USA > Indiana > Grant County > Centennial history of Grant County, Indiana, 1812 to 1912 : compiled from records of the Grant county historical society, archives of the county, data of personal interviews, and other authentic sources of local information > Part 21
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The efficiency of the Marion fire department has been demonstrated many times, and time out of mind there have been volunteer fire fight- ers, and for a quarter of a century a paid fire department. At the close of 1912 there were five stations, with twenty-six regular firemen and thirteen horses owned by the city. When Marion had a volunteer fire department, and everybody went to a fire and stayed until it was under control, some of the tire chiefs were: J. M. Barnard, James S. Long, B. R. Norman, D. F. Davis, L. M. Whisker and C. L. Jackson, only Mr. Barnard and Mr. Whisler surviving, and the late Seth Sanders who was secretary of the volunteer fire department did not preserve his records. However, the first fire department was on the rear of the lot now occupied by the Goldthait store, and "in them days everybody was a fireman who had nerve enough to go to a fire," and thrilling stories are told of the heroism of volunteer firemen. Volunteers then received twenty-five cents an hour for the time they served. while under the regime of a paid fire department volunteers received seventy-tive vents an hour while on duty, and there are volunteer departments in many factory districts. The regulars receive their salary whether or not they fight fire within the month.
When Marion adopted a city charter, May 7, 1889, a permanent fire department was organized, although John MeDonnell, who was then lire chief, did not devote his entire time to the department, and those who have served since Mr. MeDonnell are: O. S. Jones, W. O. Butler, C. R. Case, Oscar Boyd and William Crearer, and when asked the rela- tion between the water systems and the fire department Mr. Hulley said his department furnished the water while the fire laddies did the rest. Mr. Halley's predecessors were: II. W. St. John, C. W. Ham- ilton. D. F. Davis, D. F. Sanders, D. S. Hogin and Samuel Halley, nearly all serving more than one period, and while the fire department property investment is not more than $25,000 the water works inven- tory shows alnost $300,000 invested, and it is necessary that the water system be in perfect condition in order to secure success in the fire de- partment. Fire and water are the two great enemies of property. and water must be the greater ageney since it is always employed to subdne fire-tire cannot consume water, although when a fog was raising from the river some one hollowed: "The river's a fire and no water."
The fire department is the guardian of public safety, and there are always anxious hearts when the alarm is sounded, and its right of way in the streets is never questioned. The equipment is such that all departments receive the alarm simultaneously, and the department nearest the eall is on its way immediately-the others alert until later signals, when sometimes all are called to the same conflagration. There have been few accidents, and members of the Central department only recall the death of two men-M. A. Middleton and Charles Gross, who fell at the post of duty. It was October 31. 1888, that Mr. Middleton was riding on horseback to a fire in the Horne packing house and was thrown, having neither saddle or bridle and guiding the animal with a
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MARION FIRE DEPT. NO. 1 READY FOR SERVICE
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halter, the accident occurring on Branson street. Everybody romem. bered how happy he had been, having driven that day for Benjamin Harrison when a political meeting was in progress, and his death was such a sad ending of the eventful day.
The men abont No, I station were uncertain of the year all remem- bering that it was April 14. when Fireman Gross was killed by a chim- ney falling on him while fighting fire at the J. W. Wood residence about an hour after midnight. Chief Crearer opened the book to April 14, '04. where the entry had been made in red ink, and it was un- necessary to read it-the color being sufficient. A picture of Mr. Gross hangs on the wall of the station. Mr. Middleton's death occurred prior to the installation of a paid fire department, but after the death of Mr. Gross the conneil passed an art by which the widows of each were paid $150 a year such benefit to terminate when the woman changed her relation, and it was proper recognition.
