USA > Indiana > Vermillion County > Biographical and historical record of Vermillion County, Indiana : containing portraits of all the presidents of the United States from Washington to Cleveland, with accompanying biographies of each; a condensed history of the state of Indiana; portraits and biographies of some of the prominent men of the state; engravings of prominent citizens in Vermillion county, with personal histories of many of the leading families, and a concise history of the county and its villages > Part 15
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Mr. Colfax was a Whig so long as that party existed. In 1848 he was a delegate to the convention which nominated General Taylor for President, and was one of the sec- retaries of that body. The next year he was a member of the State Constitutional Con- vention, being elected thereto from a Demo- cratic district. Soon afterward he was nominated for the State Senate, but declined because he could not be spared from his busi- ness. IIis first nomination for Congress was in 1851, but was beaten by 200 votes, which was less than the real Democratic majority
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in his district. His successful competitor was Dr. Graham N. Fitch, who, along with Mr. Bright, became so conspicuous in the support of Buchanan. In 1852 he was a delegate to the Whig National Convention that nominated General Scott, and was again secretary.
Franklin Pierce, the Democratie nominee, was elected President, and during his term the Whig party was dissolved upon the issue of slavery, and, naturally enough, Mr. Colfax drifted in with the party of freedom. So did the people of his Congressional district; for, after having given their Democratie repre- sentative 1,000 majority two years before, they now nominated and elected Mr. Colfax to succeed him by about 2,000 majority.
The Congress to which he was thus elected is noted for the tedions struggle in the elec- tion of a Speaker of the House, resulting, February 2, 1856, in the choice of N. P. Banks. Mr. Colfax, who was second in the race for the Speakership, exhibited wonderful parliamentary tact in staving off the Sontlı- erners, who at times seemed on the point of success. As to parties at this time, they were considerably broken up, comprising " Anti-Nebraska" (Republican), Democrats, Know-Nothings and nondescripts. During this and the succeeding Congress, to which Mr. Colfax was elected, he delivered several telling speeches, some of which were printed
almost by the million and distributed to the voters throughont the North. These speeches were full of solid facts and figures with reference to the Pro-Slavery party, especially in Kansas, so that, by a sort of play upon his name, the people often re- ferred to him as "Cold-faets."
In 1860 Mr. Colfax was elected to Con- gress the third time, and in 1862 the fourth time. In December, 1863, he was chosen Speaker of the House, which position he re- tained to the end of the term for which Lincoln and Johnson were elected, exhib- iting pre-eminent parliamentary skill and an obliging disposition. Equally polite to all, he was ever a gentleman worthy of the highest honor.
The favorable notoriety gained by his "cold facts " against slavery, parliamentary ability, his power of debate, and his suavity of manner, led the Republican party in 1868 to place him on the national tieket, second only to the leading soldier of the Union, U. S. Grant. Being elected, he served as President of the Senate with characteristic ability throughout his term. Then, retiring from political life, he devoted the remaining years of his life to leetures upon miseella- neous topies; and it was during a lecturing tour in Minnesota that he was stricken down with his final illness. Ile died at Mankato, that State, January 13, 1885.
James D. Williams
173
JAMES D. WILLIAMS.
JAMES D. WILLIAMS.#
ERE we have present- ed a practical illustra- tion of the type of man produced by a young and vigorous republic, which had, but a few years preceding his birth, asserted, with justice, and successfully maintained, her claim to assume her rightful position as one of the nations of the earth.
James D. Williams was born in Pickaway County, Ohio, January 8, 1808, soon after that State had assumed her place among that galaxy of stars destined to become the great- est nation in the world.
In childhood he removed with his parents to Knox County, Indiana, where he received a common-school education, and grew to manhood a tiller of the soil.
He entered the theater of life at a time when the stage scenery was of the most gigantic grandeur ever beheld by the eye of man. Nature in her stupendous splendor was around and about the young actor, and he readily imbibed the spirit of his sur- roundings, and was filled with enthusiastic hope for the future greatness of the vast and beautiful country, which but awaited the call of the husbandman to answer in bountiful
harvests to his many demands. With young Williams the grandeur of the scene filled his soul with a hopeful determination to act well his part in the great drama before him, as the reader will find while following him down life's pathway.
