USA > Indiana > Rush County > Centennial history of Rush County, Indiana, Volume I > Part 21
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HISTORY OF RUSH COUNTY
With its miles of paved streets, well kept and shaded lawns, handsome homes and substantial business houses; with its well built up and busy factory district, evidence of industrial activity; with its dignified looking school houses and churches and with the magnificent court house standing in the center of the business district dominating the scene with its appearance of substantial dignity typical of the county which erected it, Rushville architec- turally has long been recognized as one of the pleasantest cities in Indiana. Added to this the traditionally cordial hospitality of the people, a heritage from the pioneers who a century ago sought to make here a social and busi- ness center that would properly represent the delightful region of which it is the center; added to this the general air of thrift and enterprise that pervades the community, investing all its activities with a modern up-to-dateness most attractive to the newcomer, and added to all this the fine social atmosphere that has marked the community from the beginning and which has done so much to make the name and the fame of Rushville over the state a pleasing thought, the observer recognizes a suin of qual- ities which explains fully the pride the people of the whole county take in the town and leaves nothing to conjecture. The founders of this community built wisely and well and the qualities of the foundations then laid have been main- tained by those who in the century that has elapsed since then have faced the duty of continuing the thoughtful development then begun. It is a far cry from the rude little clearing eut in the woods a hundred years ago to the fair city of today and the pioneers who wrought here in that far off time are not forgotten. Theirs ever will be a fragrant memory.
And what. for this frail world, were all That mortals do or suffer, Did no responsive harp, no pen, Memorial tribute offer ? -Wordsworth.
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HISTORY OF RUSH COUNTY
A BIT OF MISCELLANEOUS INFORMATION
The schools of Rushville are admirably equipped and are carried on in buildings of modern construction, there being five such buildings, the high school, the Graham annex, the Jackson, the Havens and the Washington, the latter a school for colored children. There is besides a parochial school, conducted by the Sisters of St. Francis, for the children of St. Mary's (Catholic) parish. The public library, which occupies excellent quarters on the ground floor of the court house, is made a subject of special mention elsewhere and more detailed mention of the schools is made in the chapter on Schools of Rush County. The Rush County Farmers' Association also has quarters in the court house and a commodious assembly room in that edifice offers ample accommodation for meetings of this association and for other public meetings There are twelve churches in the city, four Baptist-one of which is for the colored persons of that faith-a Cath- olic church, a Christian church, the Church of God, two Methodist Episcopal churches-one of which is for colored persons-a Presbyterian church, a United Pres- byterian church, a United Brethren church and a local branch of the Salvation Army. Besides the City park and Riverside park a baseball park is maintained. The county infirmary is a mile and a half east of the city, just on beyond the cemetery. The fraternal spirit of the com- munity is kept aflame by numerous organizations of a fraternal character, including the American Legion, the Boy Scouts, the Eagles, the Elks, the Freemasons, the Grand Army of the Republic, the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, the Knights of Columbus, the Knights of Maccabees, the Knights of Pythias, the Modern Wood- men of America and the Red Men. There are also three colored lodges. Clubs and societies of one sort and another contribute to social diversion.
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HISTORY OF RUSH COUNTY
IN THE DAYS OF THE BEGINNING
Following is the official entry of the proceedings of the board of commissioners appointed by the legislative enabling act which operated in the erection of Rush county, bearing on the location of the county seat : " At a called meeting of the honorable board of Rush county commissioners in and for the county of Rush and state of Indiana begun and held at the house of Win. B. Laughlin in the aforesaid county on Monday the 17th day of June, 1822. present Amz. [Amaziah ] Morgan, Jehu Perkins and John Julian, the board received the report of the com- missioners appointed to locate the seat of justice in and for the county of Rush. The board appointed Conrad Sailor agent in and for the county of Rush." Under entry as of the same date the board allowed the following bills for services rendered by individuals in locating the seat of justice: Robert Luce. $21: Samuel Jack. $37; James Delaney, $24. Among the entries relating to the proceedings of the board on the following day (June 18) is noted the order of the board "that Conrad Sailor, agent in and for the county of Rush, proceed to lay off not less than 150 lots nor more than 200 in the site fixed by the state commission for the seat of justice in said county in which he shall place the public square on or near the line dividing sections 5 and 6 in town 13 north, and range 10 cast, which he shall advertise the sale of said lots at least thirty days previous to the day of sale in the paper published at Indianapolis and also the paper published at Brookville: sale to commence on the 29th day of July next, on the following terms : The sum to be paid in three equal installments, one-third in one year from the date, the second in two years from the date and the third in three years: the town to be known by the name of Rush- ville ; the plan of said town shall be after the form of the town of Connersville, with making an additional street to pass the public square."