People of today hardly know what is meant by " bucket brigade." when old timers are relating their hairbreadth escapes from holo- caust. There was no signal system -when the fire bell rang or, Jater. the water works blew a long blast, everybody rushed to the street, and mention of the volunteer fireman would soon fill a directory. Mong at the time when Nathan Coggeshall was president of the town council and J. Q. Brownlee was clerk. I. M. Cox and J. A. Stretch were fire commissioners or policemen, and the beginning of the present system was December 7. 1874, when Jacob Whisler, Mr. Cox, W. C. Long, G. W. Hayde and I. F. Clunk were appointed fire wardens Tromt their respective districts. There was not much of the town on the hills at the time, all the fire wardens living close to the center. Now there are outlying fire stations, and an alarm does not strike the degree of terror to the heart since there is a paid tire department-every man a bundle of courage, and people turn and go to sleep again feeling that the department will do all in its power to avert disaster.
While the firemen have their meals at home they only sleep there three nights of the month, and are on duty twenty-four hours, when they begin another turn without intermission. They get into their harness as quickly as the horses, and the horses come under the harness whenever the whistle blows. The firemen are familiar wth the water system, and lose no time in turning water on the flames-the engineer at the plant always supplying the pressure, and the horses in the department soon learn what is required of them. When Bay Harry was the only horse in the department he was one day in a blacksmith shop when the alarm was sounded. and he went barefooted to the fire, the fireman returning Jater with him, and since that time when a tire horse is shod only one shoe is removed at a time, and when an alarm is heard he is quickly in readiness. The Marion fire department some- times responds to calls from other towns, although there are volunteers in every community, and wherever there is a water system the citizens are well able to cope with flames. The hose and reel have served their day, and are still the reliance in many communities, and the bucket brigade is always a possibility:
While people are sometimes at a loss to know the origin of fire, ineendiarism is seldom charged, and owing to the excellent fire pro- tection, insurance rates are lower than in some cities where losses are more frequent. While some towns and farmsteads do not have water systems-private wells the reliance, all are firefighters and when emergency arises-go to fires. It was March 1, 1901, that John Gur- ren, an American tin plate worker, and Algernon Rothinghouse, a Gas City druggist, volunteered at the Gas City Pottery fire, and both lost
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their lives under a falling wall, W. C. JJay and C. T. Eshehnan who were near being unable to rescue them in time to save them. Others have been injured at fires, and some have been consumed by flames in their own homes, and yet bravery characterizes the average citizen when property is endangered, and there have been narrow escapes, frequently. The rainbow is the token of the covenant of the Almighty that the world will not again be destroyed by water, but the fire depart- ment does not have any release from duty. While everybody watches the clouds, when the cry of fire is heard all ears are alert and all hearts beat in unison until danger is averted.
XXIII. THE EVOLUTION OF THE PUBLIC THIGHWAY
By Joshua Strange
What was a reality in the way of road making to the pioneer is only a dream to the young. When they first penetrated its primeval forests, the original settlers of Grant county used the Mississinewa river as a roadway, and by means of fat boats and canoes brought their earthly all into the wilderness. Some of the pioneers brought their household treasures into Grant conty on logs floating in the Mississ- inewa. but in "them days" there were no mill dams to obstruct their course. From the landings they used ox and later horse teams in reaching their clearings, usually four of either oxen or horses to the team, and hitched to the old wooden skein wagons with boat shaped beds called "the old Virginia four horse wagon," large enough always to stow away the affairs of the family, and many families came all the way from Virginia and the Carolinas in that way.
They carried farming equipment and feed for their stoek, and made the journey in wagons covered with canvas stretched over bows, and what a memory of wagon trains coming into Indiana. The family was neatly housed, and the descendants listen with interest to the stories, but oh so few remain to tell them. The Virginia wagon beds are only a memory and the young gain no conception of them from stories told -- recollection necessary to an understanding. They followed the blazed trails made by surveying parties and homeseekers, locating their traets of land sometimes already entered for them, and some claims taken perhaps by soldiers who fought n the battle of the Mississinewa. Those trails were made available for wagon traffic by cutting the sap- lings too large to bend or passing under them, the wagon road termi- nating at the final destination of each pioneer settler. Such were the trails and roads followed by the pioneers in their cherished hopes and newly aquired and independent homes along the Mississinewa.