When he attained to manhood he engaged in agricultural pursuits and stock-raising, and became widely known as a practical and suc- cessful Indiana farmer.
He had closely observed the passing events in the clash and conflict of political parties, and his fellow citizens saw in him the qual- itied elements of a representative man, and he was frequently elected as a Democrat to represent his county in the Lower House of the Legislature, where he discharged the duties devolving upon him with marked ability and even beyond the expectations of his constituents. The sagacity and ability with which he dealt with public measures in the Lower House opened the avenue to higher honors and more weighty responsi- bilities.
In 1859 he was elected to the State Senate, where he continuously served his constitu- ency until 1867, maintaining the reputation he had gained in the Lower Honse for ability and the faithful performance of duty, and still developing a capacity for a wider field of operations.
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PROMINENT MEN OF INDIANA.
He was not permitted to long live in the home life which he so much enjoyed. The able and faithful manner in which he had discharged his duties as a public servant, his common sense and social manner, made him friends even among his political opponents. IIe bore honors conferred upon him nobly but meekly, never ceasing to gratefully re- member those to whom gratitude was due for the positions of honor and trust to which they had called him.
He was destined to spend his life as a public servant. IIis fellow citizens again elected him to the State Senate in 1871, and in 1874 he was again crowned with higher honors, and was elected to represent his dis- trict in the Congress of the United States, where he displayed the same ability in deal- ing with public questions that he had in the legislative body of his State. During his term in Congress he served in the impor- tant position of chairman of the Committee on Public Accounts.
He was a prominent and leading member of the Indiana State Board of Agriculture for seventeen years, and served as its president for three years. No one citizen of Indiana was more deeply interested and active in de- veloping and promoting the agricultural and other industrial resources of his State than he. One leading feature of his ambition was to be in the front rank of progress, and to place his State on a plane with the sister States of the prosperous Union. He was equally active in the educational interest of his fellow citizens, and advocated facilities for diffusing knowledge among the masses, plac- ing an education within the reach of children of the most humble citizen.
He gathered happiness while promoting the welfare of others, and step by step, year by year, his friends increased in numbers and warmed in devotion to their trusted,
faithful and grateful servant. He was rapid- ly growing in State popularity, as he had long enjoyed the confidence of his own county and district, and in his quiet, unassuming way was building larger than he knew. His plain manner of dress, commonly " blue jeans," cansed him to become widely known by the sobriquet of " Blue Jeans," of which his admirers were as proud as were those of "Old Hickory " as applied to Andrew Jack- son, or " Rough and Ready " as applied to General Zachariah Taylor.
The civil war had made fearful inroads in party lines; the public questions to be set- tled immediately following the close of the war involved problems which many leading men, who had previously acted with the Democratic party, could not solve satisfacto- rily to themselves from a Democratic stand- point; hence they cast their fortunes with the popular party, the Republican.
The Democratic party had been impatient. ly but energetically seeking State supremacy. James D. Williams, so far as tried, had led the column to success, why not make himn their Moses to lead them to possess the promised land, State Supremacy ?
The centennial anniversary of American independence, 1876, seemed to them the auspi- cious period to marshal their forces under an indomitable leader and go forth to conquer.
They accordingly in that year nominated the Hon. James D. Williams for Governor, and the Republicans nominated General Ben- jamin Harrison, a military hero and a lineal descendant of General W. H. Harrison. The contest will stand in history as the most ex- citing campaign in the political history of the United States, and resulted in the elec- tion of the Democratic leader. His services as Governor of the State were characteristic of his past public life. He died, full of hon- ors. on November 20, 1880.
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177
ROBERT DALE OWEN.
ROBERT DALE OWEN. K.
OOKING outside of the realm of statesmen, we find that the most emi- nent citizen of Indi- ana not now living was the learned Scotchman named at the head of this sketch. Robert Owen, his father, was a great theorist in social and religions reforms. He was born in Newtown, Montgom- erysbire, North Wales, March 14, 1771, where he died November 19, 1858.
