USA > Indiana > An illustrated history of the state of Indiana: being a full and authentic civil and political history of the state from its first exploration down to 1875 > Part 36
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New Albany's river navigation facilities give her natural avenues of commerce and trade with fifteen States, having a population of over nine million. The cash value of the farms of this population in 1870 was over $901,000,000; of farm products, $519,876,412; of live stock, $189,301,721. This is but a portion of the wealth of the sections penetrated by the navigable rivers to which New Albany is directly accessible. The railroad advantages of the city are extensive, and there is a fair prospect of their enlargement in the near future.
The city is now the terminus of the Louisville, New Albany and Chicago, the Jeffersonville, Madison and Indianapolis, and the Louisville and New Albany railroads. Concerning the railroads and their future, we have the following from the pen of Mr. Cotton: "The track of the Louisville and Cincinnati
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HISTORY OF INDIANA.
branch of the Ohio and Mississippi railroad will soon be extended here, (the right of way into the city having been granted by the city council,) making New Albany the terminus of this road. The Louisville, New Albany and St. Louis rail- way, now being rapidly constructed, and which will be speedily finished, also terminates here, though it connects with Louis- ville by the Louisville and New Albany road. The Terre Haute and New Albany road is projected, and the New Albany and Cincinnati road has a bona fide subscription to its stock of over eight hundred thousand dollars. The Lake Erie, Louis- ville and New Albany railroad, (to Toledo, Ohio,) will be com- pleted early in the summer of 1873. These roads connect New Albany with all sections of the Union, north, south, east and west, giving her railroad advantages possessed by few cities in the west. The Louisville, New Albany and Chicago road runs from the Ohio river, at this city, to Lake Michigan, at Michi- gan City, a distance of nearly three hundred miles, connect- ing with the Ohio and Mississippi, the Toledo, Wabash and Western, the Pittsburg, Cincinnati and Chicago, the Michigan Southern, the Michigan Central, and a number of other roads. The Jeffersonville, Madison and Indianapolis road is the southermost link of the great Panhandle route east via Cam- bridge City, Columbus, Pittsburg, and the Pennsylvania Cen- tral to Harrisburg, Philadelphia, New York and Baltimore; and at Indianapolis it connects with all the roads leading from that city east, northwest, and north. The Louisville and New Albany road connects at Louisville with the Louisville and Nashville, and the Louisville and New Orleans roads to all points south; with the Chesapeake and Ohio to New York City and Norfolk, Virginia; with the short line to Cincinnati and the Baltimore and Ohio road east; and with all the roads in Kentucky centering at Louisville. The Ohio and Missis- sippi road will connect New Albany directly with the Balti- more and Ohio and all the lines leading east from Cincinnati. The Louisville, New Albany, and St. Louis Air Line railway is, as its name indicates, an air line road to St. Louis, connect- ing the two great commercial cities of Louisville and St. Louis, passing for nearly forty miles through the coal fields
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FLOYD COUNTY - HISTORICAL AND DESCRIPTIVE.
of Indiana, and the shortest route from Louisville to St. Louis by forty-six miles. This is one of the most important rail- roads in Indiana. The Lake Erie, Louisville and New Albany road will, when completed, give to New Albany an almost air line road to the great pineries and famous iron mines of Michigan. The New Albany and Cincinnati road is projected along the north bank of the Ohio river, via Madison to Cincin- nati. The New Albany and Terre Haute road is projected by way of the coal fields and iron mines of Owen, Clay, Greene and Vigo counties to Terre Haute, on the Wabash river, at the western limit of the State. Thus it will be seen that the railroad interests of New Albany are of vast magnitude, and promise to make her one of the first cities of Indiana."
The manufacturing interests of. New Albany are foremost. The most extensive glass works in the United States are located there. These works are organized under the name and style of the Star Glass Company. They cover an area of fifteen acres with the buildings and necessary grounds, and manufacture the very best quality of plate glass, in all respects equal to the best French and English plate, and also window glass, fruit jars, and bottles. The manufacture of plate glass in America is as yet an experiment so far as relates to profitable returns upon the very large investment of capital it requires to operate such works. There can, however, be little cause to doubt that the experiment now making at New Albany in the manufacture of a first quality of plate glass will prove successful, inasmuch as the capital employed, the extent of the buildings, and the amount and superiority of the machinery used, will compare favorably with the like condi- tions in the extensive plate glass works of Europe. The commercial interests of the city are very extensive and con- stantly expanding.
