian, is not cer- tain, but it ceased to appear in the year 1857. Both its editors closed their newspaper career in good health and lived for many years afterward.
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