He (the father) entered upon a commercial life at an early age, and subse- quently engaged in the cotton manufacture at New Lanark, Scotland, where he introduced important reforms, having for their object the improvement of the condition of the laborers in his employ ; afterward he directed his attention to social questions on a broader scale, publishing in 1812 " New Views of Society, or Essays upon the Formation of the Human Character," and subsequently the " Book of the New Moral World," in which he advocated doctrines of human equality
and the abolition of class distinctions. Hav- ing won a large fortune in his business, he was able to give his views a wide circulation, and his followers became numerous; but, being outspoken against many of the gen- erally received theological dogmas of the time, a zealous opposition was also aroused against him. After the death of his patron, the Duke of Kent, he emigrated to this country, in 1823, and at his own expense founded the celebrated communistic society at New Harmony, this State. The scheme proving a failure he returned to England, where he tried several similar experiments with the same result; but in spite of all his failures he was universally esteemed for his integrity and benevolence. His later years were spent in efforts to promote a religion of reason, and to improve the condition of the working classes.
His eldest son, the subject of this biographi- cal sketch, was born in Glasgow, Scotland, November 7, 1801; was educated at Fellens- berg's College, near Berne, Switzerland; came with his father to the United States in 1823, and assisted him in his efforts to found the colony of New Harmony. On the failure of
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PROMINENT MEN OF INDIANA.
that experiment he visited France and Eng- land, but returned to this country in 1827 and became a citizen. In 1828, in partner- ship with Miss Frances Wright, he founded "The Free Enquirer," a weekly journal de. voted to socialistic ideas, and to opposition to the supernatural origin and claims of Chris- tianity. The paper was discontinued after an existence of three years. In 1832 he married Mary Jane Robinson, of New York, who died in 1871. After marriage he settled again in New Harmony, where for three suc- cessive years (1835-'38) he was elected a mem- ber of the Legislature. It was through his influence that one-half of the surplus revenue of the United States appropriated to the State of Indiana was devoted to the support of public schools. From 1843 to 1847 he represented the First District of Indiana in Congress, acting with the Democratic party; took an active paat in the settlement of the northwestern boundary question, serving as a member of the committee of conference on that subject, and introduced the bill organ- izing the Smithsonian Institute, and served for a time as one of the regents. In 1850 he was a member of the Indiana Constitutional Convention, in which he took a prominent part. It was through his efforts that Indiana conferred independent property rights upon women. In 1853 he went to Naples, Italy, as United States Charge d' Affaires, and from 1855 to 1858 he held the position of Min- ister.
In 1860, in the New York Tribune, he discussed the subject of divorce with Horace Greeley, and a pamphlet edition of the con- troversy afterward obtained a wide circula- tion.
After the breaking out of the Rebellion, Mr. Owen was a warm champion of the policy of emancipation, and the letters which he addressed to members of the cabinet and
the President on that subject were widely disseminated. When the proposition was made by certain influential politicians to reconstruct the Union with New England " left out in the cold," Mr. Owen addressed a letter to the people of Indiana exposing the dangerous character of the scheme, which the Union Leagues of New York and Philadelphia published and circulated extensively. In 1862 he served as a mem- ber of the Commisson on Ordnance Stores, and in 1863 was Chairman of the American Freedmen's Commission, which rendered val- uable service to the country.
Mr. Owen was a prominent Spiritualist in his philosophical views, and published sev- eral remarkable works inculcating them. Ilis mind, in his later years, beginning to totter, he was often too credulous. He also published many other works, mostly of a political nature. To enumerate: he pub- lished at Glasgow, in 1824, " Outlines of System of Education at New Lanark;" at New York, in 1831, " Moral Physiology; " the next year, "Discussion with Origen Bachelor on the Personality of God and the Authentici- ty of the Bible;" and subsequently, "Pocahon- tas," an historical drama; " Hints on Public Architecture," illustrated; " Footfalls on the Boundary of Another World," probably his most wonderful work; "The Wrong of Slav- ery, and the Right of Freedom;" "Beyond the Breakers," a novel; "The Debatable Land between this World and the Next," and "Threading My Way," an autobiography.
The giant intellect of Mr. Owen being linked to a large and tender heart, his sym- pathies were constantly rasped by witnessing the boundless but apparently needless amount of suffering in the world, and chafed by the opposition of conservatism to all efforts at alleviation, so that in old age he was liter- ally worn out. He died at an advanced age.
HISTORY
OF
VERMILLION
COUNTY.
BAKER-CD
A
GENERAL'
HISTORY
183
INTRODUCTORY.