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HISTORY OF RUSH COUNTY
The opening entry in Plat Book 1 in the office of the county recorder carries the original plat of the town of Rushville with the following notation: "I, Conrad Sailor, agent for the county of Rush, do hereby certify that the annexed plat represents a correct survey of the town of Rushville. The lots are five poles in front and ten back. The streets run north and south and east and west, and are four poles in width, and the alleys one. The survey commences from a stone in the middle of Main street, on which a cross is marked, from which the south- west corner of the Public Square bears north 45 degrees east, distance two poles ; variations, 6 degrees, 15 minutes east. (Signed) Conrad Sailor, agent for Rush county, Indiana." The plat annexed to this notation shows the public square bounded by Ruth street on the north, Perkins street on the east, Noble street on the south and Main street on the west. Water street is the only street to the south of Noble street ; Julian the only street to the east of Perkins; Morgan the only street to the west of Main, while to the north of Ruth street there are two streets, Elizabeth and Jennings. It will be noticed that the commissioners sought to perpetuate their names in the naming of the streets of the town, also to compliment: Governor Jennings, who signed the enabling act, and. Noah Noble, who afterward became governor of the state. Ruth and Elizabeth streets were named in compliment to two of the ten daughters of William B. Laughlin. When the city council, along in the early 'SOs, gave the east and west streets of the city numbers for the sake of conve- nience, Noble, Ruth, Elizabeth and Jennings lost their names. On the original plat the lots begin at No. 1 at the southwest corner of Main and Water streets and run to 151, the lot in the southeast corner of the plat, fronting on Big Flat Rock river. Through some inexplicable omission the date of record is not given to the plat. The next plat recorded is that of Pugh, Laughlin and Cross's Guardians' addition to the town of Rushville, dated No-
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HISTORY OF RUSH COUNTY
vember 17, 1836, and as the needs of the growing popula- tion required there have been numerous additions since made to the town, the others, in the order in which they were filed, being Bridges & Tingley's addition, Pugh, Brown, Murphy & Carmichael's, Smith & Carr's, H. G. Sexton's, N. Hodges's (outlots, east side), Z. Hodges's (outlots, west side), George C. Clark's First, Theodore Jennings's First, George C. Clark's Second, J. Carmich- ael's, George C. Clark's Third, H. G. Sexton's Heirs', Stewart & Pugh's, Theodore Jennings's Second, L. Sex- ton's, George C. Clark's Fourth, Theodore Jennings's Third, L. Sexton's Heirs', Building, Loan & Savings', Citizens', Maudlin's, Cherry Grove, Theodore Jennings's Fourth, L. Sexton's Heirs' Second, W. A. Cullen's, Nor- ris Bros., George C. Clark's South Rushville, Graham & Hutchinson's, Thomas's, Hannah & E. Z. Mauzy's, Hill & Jennings's, Lewis Maddux's, L. Sexton's Heirs' Third. David Graham's, Noble Brann's, Payne, Reeve & Allen's, as trustees : Jacob Fritch's, Ed D. Pugh (receivers'), Me- Mahon & Foster's, Beech Grove, Stewart & Smith's, John R. Bainbridge's, Ben L. McFarlow's (subdivision), John L. Beale's, Theodore Abercrombie's First, Berkley Park, James & Millie Lock's, Belmont, Stewart & Tompkins's Addition to Belmont and Theodore Abercrombie's Sec- ond Addition, the last named filed on November 17, 1911.
THE NUCLEUS OF THE TOWN IN THE WOODS
Perhaps the determining factor in the location of the county seat on the site selected by the commissioners was the fact that this site was in almost the exact geo- graphical center of the county on the chief stream flowing through this section, for in the absence of railroads or any thoughts of the same rivers controlled the tide of immigration and fixed the centers of settlement in the new country. But there was another factor that perhaps was equally determining and that was the fact that the host of the commissioners on the day they mnet to decide
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HISTORY OF RUSH COUNTY
the location of the county seat was the most influential individual force in the new community, the versatile William B. Laughlin, who must always be regarded as "the father of Rushville." Mr. Laughlin had made the Government survey of this territory and in 1820 had moved over here from Franklin county, and had entered a considerable tract of land on the Big Flat Rock cover- ing the present site of the city of Rushville, and had erected a little mill on the south bank of the river, dam- ming the stream at about the point where the south bridge now spans the river. When it came time to locate the county seat he made an offer to the commissioners to donate seventy-five acres of his land for such location, the commissioners met at his house to consider the mat- ter, the proposition was accepted and the site of the city of Rushville was then and there determined and on the following day, as above set out, Conrad Sailor was in- structed to plat the town. In passing, and as a sidelight on the situation in the days of the beginning of the com- munity here, it must be recorded that the Laughlin mill above referred to was put out of commission two or three years later by the excited people of the pioneer commu- nity who attributed an epidemic of "malarial fever" in the new village to the stagnant water backed up by the mill dam, and in their fear of conditions growing worse, destroyed the dam and for the time being rendered useless the mill that had been sparing them the long trip to Con- nersville for their milling.