The people of New Albany boast, and perhaps justly, that they have the most efficient system of free schools, in the State. "Their claim in this regard," says Mr. Cotton, "is well founded, as the carefully collated official statistics of the schools will show. There are in the city ten elegant and very large brick school buildings, and one frame school building.
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HISTORY OF INDIANA.
The value of these buildings is about one hundred and fifty thousand dollars, and they furnish accommodations for fully three thousand pupils. Eight of the buildings are used for the primary, intermediate, and grammar schools, and one as a male high school, and one as a female high school. The system of grading is a most perfect one, and works admirably and efficiently. Tuition is absolutely free in all departments; and the pupils who pass all the grades and graduate through the high school receive a thorough English and scientific educa- tion, and are competent for any department of business, or for any of the professions. The city has erected a first-class brick edifice as a school house for the colored inhabitants of the city, who have the same rights to admission into their own schools as the whites have into theirs - the same law governing both. Forty-five white and two colored teachers are employed in these public schools, while the average attendance of pupils is about two thousand three hundred. The annual cost of the schools is not far from thirty thousand dollars, and the total number of school children in the city entitled to the privi- leges of the schools is seven thousand one hundred and thirty. The schools are managed by a board of three school trustees, elected by the city council, which secures to them' permanency, and the best educators in the way of teachers. These public schools afford the poor man, the mechanic, laborer, and small dealer or trader, superior facilities for giving his children an excellent education free of all expense; so that no man who lives in New Albany can have the least excuse for permitting his sons or daughters to grow up in ignorance. It is doubtful if a better system of public free schools can be found in any section of the Union than the one now in operation, with the most eminent success, at New Albany.
The Depauw college for young ladies is one of the best and most popular female colleges in Indiana. The institution is the property of the Indiana Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church. For the last six years, or since its reorgan- ization in 1866, it has been under the direction of Rev. Erastus Rowley, D. D., as president, who has been recently re-elected to the same position for the next three years. This college
JACOB F. STUDEBAKER, ESQ.
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HISTORY OF INDIANA.
occupies one of the most pleasant and commanding situations in the most beautiful portion of the city of New Albany. This city has long enjoyed a high reputation for its educa- tional advantages, as well as for the high moral and religious tone of its inhabitants. It is noted for its healthfulness, and is accessible in all directions by various railroads and by the Ohio river. The college building, originally erected for a ladies' boarding school, has been enlarged and improved within the past six years, at an expense of near twenty thousand dollars, and now other improvements, embracing the entire renovation of the interior of the building, are just completed. The rooms for the boarding pupils and teachers are all carpeted and well furnished. The capacity of the building is sufficient to accommodate seventy-five boarding and an equal number of day pupils. This college affords very superior facilities to those desiring to educate and accomplish their daughters The faculty embraces six experienced and successful educators besides the president. The college year opens September eleventh and closes June fourteenth. The institution confers upon its graduates the degrees of Mistress of English Litera- ture and Mistress of Liberal Arts. Every valuable improve- ment in method of instruction will be adopted, and the great aim will be to develop the mental and moral powers of the pupil, and to educate the mind to habits of thought and investigation. The college is furnished with globes, maps, charts, and apparatus to illustrate natural philosophy, chem- istry, electricity, and astronomy. The music department embraces instruction on the piano, organ, guitar, and in vocal- ization, while the French and German languages are taught by competent teachers. The graduating class in 1872 numbered nine young ladies.
The St. Mary's female academy is a first-class one, under the care of the Sisters of St. Francis (Catholic,) and with Sister Veronica as Lady Superior. The building is one among the largest and best adapted educational edifices in the State, having accommodations for eight hundred pupils. All the branches of a thorough and accomplished education are taught, including music, the modern languages, painting, needle-work,
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CLARKE COUNTY - HISTORICAL AND DESCRIPTIVE.
flowers, etc. There is probably no better Catholic academy in the west than St. Mary's, and it is the pride of the Catholics of southern Indiana.