INTRODUCTORY, ==
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TOPOGRAPHY.
ERMILLION, spelled with two l's, is from the French vermilion, spelled with one Z, and signi- fies, according to Webster, " a bright red sulphuret of mercury, consisting of sixteen parts of sul- phur and one hundred parts of mercury." This substance, he remarks, is sometimes found na- tive, of a red or brown color, and is then called cinnabar. Used as a pigment. The word is a literal translation of the Miami Indian word pe-auk-e-shaw, which was given to the Vermillion Rivers on account of the red earth or " keel" found along their banks. This substance was produced by the burning of the shale overlying the ontcrops of coal, the latter igniting from the antumnal fires set by the aborigines. From the rivers the county was named.
The position which Vermillion County oc- cupies in the world can best be indicated by describing the geodesic situation of Newport,
the county seat, which is near the middle of the county. This point is 39º 55' north of the equator of the earth, and therefore the north star appears to the observer here at that angle above the horizon. Newport is also 87° 10' west longitude from Greenwich (Lon- don, England), and railroad standard time, which is here conformed to that of the ninetieth meridian, is about eleven minutes slower than local, or sun-time. Newport is also about 520 feet above the level of the ocean, and fifty feet above the low-water mark of the Wabash River opposite.
The beautiful, picturesque scenery of Ver- million County, Indiana, is equal to that of any other in the State. The modest mean- derings of the classic old Wabash, which over and anon are hiding their silvery waters away amid the luxurious foliage of the forest trees, give to its eastern border a lineal presenta- tion of romantic beauty such as attracts universal attention, while the long range of bench hills which skirt the western border of this garden valley throw along its railroad line a continued display of panoramic rural
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HISTORY OF VERMILLION COUNTY.
beanty which even without any coloring, might be termed " the lovely valley of the West." The county, stretching its narrow length along the river for thirty-seven miles, is wholly made up of beautiful scenery.
All the minor streams draining Vermillion County are of course tributary to the Wabash, and most of them have a general southeasterly direction. Spring Branch, or Creek, flows sonthwesterly through the northeast corner of Highland Township. Coal Branch flows south near the western border. Big Ver- million River winds southeasterly through the southwest corner of Highland and the northern portion of Eugene. Little Vermill- ion River wends its way throught he south- western corner of Eugene, and empties into the Wabash near the middle of the east side of Vermillion Township. Jonathan Creek, in the western part of Vermillion Township, flows northeasterly into the Little Vermill- ion. Brouillet's (pronounced in American style, bru-let's) Creek is wholly in Clinton Township, running at first sontheasterly and then east, into the Wabash; and the Little Raccoon Creek, in Helt Township, runs southeasterly, rather toward the northeastern corner of the township, into the Wabash be- tween Highland and Alta.
GEOLOGY.
From one-fourth to one-third of Vermillion County consists of the rich bottoms and ter- races of the valleys of the Wabash and its affluents, the Big and Little Vermillion Rivers and Norton's Creek. The main ter- race, or " second bottom," is especially de- veloped in the region between Perrysville and Newport, a fact probably resulting from the combined action of the two main tributa- ries in this county. The terrace is from one to four miles wide, furnishing a broad stretch of rich, well drained farming lands, having
an average elevation of about forty feet above the present (or "first") bottoms. Below Newport the bluffs approach the river so closely that the terrace is nearly obliterated, and the immediate bottoms become very nar- row. At the mouth of Little Raccoon Creek the bottoms are considerably widened; but the terrace has no considerable extent until we reach the head of Helt Prairie, about six miles north of Clinton, whence it stretches southward, with an average width of one to three miles. About three miles below Clin- ton it narrows again as we approach the month of Brouillet's Creek and the county line.
At the first settlement of the country the bottoms were heavily timbered, but a large proportion of the terrace was devoid of tim- ber. We are scarcely permitted to believe that these timberless tracts were originally prairie, as, on account of their nature and favorable situation, we should presume that they were grounds cleared and cultivated by the same aboriginal race, possibly the Mound- Builders, for mounds abound in this region, and the annual fires prevented a re-occupation by trees or shrubbery.