The original pathfinders and makers first sought out fordable places along the streams and diverged to and from these points over the high lands. around the swamps and more impenetrable forests to the places selected where they made their homes. More than sixty years ago (this written in 1913), the writer passed along and over some of those original roads or trails on horseback, having to part the overhanging brush with the hands to keep it from scratching his face or dragging him from the back of the horse. The principal means of light trans- portation, communication and travel was done on horseback as well as "going to mill." using the horse as a pack animal or beast of burden. After using those hacked ont trails a little while they would become very bad and almost impassable in the sloughs, and the method of im-
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provement was to ent new roads around them. There were bad places often and sometimes they would spread until several cuts were made around one mud hole in the woods-the original difficulty.
Many of those pioneer trails leading to central points were improved and extensively used under better conditions in the country, and they were only done away with by petition and action of the county com- missioners when land owners wanted the roads thrown from the high Jand to the section lines in order to shape up their farms. At this writing only a few Grant county roads are along the original trails. However, the blazed trail has had its part in the development of the county, and the modern permanent automobile thoroughfare has fol- lowed in regular order. The road supervisor served his purpose " warn- ing" out the citizens, and the graded road bed with side ditches was part of the systematic plan by which the stone road with tarvia bind- ing has reached its present perfection. The influx of immigrants from 1830 10 1850 was such that it became necessary to regulate the road improvements, and to shift them to seetion lines in order that farms
CRAVEN
AN ANDERSON, MARION & WABASH INTERURBAN CAR
might be properly developed and boundaries established, and some of that work has been accomplished within the twentieth century. It was a slow process because the work was great and the laborers were few, but it has been persistently followed and there are no better roads than in Grant county.
The process in the beginning was to remove the smaller timber and the underbrush, and to cut off the overhanging limbs from the trees and let them fall and make a bed for the corduroy bridges across the sloughs, ereeks and branches and enlverts over larger ones that had sufficient banks to retain stringers. The larger trees were deadened and left standing to decay and die, which was a great saving in labor in the first opening of the roads, but it was very perilous to travel, especially on windy days, after the tops were dead. Along some roads the timber was entirely removed in the green, the stumps eut low enough for wagons to pass over them. To make the roads passable the sloughs and swamps were bridged with poles and logs laid crosswise the full length or width of the slough or swamp. Many were twenty rods or more in length, and those bridges were called corduroy bridges and oh what harbors for snakes they were! In constructing them the straight sides of the poles and log used were laid together sufficiently close that
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a horse's foot could not get through between them, and the wagons would "rickety-bang" over them. The ovenpants of the wagons were always coming down when they were going up, and " jolt" is a word that was known to pioneers.
These sloughs and water courses through the mire were spanned by piling logs for the approaches and abutments, and single span string ers long enough to reach across from one to the other abtment were placed in notches in the top logs which formed the abutments, and they were sometimes more than two feet in diameter. If the width of the stream required a more extensive opening than a single span, it was made by placing large logs lengthwise in the stream, distanced for a span and so on until the stream was so spanned from abutment to abutment, or in lien of logs sawed or chopped blocks set on end to retain stringers were used, and there was no scarcity of timber of the best quality. The tops for these bridges were round poles or split slabs. and notched onto the stringers to hold them to their places. They were crude, but they served the purpose. In passing over some of those places now on a continued stretch of good gravel road without a single vestige to suggest former conditions, a review of the road building of the past seems as a dream-an utter impossibility.