The Morse academy is a high school of the best grade, under the supervision of Prof. F. L. Morse, in which the education of the two sexes together is a leading feature. This academy possesses all the advantages of a college in apparatus, and the high character of its board of instruction. The marked suc- cess that has attended it, and enabled Prof. Morse to erect the most commodious and convenient buildings, indicates its high character.
Besides those schools already named, there are five Catholic parochial schools; German Protestant parochial school; Ger- man Methodist parochial school; and seven private schools. Add these private and parochial schools, colleges, and acad- emies to the grand system of public free schools, and it will readily be seen that the educational advantages of New Albany are unrivaled.
The churches and benevolent institutions of the city are equal to the educational facilities in every respect. The New Albany Society of Natural History is well organized, and evinces the high culture of the citizens
CHAPTER LXVIII.
CLARKE COUNTY - HISTORICAL AND DESCRIPTIVE.
TN 1784, the legislature of the State of Virginia, in consid- eration of the important and valuable services rendered to that commonwealth by General George Rogers Clarke, donated to him large tracts of land in that part of the Indian territory which he had nominally placed under its government. Among these lands was a tract comprising a portion of the site of the
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HISTORY OF INDIANA.
present city of Jeffersonville, and including also the lands upon which the struggling village of Clarkesville is located. At the latter point old "Fort Clarke " was located, and around it many of the most thrilling scenes and incidents in the early history of Indiana were enacted. Many of the deeds of the brave Clarke, center to this old landmark of his remarkable career. He, with his brave Virginians, fought his way along the ever-bending banks of the Ohio, not only contending with Indians, but Englishmen, and through repeated triumphs, which shed an enchanting lustre upon the annals of border warfare, he unfurled the flag of a free people and a republican government over the soil now included within the limits of the State of Indiana. But as we have given an account of most of General Clarke's services in behalf of Indiana, in the first part of this work, we shall have to pass over his opera- tions around Fort Clarke, at this time, and deal with more recent events. It should be remarked, however, that the early settlement, or attempted, at Clarkesville, was not successful. However, in the year 1802, Jeffersonville was located, near this point, by John Gwathmey. This new seat of civilization was named in honor of the illustrious author of the declara- tion of independence, Thomas Jefferson. The town was incor- porated in 1816, and the city was incorporated in 1839. These two events mark its progress, which has been steady, but not rapid.
Omitting, for want of space, the hundreds of incidents in the early history of Clarke county, we will observe only some of its most noticeable present features.
The surface of the county along the Ohio river, and from three to five miles in the interior, is rolling, and the remain- der mostly level, except a chain of "knobs," which form a semicircle along the northwestern boundary of the county, and strike the Ohio river just below New Albany, in Floyd county. Only about half of these "knobs " are cultivated, but they are covered with a good quality of timber, chestnut, oak and pine being the distinguishing classes. Aside from the "knobs," the lands in the county are susceptible of cultivation. The strip along the river, about thirty-five miles in length, and
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CLARKE COUNTY - HISTORICAL AND DESCRIPTIVE.
from five to ten in width, has a limestone soil, and, though mostly rolling, is, when well tilled, as productive as any of the celebrated bottom lands. There are no prairies in the county. The farms are generally well improved, and are graced with good buildings. Iron ore, marble, excellent building rock, and hydraulic cement are found in abundance.
Most of the lands within the present limits of the county are embraced in what was known as the "Illinois grant." This was made, as before intimated, by the legislature of Vir- ginia in 1796, and conveyed to certain commissioners one hundred and forty-nine thousand acres of land, in trust, to be apportioned, according to their rank, to General Clarke, and the officers and men of. the regiment which he commanded in the expedition to Vincennes and Kaskaskia. It was divided into five hundred acre tracts and apportioned according to the terms of the grant. One thousand acres more, lying along the falls of the Ohio, were also granted at the same time for the location of a town to be called Clarkesville. This was intended as a monument to the memory of General Clarke, and it was hoped that the town would develop into a great commercial centre, but these hopes were futile. It flourished for a short time, but soon sunk into decay. It is now only a small vil- lage, with no prospects of reaching metropolitan pre- emi- nence. The first settlements in the place were made from 1790 along up to 1800. The early settlers located along the banks of the Ohio river, so as to be able to escape into Ken- tucky at the approach of the hostile natives.