Rising from the upper bottom lands we find bluffs, more or less abrupt, which attain a general level of 120 to 130 feet above the river, and form the slightly elevated border of Grand Prairie. The most gradnal ascent is to the westward from Perrysville, favorable for the construction of the present railroad. South of the Big Vermillion the bluffs are much steeper, where a moderate grade for a railroad can be found only by tracing one of the smaller streams. These bluff's, being too steep for cultivation, are still covered with timber, which consists principally of oak, hickory, maple and walnut, and toward the southern end of the county, beech. In many of the ravines, and along the foot of the bluffs,
185
INTRODUCTORY.
there are large groves of sugar maple. Near the principal streams this timbered region extends westward to the State line. The northern and middle portions of the county are in great part a portion of the Grand Prairie, which covers all eastern Illinois, from the forest of the Little Wabash to Lake Mich- igan.
Vermillion County is singularly blessed with springs, bursting forth from below the boulder clay of the drift period. Some of these springs are very strong.
The alluvium of the river bottoms have the common features of river deposits. Vegetable remains are mingled with find sand and mud washed from the drift beds higher up the streams, and occasional deposits of small stones and gravel, derived either from the drift or from the rock formations into which the rivers have cut their winding ways. The only definite knowledge obtained as to the depth of these beds refers to the prairie be- tween Eugene and Perrysville, where wells have been sunk sixty feet through alluvial sand, and then encountered six to ten feet of a soft, sticky, bluich inud filled with leaves, twigs and trunks of trees, and occasionally small masses of what appears to have been stable manure. This stratum is sometimes called " Noah's Barnyard." The lake-bottom deposits, of corresponding age, which com- inonly underlie the soil of the Grand Prairie, have been found west of the State line, con- sisting of marly-clays and brick-clay subsoil, and probably exist equally under such por- tions of the prairie as extend into this county.
There are several very good gravel beds in the county, principally developed since the building of the railroads.
The boulder-clay referred to above, which forms the mass of the drift formation, is a tough, bluish drab, unlaminated clay, more or less thoroughly filled with fine and coarse
gravel, and including many small boulders. On the bluff west of Perrysville this bed was penetrated to a depth of about 100 feet before reaching the water-bearing quicksand com- monly found beneath it. Out-crops of 110 feet have been measured, and the bed very probably attains a thickness of 125 feet or more where it has not been worn away. It is much thinner in the southern part of the county. From the difference in character of the included boulders at different levels, we are led to the conclusion that the currents which brought the materials composing these beds flowed in different directions at different times.
Illustrating the above remarks we give a section from a branch of Johnson's Creek, in Eugene Township: Boulder clay, with peb- bles of Silurian limestone and trap, thirty feet; yellow clay, with fragments of coal, shale, sand-stone, etc., four inches; boulder elay, with pebbles of Silurian limestone, twenty- five feet; ferruginous sand, a streak; boulder clay from the northwest, with pebbles of va- rious metamorphic rocks and trap, and nuggets of native copper, fifty feet.
The section of rocks exposed at the Horse- shoe of the Little Vermillion exhibits the following strata: Black, slaty shale; coal, two and a half to four feet; fire-clay and soft- clay shales, with iron-stones, fifteen feet; argillaceous (clayey) limestone, one to two feet; dark drab clay shale, one foot; coal, four to five feet; light-colored fire-clay, two feet; dark-colored fire-clay, one foot; soft, drab shale, with iron-stones, ten to fifteen feet; fossiliferous, black slaty shale, often pyritous, with many large iron-stone nodules, two to three feet.
A considerable portion of the boulders and pebbles of these beds, especially those con- sisting of limestone and the metamorphic rocks, are finely polished and striated on one
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HISTORY OF VERMILLION COUNTY.
or more of their sides, showing the power of the forees which were engaged in their trans- portation from their original beds. Nuggets of galena (sulphide of lead) and of native copper are occasionally met with, and have had the usual effeet of exeiting the imagina- tions of those who are ignorant of the faet that the rocks which contain these metals do not ocenr nearer than the galena region of Northern Illinois.
The " eoal measures," as given in the para- graph preceding the last, furnish the only roek formations to be found in the county. There seem to be no onterop of beds overlying this seetion. The first, or uppermost, vein of coal is covered by a few feet of soil only. The argillaceons limestone below it is very thinly laminated, being mingled with mueh clay; but the shales covering the next vein constitute a fair working roof.
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