In the level parts of the county the streams had very little channel until drainage put them in their narrower confines. They were wide and sluggish and necessitated the construction of just such bridges as has been described. and many were needed in the quagmire of Grant county. In order to keep the bridges from floating away, poles were laid on either side of the corduroy on the ends of the timbers. They were held in place by stakes driven in lock style, and to make it safe to travel over them when they were afloat in time of high water. Sometimes dirt was handed onto them to hold them down and make them smoother. and in time the mud from the wheels filled the cracks in the corduroy. Automobiles would have had more difficulty with the corduroy than with stone roads today, and it seems that a destiny bas shaped all human progress. In the city of Marion from Fourteenth street south to the Washington street hill was one of those corduroy bridges, willow flanked on either side where beautiful residences now prevail, and "sous of their fathers" tell of hauling timber to make these corduroy bridges in town on both Washington and Adams streets. It is said that many bits of corduroy were removed when these streets were paved with asphalt, and that pieces used in the old plank road, now Lincoln boule- vard, are still in existence. There was once a plank road from Deer ervek to the public square in Marion, and it was to have been con- tinned to Largo, but the stupendous undertaking was never finished- the best of forest timber used in its construction.
The next step in road improvement was an attempt at drainage by going down the streams in the woods and removing the logs and brush, and plowing a little channel to draw the surface water from the roads where it could be done, and otherwise such marshy places had to he spanned with corduroy. When the men and women of today were children they knew what it was to cross corduroy bridges along the otherwise unimproved highways of Grant county. The drainage laws that came to the relief of that condition of road construction were the first permanent improvement in the construction of roads, and then followed the removal of stumps and grading. all under diree- tion of the road supervisor who warned out all able bodied men over twenty-one and under fifty years of age to work out a privilege of from two to four days each year, some to take horses and use road
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serapers and others to use shovels, and there was some little road tax money with which to repair bridges and buy material for them.
Under the statues of ISSI it was provided that a stock company might be formed for the purpose of improving roads by grading, graveling or macadamizing them and charging toll. and under that law several toll roads were Imilt in the county. The first one built was the old stage road from Marion through Jonesboro and Fairmount to Anderson in the fifties. The old toll gate stood a little north of the south end of the MeFeely bridge in order to catch the travel from over to Monroe road, and the next one was one mile south of Jonesboro and there was one on either side of Fairmount. In the sixties and seven- ties were built the Strawtown or Marion and Liberty, the Monroe, the Salem and the Wabash pikes, all of which were toll roads and very unsatisfactory and unprofitable to the stockholders. The breach be- tween the stockholders and some of the "toll jumpers" was never bridged this side of the tomb, and the seventies were eventful years.
This story would not be complete without recording some of the names of publie spirited citizens and patriots who expended their money and efforts for the improvement of the highways of the county, and Were first in the good roads movements that have since swept the country. Among those memorable gentlemen were James Sweetser, Nathan W. Frazier, George Strange, John Y. Parlett, John Ratliff, Eli Thomas, . Nathan Coggeshall and many others. In the Acts of 1881 there were provisions made for the building of free gravel or macadam roads and for the purchase of toll roads which eventually eliminated them, the last toll gate in the county being on the Fairmount turnpike, J. W. Hill of Jonesboro and J. P. Winslow of Fairmount being the remain- ing stockholders, and they had their troubles with "toll jumpers" who did not wish to pay such tribute. Under the Acts of 1881 funds were provided for the construction of roads that were petitioned for by a majority of land owners, and by an assessment of abuffing lands within one and one-half miles of the proposed improvement. on each side according to the estimated benefits. Under this Act all the main trunk roads of the county and many others were built.
The Aets of 1903 and 1905 made material changes in road construc. tion, by new provision that fifty petitioners to the county commission- ers would require them to take action for the improvement of the road or part of road petitioned for, and to raise funds for construction of kind of road petitioned for by taxation of all property in the town- ships or townships where the improvements were petitioned for, and those Aets with their amendments are solely operative in the construction of roads in the county at this writing, 1913. of material ranging from gravel to briek. There are some roads constructed and others being constructed of stone with bituminons filler, such as tarvia and like sub- stanees, and those who ride out for pleasure have some fine boulevards over which to travel, and speeding is a common thing many miles from the improved streets in Grant county towns.