Jeffersonville, the principal town, has grown to be a handsome and important city, with a population of over eight thousand, and excellent free school facilities. The city is handsomely laid out. The streets are broad, crossing each other at right angles. The buildings are nearly all substantial and present something worthy of notice in the way of architecture. Many neat cottages beautify the streets and give the town a pictur- esque and rural appearance.
" The chief manufactures of Jeffersonville are railway cars, steamboats, and machinery of various kinds .* The Jefferson-
* From a sketch of Jeffersonville in the Pittsburgh United Presbyterian
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HISTORY OF INDIANA.
ville, Madison and Indianapolis Railroad Company's machine shops and car works give employment to a considerable num- ber of mechanics, and besides these there are two ship-yards which afford, in active business times, regular employment to about two hundred skilled artisans. It is claimed that there are more steamboats built here annually than at any other point between Pittsburgh and New Orleans, and that they rank among the best steamers that navigate the western waters. Just beyond the city limits, 'the Ohio Falls Car Company' conduct a large establishment, with a capacity for the employment of eight hundred workmen, and near by is its competitor, 'the Southwestern Car Company,' the princi- pal work for which is done by the convicts (three hundred and fifty in number), of the Indiana State Prison South, whose white front is in sad contrast with the gloom that dwells within. Beside these, there are two iron-foundries, an oil- stone factory, an extensive coopering establishment, and just at this time more noticeable than any of them, in consequence of the horrid screams of its steam-whistle every morning, the large pork-house on the river bank, where two hundred men are employed in killing twelve hundred hogs daily. The loco- motive whistle, too, is heard nearly every hour of the day and night in Jeffersonville, whose heart is pierced by the iron bands of the Jeffersonville, Madison and Indianapolis, and the Ohio and Mississippi, besides those of other minor local roads.
"The local government is presided over by Mayor Pile, a venerable gentleman of three score years and ten, who, being to ' the manor born,' has grown up with the growth of Jeffer- sonville, and is a fair specimen of the plain, frank, honest, hardy western pioneers who lived in this section of country when it was an unbroken wilderness, and have been spared to see it blossom like the rose. But the crowning glory of Jef- fersonville, and that which imparts to it much of its business life and vitality, is the extensive depot of the Quartermaster's Department. Some idea of the magnitude of this structure may be formed when it is stated that the series of fire-proof warehouses, built in the shape of a hollow square, contain one
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CLARKE COUNTY - HISTORICAL AND DESCRIPTIVE.
hundred and fifty thousand square feet, or three and one-half acres of flooring, with a storage capacity of two million seven hundred thousand cubic feet. The ground upon which the depot is located, covering about fifteen acres, was donated for the purpose by the city of Jeffersonville. The building has a frontage of over three thousand two hundred feet, and the principal offices are above the main entrance. In the centre of the court yard is a tower one hundred feet high, in which, at an elevation of seventy feet, is a watchman's room, from which every one of the numerous warehouse doors are visible. On the summit of this tower there is also a large tank, of the capacity of six thousand gallons, from which copious streams of water can be thrown to any part of the building. In the court-yard there are also two reservoirs, of the capacity of three hundred thousand gallons each. This immense structure was erected at the cost limited by the appropriation of con- gress, viz .: one hundred and fifty thousand dollars -a rare fact in the financial history of public buildings. *
" The public property now stored in this depot is estimated to be worth about twenty-two million dollars. From it are now supplied with clothing, camp and garrison equipage, and all kinds of Quartermaster's stores, the military posts in the South and West, and most of the troops operating in chose sections. The depot is so capacious and so well arranged, that if all the old material now stored in it were disposed of, and new and serviceable material stored in its place, enough could be kept on hand to supply the entire army of the United States. There are now nearly one hundred male employès on the rolls of the depot, exclusive of about seven hundred women, who are engaged in making shirts, drawers, stable frocks, and bed-quilts to meet the demands of the service. This work is a god-send to the poor sewing-women of Jeffer- sonville. 'Ladies' pay-day,' at the depot, is always an event- ful and memorable occasion. It is full of sunshine and joy, and the source of a general diffusion of comfort and happiness throughout the community. Hundreds of poor women, with
* From a sketch in the United Presbyterian.