William B. Laughlin, here referred to as "the father of Rushville," was born in Washington county, Pennsyl- vania, son of James Laughlin, and his youth was spent serving an apprenticeship to a hatter. He was studiously inclined, and by the time his apprenticeship had been served had prepared himself by private study to enter Jefferson College, from which institution he was in due time graduated. In 1812 he went to Scott county, Ken- tucky, and began teaching school. Four years later
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HISTORY OF RUSH COUNTY
when Indiana was admitted to statehood he came up into the new state and began teaching school at Brookville, at the same time taking up the study of medicine and in his vacation periods becoming engaged as a Government sur- veyor. In this latter capacity he assisted in the survey not only of Rush county, but the counties of Shelby. De- catur, Bartholomew. Johnson, Marion, Delaware. Mad- ison, Henry. Hancock. Randolph and Jay. His wide range of study and reflection included law as well as medicine and engineering. his medicine having been taken under the preceptorship of Dr. Benjamin Rush, of Phil- adelphia, in whose honor, as has been previously noted. he claimed the right to name Rush county and Rushville, the county seat. "Between times." while teaching at Brook- ville he practiced both the professions of medicine and law and soon after taking up his residence at Brookville was elected judge and in 1818 representative from that district to the Indiana legislature. After taking up his residence on Big Flat Rock the doctor continued the prac- tice of his profession, and was thus the pioneer physician hereabout. He also continued the practice of law, still carried on his work as a surveyor and was active in other lines of pioneer endeavor until his death at Rushville on January 1, 1836. Before coming out into the new country Doctor Laughlin married Ruth MeKinnon, of Pennsyl- vania, and he and his wife were the parents of thirteen children, three sons and ten daughters. It may be said in passing that while teaching at Brookville he had three pupils who afterward became governors of Indiana, Ray, Noble and Wallace. His son, Harmony Laughlin. served three terms as sheriff of Rush county during the '40s. Doctor Laughlin was a Whig. a Freemason and a Presbyterian.
While on the topic of "fathers, " it is interesting to note what an older chronicle has to say of another man who in his generation exerted a wholesome influence upon the pioneer community. Regarding Amaziah Mor-
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BIRD'S-EYE VIEW OF RUSHVILLE-1871
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HISTORY OF RUSH COUNTY
gan, who has been noted above as one of the "fathers," Doctor Arnold wrote as follows: "I must notice a few of our early political leaders. Amaziah Morgan was the most distinguished and able of these. He was one of the first county commissioners, and by his energy and ex- ecutive ability did much to organize and put in motion the machinery of county business. He was really a great man, fully meeting the requirements of those days, and representing the wishes, wants and feelings of his con- stituents. He had a strong, practical mind with all the qualities necessary for a leader in pioneer life. Brave, hospitable, generous and public-spirited, he possessed a rough, earnest eloquence that produced a powerful influ- ence on his auditors, and gave him a wonderful popular- ity and influence. He served as commissioner and then resigned, and was elected the first representative of Rush county. He served in this office two years and was then elected to the state senate, serving about nine or ten years. During this time he was unquestionably the most able and popular politician of our county. He was one of the lead- ing spirits of the senate. and his influence was felt all over the state. Nature had been generous to him both physically and mentally. He was tall and erect. with well-cut features, a full and clear black eye, alike capable of expressing the fiercest passion or the most tender emo- tion. A strong clear voice, an earnest delivery and an im- posing presence gave additional force to his impassioned utterances. At home he was careless in his attire, gener- ally wearing linsey pantaloons, a buckskin hunting shirt. with a belt around his waist, a soft hat or coonskin cap, no boots or shoes on his feet; with his long rifle on his shoul- der, he looked the genuine backwoodsman, ever ready to help raise a house or roll the logs for his neighbors and to bear his part in the shooting matches then so popular. General Morgan was succeeded as representative by William Newell, an honorable and competent man, who earnestly attended to the duties of his office. Then came
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HISTORY OF RUSH COUNTY
Charles H. Test, an able lawyer ; then Adam Conde, a man of integrity and strong common sense; William S. Bus- sell, a dashing Kentuckian; William J. Brown, a sharp lawyer; Marinus Willet, another lawyer, and then Jesse Morgan. a plain, quiet, honest farmer, who always did his duty to the best of his ability and possessed the full con- fidence of the country. Next came Samuel Bigger, after- ward the governor of the state : William P. Rush, a kind- hearted, reckless fellow: Dr. William Frame, Benjamin F. Reeve, Col. Alfred Posey, George B. Tingley, Joseph Lowe, Thomas Wooster, Joseph Peck, Samuel Barret. John M. Huddleson, William C. Robinson, Osman Rob- inson, Dr. Jefferson Helm, P. A. Haekleman, Robert S. Cox, A. W. Hubbard, George C. Clark. D. M. Stewart, William S. Hall and others who represented Rush county in the legislature."