Wider the free gravel road laws of Indiana Grant county now has about seven hundred miles of gravel and macadam roads --- the gravel in the majority, and the gravel beds are unfailing in the county. In the first stages of gravel road building some of the best pits were not discovered, but there seems to be gravel sufficient for future need and crushed stone is provided along Pipe creek as well as shipped in from other localities. The main streets of Marion and other towns in the county are constructed of asphaltum or brick, and while some have been paid for under the Barrett law or ten year plan, all are glad when such improvements become a reality. The stories of the trails now
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seem like fiction in a county abreast with all other aventes of advance- ment in its public highways. The system of drainage carries the water so quickly to the river that it is no longer a thoroughfare would not float a raft laden with household belongings except in high water, and then the settler acting as pilot would not man the craft, and twentieth century conditions are different from the time when the Indians had trails and the settlers were few in the community. The Mississinowa is no longer a highway of travel, and all kinds of "boats" are seen along Grant county thoroughfares.
XXIV. THE EVOLUTION OF THE POSTAL SYSTEM
"My days are swifter than a post," said Job in the Bible narrative, and the postal service is known to have been in general use in some countries as early as the thirteenth century. It was provided for when the Constitution of the United States was written in 1789. although at that time as an adjunct to the treasury system. Railway mail service was established in 1864, three years before the first railroad penetrated Grant county, and rural free delivery came in 1895. It was an experi- ment in Grant county in 1899, although the general delivery system was inaugurated August 15, 1902. and now that everybody has daily mail these stories of the long ago are stranger than fiction to the gen- eration now on the stage of action.
People used to regard Jeffers as present day citizens think of tele- grams, although their friends were often dead and buried long enough before the letters reached them. No news was always good news, and a letter sometimes disturbed the peaceful tranquillity of the whole com- munity. While there was no "wireless," there was "word of mouth" that seemed to reach everybody. There was a letter from York State for Lorenzo Miles when Jefferson township citizens used to go to Wheel- ing for their mail before there was any Upland, and before Jadden post- office accommodated that part of the country. When Mr. Miles went to Wheeling in the morning he was wearing a good hat for that day, but he came home barcheaded in the evening. It required twenty-five eents to " lift the letter, " and he pawned his hat to raise the money. It had been a long time since tidings from home folks had reaelded him. and he would have the letter at any sacrifice. The system of collecting postage at the time of delivery worked hardship on many settlers, and the law did not remain long on the statutes of the country. The set ters were always anxious for tidings, and yet the contents of some letters did not mean much to them.
In "Poems For Everybody." Milton Winslow adds a footnote 10 his poem : "The Way the Poet Popped the Question, " saying : "I paid twenty-five cents postage to get the above to its destination, Richmond, Ind .. in 1843." and W. E. Mason of Glencoe in Mill treasures a letter that. "came by way of the mail" to his grandfather. Thomas Coleman, in 1833, directed to Greenberry postoffice on the State Road before there was any Jonesboro, which afterward swallowed up Greenberry. It was in the Mexican war that the Greenberry office was discontinued, the corduroy roads being impassible and since then Jonesboro has been the postoffice address of the "up country" folks. E. L. Goldthwait has a letter written March 6, 1837, so folded that the superseription became the face of the letter, and no envelopes were in use at the time. It was written by his father, Oliver Goldthwait, to a friend in New Salem, Ohio, asking that he dispose of some articles left there and collect some money
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due him, and directing that it be sent the first time any one was coming from that part of the country to Marion, Money orders, money by tel- egraph and parcel's post had not been dreamed of then. Necessity has always been the mother of invention, and in time the envelope saved the necessity of Folding the letter with one blank side for the address. In this letter Mr. Goldthwait urges his friends to tell Aaron Swayzee there is an opening for a shoemaker in Marion, and the result is that the Swayzee family became part of the history of Grant county. Mr. Gold- thwait wrote in the letter that he "needs the money." "Colleet twelve cents" was written where the stamp is now placed on a letter. There was no such thing as a postage stamp "them days." Wafers and scal- ing wax were used before the stamps became a necessity.
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