.
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HISTORY OF INDIANA.
smiling faces, light hearts, and lighter steps, may be seen on that day returning from the depot, the cheerful possessors of their monthly earnings, which are destined to make so many homes look brighter and more happy. Seven thousand dollars distributed every month among the poorer classes in a com- munity of eight thousand, carry with them many comforts and delights, and the baker and the butcher, the grocer and the dry-goods dealer - indeed all classes of the populace - feel the happy influences of the welcome pay-day.
" The Jeffersonville Depot is the conception and design of Major-General M. C. Meigs, Quartermaster-General, and may justly be ranked among the proudest monuments of his enlightened and efficient administration of the Quartermaster's Department."
Charlestown, situated near the center of the county, and · twelve miles north of Jeffersonville, on the Ohio and Missis- sippi railroad, is the county seat. It is a smart, thriving town, of about three thousand inhabitants, and is, in every way, an honor to the county.
CHAPTER LXIX.
SHELBY COUNTY - HISTORICAL AND DESCRIPTIVE.
SHELBY county was named in honor of Isaac Shelby, an officer of considerable distinction in the Revolutionary war, as also the war of 1812. He was also governor of Ken- tucky. The county was originally level forest land, with fertile bottoms along the streams, from half a mile to two miles in width. The uplands are elevated about forty feet above these bottoms. The soil in the bottoms is a rich dark loam, with a slight mixture of sand; on the upland there is much clay, cov- ered with a dark muck, which required drainage before it could be successfully cultivated. The timber in the bottoms was principally walnut, ash, etc .; on the uplands, beach, oak
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SHELBY COUNTY - HISTORICAL AND DESCRIPTIVE.
and hickory were the distinguishing features of the forest. It is a first-rate farming county, in almost every respect.
" Shelbyville, the county seat, was laid out on the fourth of July, 1822, * on a donation of land made by John Hendricks, James Davison, and John C. Walker. The commissioners appointed for that purpose, were Ebenezer Ward, of Bartholo- mew county; Benjamin J. Blythe, of Dearborn county; Amos Boardman, of Ripley county; George Bentley, of Harrison county, and Joshua Cobb, of Delaware county. They met at the house of David Fisher, July first, and after four days deliberation decided upon the location of the county seat, where it at pres- ent stands, giving it the name of Shelbyville, a double honor to the venerable and patriotic ex-governor of Kentucky, Isaac Shelby. Jacob Wetzel, of the noted Indian fighting family of that name, on learning of the treaty of October, 1818, had blazed a trace from Jehu Perkins', on the old boundary line, to the bluffs of White river, about eighteen miles below the present site of Indianapolis. Richard Thornburg settled the same fall on Flat Rock, and James Wilson the same fall also on Blue river, the Wetzel trace crossing at both places. B. F. Morris was the first surveyor; Capt. Mclaughlin, one of his assistants, camped on Wilson's place in November, 1818. He put his field notes and some other papers and valuables in a keg and concealed it, together with a hatchet, on the creek near his camp, when he left the neighborhood for the winter, and on returning in the spring found them safe and uninjured. James Wilson may be regarded as the first settler. He came from Jefferson county, Ind., in 1819, and he induced Bennett Michael, a shoemaker, to settle near him; also John Forman, Benjamin Castor and John Smith, who came afterwards. Isaac.H. Wilson, a son of James, who was born in Jefferson county in 1807, and came to Shelby county with his father, is still living in Shelbyville. He informed me that Indians were occasionally met with when he first came to the county. He frequently saw Joseph White-eyes, a Delaware chief, who had a son called Charles and a grandson named James, who was
* From a sketch by J. C. Beck, M. D.
33
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HISTORY OF INDIANA.
red headed. Two Indians, known as Cuman and Pishaw, lived on Blue river, a few miles from his father. They had very handsome half-breed wives. On one occasion Mrs. Wilson invited them to visit her, which they did, riding upon ponies in gaily decorated side-saddles. They were very tastefully dressed, and wore silver brooches on their arms, and neat slippers fastened to the feet with silver bands, and exhibited a good breeding and politeness that might have excited the envy of their more civilized white sisters.
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