GRADUAL DEVELOPMENT OF THE TOWN
The publication of the order of sale of lots in the new county seat attracted a considerable number of prospect- ive buyers to the site at Laughlin's mill on July 29, 1822. and the spirited character of the bidding for what were regarded as the choice lots surrounding the "public square" indicated the confidence the buvers had in the future of the budding metropolis in the woods. It was not long after the sale until the owners of the lots appeared stripped and accoutered for the battle with the wilder- ness and a clearing was quickly made in which cabins be- gan to spring up as by magie, each settler helping his fel- low in the "rollin's" and "raisin's," the new town becom- ing quite a settlement even in the first year of its origin. Among those who thus laid the foundations of the town are found the names of Stephen Sims, John and Samuel Alley, William Hart, Robert Thompson (whose house on the west side of Main street was used as court house, county clerk's office and school house until separate quar- ters had been secured for the operation of these public
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HISTORY OF RUSH COUNTY
functions), Job and Reu Pugh,, Dr. Horatio G. Sexton, Joseph Nichols, Charles Veeder, Alfred, Daniel and George Lauman, Benjamin Sailors, Joseph Chapman, Donovan Groves, Paul Randall, Daniel Boyce, Nathan- iel Marks, Onias Jackson, Randolph Rutherford, Joseph Thrasher, Isaac Boblett, George W. Brann, William Clum, Jonathan Williams, William Frame, George Stretch, Isaac Garver, John McPike, Henry Beckwith, Charles H. Test and Jesse O'Neil. A widow of the name of Webb also was one of the early residents. It is said that the first store was opened by a Pittsburgher, of the name of Patterson. William Hart put up a two-story log house and opened in it the first tavern, but presently sold it to Charles H. Test, later circuit judge, who used it as a residence. Reu Pugh also quite early put up a preten- tious log house which he used as a tavern and as a general store, at the same time operating a tannery. His brother, Job Pugh, served as county recorder from 1829 to 1847. In Deed Record Q in the office of the county recorder, under date of September 1, 1847, on page 71 in the middle of the sixth line from the bottom, a word stops with a blot, the writing having begun to waver a half-dozen words back. The record is finished in the writing of Finley Bigger, who succeeded Pugh as recorder, and on the margin of the page there is this notation: "Job Pugh, recorder of Rush county, was stricken with paraly- sis at the blot on this page." Charles Veeder was the first postmaster of the ambitious village and Doctor Laughlin taught the first school, later opening an acad- emy for the advanced pupils. Among other early mer- chants the names of Major Newell, W. Cleary & Company and Thomas Wooster are mentioned in the older chron- icles. Jack Irvin was the first village tailor, Thomas Pugh the hatter, Henry Beckwith the wagon maker and Joseph Thrasher and Hiram Bell the blacksmiths, the early needs of the new community thus being amply pro- vided for along all lines. The first houses were erected
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HISTORY OF RUSH COUNTY
on the streets surrounding the public square and up and down Main street for a square either way, with a few facing the river between Main and Morgan streets. There was no false "boom" to stimulate a rapid growth of the town, and it was long before the extensions of the chief streets were sufficiently well populated to bear other than the names of the roads into which they merged, even as late as the '40s the extension of North Main street be- ing known as the Knightstown road, the extension of South Main the Brookville road. the extension of Noble (First) the Shelbyville road. Ruth (Second) the Con- nersville road. Elizabeth (Third) the Indianapolis road, and so on. One of the "landmarks" in the town was the "white corner" (present Grand Hotel), erected by Joseph Hamilton, who became a resident about 1830 and who at different times kept store at the three corners to the south and west of the public square and was keeping tavern at the "white corner" when he died. Other iner- chants who got a comparatively carly start in the village were George Hibben, Lowry & Hibben, Hibben & Flinn, Maddux & Havens, Hibben & Mauzy, William Mauzy & Company. The advertising columnms of a copy of the Rushville Whig, date of November 15, 1844, carry busi- ness announcements of L. & T. Maddux, A. F. Windeler & Co .. G. & J. S. Hibben, Posey & Flinn, A. S. Lakin and F. & W. Crawford : lawyers "cards" were carried by R. S. Cox & P. A. Hackleman, R. D. Logan and Finley Big- ger, while H. G. & M. Sexton announced themselves as practicing physicians and druggists. The strictly agri- cultural character of the surrounding country was not such as to attract manufacturers and artisans, the village blacksmith, the wagon maker, the cabinet maker and the shoemaker being about all the manufacturers required in addition to the miller and the tanner. In addition to the pioneer flour mill a sawmill presently was established and frame houses began to take the places of the log houses which constituted the village's first dwellings, the
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HISTORY OF RUSH COUNTY
old Carmichael mill at the foot of Morgan street, erected in 1840 by a company. composed of Harvey W. Carr, Joseph Nichols, Joseph McPike and Dr. William Frame. being the first pretentious industrial enterprise. In 1856 Col. Alfred Posey built a distillery. There was no bank until 1857, when the Rushville branch of the old Indiana State Bank was established, the predecessor of the Rush- ville National Bank. In 1878 a Cincinnati concern erected an artificial gas plant and laid nine miles of mains, which with gradual extension supplied the town with lighting facilities until superseded by natural gas in the early '90s. Natural gas is still supplied to the city, as it is to most parts of the county, scores of producing wells having been developed hereabout, but of recent years the pres- sure has been insufficient to supply the demand, during real cold weather, and coal as a fuel for heating has again come into general use, although gas for cooking and for light heating is still maintained, three companies carry- ing on a gas business in Rushville. In 1889 the Jenny Company, of Ft. Wayne, erected an electric light plant at Rushville and supplied current until supplanted by the present plant, which, with the water works plant, is under municipal control. The city was somewhat reluctantly dragged into the notion of municipal control of its light and water service, but the wisdom of taking over the busi- ness has long since been amply demonstrated. In 1895 an Indianapolis concern was given a contract for a water and light plant and constructed the same, but before it had been in operation a year the company found itself undergoing a receivership and in self-protection the city bought the double plant in, issuing bonds for the payment of the same, and has since been operating the plant on a profitable basis. The water works plant is a direct pres- sure system, the water being secured from deep wells, which furnish an apparently inexhaustible supply of most excellent water. Prior to 1881 the town relied upon a volunteer fire department for fire protection, the lead-
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HISTORY OF RUSH COUNTY
ing men of the town from the very beginning of the sys- tem "doing themselves proud" by taking part in this volunteer service, the equipment of which consisted of a hook and ladder truck and a hand pump. In the year mentioned a steamer was purchased and the present head- quarters building was erected, the same also giving quar- ters for the police department and the front section of the second story serving as a city council room and for the mayor's court. The city treasurer is given quarters at the court house. The present paid fire department con- sists of a force of five men and is equipped with a steamer, a motor truck and chemical engine and a reserve hose wagon. When the telephone came along in the course of civilization's development Charles H. Bailey put up a local exchange, which besides giving local serv- ice, connected Rushville and Carthage. When the Bell people began to absorb local telephone lines Bailey sold out to the big system, which operated the lines until its franchise expired and was not renewed upon its effort to increase rates, whereupon in 1892 the present Co-opera- tive Telephone Company was organized, and has since been carrying on the business, using the automatic system and serving through its exchange villages and farms throughout the county. Long-distance service is fur- nished by the two old companies, the Bell and the Inde- pendent. Rushville's slow but substantial growth is indi- cated by the following census figures: Population in 1850. 742; 1860, 1.434; 1870. 1,696: 1880, 2,515, 1890, 3,- 475: 1900, 4,541: 1910, 4,925; 1920. 5.498. The city is credited with a per capita wealth of $655, and a per cap- ita surplus of $1.89 in the city treasury. According to the current Indiana " Year Book" the city has a net prop- erty valuation of $3,226,400: total receipts, $116,374; to- tal expenditures. $81,097 ; gross debt, $25,990.95, of which $25.000 is bonded.
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